Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-26006155-20190403163405/@comment-32182236-20190410015225

--Chapter 4:Uncontrolled Variables--

Determination is a recurring theme in Undertale. It’s how someone like Frisk can keep going, no matter how badly the odds are stacked against them. And learning more about Determination is key to better understanding the world of Undertale.

Well yes, determination does play a major role for a lot of things. It's the source of SLR, it's the source of "REFUSE", and just about anything that would otherwise be deus ex machina. Brings people back to life, and based on what we know, is the will to live. So it's basically life itself. But of course, there's far more to it than that.

And a key to learning about Determination is in the history of Undyne, the head of the Royal Guard. Because at some point in her life, this willowy fish person underwent an amazing transformation.

That only happens in Genocide, Ferret.

Early in life, Undyne trained as hard as she could to try and best King Asgore in the sparring ring. But even after years of training, all she managed to do was land a single hit on him! King Fluffybuns outclasses her so badly he was actually apologetic about it, and congratulated Undyne when she did succeed in landing that hit!

You got the story wrong. Here's the real story:https://youtu.be/7vcHXmzX5kg?t=394

She didn't land a single hit at first. But eventually, after training, she knocked him down. Not just hitting him, actually knocking him down. She beat Asgore. Then, she kept training, and eventually became the Captain of the Royal Guard.

Asgore was one of the rare and powerful Boss Monster goats, while Undyne was a normal stick-person of a fish monster. She never should have had a chance against Asgore in the first place, and landing even one hit was a big accomplishment!

It wasn't just one hit!

And yet, many endings where Undyne and Toriel are both alive, Toriel reverses Asgore’s policy of killing humans, only to have Undyne personally kick Toriel, the Queen of All Monsters, off her throne “with her strength” as Sans tells the tale.

Yes. If she can beat Asgore, she can beat Toriel. What? If it took Undyne ages to land a single hit on King Asgore, how could she hope to actually defeat Queen Toriel in battle?

She kept the experience she gained from fighting Asgore! It took years of training. The training still happened, it doesn't suddenly vanish whenever you change opponents. This is not surprising.

The game says that Asgore and Toriel have the very same stats of Attack 80 and Defense 80. And after one-shotting both Flowey and Asgore with a single fireball, one might easily think Toriel was stronger than her ex-husband.

Asgore survived. That's not a one-shot. Asgore probably could have done the same to Toriel.

And yet Undyne was not only able to defeat Toriel in single combat, she also became one of the two Ultimate Bosses in the No Mercy timeline. Undyne the Undying is frighteningly powerful, and second only to Sans himself in terms of raw boss Power Level in the game. How did a normal monster become stronger than a Boss Monster? With Undyne’s Determination.

Exactly! Determination, the power of deus ex machina ..Well, we don't know what. Determination IS the source of the power. And this is common knowledge, as well. There's a reason why Asgore told Chara to stay determined.. Undertale makes a point in telling us that, somehow, Undyne has Determination within her. Even though this powerful substance is only generated by human souls.

That's wrong. Humans just have far more determination. Determination is the will to live, if monsters had no DT, they literally wouldn't be alive.

And the uniquely horrible melting end to her Neutral boss fight makes certain of this, giving her character traits similar to the molten shifting forms of the Determination-enriched Amalgamates.

Right. Her determination really is stronger than any other monsters'... How did Undyne get her Determination? Theorists like Geek Remix have pointed out that the source is likely one of Alphy’s experiments.

Alright, two things. First, there's an error. It's Alphys'. The apostrophe is in the wrong place.

Secondly.. Good job, you actually made it clear what you're founding your claim off of! So now, we can look at that video, so that with its evidence, we're all where we need to be!

..For the longest time, I had thought that determination was this yellow substance.. I was even about to present that as evidence that the PINK goo can't be determination! But after looking through the True Lab.. I found we never actually get to see determination in its material form. Which makes sense, since all of the extracted DT was then used on the Amalgamates. The save point is yellow, yes, but that doesn't make determination itself yellow. It's sometimes amazing just how many assumptions we've all come to accept over the years, and how some of them just don't have any canonical evidence to support them!

But, onto the video. The sea grass is more than likely the seaweed Alphys was talking about when she said it was scientifically important.. It's not really further evidence to support the hypothesis. Sure, it fits in, but it also equally fits in with the original hypothesis!

Hopefully you have a stronger foundation.. Because as Undyne puts it... As Undyne puts it... You're gonna have to try a little harder than THAT.

So, the next two paragraphs are you recapping the video. That makes sense, considering that your viewers might be too lazy to click the link in the description when it turns into a video (YouTube, why did you remove annotations?) I've already gone over that, so let's move onto your original content!

But there’s a disconnect here. In her phone calls Undyne says she hates the taste of ice cream, but loves the pink stuff that Alphys makes. And she likes eating it either chilled, or heated up.

..You're right, Ferret! That's a contradiction! You're onto something!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DY3R8tkvlAlk

The patch of seagrass Frisk hides in isn’t the same as the one the Old Shoes are found in. But if the seagrass acts anything like Asriel’s golden flowers, the new patches probably do contain some essense of the original human.

That actually doesn't even matter! The amount of grass Alphys has is actually less than the grass that the Old Shoes are found in. Also, "essence", not "essense". And maybe there was more grass there before Alphys took some off. The amount of grass there is suspiciously small..

One thing I really want to know is: Has Alphys been eating this pink Not Ice Cream, herself? She mentioned watching anime in her pajamas while eating frozen yogurt. If Alphys has been eating the pink stuff, she might actually have as much Determination as Undyne! We never actually got to see Alphys in combat, so this is a mystery left for later chapters, like Deltarune.

Are you talking about the mystery Kickstarter game?

Really, though, I doubt it. Undyne's determination kicked in, giving her, well, actual determination. It seems as though physical determination and mental determination are interchangeable. Undyne getting mentally determined is enough to create enough DT to finally make the push into Undyning, and also make her melt, Frisk's DT pushed them from having less DT than Omega Flowey to more DT than Asriel Dreemur (Which, by the way, had MORE total determination) Similarly, Flowey's injected determination turned into mental determination as well, the will to live! And yet Alphys is all but determined based on her personality.

Just think! If the Underground had many, many monsters who were also infused with Determination, Asgore would have an unstoppable army! So why wouldn’t someone inject Determination into as many monsters as possible?!

Because Asgore doesn't actually want to win? Take another look at what Asgore says at the end of his fight. It's for the same reason why Asgore didn't destroy our FIGHT even though he clearly could, since he destroyed our MERCY.

Either monsters are immune to disease, or they simply haven’t experienced it down in the Underground. The only health problem they seem to have, other than being stabbed by visiting humans, is Old Age.

This isn't true for all illness, though, just diseases. Asgore got himself really ill from those buttercup flowers.

Shyren is a young monster, yet her sister also “Fell Down”, and became part of the Amalgamate Lemon Bread. A monster fusion that also included Aaron, who’s literally as healthy as a horse. There is no way that these two monsters were experiencing old age. Yet they still Fell Down all the same, and disease cannot explain this.

Alright, I looked further, and yes, Lemon Bread is Shyren's sister, we learn this after the Barrier breaks and we go around again. But what gave you the impression Shyren was young, and that Lemon Bread wasn't the older sibling? Shyren's actually a singer, so she's definitely not a kid anymore. And Aaron is a species. This Aaron really could be old.

Alphys theorized that injecting Determination into dying monsters would strengthen their souls so they wouldn’t shattered the moment they left the body, allowing them to be collected. But when she injected it into the Fallen, there was no immediate change. Their bodies kept persisting, as if they were -already- determined not to die.

Well, yeah. It takes time for monsters to die from being fallen down. But since she gave them DT, that part began to take effect, slowly, but surely. Starting by preventing them from dying.

None of the bodies turned to dust, and Alphys didn’t succeed in collecting a single monster soul. So Alphys got frustrated, and kept injecting them with higher and higher levels of Determination.

Well of course they're not turning to dust, Alphys, you gave them DT, which is keeping them alive!

The Fallen monsters opened their eyes, and began to wake up again

A reasonable result from DT. Undyne fought back as well..

Why didn’t the Fallen Down monsters turn into Super Soldiers like Undyne when Alphys gave them Determination? Why did it take so many repeated injections for them to gain the strength to simply stand up again?

They DID. But they turned to mush because they had quite high dosage compared to Undyne. They're actually STRONGER than Undyne, because they literally cannot be killed. Because they have more DT. You can't take an uncontrolled experiment and expect to get consistent results, Ferret.

The Amalgamate fusion and Flowey X's fusion were two different kinds. Flowey X just took the SOULs. Same thing for Asriel. The body and SOUL were still separate. But the Amalagamtes came from the actual bodies melting, then coming together. So the nature of the fusion is to be expected, it's just like if you melted many things, mixed them together, then put them back into a solid.

Why were the Fallen so much weaker than Undyne?

They were STRONGER than Undyne, not weaker!

Why wasn’t Undyne able to get a single soul from any of them?

Alphys, not Undyne.