Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-27905483-20160303005710/@comment-27701762-20160303034730

So I'm not sure if I reject the theory wholesale. There is certainly some weird connection between Frisk and Chara that is difficult, if not impossible, to explain. But I'm highly skeptical that this is it.

The first issue would have to do with the nature of souls. In order for this theory to work, Chara's soul has to be absorbed by Asriel, and upon Asriel's death split off from Asriel's soul, and then survive for who knows how long. While determination is the substance that gives human souls the capacity to persist after death, there is no indication that they can do so indefinitely. Otherwise their would have been human souls floating around on the surface, and the monsters could have absorbed those long before there was a war between them. So human souls have to dissipate at some point. Hence why Asgore has the souls in containers, to help preserve them. Even the red soul, which is filled with determination, should not be able to last forever.

Secondly, you ascribe to Chara a long-term plan that begins upon their death, but this seems to be contradicted by their own claim upon completing a Genocide route: Frisk's power awakens Chara from death and brings them back to life. If Chara's soul is persisting and trying to control others, then Chara would still be "alive" in a sense, and so this statement would be incorrect. There is no indication that Chara has a long-term plan, or is using Flowey. In fact, Flowey does not suggest doing a Genocide run of the game unless you try to initiate one. If you do a True Pacifist run, Flowey comes back to tell you (whoever "you" is in this case) to turn off the game and let the characters have their happy ending. If Chara is engaged in these machinations, then the game, or at least some parts of it, should be pushing you towards doing a Genocide run first.

There's also a missing mechanic that you would need to explain: how. How does Chara's soul control Flowey and the other humans and Frisk? The soul can't be absorbed: humans can't absorb human souls, and Flowey continually refers to the fact that he doesn't have a soul. If Chara is influencing Frisk, then where is that influence? You could claim that we as player are Chara, but the Genocide route points fairly clearly away from that conclusion. And without this mechanism, the theory has a major gap.

The pieces of evidence themselves mostly point to a connection, but don't really get you to the point of saying that the "soul" that is being used is Chara's rather than Frisk's. The argument regarding the soul being destroyed runs into the same problems. Is the soul we control during battle Frisk's or Chara's? If it's Chara's, then upon death Chara would not be able to reload the game, and Frisk would not care to reload the game. If it's Frisk's, then we are actually controlling Frisk's soul the whole time, bringing the whole theory into question.

These are the big thoughts I have upon reading this. Like I said at the beginning, I agree with you that there is some weird connection between Chara and Frisk. I just don't think this is the way to go. I'll leave a list of questions, though, that I'd also want to raise:

If Chara is the one saving/loading the game, then why don't they just reload to before they died?

If Chara's soul is just wandering around in the Underground, why isn't it captured or absorbed at some point, especially when the other humans are killed?

Why does Flowey not mention Chara encouraging him to do all these things you claim?

How does the soul selling thing work? Does Frisk's soul simply wander around in place of Chara's? In turn, how does a post-Genocide run work in terms of saving and loading: is it still the Frisk/Chara combo, or is it just Chara's soul, and if the latter, why doesn't it run into the same problem you point out in your first piece of evidence?