Thread:Mabian/@comment-4383275-20160827050912/@comment-27701762-20160827152003

Although I had unfollowed the thread when it was revived, I did follow through occasionally to see what some of the new posts were, so I have some vague knowledge of how the discussion went.

Obviously, as is evident from my own post way back at the beginning of the thread, I find the theory severely lacking. So I'm not going to end up being swayed without some stronger evidence than what was provided in MatPat's video.

One of the key things I tried to bring up in my original post was a distinction between "reference" as homage and "reference" as evidence for a deeper theory. To go on a brief digression, one of the issues I have with a lot of theorizing is the failure to uphold this distinction. The result is that small references meant to signal that the creator enjoyed a piece of media are often taken to be signals of some deeper connection. Which is not to say that deeper connections never exist. But they should always be approached carefully.

As a final thing, one of the points I saw you make a few times was about the basis for the "truth" of the theory. If I recall correctly, you acknowledged that Toby may not even have originally intended that Sans actually be Ness, but that the theory is valid because of the nature of subjective interpretation. I should remark at the outset that this is a position that I flatly deny. The benchmark of truth with respect to an artistic work has to be the original intention of the creator. What people take from the work can be different from that intention, and those interpretations can be meaningful for the individual, but they are not "true" with respect to what the work itself means. Essentially, if people wish to believe in the Sans=Ness theory because they like the idea, then they should be allowed to do so. But insofar as there is any room for discussion about the interpretation, it must revolve around the standard of whether the theory itself was what Toby had intended. If we move away from this standard, then there won't be a point of connection for our discussion.

So with that rather long intro out of the way, I'll get to your points:

1) "Badge"

Given that there is no description of what the badge looks like, and it has no defining characteristics other than being a badge, it is a bit of a stretch to jump only to the conclusion that it is the Franklin Badge. It certainly could be, but presumably if Toby had wanted to signal that it was the Franklin Badge, he could have placed some sort of descriptor, such as "There is a badge with a strange lightning bolt on it," or something like that. A subtle reference for those who know, without being too obvious.

Of course, even if it is the Franklin Badge, what does that mean? What evidence is there that the Badge is in the drawer because it belonged to Ness and thus proves that Sans is Ness, versus that the Badge is in the drawer as a tiny nod a game that Toby loved?

2) "Courage being similar to Determination in its analysis and properties"

Looking through the thread, I didn't find much about this point. You brought it up several times, but the only similarities I noticed were that Ness summons his courage when he dies (just as determination is used to bring us back from the brink of death in Undertale), and that there is a manifestation of courage in Earthbound found in the Flying Men.

On the first point, the initial similarity doesn't quite seem to hold up. From my limited memory of Earthbound, courage does not play any role in the act of saving (since you save by having your father record your adventure), whereas the entire point of saving in Undertale is that specific spots fuel the protagonist's determination which allows them to create a sort of anchor in the world. Nor does courage have any other major role in the world itself.

As for the Flying Men being a manifestation of courage, this doesn't really reflect the depiction of determination in Undertale. Determination is not unique by virtue of its physical manifestation, but in the major role it plays in the game's universe as a whole. The courage and the Flying Men are just one part of Ness's psyche that is manifested through the power of Magicant.

3) " Surface world of Undertale looks virtually identical to the world of Earthbound"

This I think is the single strongest point, but once again I return to the question of its significance. Assuming that it is indeed supposed to be the same world, is it the same world because Toby intended to literally say that Undertale occurs in the same universe that the Mother series does, or is it just another subtle nod to a game that he loves? Even if it is the former, it in itself cannot prove that Sans is Ness, since the idea would be that the monsters existed in the background during the entire Mother series, offering us nothing about where Sans himself came from (with the null hypothesis being that he was originally a monster born in the Underground).

4) " Sans' attacks in the Genocide Run "drain" damage, the way it was "drained" in Earthbound"

I'm not sure how much significance we can draw from this either. One of the key issues of any game designer in creating a purposefully difficult fight is not making it impossible (or not making it feel impossible). Since one of the key points about the rolling HP counter in Earthbound is that it allows you to defeat an enemy before it rolls down to 0 and thus survive a massive attack, the design points don't seem to match up. After all, KR never reduces your HP to 0, and the battle is scripted, so there would be no way to use the draining to your advantage by defeating Ness before you died: you either take too much damage, or you don't. The drain from KR seems instead to be a way to make the battle less difficult while retaining the key parts about Sans (i.e. doing only 1 damage; ignoring invincibility frames; being generally tough).

5) " Sans bleeds and breathes ("blood" was hypothesized to be ketchup, but why would it come out of his mouth if Sans keeps it in his jacket pocket?)"

I think this is the single most difficult point to talk about, because there is a lot of uncertainty about what is going on and very little to explain it.

I recall seeing a tweet from Toby in response to someone who had made some cookies in the shape of Sans's and Papyrus's faces, and I want to say the person had asked Toby what the cookies might or should be filled with, to which Toby responded "Ketchup!" But I cannot find the tweet, meaning it may have been deleted.

Regardless, there are plenty of questions about, if it is indeed ketchup, how it is spewing from his mouth. Although I think it equally becomes a problem if Sans is presumed to be anything other than Ness in disguise, such as the revenant theory below, since any monster made out of dust should not spew out blood (and blood would definitely be an organic material that should be destroyed by the Phase Distorter).

As for breathing, it was pointed out by another user in the thread that Papyrus also breathes (he huffs if you get all the way through his battle), and he also is capable of producing tears. Since the point about Sans's breating is meant to indicate that he does things that a skeleton shouldn't do, thus proving that he is not an actual skeleton, the point appears to fall apart in light of the fact that Papyrus does many of the same things (the only difference being the "bleeding").

<span style="line-height:inherit;font-family:"HelveticaNeue",Helvetica,Arial,HiraKakuPro-W3,"HiraginoKakuGothicProW3","HiraginoKakuGothicPro","ヒラギノ角ゴProW3",メイリオ,Meiryo,游ゴシック,YuGothic,"ＭＳＰゴシック","MSPGothic","ＭＳゴシック","MSGothic",sans,sans-serif;font-size:14px;">As for the previous points that have been debunked, I won't go into them. Probably the only major point worth really contending would be Toby's tweet, but it has been discussed to death. I will return briefly, though, to the organic matter/dust issue shortly.

So the explanation for how things happens is as follows:

1) Ness becomes trapped in the Earthbound universe.

2) Ness comes across a Phase Distorter and uses it.

3) The Phase Distorter disintegrates Ness, and he becomes a revenant.

4) Ness the newly made revenant arrives in the Undertale universe, and adopts a new persona as Sans the brother of Papyrus the skeleton monster.

The major issues come at points 3 and 4.

For point 3, the mechanism for Ness turning into a revenant is not explained. Gaijin Goomba's video does a lot to point out the similarities between Sans and revenants, and as such makes a good case that Sans's design is based on the myth of revenants. But there is no mechanism described for how a human turns into a monster in general, much less for the specific case of Sans turning into a revenant. Especially since in order for Ness to be revived as a revenant, he would need some magical power to bring him back (presumably explained by PSI), as well as a soul. If he didn't use his old soul (going to the point about how Sans does not have a human soul), then he had to get one from somewhere else. He can't be like Flowey and survive through determination, since the dust would not be sufficient as a physical vessel, not to mention that there is no explanation of where the determination would have come from. So a mechanism needs to be provided to explain how a human could turn into a monster at all, and more specifially how Ness could transform into a revenant.

In addition, I would need some more clarification on the Phase Distorter and what it is meant to do to organic matter. All I remember is that the organic matter would be destroyed generally, but not what would specifically happen to it. If it didn't simply disintegrate matter, but made it completely disappear, then there wouldn't be any dust to reconstitute Ness.

As for point 4, the major problem is explaining why Sans bothers to essentially adopt Papyrus as a brother and treat him as a genuine sibling. Especially if, given your explanation, Ness is an adult by the time that he transforms into Sans, meaning he would probably only be around Papyrus for a few years, and yet develops such a strong attachment. The same problem occurs in the reverse. Even given how simple Papyrus is, why would he believe Sans to be his older brother (and given how simple Papyrus is, you would think he would have some line that would give away the strange circumstances surrounding Sans's arrival). Presumably some part of this could be alleviated if the explanation is that Ness finds the Phase Distorter while he is still quite young, and so has a long time to develop a relationship with Papyrus. But even then the fact that there are no clues about Sans himself just popping into Papyrus's life one day leaves a rather gaping hole in the conjecture.

That's all I can think of for right now, though I think it should be sufficient for an initial reply.