Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-31371445-20170222233857/@comment-32182236-20180627232235

"By which I meant, our soul wouldn't need to refuse after dying, we could just go back to our last save point. But we can't, since Asriel is in control, and wants to reset."

You once again assume that a SOUL would only want to refuse when it needs to, despite it clearly being advantageous compared to LOADing.

"Define "don't stay determined". Human souls persist after death. So I'm guessing that's what happens if they choose not to reset (as in, they have that option, but reject it)."

We're told to stay determined and reload. If we DON'T stay determined, we fully die. Compare this to Flowey's case in his Genocide story.

"So it's obvious then. Quitting = reloading, and reloading = coming back to the last save, no matter who's save it is."

Whenever that's what the canon shows. When we quit the game, it usually canonicallycounts as a LOAD, because the characters will act as if that's what you did-Including them "remembering" what happened. In fact, that's the intended path when it comes to reloading after killing Toriel. It's the only way to LOAD without dying. But, in this case, canon does not support this-We just ran away from the battle, and FLOWEY gets to do the loading.

"I mean, we didn't physically run away, it doesn't look like that's the case."

Neither did Frisk physically close the world, and the world physically being a game. According to canon and by Flowey told us, we ran away. And this makes sense too, we left the battle when we closed the game. We didn't load, though-We're stuck in Flowey's world-We're not even brought to the menu anymore, despite being brought there the first time we enter Flowey's world.

"Though, the question still is, why can we reload, if we're not in control? We can either come up with yet another guess theory here, or disregard reloading by quitting as an in-game thing altogether, despite the game addressing it (we could say it is another meta moment that does not and cannot fit the story narrative)."

Where I take a third option and say Frisk's DT fluctuated-They were in control during Asriel's fight, but only because they were in a similar situation that Undyne the Undying was in, boosting their determination.

"I'm not talking about Frisk loading, I'm talking about Flowey. And for sure Flowey saved the moment he got the souls. That's the only way we can explain returning to that point in time after restarting the game."

Yes, he did. The game even tells us that when we open the game the first time afterwards-That right there is the "Flowey's World" SAVE-File 1. But at least now we agree that Frisk didn't load here. That's step 1 of this. The next step is showing whether or not this conflicts with Frisk ACTUALLY loading in Asriel's fight.

"That's because Asriel didn't save, as I said."

Why didn't he?

"Unlike Omega Flowey. But he gets the control after you die, implying that reloading by dying is NOT an option for you anymore."

We would agree there. It's not. That's why when we die, we die for real, and our power would be transferred to Asriel, the second-most determined one in the world. (Now first because Frisk is gone)

"Or they decided not to do it. As in, determined to persist, instead of going back in time again."

...They didn't have a reason to.

"Kinda like what Chara did, if you believe that Chara had this power too."

Actually, since Asriel was the one to absorb Chara's SOUL, he would have the power. But, Asriel didn't utilize it-Nor grant Chara the ability to utilize it then. And when it shattered, splitting Chasriel back into two, which would theoretically give the power back to Chara, it was too late.

"Besides, I think it's impossible for humans to just "lose" DT like that."

If they can gain it, they can lose it. It would be in a hopeless situation. Besides, if they couldn't lose it, why was Chara told to stay determined?

"Sure, they can gain it and for example "refuse" to die, but they have a set amount of DT in them, as I've postulated before and I don't think simply refusing (in the normal meaning) to go back is an option for them. That would have been too easy."

Or, they just didn't have as much DT as Frisk's, and therefore, neither was the boost. Remember, I'm arguing red is determination, of course Frisk didn't boost 600%-As you say later on, that would be a stretch-Frisk likely naturally has somewhere between 4-6 non-DT SOULs worth of determination. The boost didn't even double their DT. Thus, a boost of the other SOULs wouldn't get them even close. Not only that, as I conceded, they wouldn't get a boost at all:Their situation would be closer to the situation with Sans than with Asriel, and we couldn't re-fuse when fighting Sans. Also, this is where magic comes into play. Determination (the will) is actually equivelent to determination (the power). And guess what-The lab entries never separate those kinds of determination from each other. They actually speak of the two as the same thing. And they are.

"It would also be too easy for Flowey, who also has a set amount of DT pumped into him."

Lower than Frisk's, and that is definite.

"Yes, it's an old theory. I'm surprised this is the first time you're hearing it."

If it died out early on, that's probably why.

"Asriel had the control, so in that case, this wouldn't work."

So.. Why did it split in the first place?

"As I said many times already. And the soul splitting in two means nothing. The soul refused, that's the main point."

Still-Persisting means it doesn't split at all. This is evidenced by the SOUL containers. Therefore, it shouldn't have even split into two.

"You could say the essence was still inside the split soul, and leaves only when it shatters into multiple pieces."

I do believe in this part-That's the reason why we still have the option on whether or not to "stay determined" AFTER our SOUL splits. Our essence doesn't truly leave until AFTER we die. Flowey's story helps out a lot on figuring out exactly how it works canonically.

"You say it's because their soul shattered, but that happens to Frisk every time they die. What did you mean by this then?"

They reached the point where it was too late. I'll use an analogy that actually exists within the game-Flowey.

Flowey describes the process of LOADing happening at the brink of death-He loaded as he was dying, not when he was actually DEAD. As he was leaving the mortal coil, THAT is when he loaded, because he didn't want to die. But, at that point in Chara and Asriel's life, their essences would still be connected, and Asriel, having no idea what the ability was, wouldn't be putting in any effort to reload-And by the time the essences WERE split apart, it was too late-That's when Chara and Asriel had died-Already left the mortal coil-The timeframe for loading had expired. Therefore, it's not that Chara didn't want to-It's that they COULDN'T. And Asriel was the reason why. Wow, no wonder Chara hates Asriel.

"I think loading by dying doesn't require any physical movement. It's something the essence decides to do. After all, at that moment, we are dead."

As Flowey puts it, we are "leaving this mortal coil", or, at "the brink of death". We ALMOST died. We didn't ACTUALLY die.

"I think the reason for that was, that it was simply a side effect of Asriel's powers. After all, if he didn't want us to also reset manually, he could have simply done what he did as Omega Flowey, that is, make his own save, so that us fleeing would bring us right back there."

That right there is why I say he DIDN'T have the power. Because yes, he WOULDN'T want us to load manually and just try the fight again, to keep all of our progress. He wants us to start the WHOLE ADVENTURE over, as he himself have stated. If he had the power, he would do exactly what you said. But he didn't just make his own save, because, well, he couldn't. Now, can YOU explain why he wouldn't do just that, when he wants to win and make us start the whole game over?

"Uh... it... actually does?"

Um, no. We can't LOAD. Flowey SAVEs and loads. Us and Flowey have swapped places-We have to kill Flowey to get our powers back. (Then the SOULs revolt.)

"Also, he has plenty of SAVE slots, he could just LOAD the empty slot 3 before he saved over it. That'd be a reset too."

"I'm getting a bit lost here. Those slots came from the save files of the other souls, which he erased and inserted his own saves into. So explain the importance of the slot 3 to me."

I just used slot 3 as an example because it's the first one he SAVEd. Any of the emoty slots could work. Fact is, he erased the saves. So, why couldn't he load any of those blank saves after erasing them? Doing that would be identical to a reset.

"Also, what we saw on the screen was how the world looks to an individual without the SAVE power."

Yep. Well, to someone who HAD the SAVE power and then lost it. But this would match Flowey's point of view.

"So MAYBE our DT matched Asriel's DT in the last fight, but ONLY because the said power had trouble distinguishing the souls that Asriel absorbed as individual units from the whole entity they were creating."

You're saying the power is.. Sentient?

"There were thousands of them after all. You could say the SAVE file interface was bugged, hence why Asriel didn't gain the ability right away, and why WE kept the interface."

Hmm.. So we're moving onto that actually being like code. Okay then, time to move onto computer science!

When there are too many objects being rendered at once, what normally happens is that some of them, become invisible, are deleted because there's nowehere to place them, it replaces another object, the program lags.. Or, in some cases, completely crashes.

Now, it obviously didn't crash-We can still use the interface, after all. If it lagged, then it would be similar, though our interface would be delayed. (Though, I suppose that could be an alternate explanation as to why loading by dying is impossible-It lagged to the point where the request to LOAD doesn't make it in time before you're fully dead. But, then again, the game doesn't delay closing any more than it usually does, so this is probably false.) They may have become invisible, but that wouldn't alter the mechanism in any way. Some extras may have been removed from rendering, (After all, there may be more monsters than what we see on screen when the Barrier breaks-In fact, there probably are) but in no way was any of the six human SOULs been the ones removed, seeing as they are still rendered well when the barrier breaks. And Omega Flowey only had six SOULs, so Asriel would have "six souls plus a little bonus", which still makes Asriel superior to Omega Flowey in terms of total determination.

"But in no way was Frisk's DT greater than the combined DT of (technically) 7 human souls. I do not view a 600% boost as a particuarly good and striking explanation, simply because it is quite a bit of a stretch, considering we have plenty of other explanations at hand."

Yes, 600% is a stretch. But if red is determination, it's not 600%. It's more like 50%. (5*1.5=7.5)

"Loading and resetting are two different things. It is unreasonable to assume that having one gives you the other too."

You can replicate resetting by loading a blank file, which Omega Flowey had the oppertunity to do. Also, they BOTH are given to whoever has the most determination, so whoever has one has the other-It's not like you can only be partly the most determined! (Unless our DT was an exact tie. Which would still mean it fluctued, as Asriel has MORE than Omega Flowey. And it would mean the boost happened to coincidentilly match exactly how much Asriel gained by absorbing the SOULs. That's a REALLY big stretch.)

"And as I said, we couldn't load, because the powers were completely transferred over to Flowey."

Exactly, they were. Unlike Asriel. But it should have happened in both situations.

"Maybe because he saved, or maybe because he simply existed. If you believe in the first one, then the explanation for Asriel's fight is, that he didn't save. Whatever we had in that fight that we didn't have in the Flowey fight was because Asriel didn't save."

When he obviously SHOULD HAVE.

"Or, if you believe the latter, it is due to the complexity of Asriel's soul. Omega Flowey had 6 souls. The consequence? Us being able to reload (though that just moved us back to Flowey's last save). Asriel had probably tens of thousands of souls. The consequence? Us being able to do everything, except reload by dying (hence why our soul chose to refuse instead)."

The end of the battle clearly shows that all six human SOULs were clearly rendered-Though a large chunck of the monster population wasn't-Only around 320 monster SOULs were visible when Asriel broke the Barrier, when it's possible to prove there are many more.

"I guess, the reload by quitting is so meta, we kept that even during the most drastic fight, the Omega Flowey fight, where nearly everything was taken away from us."

We didn't keep it. Closing the game is our new flee option then. Flowey's the one who does the honors of loading, when we decide to come back. We have NO powers then.

"On the other hand, reload by dying is very non-meta. The reason this was the only ability we lost I speculate to be, that when we die, the SAVE power checks who's in charge and moves their essence back in time."

..I'll give you my own speculation here. Knowingly or not, each SOUL that is above the minimum DT threshold are fighting over the power-The power of DT is brough to the more determined being. The power isn't it's own entity that acts on its own. But, they both work.. Until we prove how one of them doesn't..

"In this case, this was the only way the SAVE power realized that Frisk is NOT the one in charge, but Asriel is."

..So now you argue it's fully sentient? Well, that'll deduct some Occam points. But, we'll see where this goes, and how it compares to my own take.

"And our soul knew this, so it REFUSED instead."

...How would it know? Also, after we refuse, we can still LOAD again. What, did this sentient being somehow just forget who was in control? Now the speculation's become flat-out ludicrous. Guess you must have missed that.

"By running away, we get moved to our last save, BEFORE the fight with Asriel began."

..How, and WHY? Asriel hasn't SAVEd in that file, so this couldn't be him. This means it was clearly FRISK who LOADed here. (Also, why would Asriel LOAD that file in the first place, rather than use Frisk's dissapearance to take over and use the power himself?)

"From there, we can choose to continue normally, or to reset (the screen that appears before we "respawn")."

That's not how "running away" works in Omega Flowey's fight-You don't even get to SEE the HUD then-You only get to see it BEFORE the fight, the FIRST TIME (Within the current True Reset)

"We never technically reset during Asriel's fight, you could say. We always reset at our last save point, where we get moved by either dying, or by quitting and restarting the game."

Such movement being what we define as a LOAD.

"I meant on our screen. The in-game world."

...Oh, you meant how he messed up the intro. Now I get it-You're saying he could have tamoered with the HUD as well!

...Well, that'd explain his monsterous LV9999...

"Yep, as I said, a save file matrix stack."

Yep. One file for each being. ..Except for Flowey, who gets multiple. (Though we don't know that he has more than 6, so.. Power of the SOULs is a real possibility there. Though that would give Asriel around 325, if Frisk didn't have the power. Wow, that's a lot of files.)

"Define "normally". Telekinesis is not a thing irl. So how exactly do you imagine telekinesis working? Like in the movie Chronicle? In there, they managed to move an entire pack of cards, one by one, through the air, as if some sick card trick."

It probably was in a loop, wasn't it? Also, Star Wars' telekineses was my specific thought.

"And if you're concerned about hitting different targets, remember, arrays of objects CAN hit multiple enemies at once, provided you position it correctly."

Really, the multiple targets thing was me trying to represent the making of bullet patterns. Bullet patterns is what we need to make to represent ourselves, and contradict that book made by monsters who think otherwise!

"But for sure you can also apply that force on all objects at once, if you can control them all at once and not each one individually. The most difficult case would be to assign each magical object a different speed, acceleration and trajectory. But that would be rather unpractical and I don't see anyone ever having the need to summon something like that."

Well, yeah, that's why humans won the war. But remember, this entire discussion is about representing oneself with magic. Actually getting a "bullet-pattern birthday card", by having a bullet pattern. THIS is what the book says humans cannot do, so THIS is what you need to have humans do if you want to show a contradiction.

"That would also explain why humans don't have magic in the first place. Heh."

If would. Except the intro says they can, so they can. If it wasn't for the intro and barrier, I wouldn't believe humans could use magic-Even still, I don't think everyone can-It's a learned process-Like in Harry Potter, you would need to take extensive study in magic. You'll need your version of Hogswarth's.

"Representing yourself is something far different than letting your attacks persist without any constant focus."

True, but the former requires that you do the latter, because we're talking about bullet patterns, what the book gives as the context for the statement.

"My explanation is simple. I've noticed how abstract it is, and how many possible abstract explanations it could have - one worse than another, so I chose to go with the literal meaning of the phrase, which isn't all that bad actually. It's straightforward, so you don't need to question it to understand it, or go to any great lengths to comprehend its connection with the original phrase."

Remember what my quote was? Merriam-Webster explicitly says it's to reveal one's feelings. So that's the literal meaning.

"You only have to question whether it doesn't contradict the game. Which, as I've shown, it really doesn't."

It does. The intro.

"The abstact explanations don't make any sense, that's why I chose to believe that this phrase was literal, that is, that humans cannot / can no longer use magic."

That's NOT the literal meaning. Though it does fulfill it.

"Those books in the Snowdin library are no ancient plaques. The chances are that some of them were written after Chara fell are quite high. And if Chara told the monsters that humans cannot use magic, that would be the full explanation."

Hmm.. A manipulative megalomanic is their only source? Well then. =)

"but, to be absolutely honest, I believe in the existence of a third race, that looks similar to humans, but whose souls are not the same. Kinda like with boss monsters, who also look like monsters, but whose souls function a bit differently."

Boss Humans? I've postulated that myself before, but I wouldn't call it a third race. I'd say they ARE humans, in the same way that Boss Monsters are monsters. It makes sense, too-Boss monsters can persist for a while, when normally only humans can persist at all, so for the reverse to happen-There being a special kind of human that has a power normally only availible to the monsters-Magic, could work! (I forget what your response to that idea was.)

"But then again, if you want an alternative explanation, one that wouldn't be so far-fetched, it is that the humans lost the ability to use magic over the years, due to the monsters leaving, as magic is NOT native to their bodies."

It's less farfetched to just call them Boss Humans than to call them a third race. Unless we're using the names to determine how bad the theories are, because that's an Asgore name. (But at least it makes my intentions obvious.)

"I mean, maybe it was like a social thing. The best ones would not engage in sexual activities, have families, etc."

..Why, though? Wouldn't they WANT to create more wizards? Besides, there being this many wizards proces this isn't the first generation, and thus, the previous generation DID do these things.

"Three explanations for that: A) The wizards didn't engage up until the end, or B) they did, but the battle didn't exhaust their magic, because they only used their magic to cast the barrier (and fought the rest of the battle with physical weapons)"

..I suppose that works-Magic doesn't decay over time, after all.

"Actually, the premise itself implies they gave their ENTIRE souls to the task, which does rule out the possibility C, but also kinda supports my head canon, that they weren't human, since WHO would kill themselves for such task?"

I said the POWER of their whole SOUL, not their actual SOUL. Of course they didn't kill themselves, they just lost ALL their magical power before it recovered. And we know for a fact that they used their FULL power because it takes that same full power of seven human SOULs to break the barrier. When the barrier is broken, the SOULs do not vanish, though. In fact, they return to their bodies! Therefore, the wizards would not DIE from creating the barrier. Just like using your full strength on, well, anything, doesn't autmoatically kill you.

"I meant they would absorb the magic from those items. So eventually, those items would get totally depleted, and the magic itself would get lost after the humans who absorbed it died."

Alright, that's more sensible. That counts as what I said previously about food.

"However, think about the logic of items giving humans magic, that do not get depleted like this. Those would not count as human magic, would they? More like, an artefact magic or something."

Artifact? That reminds me of that red mystical sphere in Waterfall.

"Eventually, as the ages would progress and the human population would rise, these would get lost, forgotten or destroyed, and would become increasingly rare. In the end, a majority of the humans would once again be left without any magic (and most likely also oblivious to the existence of magic), and what's left of the artefacts would most likely get hidden away from the general public, assuming that the public doesn't know about these things (so as per usual, we have the case of the "big government" hiding something from the people in order to protect them - think of Warehouse 13: a normal world, but with everything paranormal getting hidden away - something like that)."

They would know about these things-They know all about what happened at the war, after all. What they don't know about is what happened to the monsters after they were banished, seeing as everyone who's went up there has never come back. But, you do still raise a valid point. These big governments likely WOULD take them all for themselves, so that they would excersize more control.

"I don't think I did?"

You did when I said the seven traits were personality traits, by saying there's more than just seven types of people in the world.

"I certainly don't believe that there's more or less than 7 traits, and I don't believe that there's only 7 human behavior types."

That's what I meant when I said that. Because if there's no mixing around, there's LITERALLY only seven behavior types.

"It's neither N to N, nor 7 to 7. It's 7 to N, hence eliminating the possibility of souls absolutely correctly representing everyone's personalities, without employing trait mixing."

I believed in my own 7 to N, where I stated that the dominant trait is your SOUL color and mode. While a 1% Determination and 99% Kindness would act differently than a 49% Determination and 51% Kindness, the SOUL mode is exactly the same, and Kindness is their trait.

"However, I also don't believe that you can get every single possible human behavior type by mixing just 7 traits, and certainly not the 7 traits that the game introduced. So I don't believe in trait mixing."

It all falls into it. Oh, and by the way, it's not just the seven traits. It's the lack of them as well. It's a seven-dimensional grid. Think RGB, but with seven primary colors. (Eight if you count magic) And Red cannot be zero. (But other traits can, and even be negative, by employing their opposites) But, only the one with the greatest value is their actual trait.

"This is what I believe in: we have 7 soul types, that CANNOT be mixed, and yet, each human in existence MUST be assigned one. I'm thinking a soul trait hash function. You don't get to choose from a ratio of the 7 traits, you must pick one and only one trait for each human, as the traits do not mix."

The ratios become irrelevant after my function, that just automatically chooses the greatest ratio. Because yes, there is one, and only ONE trait you can choose to be your SOUL type. The whole trait mixing thing was only your personality traits, because there's more than seven behavior types-It's irrevelant when determining things about your SOUL. May the best trait win!

"That is my head canon. A soul trait hash function. Large constant input, small constant output."

...You do know what a hash function IS, right? It's a method of cryptography. There's no real meaning or connection between the input and output, other than that it's constant. It's about as random as psuedo-RNG. According to the trait descriptions, there is meaning behind those traits. They DO represent seven archetypes of SOMETHING-We cannot deny this.

"But what DO the souls represent then, if not the personalities of the humans? I may be wrong, the hash function might hash anything for that matter, but I firmly believe that it is what the game already showed to us, that is, the fighting styles."

Fighting styles can only be reduced to 7 archetypes using the same kind of reasoning that I've used to reduce personality to seven archetypes. If I can't use said reasoning, neither can you. So, let me show you there is an eighth type.. Using the same reasoning that you've used (or will use) to show me that there is an eighth trait. We CAN take magic for a trait, if we will, but no more than that. And it must actually fit. :3

"Also, a funny thing, I managed to connect this idea with the 7 lightsaber forms from Star Wars. Interested?:"

Alright, I'll take THAT to be what you consider the seven fighting styles, then. So, let's take a look at them, and see if I can come up with a style that ISN'T one of those seven, while also looking to see how accurate your seven fighting styles ACTUALLY are to the trait descriptions

Form 1-Yeah, that's bravery alright.

Form 2-That's actually already mixing traits, something you said you wouldn't do. That contains elements of JUSTICE (surefire accuracy), and PERSERVEARANCE (taking mental notes) Not JUST patience.

Form 3-Well, that works.

Form 4-Integrity, yeah. Though it treads the line of having an element of bravery (constant offense..)

Form 5-Alright, that explicitly is split into two sub-forms. You can't do that when there's seven traits and seven traits ONLY. There's not two kinds of perserevance SOULs, there is ONE. ONE.

Form 6-Combination of the rest that came before? Hey, you're missing something. (Form 7) It also excludes Form 2, which you'd know if you read more carefully.

Form 7-Chaotic and erratic is the OPPOSITE of surefire accuracy.

"And yet, the modes bear those trait colors. I do sense a connection. Don't you?"

The connection is simple-The modes are determined by the traits. Nothing more.

"Because... magic. That's what their souls are, that's how they work. Their physical brains get hashed into one of 7 outputs. This isn't something to be questioned, this is rather a premise the game established."

When? It only established that only monsters have white SOULs, and they also ONLY have white SOULs. And it's implied white is magic, seeing that's what monsters excel in.

"I didn't mean the color, I meant the bullets themselves."

I didn't mean the green mode, I meant the shield that appeared IN that mode. The shield ITSELF. You know, that thing that deflects Undyne's arrows?

"Just like the bullets. I actually don't think the device provided the magic for them to us. I think it was the mode itself that somehow made it possible for us to use magic."

Yes, it was. Just like the green mode.

"Most likely by tapping into and drawing from the massive DT pool of a human soul to do so."

We don't know for sure. But it's probably the same magic that allows a shield to appear when the mode is green.

"Now hold on, soul modes are active magic. Soul traits either force behavioral archetypes on you, or, as I expounded above, represent your personality in an odd way. They don't affect you physically, unlike soul modes."

But they DETERMINE your SOUL mode. You said it yourself, the modes and traits are connected.

"Arrays, precision, arrays of arrays (sinusoidal movement + spiraling)."

The precision is so specific that it really seems infeasible. Also, how would one create such an organized pattern? How is sinusoidal movement doable with physics? (Assuming you CAN use telekenesis at will, to change an individual object's velocity, or a group of them by the same amount, at any time, but only within reason of what's feasible for a human to be able to consiously control. A group being moved at once counts as one object, so take that into consideration to help make it more feasible for humans to do in real time.)

"There are other interesting patterns too, but most of them are just random, which isn't really complex. Though, one thing I would give to humans, and that is an inability to cast complex shapes, such as butterflies or crescents."

Which is exactly how you would represent yourself!

"Their straightforwardness would benefit from plain attacks, such as those shown in Harry Potter or Avengers: Infinity War."

Yep, I myself stated Harry Potter was close to what their magic was like.

"Summon a pre-prepared array? I'm really not seeing the issue here."

While I'm not really seeing the solution here.