Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-28707994-20200121021637

This community has been arguing for so long. However, I have a few reasonable points to address, so that both teams will have a compromise.


 * Frisk and Chara are supposed to be open to interpretation. Boy or Girl? Speaking or Mute? There is no canon portrayal. Undertale is about what you make it to be. Like if it is your choice to be good or evil, it's your choice to determine what the human children are like.


 * Chara's evil is motivated by vengeance and misanthropy, like Zephiel from Fire Emblem. They wanted revenge on humanity after being abused by the community and got Asriel to see what their people were like, and eventually the rest of monsterkind. But just because Chara is fighting against injustice doesn't mean they're a pure good angel. They are still vengeful, and as the game shows, grudges don't fade away easily. It's up to you if you want to give Chara some solace and comfort, or drive them even further into their hatred until they are fully consumed by vengeance (like Tomura Shigaraki).


 * The Player/Anomaly is not a black-and-white villain, real people are different and are more complicated than being pure good or evil. Let Undertale itself judge them, you just have to take it too far and blame the actual people. Just because you can commit the worst crimes in a video game which causes everyone in it to declare war on you, that doesn't neccessarily mean you are like that in real life. The Genocide Route philosophy is mainly motivated by hedonism: a feeling of pleasure and satisfaction. If you are sincerely remorseful for your crimes, then that doesn't make you 100% pure evil. And even if you do have the "perverted sentimentality" ending, that still does not represent your actual morality. Maybe you could be a decent person, but you are playing Genocide because someone else told you to for "a more realistic, emotional experience". If that doesn't convince you, let me ask: do video games cause real violence?


 * What about the Pacifist Route? Just because Genocide is angsty and cynical, that doesn't mean that the Pacifist Route has any less of a meaning? You can feel satisfaction in Pacifist (I did during my first playthrough) and use your Determination for good. But sometimes that may have insincere motivations as well: you may as well be playing because you don't want to provoke the "I HATE GENOCIDE" zealots. Since Undertale is full of walkthroughs and guides, people may as well be influenced by others or following guides. It's not a dog-eat-dog world unless you will it to be; that applies to the accusers too!

Any objections? 