Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-32182236-20180314002109

Alongside with whether or not Chara's evil, one of the biggest points of discussion about Undertale, is how the "player" fits into the story. Well, I'm here to say there are two answers to that question, depending on how you define the term "Player". If you mean us, the ones playing the game.. Then the player is just Frisk. Simple as that. I mean, we were never explicitly mentioned as a separate entity from Frisk. Ever. Closest you'll get is Flowey telling narrator Chara not to reset.

But, if you mean "player", from a more meta-perspective, the one "playing" with the world.. And all those fourth wall references. Then things get a lot more complicated than that.

What exactly is a player, canonically? In a world where all the mechanics are canon, how do we define and deduce what the "player" is? Well, that part's quite simple. The player, and the player alone, has the ability to SAVE and LOAD. We know that power goes to whoever has the most determination. Hence, the one with the most determination is the "player".

Of course, there are other defining features of the "player". Take for example, the HUD we use to interact with the world. Yes, Flowey has one too when he's the "player"-You can see Flowey's HUD and SAVE file when he takes over your world. Of course, we can see it, and Flowey seems to be able to see ours as well, explictly mentioning "LV", and knowing when we SAVE and LOAD. This gives us a property of "player":Even when you lose the title, you can still see, witness, and remember everything the new "player" does. (We also remember all the times Flowey LOADs when he steals the power)

So, now that we know what a player is.. What's the nature of the "player"? Well, I would deconstruct it, but the game itself already did that with Flowey!

Yes, Flowey represents the classical, gaming, "player" approach. Loading files when things go bad, curiously trying to get every possible ending.. Just because he can.. Predicting what everyone will do, as he's already gone theough it before.. How everything starts to look like mere numbers.. Lines of dialouge..

...No wonder Chara was fighting to stop that power. 