Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-31981697-20170722123329/@comment-32182236-20171031175753

"I was not using the intro as a source. There was nothing useful in it anyways."

I said TRAILER. We can't use the TRAILER as a source if it's non-canon.

"And besides, we know very little about Chara, we didn't know that they could do the True Reset up until that point. And yet, it was US who were behind everything all this time; WE were the ones in control of everyone's fate. And it is us again who actually HAVE the option to press the True Reset button in the menu."

We actually could theoretically figure it out before then-Chara's name is on the stat menu-Therefore, they DO have the ability. Considering how we have a happy ending, Flowey likely didn't think Frisk, the one who got everyone this far, would just tear it all away-Asriel does mention Frisk as the friend he always wanted to have-He trusts us too much to think WE'RE going to be the one to reset. But Chara? They have that power too, and at the end of Genocide, they even manage to take it away from us-That's why you can't just reset to bring the world back, but have to sell your SOUL instead, so Chara can True Reset the world back.

"Or yes, you can say that he was speaking to Chara, not us, in order to avoid this whole charade, heh."

And that's what I'm doing.

"It only doesn't make sense if you insist that everything must be canon, and that nothing must break the 4th wall (despite this being one of the most memorable qualities of this game)."

The former I put in place because otherwise we can use this argument to justify any theory we want. The latter is not an assumption I use here, the 4th wall can be theoretically broken, it was done well in OneShot. The real reason why I said the game cannot be code, well, it's later on in the post where you debunk it with Sans. That was my reason the entire time.

"However, now that you hinted at it, I want you to show me PROOF that the developer room (not the dog, the room) is NOT a reference to Toby's work."

Technically, the burden of proof rests on saying it is, because of Occam's Razor- Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. If there's no evidence supporting either side, then the simpler one is better. I've gone through the entire room-to game design, not Toby in particular-We have a dog sleeping on a rug, a statue of a dog, a bunch of rope, jigsaw puzzles, a computer and a game. The first four aren't a reference to anything, while the latter two only prove the dog made a game-It's a reference We can't just go around assuming things and jumping to conclusions, and we can't use the Prosecutor's Fallacy.

"There's no actual proof that Chara can reset, and heck, we don't even know how Flowey obtained this knowledge!"

There is evidence-How do you think they recreate the world? It's not absolute proof, but it is more plausible than the alternative that they can remember absolutely everything about the universes' original form, make exact copies of everyone, even things they never saw, and yet not know that Asriel's ATK isn't really infinite... But DOES actually know that because they recreate it all faithfully. ...Yeah, I'm sticking with Chara can True Reset.

"So then, what's your counterargument? Why do you think the good ol' Occam's razor isn't working in this case?"

You actually use my counterargument later on..

"So then, the only other two explanations are, that they're either stupid, or there's something wrong with our original assumption. Sans isn't stupid, but he's still not realizing this. His nihilism comes from the fact that resets are a thing, not that he's living in a simulated reality, that's pretty much confirmed. So even Sans doesn't know."

Exactly. I came to the premise that Sans doesn't know in a slightly different way (He doesn't abuse it like he abuses the HUD), but your explanation is valid too, and we can both agree there. So that is why the Undertale universe is NOT canonically code. It doesn't confirm that the HUD is canon, though, because like I said-The HUD is just the physical laws of the universe. Sound unlikely? Sans abuses it, so it can't NOT be canon. As Sherlock Homes puts it, when the impossible has been removed, whatever remains must be the truth. We didn't overestimate his intelligence, we UNDERestimated it-He knows all the mechanics and how they work, and was likely able to figure out it wasn't code. Sort of how you said before:

"Just think about it. Certain characters talking about the game's mechanics, while not realizing they're in a game? They're certainly not stupid."

Because they're not canonically "game mechanics", but rather, "laws of physics." If they were canonically game mechanics, we'd have the problem you just pointed out. They don't "know" that they're in a game, because they're NOT in a game (canonically). Now do you get it?

"I assume you don't mean us. Very well, all the 4th-wall interactions were then the characters talking to a version of Frisk that was playing the game, is that what you wanted to say?" "Or did you mean that all the moments where the characters SEEM to be talking to the player, they're actually just talking to Frisk?

A little bit of both, actually. The second I consider as true entirely, they're actually just talking to Frisk, but how the relationship between player and Frisk actually goes lies within a combination of bits and pieces from the first and some of my own hypothesis-Allow me to explain.

While the world of Undertale is not a game, you are right that it is very similar to one. And, who is the "player" of a game? Well, the "player" would be the one able to SAVE and LOAD-Therefore, "player" is actually a title or rank, not specifically us, so you are right when you say I didn't mean us from a real-world perspective-Though I do somewhat mean us from an in-game perspective. Flowey was one "the player". Frisk (us) is the current "player". When Flowey was the "player", they viewed the world the same way we do-With the HUD, SAVE dialogue, menus... All of that. Flowey even used the name screen.

"I already CHOSE that name!"-Flowey.

Every time a message can be interpreted as to the player, it's to Frisk. But that doesn't mean Sans' speech about killing everyone just to see what happens is a nonsense, or simply irrelevant-That very well IS a motive for Genocide Frisk. We, like Flowey, viewed the world as a game, our plaything.. But it's more than that-It's not a bunch of code-We just see it that way because of how much control we have over the world, as we very well can toy around with it... Just like Flowey did. So while sometimes, the perceived 4th wall breaks aren't really 4th wall breaks (Like someone watching it all happen), some really do have meaning (You think you are above consequences)... Frisk DOES think they're above consequences here. If you can just reload away anything bad that you ever do... You might just do bad things just to see what happens. Someone else already has... *Flowey laugh*

I've already been over this-Flowey knows about the narrator because the narrator can be heard by several monsters like Aaron and Napstablook. The reason why most monsters don't respond to said narrator is because their narration is too bland to elicit such a response:"Froggit hops close!", for example. And that means that Flowey very well can know about Chara, so it's a plausible explanation. And if it's a plausible explanation, what's wrong with it? It's far simpler than saying this is referring to us as some weird third entity when no proof of this even exists, and nobody else seems to be aware we, the player, exist...

"And since I don't see any proof that he suddenly understood that not only there was someone with Frisk, but that this someone was also Chara, I do not think he said their name because of this reason either."

He didn't SUDDENLY understand somebody was with Frisk-They were aware of the narrator ever since he first heard the narrator. Once he understood Frisk wasn't Chara, he likely pondered over why he thought Frisk was, and also tried to figure out who the narrator might be.. He then put two and two together, concluding the narrator is the Chara that he felt was still there...

"Yes. But then it's no longer just the hack, is it? We're no longer talking about the same thing. Don't mix apples with oranges."

This is why I wanted the terminology-I was never saying that just the hack was a full game at all, or said hack was what Toby meant by "full game". The WHOLE time, I was talking about the thing you get when you combine the hack with Earthbound... What should we call that? Whatever that is, THIS is what the line would be referring to by the dog making a full game.

"Or can you finally explain how does it NOT refer to him in any way at all?" I did, and I'll reiterate what I said in an earlier post, because it's my response here:We have a dog sleeping on a rug, a statue of a dog, a bunch of rope, jigsaw puzzles, a computer and a game. The first four aren't a reference to anything, while the latter two only prove the dog made a game-It's a reference We can't just go around assuming things and jumping to conclusions, and we can't use the Prosecutor's Fallacy. Therefore, this is not a reference to Toby Fox. Done-Every single piece of evidence within the room explained, without altering it.

"And your theory that the dog programmed the halloween hack is cute, but it sort of implies that he had some affiliation with Toby Fox? Why can't it be just straight up Undertale then? Because a paradox would occur? We can always exclude the room from the in-game storyline to make that paradox vanish!"

I'm actually using it to show that IF the dog is indeed Toby, and the line means what you're saying it does, the game STILL isn't Undertale-The Earthbound theory assumes the dog is Toby-It's not my real theory, but if you prove the dog is Toby, it will become my theory. And excluding the room would be tampering with evidence-Why not say it's Earthbound and keep both the room and logic? As for why I said it "has" to be Earthbound? Well, you said it had to be Undertale and not a future game because of the narrator being surprised, that it must be special, as the first WHOLE game, instead of parts of games. Toby's Earthbound game predates Undertale, and would therefore be Toby's first WHOLE game, so therefore, your reasoning that it must be Undertale instead of a future game therefore leads us to the conclusion that it must be the Halloween Earthbound game. Of course, there's always the chance that one of the two initial assumptions (The dog is Toby, and that it must be Toby's FIRST full game) is wrong!