Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-26006155-20190403163405/@comment-32182236-20190417020647

You say that Determination is what gives a creature the ability to Save and Load? The evidence goes against that. Undyne has Determination, but she can't Save and Load, or remember events from other runs. Saving and Loading seems to come from a human SOUL, and I wouldn't be surprised to all to find out that Save and Load are the S & L in that mysterious acronymn.

You can only remember events from before if you could S/L/R before. And I made that acronym up. (Well, not quite, it has been used in this fandom before I borrowed it, but the point is, it's not canonically used) You guessed correctly what it meant, and the "R" means Reset.

You mentioned how we see two Undynes. And somehow her Determination was higher in the No Mercy route, allowing her to achieve Super Saiyan Fishperson 2. We also see Frisk's Determination levels change over the game. Not just from the constant refilling of it at Save points, but with how invested he in an a particular battle. That's why Frisk can die to a Moldsmall, but take Asriels' Rainboe Death Laser right to the face, absorbing a blast from a literal god.

Exactly. But we don't know where it's coming from. If you read the full post, you'd know where I think the extra DT is coming from.

Frisk survives the last battle because the lives of all his friends were on the line, and his Determination skyrocketed because of it. Determation levels are not a constant static value. They dynamically shift.

Exactly. And it shifts because of the feelings of determination. Our resolve to change fate. (Entry 5, here we come!)

If human SOULs don't generate Determination, then why do only human SOULs get filled with it?

Because not only human SOULs get filled with it? Undyne is filled with determination when she turns into Undying...

They either make it, or have a connection to some other realm that they can draw it from. But in practical terms, what's the difference?

It's as I explained. Human SOULs don't generate determination.. Emotional determination generates physical determination, because they're somehow intertwined with each other, to the point where they're considered synomynous.

There might be something to what you say, about monsters potentially having trace amounts of Determination that cause no magical effects other than letting them remain living. But the last time we talked about Monster/Human hybrids, you hated the idea.

Woah woah woah, where did I say their determination came from humans? Their determination comes from the same place human determination comes from! But they don't have as much.

Every wondered why monsters are unrealistically easy to spare? They don't have as much determination as humans do. And determination (literal meaning) is also one's firmness of purpose. Monsters lacking a lot of this would mean it's quite easy to change. This is why it's so easy to trick Doggo out of a fight just by throwing a stick, or why petting Greater Dog can get him to stop wanting to fight, despite being ordered to kill humans, since, you know, that human's the last step to freeing all of monsterkind from the Underground?

I've often wondered if the Boss Monsters, with their SOUL's strange ability to survive for a -little while- after death, might be because of traces of Determination. Perhaps Kanashi, your favorite First Monster With A Human SOUL, was the first Boss Monster, and his/her children carried some of that human legacy with them?

I already believe it's because of trace amounts of Determination. But not from fusions.

Once again, Alphys is making an assumption. The assumption that The First Golden Flower, which recieved the lion's share of Asriel's dust that was itself infused with Chara's human SOUL, did not contain a soul to begin with.

Essence. Not SOUL, essence. Chara is soulless. That's the whole reason why they want our SOUL. Their "determination"... Their "human SOUL.." They were not Chara's, but OURS.

By Alphys' own words, this flower, indeed ALL flowers, do not have the will to live. And yet, they do live, all the same.

It seems that this is yet another case of sentience getting mixed up with biological life. Plants aren't sentient, so they have no will. Period. Minus Flowey, who vanished a little bit after the Amalgamates happened.

It was the Determation Flowey recieved from Chara's wounded SOUL inside him that allowed him to Save and Load, and have the will to keep going after death. Yet flowers still grow and live all the time, without Determination.

And yet, this can't be what Alphys was thinking about.. Because the experiment doesn't require the flower persisting past death, as she never planned on killing the flower. Why would the flower need to persist? And wouldn't the results be predictable? The flower just survives the winter, nothing special here?

The only possibility I can think of is that she's talking about the flower becoming sentient. Which requires both determination... AND some essence. That's why the other flowers didn't ALSO come to life.

I've often wondered what would happen if someone completed a whole game of Undertale without saving. The idea of a Null Save is certainly interesting.

Omega Flowey mocks the player for being too stupid to make a save, rather than saying the save is deleted, Flowey tells the player that they'll have to start over, rather than getting their save back, and Sans actually suggests that they SAVE. In True Pacifist, though, something interesting happens. Instead of trying to reach their save file, Frisk instead tries to overwrite Asriel's save (The current one, as he had the ability before Frisk), but having never saved before, they now lack the power to do so.

And the human player could reset the game from the menu screen, instead of waiting for Frisk to die so an automatic save reload happened.

Yes, you can reset at any time. I believe this is something Frisk can canonically do, as we are Frisk canonically speaking (But as I explained in my response to Chapter 6, that doesn't mean we know everything they do, or vice versa. Think of Frisk the same way you'd think of your character in a tabletop RPG. You, the player, don't exist in the Forgotten Realms, do you?)

It's also interesting that Flowey always returned to the garden each time he died, and never used any other Save Points. It could be convinced, or a hit at something else, such as Save Points not existing for him at that time.

He was experimenting with the concept. He likely hadn't discovered/made use of SAVE points yet.

Toriel gets her de-ja vu moment by looking at Frisk's face, remarking that he looks like he's seen a ghost. So Toriel isn't the one remember here.. Frisk is the one remembering, and Toriel is reacting to Frisk's reaction.

Oh, I'm talking about when she has a feeling as to what flavor of pie you like. She guesses the flavor you chose last time.

I think you might be reading a bit too much into the game starting with a pre-loaded save point at the beginning, if Frisk dies before he can save. Although it's interesting that we can only perform a True Reset after finishing a True Pacifist run. And even then it doesn't erase losing out SOUL to Chara.

For someone who says that everything matters.. This surprises me, and not in a good way.

You're not SUPPOSED to toss out evidence, Ferret! This is what lead me to say earlier that you're not taking your analysis seriously enough! If it's there, it has to fit. Even if it fits as a non-important detail, it can't be flat-out contradicted, Ferret!

Flowey actually remembers Frisk coming back as well if this happens.

Assuming of course that Chara's SOUL wasn't our own to begin with.

The soul we gave Chara was ours. ..We are Frisk canonically, after all.

The mechanic of people being ripped from a timeline and set to another does sound interesting, And if the FUN value changes, that could mean it's a completely new timeline then, not just a reset.

That's exactly what I'm thinking. But it actually changes after every reset, not just True Resets. Loads won't do this, though. Just resets.