Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-27997069-20160317174518/@comment-27907368-20160409210557

Chara is symbolic, not metafictive. If Toby put in Chara to remind us that the game isn't real, then Chara kind of fails as a punishment, don't they?

Yeah, it's because Chara isn't metafictive. Toby didn't use Chara as a device to remind us that Undertale isn't real or to comment on the unrealness of it.

'' Metafiction, noun (O.E.D) - Fiction in with the author self-consciously alludes to the artificiality or literariness by parodying or departing from novelistic conventions and tradtional narrative techniques. ''

Chara makes no indication that the player is outside of Undertale's reality or that they are aware that they are in a game. STATS do not exist outside of Undertale. The timeline mechanic is not outside of Undertale's reality. Chara does not comment on the framework of the game or our reality.

Mettaton (every boss NPC's name is a pun...) is the most meta character in the game. His texts turns to bombs (and he recognizes this), he has a newscast that is not aimed at the playable character, he renames the .exe of Undertale... These are great examples of metafictional devices. Chara is not.