Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-26006155-20190820122909/@comment-26006155-20190831231226

If a Relative Difference between two things is great enough, just knowing that may be enough to solve a mystery.

This is why I keep coming back to The Power Level Argument, if one character seems vastly more powerful than another, in defiance of all laws of the world that we know.

Steven Universe went out of its way to assure us that Big Jasper, with her flawless exit hole, was the most powerful naturally-occuring Quartz Soldier in the universe. Peridot didn't just call her "the Ultimate Jasper" but "The Ultimate Quartz", period.

It happens that all Quartzes come from Earth, and there are three kinds that we know of: Jaspers, Amethysts, and Rose Quartzes. So the use of the "Ultimate Quartz " phrase is encouraging us to compare Big Jasper with Steven's Mother, the infamous rebel general.

Stephen's Mother shouldn't have had a chance against Big Jasper. Bismuth told Steven his mother was just another standard quartz soldier "grown right here in the dirt", and had no special advanced powers at that time.

And yet we have the Inverted Temple drawings, which show someone who's a dead ringer for Rose Quartz fighting off what seems like a fusion of Three Diamonds. A doomed fight. An impossible fight. And yet... a fight that she won.

No law that we know would allow Steven's dirt-grown mother to surpass Big Jasper in power. Let alone give her the power to fight Diamonds, and win.

... so there must be something about Rose Quartz that we DON'T know.

And sure enough, she had Pink DIamond's power all along: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DADtNXeF0nw

Now let's go back to Sans and Asgore, in terms of who should be The Ultimate Boss of Undertale.

The lore is pretty clear about the pecking order of monster society: The Royal Goats are the most powerful monsters. The only monsters who are actually immortal. The only monsters who souls can persist outside their bodies naturally for any length of time.

It took Undyne years of strenuous training to be able to land a single hit on Asgore, who evaded her attacks so easily that he was embarrased about it himself. It would take a monster with Undyne's human-style Determination to have any chance against a Boss Monster. Otherwise they are simply outclassed in every way.

And yet.. Sans could take out Asgore with one hand tied behind his back.

Not even Undyne the Undying, channeling both the power of second-hand human determination and The Power of All Living Things like Goku's spirit bomb, can match the power of Sans, who doesn't seem to draw power from anything but himself.

It's not just a marginal power difference, it's a collosal one. Sans can literally break the rules of space and time to turn even the Game UI into a hazard you have to evade.

Regardless of whatever his stats might say, and whatever Chara thinks of him, Sans is hands-down the most powerful boss in the game.

And no explaination is given for this impossible outcome.

So.. there must be something about Sans that we don't know. Another secret, just like the one Rose Quartz had earlier. Or perhaps one of our assumptions about Sans is incorrect?

I list a pile of reasons why Sans must be human in the script: He sleeps when Papyrus doesn't. He eats all foods like a horse while Papyrus only drinks milk. He can teleport, Papyrus can't. He has to speak with his eyes since his mouth is an unmoving mask, while Papyrus' mouth is totally animated. Sans bleeds, when Papyrus turns to dust just like any other monster.

The simplest explaination for all these seemingly impossible power level differences between Sans the Skeleton(?) and Asgore, The King of All Monsters, is that Sans has a human soul, which is vastly more powerful than a monster soul.

As for alternative explainations? I've got none.

You don't have to know the exact values for something in order to use it as evidence. Sometimes the Relative Difference is enough.