Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-26662104-20160221035712/@comment-31413347-20170228070732

In Greek mythology, Charon would ferry the dead across the river of Styx, and there are those who refer to this figure as the grim reaper, or Death. Giving the robes that the riverperson wears and how they resemble a reaper-like figure, it would be interesting to take it a step further and speculate that the riverperson might've even ferried some of the dead humans across the river to the capital so that the king could take their souls. Of course, this is all speculative, and this is a side-character who is mostly just transport, but I like the idea that Toby created this character with the reference to Charon in mind. Totally not self-promoting here, but I liked the idea so much, that a while ago, I wrote a fanfic with the riverperson where it's revealed that their name is "Charon", but whether or not that's their real name is left for interpretation.

I think that would be an interesting tie-in, and he does seem to like to have his little references in a lot of his characters. I mean, look at the symbolism of some of his other characters. Just to name a few, "Papyrus" is not only a font, but also another word for "paper", and just how easy was Papyrus willing to change himself in order to feel validated and also please his friends? He seemed like he had such low self-esteem the more that you found out about him, and given the fact that he always tried saying he's great and stay positive, he was still easy to influence (for example, Undyne making a pun and him suddenly praising her for making a pun despite hating puns). Then "Sans" is not only a font, but can also be translated to mean "without", and what did he seem to lack throughout the neutral runs especially? A spine. Lol  Seriously. He was without hope, and he was rather apathic, letting you do whatever you wanted for the most part because he didn't think anything he did even mattered, and yet he's the "comic", and so he'll do what he can to hide the pain. Then there's even Chara, depending on whether you take the name as meaning "character" or even a star. There is a star named Chara that is close to a black hole and it has another star that from earth looks close together, and it's often referred to as its twin star.