Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-32182236-20190721003717/@comment-32182236-20200108211900

I fixed up Parts 1 and 2 a bit (Really, just to make each one of them link to the next part). Now when you're done reading those first two parts, you can come back hre more easily, and read my response to your analysis of this thread! (And hopefully respond to it!)

Now, to respond to the last post you made.

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Certainly, but there are ways to detect red herrings.

How, exactly? The best we can do is not be fooled by them, by not assuming anything other than what that piece of evidence logically requires to be true in order to exist. For example, the fact that Chara sees what we see and describes that to us really only proves that they're with us (to describe such things to us, which would also explain how they see what we see-They're literally there) not that they're an extension of us.

If given a choice of two possiblies, a good author will almost always pick the path that leads to the better story.

Though what classifies as a "better" story is completely subjective, with no way of universally classifying it, and we don't know what the author believes makes such a good story. Not only that, assuming that the author is "good" (once again, subjective), is just that:An assumption. Which counts against the Razor, and is really just ad hoc.

If we interpret the "Multiple Simultaneous Springlock Failures" incident in FNAF as several failures happening on a single suit, there's really no news.

Not only that, as Sister Location proved, there's no such thing as a SINGLE failure in one suit:One failure triggers the whole suit to fail. So there'd be no reason to specifiy "multiple". It'd just be seen as A Springlock failure, which Phone Guy does use the singular form of when discussing safety protocol and the Safe Room. (Which you describe in the next paragraph)

So actually, assuming that it's a reference to a single suit leads to a demonstratably false conclusion.

No need to lean towards the "better story".

But.. if you interpret this Mutiple Failure event as several different suits all failing at once

Which you MUST, unless Phone Guy is an idiot.. Who somehow knows exactly how Springlock suits work, got the job of instructing you in the first place.. See those extra things we have to pile on in order to save it? Remember, they count as complexities!

So, taking all that into consideration, NOW which is the simpler option? That all of those things are true? Or multiple suits just failed?

the story is much deeper: While any given suit might fail on any given day, they're usually pretty reliable. The odds of several suits not only failing on one day.. but at the exact same time of day? .. is astronaumical. It's almost impossible that this is a real accident.. and not a deliberate act of murder where someone just killed a roomfull of people.

Which is something we already saw happen before anyway, which may very well be the main theme of the entire series.

This sort of big, shocking incident definintely sounds less likely.

At first. But take into account everyting that would need to be true for the alternative to be the case, and we see it for what it is. Once again, no need to lean towards the "better" story. (Though this would be great advice for fanfic writers, whose goal is to make a better story, not find the right answer.)

So the rest of this is invalidated. I'll start again after this chain ends, and we see a new one. (A chain is only as strong as its weakest link)

If we interpret the "No" fight as Dr. Andonuts struggling not to lie to his wife when she asked him if something was wrong, as someone macho might do to appear to have everything under control, we get a rich story:

Yes, but is that more reasonable than the alternatives? Remember, take into account what it would need for the alternatives to be true first, THEN apply the Razor.

...But, if we go with the interpretation that Dr. A won't talk to his wife, because he's gay and was never really interested in her in the first place... the story ends. Dr. A is gay, and he's just ignoring his family because he's a jerk.

The least interesting answer usually tends to be the correct one, though. What caused the extinction of the dinosaurs? A simple meteroite. Were there actually witches using dark magic at Salem? (This would make a deep and interesting story!) NO. Are there magical beings that can control water, fire, air and the earth? (You could make a show out of this!) NO. Are vaccinations part of a giant conspiracy to [insert compelling villain plot here]? No.

There's the remaining question of why Dr. A got married and actually had a son to explain away. And also a lot of seemingly nonsensical drug-induced dialog that doesn't make sense anymore.

Then it's just that. It fails to account for the evidence, so we either dismiss it, or attempt to find a way to salvage it. (Remember, new parts to explain these details necessarily add to the complexity, which will likely end up making it more complex than the version you supported, so when we expose it to the Razor, which tops out now?)

<span class="green"!Usually, a red herring is employed to try and knock the reader off the trail, and confuse them so they don't find the larger story.

Not always, though, and the more assumptions we use, the more likely we are to be wrong.

And if the Hack really does tell the origin story of Gaster, I can see why a red herring might be warranted.

It was around in 2009, and the conception of Undertale would have happened around 2012, given the Kanotynes connection (they made the cards that Deltarune characters were inspired from!), the demo being released in 2013 while containing only 1/4th of the game (full release was in 2015), and several mentions to Deltarune being based off of a combination of Undertale and an old, unfunished game that was meant to be based off of... The Kanotynes cards.

So it's very unlikely that the Halloween Hack was going to be an origin story for any character. If it is the origin story of Gaster (which I consider highly unlikely), then that's almost certainly a retcon made later on.

Which is one of the reasons why analyzing intentions doesn't work out-The intentions likely changed over time, with only the actual evidence staying consistent.