Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-26006155-20190425222457/@comment-32182236-20190426011526

But now, to defend Chapter 7 of my rebuttal.

He’s by far the most difficult boss in the game. And not just because he can disable invincibility frames. He also can psychokineticly bash you against walls, and can fire badass lasers than white out a significant portion of the screen. As well a teleport. As well as evade all your attacks.

Blue magic, technology invented by Gaster, PSI magic, meta-awareness.

He's actually quite similar to Papyrus, in this manner. He's smarter than you think:He knows to put you down to exactly 1HP so you can survive. And what do you think Papyrus was going to blast you to pieces with?

He's certainly not a weakling, but all of his power is still reasonable, at least for someone who's basically a giant powergamer.

Even MatPat agrees that he hauled the entire building of Grillby’s up from the Underground to see in in the town of Deltarune. I don’t see anyone else literally throwing buildings around like basketballs.

You think Sans did this? Why can't it be Gaster? Or whatever spirit began "survey_program"?

You say that Sans is reading Frisk’s face to know how many times they’ve fought. Which he always gets right, even if it’s something like Seven. How is this possible? Sans is punking us.

A long time ago, someone asked me this question, and I was able to walk through how the first few ones worked. I'm not sure if this will be as great as that one post... But I'll see what I can do.

So, when Frisk dies to Sans the first time, it would be utter shock. Take a look at the Let's Players reactions to Sans. That's pretty easy to read. They're clearly frustrated at what Sans just did to them. (Here, have a let's play reaction to Sans:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdP6ep0rkys)

The second time someone dies to Sans, the surprise factor starts to fade, and here is where they'll start thinking about how to survive that opening attack. Suffice to say, they're pretty unsatisfied.

They start to get what Sans is going for the third time around, and their planning phase starts.

Each death, they clearly think about what happened before, and plan around it. Similarly, Sans changes his tactics based on what happened before. For instance, once Frisk has shown signs of surviving the opening attack, he'll cut short his speech. So if he notices a reaction of shock again, not at the fact that he attacked, but that it was "sooner than expected", he'll know he used that trick before, and that's an extra death. So it's all about Frisk's reactions to Sans' responses to Frisk's previous moves, in response to Sans' tactics before.

And Sans DOES start to close count eventually.

"hmm. that expression... that's the expression of someone who's died seven times in a row. nope, wait, that's definitely nine, sorry. or was it ten?"-Sans, after you've died nine times.

"hmm. that expression... that's the expression of someone who's died eleven times in a row. well, give or take. there's nuance to this stuff. don't think i'll be able to count very well from here. count for me, ok? we'll start from 12."-Sans, after you've died eleven times.

Sans is by far the most qualified person in the Underground. He single-handedly keeps the government from falling apart despite Papyrus’ less-than-inspired rule. Sans can rule well, he’s brilliant. But even though he’s far more qualified than Papyrus, he refuses to be King even if it means the King’s throne stays vacant. Because Sans refused to become King himself for personal reasons.

Oh, he has the intelligence, definitely. What he lacks is charisma. I think he made that another dump stat, right along with Constitution.

There is a great body of evidence that Papyrus is, in fact, a skeleton. Granted, for all we know Starmen might actually be skeletons wearing cool suits. But if you’re trying to argue that Papyrus *isn’t* a skeleton, and not radically different in nature than Sans, you’re going to have do more work to support that argument.

Which is about as strong as Sans being a skeleton. I don't seriously think that Papyrus is a Starman. I instead think that Sans being Ness and Papyrus being a Starman are equally plausible, and equally supported.

I don’t know where you’re getting this stuff about Determination being yellow. Unless you mean the actual Word at some points?

For some reason I thought determination was actually yellow. Then I realized all the evidence was just circumstantial-About as good as the "Papyrus is a Starman" evidence, in fact. The fandom has depicted the injections as yellow, but that's just the fandom. We never actually get to see the physical substance of determination directly within the game. Determination can be any color. Which means it might be red. So maybe Sans bled determination? ...Probably not.

I have no idea why Sans put chips in the refrigerator. Then again, I don’t know why he has a comic book with a quantum physics book inside it either.

Neither do I. Hence why instead of disputing it as a point, I had Papyrus nag at his brother for it, and Sans make a pun out of it. It's probably for the same reason why he leaves his room such a mess. He doesn't care enough about it.

I’ll grant you that Papyrus’ ‘Not Sleeping’ is unusual for monsters since we observe several sleeping. I’m not saying Papyrus is normal by any standards. I’m just saying he’s a heck of a lot different than Sans, and there’s no way the two are literal brothers.

Which brings me to ask the question as to why PAPYRUS isn't the one who isn't a real monster? Seriously, he'd make a better candidate of not being a monster. Well, if you combine that with the red.. whatever that is, they're on equal footing. As I said, Papyrus being a Starman is exactly as probable as Sans being Ness.

Ok, Sans sweats above the eyes.And he scratches his head in a self-conscious manner, too. It would be very hot wearing a costume head around all the time, though. And Sans has to emote somehow.

Maybe that's why he lives in Snowdin? Still, though, human sweat comes FROM the eyes, not ABOVE the eyes.

Don’t forget that in Earthbound’s context, Starmen *are* monsters. Elite ones.

Yeah, but they don't act or behave the same as Undertale monsters. I wouldn't place them with the Undertale monsters in biological classification. Besides, since Starmen were evil, that destroys your "monsters can't display darkness" hypothesis.

Didn’t Papyrus also fidget and try to scratch is face during his boss fight? Skeletons can feel it seems

Either way, that means Sans scratching himself is not evidence that he's human.

If Papyrus was born in 1995, he would be around 24 at the end of 201X, aka 2019. Old enough to be an adult. But not so old as to have abandoned all childish things.

201X is when Chara fell, not when the game actually takes place. Get your facts straight. You even proved that Chara must have died in Spring 2020 at the earliest. And since Papyrus never met a human, he must have been born well after 201X.

You dont’ think Sans looks sinister when his eyes vanish, and he slowly spells out: “You’d be dead where you stand…” ?

Sounds more like just being serious and edgy than sinister. Think more Shadow the Hedgehog, and less Photoshop Flowey.

We know Sans has killed before, and has the capacity to kill, because Flowey says Sans is responsible for most of his “resets” ie, Sans kills Flowey in most timelines.

But those kills don't matter because upon reset, all of your EXP and LOVE vanish.

Monsters have killed six humans before as well, so we can't say that this is darker than monsters are capable of.

of course Flowey knew Frisk could do it. His future self had already killed Flowey many times.

Flowey thought Frisk was CHARA. He would NOT know the truth. Flowey "knew" Frisk could do it, because "it's kill or be killed", and as Chara showed, humanity is DEFINITELY capable of murder.

You’re taking the information that Chara, The Unreliable Narrator, is giving us? Where she specifically says Sans is The Weakest Enemy?

Weakest. Not "least powerful", but specifically weakest. As in, strength-wise. And Sans really does only deal 1 damage.. It's just since he gets to do it every single frame, it adds up really fast.

Remember that Sans can psychokinietically smash us against walls like a racquetball without using his Gaster Blasters. He has amazing anime super weapons at his disposal, but doesn’t actually NEED them.

Blue. Magic.

He's powerful in MAGIC. That's something that MONSTERS specialize in. Humans are more powerful in brute strength, something that Sans is very lacking in.

Perhaps Undyne’s ultraviolence does come from having some second-hand human Determination in her?

Her soul is still purely a monster soul, though. If the book is as accurate as you say it is, she'd still be full of love, hope, and compassion. And her ultraviolence is anything but that.

Undyne is unwavering, unyielding, and uncompromising. But she doesn’t enjoy causing pain like Chara does.

Hmm... Doesn't that remind you of a certain skeleton in Genocide?

Do you really think Sans ACTS guiltless in the game?

Of course!

He asks a serial killer if there’s hope for people like him. Hope for people like THEM.

Hey, if there's no hope for them, the whole universe is doomed. This is kind of a bigger deal. Besides, he then takes away that question with a "better" question. This other question is so famous that it's become a meme, so I think you already know what that question is. And he definitely delivers on giving us that bad time.

Even if you rewind the timelines where Sans ends up killing Flowey, Sans still has a certain melancholy about him. And he remains threatening at times like the MTT Diner.

So he's threatening? You can pick on Loox, take all the monster candy, steal all the pieces of the snowman, insult Papyrus, and do all kinds of jerk moves, and still get the golden True Pacifist Ending. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCg9leUINYU

Seriously, you don't have to be nice to be a pacifist. You just have to not kill, and be friends with the main cast, so that they'll all show up at the end for Flowey to absorb and turn into Asriel.

Sans got an advanced LVL level before the game began. And I show that it’s from his fallout with Gaster later on.

If you're going to use a later part as evidence to support a claim, that later part better not assume that the claim is already true. Else, it's circular reasoning, and thus invalid. This is why I try to prove everything FIRST, so I don't risk doing this myself.

Great. So Frisk is still in the Underground. So why does Sans have to leave a message? Because Frisk isn’t there anymore.

When I said bonk, I meant a literal bonk. They then fell all the way back down to the ground. Take 2d10 fall damage, Frisk. Also, you fall unconscious again like you did the last two times you fell such a great height.

Unless Sans was there to actually witness Frisk’s death, Frisk could rewind any number of times, and Sans wouldn’t noticed a difference.

Alright, then I have another experiment. Trigger a monster encounter right in front of Sans, die from it, and see if he's still surprised the same way. If he is, your hypothesis is busted. If he isn't, congrats, we just discovered a new line that even dataminers couldn't find!

Are you saying Frisk is a skeleton?

Well, Frisk definitely HAS a skeleton. And I'd say that shape came from their skeleton. But as monsters aren't made of physical matter, they likely don't have skeletons, and thus, are more varied. But as I said, what about everybody else? What about Papyrus? If anyone else has a pencil-neck, your evidence is invalid.

Frisk is Beta Sans. <

No, they'd be Gamma Sans.

As for Beta Papyrus, he’s still a mystery. But due to the two Papyrus pictures in the Dog Shrine, I wouldn’t be completely surprised if we did bump into two of him at some point. Or two Gasters.

So because there's two SEPARATE pictures in the Dog Shrine, that supports the notion of there being two Papyruses? Famous people have several photos of them out there, does that mean they have clones too?

We can control where Chara-possessed Frisk walks.. But not what he/she does anymore.

We can control one thing they do:Reset.

Nobody won the Sans fight. We don’t get a “You Won!” indicator.

Chara killed Sans, not Frisk. So we, Frisk, don't get the indicator.

… say that again? Sans must be talking to the dead Papyrus we saw turn to dust in real time?

Well, not for real. He's hallucinating. Ever heard of a near-death experience? That's what Sans is having.