Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-29855659-20170630205901

When I read through Flowey's dialogue recently, I suddenly spotted something that actually looked like a plothole in Undertale. The dialogue in question is the one after I kill Toriel and reload to spare her. Flowey tells the player, that their Determination/Desire to change this world is even greater than his and that this is the reason he can't save anymore.

This would mean, that someone with much determination is more powerful than someone without.

As you progress through the game you come to Waterfall and read the old symbols at the walls. There it says, that humans are stronger than monsters, as the strength of their souls allows them to persist after death. This strength is, what Alphys would later start to call "Determination". It's the reason for the very short length of the "War Of Monsters And Humans" (named by Asgore by the way).

Let's just imagine the battle. A human soldier attacks a monster. The monster shoots its bullets at the humans soul. The human dodges a few bullets but then he gets hit. The human dies. However, the Deteremination of the human allows them to come back. Knowing when to dodge they defeat the monster this time. That's why the humans could defeat the monsters: Save Files.

A few metres next to this human another soldier fights a monster. They are killed too and they try to reload. But according to Flowey's dialogue, the "Determination users" outrank each other. If you are more determined than someone else, than they can't load their Saves. And there is probably someone who is even more determined than THIS person, so they can't load too. So, to cut to the chase, there should only be one person in the world who can save, namely the most determined human. Even when we consider, that it is possible, that there might be more than one person at the top of this "hierarchy", there would still be many humans who can't save.

These two depictions of DT contradict each other. If the humans won because of their Determination, they must all have been able to respawn. The way the old texts in Waterfall describe humankind sounds like a biology textbook. Humans can come back from death period. But this is not compatible with Flowey's depiction of DT: That only one person can save.

I don't believe that I am the only person who had this thought, so I want to know to what conclusions you came. Also I am sorry if there already is a discussion about this.

(I am not a native english-speaker, I'm sorry if I made any mistakes)  