Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-31371445-20170222233857/@comment-27136653-20181018204607

"We REFUSE after the SOUL shatters as well. As we were leaving the mortal coil.."

We refuse only when our soul is about to shatter during the last fight. Not when it already did. And Flowey had no soul, so his actions aren't really comparable. We don't know how it works for soulless creatures.

"We can reach there by normal means, so that falls under canon principals-Especially since we get to open a door that was always there because of this. It's one last challenge, to find one last bit of lore."

And now, the next question, does it make sense? You could argue that since it's there, it's canon, but say, isn't it simpler to excuse it from being canon, rather than struggling to come up with some outrageous theory just to keep it canon? Must we necessarily stick to a single method, no matter the results we obtain using it? Also, by arguing that you can get there without hacking, that makes the game's changing name also canon, technically.

"Humans DID fall, and they WON'T be trapped forever. So we can't call the plaques as perfect pieces of information that can't ever be wrong."

That's assuming the plaques were written when the hole was already there. If the hole hasn't formed yet, or if the plaques were written when not all of underground was explored yet (so assuming they entered from the New Home end, which I consider to be the default assumption by the way), the lines could still be true.

"It IS disputed elsewhere in the game! By the lab entries! That's the WHOLE reason why I made this workaround in the first place! So that everything fits! Like Einstein and his theory of general relativity!"

But there was no reason to trash that information. From Toby's perspective, this had no point. The old facts didn't even have a chance to be utilized before getting replaced by the new ones.

"Tell me, where is the information of the intro disputed by the rest of the game?"

When the game said the war was short, and that there were 7 magicians, not just one.

"But one leads to problems and contradicitions, eventually culminating in the Asriel paradox, and you decide to handwave it as a "plot error", creating a plot hole, and the other keeps everything canon."

To summarize, if SP is DT, then that simply means we didn't have the DT to outmatch Asriel, and that Asriel couldn't reset, which however does not contradict anything presented in the OF fight. If DT is not SP, then we're met with an impossibility: either we've had more DT, in which case, what was the big deal? Or we didn't, in which case, again, how come Asriel couldn't reset...

Heck, you're saying my way of avoiding this weird plot point is too convoluted. Well, is it? Is my theory of soul composition playing a role in the scope of the SLR ability that far fetched? What about Malice's idea of Asriel canceling this power of ours with his immensely strong attacks? Isn't that also totally unfounded? (or idk if it was you who came up with it, I don't recall anymore)

This is what I remember from this convo. That yes, I've made a big logical leap, but so did you.

"Besides, it says right there that the greatest strength is also it's weakness, then goes onto talk about this power. This strength. I really don't see the problem. This is "the SOUL's strength" that also happens to be its greatest weakness, not "The power (level) of the SOUL." It's an ability, not a measure of power level. There is a VERY clear difference between the two concepts."

All I see is "the strength of the soul, whose power...". That's what that plaque simplifies into. That the weakness of human beings lies in the strength of their soul, which is determination. And I wouldn't be making all this fuss, if it wasn't for "soul power" being an actual defined term. Just like whenever determination is mentioned in the game, it always relates to the substance itself too, not just the feeling, as it is in the real world. And sometimes, the substance explicitly.

So why shouldn't this phrase simplify to "soul power?" The initial "its" at the beginning of the second sentence can gramatically refer to EITHER the word "strength," or "SOUL". Both are correct. And actually, the latter being the case is less redundant, so common sense would tell us that this is how Toby meant to word it.

My argument therefore is, that this phrase indeed defaults to "soul power," not "the power of the strength of the soul."

Convince me that the argument that Asriel would have removed our ability to reload with his attacks being more plausible than my soul composition theory and I will accept that the plaques are talking about "the power of the strength of the soul" instead.

"It PROVES the two MUST be connected, though."

I've never said they aren't connected.

"Undying is a very clear case of a DT flux"

Well, she's a monster. Monster souls aren't implied to possess static levels of DT.

"Hyperdeath.. That's a lot worse than regular death, don't you think? Deader than dead.. Even your SOUL won't persist anymore, and perhaps not even your essence."

Yeah... a silly name. It reflects Asriel's personality pretty well. Alas, I'd need more proof for your statement than just the name.

"Also, taking out a part of the game that happens under normal gameplay like that is ALWAYS dumb. Flat-earthers do that with this world all the time."

You mean the reloading by quitting thing? Yeah. Despite being allowed to happen for that fight, I think it's an exploit. It complicates the necessary in-game explanations immensely and kinda ruins the point of everything else... which is what exploits usually do.

You can argue all you want that this is in fact the intended behavior, but I feel like at this point, I have convinced myself that you're just trying to justify the existence of a non-gamebreaking exploit (hence why Toby hasn't fixed it yet... since it technically doesn't change the outcome; and besides, who would ever utilize it in the first place, right?), purely out of stubbornness.

My theories already work perfectly, and all they need, is for this to be declared an exploit. If you wanna go meta, please, include it in your explanations. But then again, you hate going meta, which I don't understand. I just tend to... neglect all the HUD stuff for simplicity's sake, unless absolutely necessary and logically justifiable. Undertale was a fun meta/no-meta experiment, to first act incredibly self-aware, and then spin everything to reveal that this is how the world itself actually functions, to make the characters aware of these meta mechanics, but not of the outside world itself.

And my philosophy is, that this system is too complicated and inconsistent when compared to the game's apparent overworld mechanics. And proclaiming even this inconsistency as canon is a bit too much for me. Chaos, simply for consistency's sake. Sheesh.

Also, yes, Toby did say that these mechanics are canon, but didn't say anything about their appearance. I could still incorporate them into my theories in one way or another, just to avoid the entire 'universe-working-as-a-game' thing.

And I think if right now, he were to go and claim, that the world of Undertale happens EXACTLY how we see it on our screens, I think it will cause many people to laugh. This isn't originality, this is simply... bad gaming concept design. Or whatever. First off, it distracts from the message of the game. And second, it's just too bizzare. How am I supposed to feel ok with this, if I don't see the point? A fun experiment without an actual point? Heck that, why are we discussing this game even, if huge inconsistencies are freely declared as canon all around?

I'm gonna go all the way out and say, that Undertale would be better off as a freely interpretable game, rather than what you're suggesting, a world that works like a game.

A nice example of an extreme interpretation of this concept is Glitchtale. A glitched timeline, which allowed "the player" to play past the pacifist ending, to actually experience it, instead of just seeing glimpses of it in the form of the credits from a 3rd-person's point of view.

My last philosophical question: All of this implies Undertale is perfectly self-enclosed. Everything is perfect, because everything has been DECLARED to be perfect. There are no inconsistencies, only an obscure plot, which explains all that we might consider to be an "inconsistency" as something canon. Alright, that's nice. Now, how do we explain Toby constantly changing this? How could anyone be claiming, that everything we see is canon/intended behavior, if Toby changed the code many times already, and even added some platform-exclusive content here and there?

In other words, how can we be sure ANYTHING is "final?" What if I'm right, and us escaping from Asriel's battle IS just an exploit? What if Toby simply never bothered fixing it, because such would be too difficult? (I'm a programmer, and I can see it would indeed be very, very hard. Upon restarting the game, it would have to load to the precise millisecond it has been shut off, else the plot hole will persist. And that would be so bothersome it totally justifies Toby neglecting this for over 3 years now).

ANYWAYSBACKTOTHETOPICOWOWOWO

"Not quite, Omega Flowey managed to bypass this "limitation". Just do what you did with Omega Flowey."

Oh that reminds me. The entire fight would lose its meaning if Toby would make Flowey realize what just happened. Or rather Asriel, after absorbing the souls. Toby wanted this to feel like the end, not like you're meant to be stuck in there. Such a mechanic worked for the OF fight, where you meant to be stuck, but this one was supposed to feel like there's an actual resolution waiting ahead. By the apparent logic of the fight itself, a reload should have caused a reset initiated by Asriel. That would make the most sense I think.

So... at least now we know how to fix this nonsense, get Toby to code in the very first reset not initiated by us, but by Flowey. You cannot possibly argue that this wouldn't make more sense than what we have right now, an inexplicable reload, when everything implied such an action would be our doom...

I mean, if you're content with this exploit being an actual "feature," then I don't think we can understand each other anymore. Clearly, our head canons and ideas about the game have diverged way too much for us to have a meaningful conversation anymore.

"And then you say Asriel just didn't think of doing what he did last time as Omega Flowey to take our power away, because reasons."

Yeah. I'm still working on that. I think I'll need to clear my head first.

"The battle IS a breeze to us, you literally cannot lose this fight. And I told you, hyperdeath is worse than regular death."

Then why is it introduced to us as a disadvantageous situation? And with so much DT, why bother with REFUSE, when you can RELOAD? And try to come up with something better than "hyperdeath overwrites reload", that's no better than my soul composition theory. As I've said already.

"That's literally the ONLY complication that arises from my take."

And mine is the composite soul theory. Equal grounds mates? ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ

"That SOUL is strength..?"

Never said that.

"It only multiplies 7-fold if red is not DT."

The opposite.

"Terribly weak correlation, there would be a 50% chance of finding a correlation by chance (Monsters have high of both, or humans have high of both)"

Yeah yeah, you keep talking about some sort of a probability. And I keep saying, that the soul has two identical-looking properties. Plus the plaques.

"Frisk being able to reload during Asriel's fight. That's an issue in the plot that is created specifically by your theory."

Exploit.

"Can you give me a better match for the combination of the other six traits?"

I mean, determination would be a valid answer, since the definition of determination basically allows you to say you're "determined to act according to X", thereby effortlessly unifying the 6 traits. So in a way, it's like a trait wildcard, ergo, the one and only description that fits it the most is "despite everything, you continue to be yourself", since there's no common denominator for these traits. As in, the only thing you can be sure of is yourself at this point.

This is how I envision the unification of the 6 traits and the phrase on the second flag.

"That's kind of what I thought you were doing.. You definitely are if you're willing to throw out evidence and then say what we see on the screen as text isn't what the characters are actually saying."

All I'm doing is interpreting the evidence. In the case of red souls, there is zero evidence for any connection with DT, as opposed to the case of DT+SP. I'm not the one who first sticks to head canons and then starts tweaking the surrounding facts.

"For now, red being determination seems to be the only way to have Frisk's DT not just multiply 7-fold like that, and the only way for Alphys' lab entries to actually make sense is if SOUL power is not DT."

Well, once again, if that were the case, Frisk's soul wouldn't need to REFUSE. This can also be true, since there's no proof that "hyperdeath" is even a thing, and not just some magical nonsense thought up by an imaginative goat kid.