Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-26456251-20160824191731/@comment-27701762-20160825143311

Rafip wrote: Moons-A-Glow Werecat is actually closer to the truth than you think Mabian. He is almost right. Almost... While there is some overlap in terms of control between Frisk, Chara, and the player, the theory doesn't work in terms of the player being Chara controlling Frisk. It's better to see them as three separate entities exerting control at different times, with the player exerting control most of the time. Even under those circumstances, though, it is not clear whether the player is strictly speaking a separate entity "controlling" Frisk, or if the player is meant to be Frisk and roleplay as them.

For example, one would probably point to the ending of the True Pacifist route, where Flowey speaks to "you," and asks you to leave Frisk alone and calls you by the name you gave to Chara, as evidence that the player and Chara are the same.

But that piece of evidence is completely contradicted by the ending of the Genocide route, where Chara then steps outside and A) speaks to "you," and B) ascribes all of the choices over the course of the Genocide route to "you," not to them. So Chara is very clearly distinguishing themself from the player, and "you" is either the player separately or the player qua Frisk. Since Chara asks for "your" soul, but in fact takes Frisk's soul, it actually leans towards the latter, but then we return to the problem of the True Pacifist route above.

There is, of course, all of the weird overlap between Chara and Frisk: their similar looks, hearing the dialogue from Asgore and Asriel to Chara, some of the strange knowledge that Frisk apparently knows about Chara (i.e. the jokes told to Woshua), their red SOULs. What this overlap means is itself unclear. One possibility is that Chara is possessing Frisk. One possibility is that Chara's spirit is revived by the fall and is simply following Frisk around (essentially the Chara-as-Narrator theory). One possibility is that humans have "essence" in the same way that monsters do, and by falling on the flowers where Chara is buried Frisk absorbs a bit of that essence and as such gains some of Chara's being (i.e. memories), in a sort of minor analogue to Flowey. Or there are a few other possibilities.

The overlap between Chara and Frisk, however, does not in itself imply anything about whom the player is controlling, unless that overlap comes from Chara actually possessing Frisk.