Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-31371445-20170222233857/@comment-27136653-20180807200343

"Toriel, Undyne, Alphys. Mettaton, Asgore. What do these five monsters all have in common? Did you guess "They all have formal jobs"? You would be correct!"

And you would be a fool to believe that that's the true and universal reason they recognize you.

"Makes it look like they only had some of this from hearing about it from someone else."

Well, they're still the only ones that mention it.

"Why should they try to attack?"

Why should they offer their services to you?

"You're putting down an explanation based on an assumption? Seriously?"

At least it makes sense.

"Which means if you CAN'T spare them, they DO want to fight. It's that simple."

The conversation argument still works.

"Turns out Tsunderplane says and knows you're a human"

I still believe that if a monster is being overly nice to you, they don't know. Tsunderplane is too busy being tsundere, but please, explain the Snowdin residents.

"..It's the food that monsters EAT. Which means conjuring up green magic is at least as easy as making food. Probably easier."

Who says all of them know how to make monster food? And not everyone can use every magic type, by the looks of it.

"Yet we haven't EXPLAINED the whole game."

I'm starting to think such thing is impossible.

"Exactly my argument. That's what I'm saying they did."

My argument is based on Flowey's initial words, where he spoke of the underground as something vastly different from the surface. Which naturally leads me to point at the HUD and the saves for any such difference. The saves especially, since they're spatial. We can't just choose to save whereever we want to. Which leads me to believe they might be artificial of origin. And so, why couldn't the HUD be artificial too? It's already so similar to the saves after all. And in addition to that, it's only available to one person, to one "player", and it essentially gives the world a game-like appearance. All these things are supporting the artificiality argument. It WOULD be a simpler explanation than these being a natural occurence in that world, at least in terms of the assumed scope. Magic has proven to be mimicking physical matter, but not to warp the world into a game window interface.

In short, the HUD looks vastly different from the overworld. So much so I'm assuming it is not natural. And if it is, I'm assuming the overworld obeys the same meta laws, e.g. Frisk being unable to walk off a cliff.

"Like Sans or Gaster."

So... safety lessons for them and the king, but no one else?

"Gaster fell into the CORE."

Wrong.

"Gaster wouldn't try giving humans such a power."

The said theories assume he was experimenting with himself. The said power was originally intended for him.

"Yes, but.. Why?"

Indeed, why. That is the philosophical question. Or maybe you just forgot what "=" means.

"I'm asking you to explain these mysteries first."

I'm sure you will get a better answer by someone more qualified to talk about these subjects.

"They wouldn't have time to tell Toriel if that's really the case!"

Why are you assuming the souls told her?

"DT is the will to live. So yes, it is."

Yes, the WILL to live. Not soul persistence/anti-aging substance. Besides, you really think there's DT flowing from the parents to the child? Like a double umbilical chord or something? I refuse to believe such ridiculous idea. And DT is not invisible. It's a substance. Just in case you were going to suggest that. Both are ridiculous.

"Then they're dead."

What kind of logic is this even?

"Her entire BODY and SOUL persisted several MINUTES."

Yet her soul didn't. Obviously, either boss monster souls are more removed from their bodies than we thought, or something preserves them, something that's clearly not DT.

"Second, there is no indication that Toriel was happy with her death, or accepted it."

She looked pretty 'happy' in a neutral run death to me. I'm not saying she wanted to die, but she wasn't trying super hard to stay alive either.

"Don't give him mercy and YOU kill him."

We don't attack. Neither does Flowey, he only kills his soul. Ergo, Asgore kills himself.

"This is how Asgore could have persisted-He did have the will to persist. Why? So you could absorb his SOUL, of course!"

You're speaking as if this was a DT-driven choice. But the books say this is a rule. A monster soul would persist for a few seconds whether the monster would like it or not. That's very much unlike DT, and the Dreemurrs confirm it, they weren't particularly determined. Definitely not more than Undyne. Plus, I don't think Asgore would offer his soul if someone's bullets just killed him, and neither would Toriel in the genocide route after we strike her down.

"I told you, they might want you to be happy that with your sacrifice"

And I am telling you, look at the context of that conversation.

"It plays when THEY encounter us."

When we encounter them. They're not the ones with the HUD, we are. Everything revolves around us. You choose to act, fight or perhaps flee. Yes, from your perspective, they do approach you, but you can flee even before they attack, and I refuse to believe the intentions of every single one of them are malicious. Besides, this is how an encounter is defined anyways, so you're wrong by definition.

"And there's still such a thing as school."

Such establishment I assume would supply them with objective knowledge. Just like any other normal school. The story the monsters told was not particularly neutral. It still had to be told however.

"Which completely contradicts the red flag, which CLEARLY states that red is a mixture of all six."

And then contradicts itself with the second flag. I somehow had to merge the two ideas of it being a mixture, as well as nothing at the same time.

"It's no scrap category, it's a category for balance of all six."

Then why is it the only trait that arises from a combination of other traits? It doesn't make logical sense.

"Also, Frisk is filled with more DT than anything else. So.. Of course it wouldn't change."

Another thing, DT is not the red trait. I have made that clear many times already.

"We don't see that either."

Use your imagination. They walk. The leaves crinkle.

"Simpler to say the window itself is what does it."

The messages can carry opinions though, so it's still Chara. If that's what you meant.

"You can't see something if you're not there."

And how do you know we always see the world from Frisk's point of view? Honestly, the POV being Chara's during Flowey's final speech makes much more sense.

"Hey, this IS Flowey we're talking about. He's SOULless."

You forgot he's no longer the same. He wasn't reborn rude.

"They do that outside of movies?"

So indie games are above solid movies for you?

"While I have a simpler explanation that doesn't assume the world is canonically a game like OneShot."

It isn't though. Hence why my ACTUAL belief is that this line isn't canon at all, since it cannot be.

"They were PLANTED? They had over a thousand years by the time we came around."

And they survived because...? And they got the seeds from...?

"that includes light"

What exactly makes you say that?

"Did he spend most of his time programming or making the story?"

The first. And built the story as he kept on realizing the purpose of the game. Maybe you haven't realized this yet, but programming takes lots of time. Lots and lots of time. I know this from a personal experience. Oh, and his "team" consisted of online advisors (like, anyone can seek help online with anything these days pretty much) and enthusiasts who agreed to do some of the art and sprite work for him, like Temmie. No one split the burden of coding with him. He gets the main credit.

"Yes, but that means in the flags, "BALL" is likely referring to that game."

Yes, it is a synonym. But only because if the ball ends (falls into the hole), the game ends.

"So.. The powers of DT."

DT allows you to access the saves, which are most likely rifts in spacetime. We've both agreed that it does not generate them.

"The problem was you assuming bravery implied impatience, or that patience implied fear"

I mean, the first makes sense, and the second is only similar because fear can make you literally stand still. As opposed to the figurative meaning of halting for cyan. Also, orange is an inverted light blue according to color theory. Inversion of cyan is red. Also, now that you mention it, one more pair: purple vs green. In reality, it should be magenta vs green, but let's allow it. Purple = perseverance = power through = strong attack. Green = etc = defense. Attack vs defense. Quite the opposites too.

"No, you take notes, as the purple flag flat-out SAYS YOU DO. You use trial-and-error."

But that does not explain the strings. With purple, you already have the knowledge. Cyan is the knowledge you get from books. Blue is the kind of knowledge only experience can give you, wisdom. And purple is divine knowledge, divine power. The inexplicable. Which explains how a single bone can deal massive amounts of KR, repeated damage, the inexplicable. Trial and error in this case refers to powering through your obstacle by any means necessary, even by doing the same thing over and over again - struggling to bring the ball to the hole, struggling with strings, being dealt the same damage over and over again. In a way, it is a form of stubbornness. But not of the mind, but of the action. This is what taking notes means. You don't actually take notes, it can be thought of as a figurative way to say all of the above. If red is grants maximum freedom, then purple enforces maximum restriction (and the other traits being somewhere in between).

This is how you connect the strings, the text from the flags, and KR all together. And I did it under the chakra system too. Do you know why I like this chakra system so much? Think of a psychological system that is well-defined for the entirety of the human psyche, that carries 7 fundamental aspects. I know of the big five, hexaco, the 4 temperaments (which are based on two aspects, openness and stability), but the chakra system has so far been the only suitable one for what Undertale presents.

For the longest time, this is what I've been trying to describe. There are more than 7 psychological traits, yet only 7 soul traits. So either the humans in UT are incredibly dull in terms of personality, or the traits have to mix. I hated both explanations, so I've developed the hash function theory, which I guess is more reminiscent of neural networks trying to process an image and tell what it contains - to crunch the big data into a single small output. Before that, I thought the traits might describe something concrete, perhaps the fighting styles, which I guess would have been pretty straightforward, but how broad would such concept have to be to encompass every kind of obstacle? All-encompassing? A hash function it is then. And then, I've started to return to the psychology of these traits. The body definitely creates the trait, it's not the body developing into an image of the trait, but how does it do that? For example, what if the soul took the aptitude of the humans and gave them a trait that would imply the least harm? Perhaps, certain professions can have a positive effect on a specific soul type, or maybe the soul avoids certain types of harm this way.

Anyways, my hash function assumption is the absolute basis of my thesis here. Now I can hopefully work on other aspects of it, make it more "natural" and less "hashy", so to speak. This is what I mean by returning to the psychology of these traits. And the chakra system is fitting and well-developed. Perhaps I can obtain more useful info from it.

Now, I know we all have all 7 chakras and need to have them all balanced, optimally. So of course I'm not going down this path. But perhaps I can find some permanence in the chakras. It's all so fluid, the chakra imbalance, but I trust it with the permanence, since it's been only 7 and only these specific 7 chakras, the root, the sacral point, solar plexus, heart, throat, third eye and the crown, that makes me think these will fit the UT traits perfectly. For I need to make sure my thesis concerning the UT traits encompasses every case. So I need to make sure the system I'm using is so to speak, "universal." And I trust the chakras to be complete. That they are complete concerning fluid problems: problems that go away once you balance/heal your chakras (so be it financial problems, safety problems, love, self-confidence, self-realization, and other temporal problems), as well as static problems: your physical boundaries, e.g. not understanding psychology but being great at math.

I need a system that can describe a soul, that does not change its trait throughout its lifespan. Which is how believe the souls work. So we ARE talking about aptitude here, and nothing else. So maybe, the chakras will help me develop a good universal 7-trait aptitude system, or put some sense into the UT traits, which clearly have no psychological basis. It's just words chosen to fit the entertainment that is the soul mode battles. That's what Toby had in mind. He was no psychologist, he did not contemplate what I am contemplating here right now, I am sure of that. But for the sake of making sense of the game, I need to do this.