Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-31619784-20170328162322/@comment-31619784-20170329072752

Wow! I wasn't expecting to get a reply, but I instead got not one, but two in-depth replies to my post! Thanks; it really means a lot to me.

To Rafip, I suppose that's one way to thik about it. I mean there are no real consequencea to playing the game this certain way, so the creator has to find a way to make it feel like there are some. And you're right about the creator being behind all the characters thing too. For as much as people like to tout "choices" when it comes to games, there are usually pretty limited options when it come down to it and they are all allowed by the creators. Undertale can suffer from this a little,(e.g whether you pummel all your enemies within an inch of their lives and flee or whether you talk and act friendly no effect on the True Pacifist route; at least according to my knowledge) though it's better than most in that regard.

Though, I feel saying that it's impossible to logically explain how Chara destroy's the world is a bit too pessimistic. I mean, I'd be fine if it was established in the lore or something, but it wasn't.

To Mabian, you have a lot of answers to my infinite questions (by infinite, I mean approximately 4). I'll try to address them all.

I guess if Frisk is the one making the choice then the entire "control" issue is fixed. The "complete" control thing feels a bit like a cop out, though. I mean it's like, "I was in control for 10% of the time! Look at how much influence I have over you! You've never been in complete control, so face facts!" It also doesn't explain the "moments without player input" in the True Pacifist route either.

I feel like you misinterpeted my second question. My question wasn't "Chara clearly destroyed the universe! How is it our fault?" I understand, we went down the path that led to the destruction of the world. My point was, Chara cannot claim that we were not in control (as "Since when were you in control?" implies) and simeltaneously say that it was all our fault. I mean, they could, but there'll have to be some serious doublethink going on, and at least one of their statements will have to be false.

LV does have a clear in-universe explantion to it. Sans describes LV as "A way of measuring someone's capacity to hurt." He then goes on to say "The more you kill, the easier it becomes to distance yourself. The more you distance yourself, the less you will hurt. The more easily you can bring yourself to hurt others. " That strongly implies LV is a mental thing, and not the protagonist actually getting more powerful.

As for the increase in damage, one of the books in the Libraby (sorry, I just love that joke), states that monsters are attuned to their SOUL, so their emotions affect their stats. The more determined they are to attack, the higher their attack. The more reluctant to fight, the lower their defence. It's why say, Undyne the Undying has higher stats than regular Undyne, despite being the same person. Or why a little human kid manages to defeat the king of all monsters. An increase in LV means you have more ill intent towards the monsters, so you deal more damage to them. So either Chara always had the capacity to destroy the world (which is too OP for me), Chara destroyed the world through emotional distance, or Sans is lying to our faces.

Also, the universe, surprisingly, is not a monster. High LV should be ineffective against humans for the same reasons (e.g Asgore has at least some blood on his hands, didn't help him too much on the last human). So why does 20 LV just mean, "To heck with this, I can stab the universe to death?"

As for the final question, why does Frisk killing all the monsters lead Chara to the extinction of all life everywhere? I'm not gonna say "Aliens; why do they die too?", but look at it this way. If they destroyed the world through SOUL power or DETERMINATION or something (because LV makes no sense at this point), does that mean Chara was somehow able to "override", ahem, all of humanity' s determination and souls?!  Why? That doesn't seem too fair. Determination is already vague and whatnot; like, the most determined being in the underground gets the power to save and manipulate time everywhere. Is that part of the reason why? Is it all a plot hole? Is Toby Fox just messing with us? Is this longer than anything I wrote for English class? To the last question, probably. As for the others, I have no idea :P