Talk:Determination/@comment-33593652-20171108030451

I was reading this post  and I think the synonymity that determination points to an ability to feel determined an ability to have free will is no secret. I think the answer of what "determination" is and why it comes from human souls gives a really straightforward answer to what Undertale is about.

On a simplification, I think the intention is determination is all of those things. Hope, free will. Undertale is itself a containerized universe (within the video game). The characters, or at least some of them, have achieved an awareness that they are in a video game. You are the determining factor of how each system of timelines in that video game plays out, the hope you give the characters by the way things pan out in some timelines by your empathy and the free will you have to make choices [which other characters do not have, except Flowey who removes this from you once he achieves enough human souls].

To illustrate some support of this, I take Flowey as some good evidence that NPC's which achieve determination have the power to also modify the game *save or reset* [which is what Flowey wants from the start and why he needs to kill Asgor]. And that's it, really.

"Determination" is a property which only comes from human-beings, in particular, the humans each time they fall down the hole in Undertale. Human beings only fall down the hole whenever a player starts a new game [and despite Chara is the first human to fall down but I think it's consistent to say Chara is you - though this is the assumption of this all]. And Undertale is partially about how each story is determined by our free will [in terms of game play].

Put together this means, Undertale is not only a game about how we as people / humans determine the state of a universe (whether we choose to represent ourselves as murderers and what that says about us is the further question), but also in a more narrative sense about the struggles of Flowey attaining the Determination [free-will, being able to save/reset] as a kind of metaphysical super-power in the context of the Undertale universe (the game).

To illustrate the way in which it is metaphysical in terms of the context of the game, he gains the ability Flowey creates his own save and is represented as literally changes the properties of the universe he lives in by changing the details of Undertale.exe, In particular, if you pay close attention Flowey messes with process name and changes it to garbage as its running when he crashes your game for the first time.

The relationship between free will that we have as people in the actual world and how that allows us to make changes to Undertale as a product is not only a commonly cited and core component of Undertale's storytelling, represented as at least some kind of superpower [a clever use of file input and output indeed], but it is one I see people miss out on a lot in their explanations of the lore.

That pretty much sums up what determination means in the context of the game, takes literally the being of the Undertale universe as it were.