Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-26006155-20200107155350/@comment-26006155-20200122194405

Jacky720 wrote: I don't like to repeat myself.

But (for the fourth time or so) you have still dodged my question. How can Flowey forget everything after a True Reset but not a normal one?

I offered a way out. An improbable one, but the most sensible one I had (yellow text for my own quotes). "I n between his talk at the flowerbed and his talk upon reloading, he suddenly, out of the blue, after years of resetting, [...] realized he still had a SOUL. And then let it go. And, despite trusting Frisk, didn't tell them about it. "

Here's an alternate hypothesis of mine for how a True Reset is special, one that does not state Asriel still has a SOUL: " Flowey has learned to control his DT level. At the end of True Pacifist, knowing he couldn't go through again remembering everything, he manually reduces his DT enough to forget. My argument further states that the rest of the characters' déjà vu is essentially lingering metadata carried by Flowey ." Watch, he's going to ignore it again. Do you have a more probable explanation for his selective amnesia, or do you not? I don't have an answer yet, I'm still learning about the situation.

Time and again, I end up smashing my face against a wall if I try for an answer too quickly without complete information.

People can be injected with Determination, but for someone without a human soul, there's no way for them to Fill Themselves With Determination like Frisk can at every save point. And Flowey remembers feeling a surge of power right when he was about to die, and realized that he didn't want to. It sounds like Flowey's left of Determation went up, under his own power. And while you can make a case that Determination can be expended and run out, getting filled with it would require having a source of it yourself.

Undyne may have some Determination, but it's finite, and she shows no ability to remember past timelines or to Save and Load the game herself. I'm thinking one needs a real human SOUL to Fill Themselves With Determation, as well as Save and Load.

Flowey did mention that Frisk is the only character they've met whose responses weren't completely predictable after repeated playthroughs. This set would also include Undyne and Sans. And while Sans was able to kill Flowey in various timelines, Flowey's Determination seems to be greater than his, since Flowey's ability to reload his save wasn't jammed like it was when enountering Frisk.

Flowey has spent this whole time believing that he's empty, despite being able to Save and Load, powers he didn't have before as kid Asriel. Why would he deliberately give away his soul after realizing he had one, when he spends so much time lamenting its absense? That would be the end of him at the end of the next timeline. In his present, selfish state of mind I don't see him doing this. Especially when he tries attacking Frisk at the start of the game, because he wants Frisk's soul so badly.

How does one "control their DT level", anyway? Frisk only Fills Himself with Determination at Save points.

Although.. Frisk's Determination level does spike during the Hyperdeath Asriel fight so he can withstand the Ultimate Rainbow Attack at the end. However, this happens after Frisk has repeatedly used the "SAVE" action option during the fight. Does this also count as using a Save Point? Frisk was saving other people, but couldn't access his own file.

Then again, Undyne also undergoes a power surge in the Undying fight, and she doesn't have a human soul/source of new Determination on hand. Unless, feeling connected to the desires of the other creatures of the world like she seems too just before going Super Saiyan, she's borrowing energy from other people to save the world like Goku and his Spirit Bomb? And the power doesn't originate from her?

Then we have the Bad Memories the Memoryhead amalgamate seems to be composed of. And a Bad Memory is even a physical thing they can put in your inventory. So lingering memories do seem to be a disembodied force that might cause Deja Vu, sort of like the lingering remnant in the FNAF novels that colors the feel of a place depending on what happened there.

I have more questions than answers at this point.