Board Thread:Wiki Discussion/@comment-25958552-20160731111602/@comment-29422337-20160803045842

Frisk was made adrogonyness intentionally, Toby wanted you, the player, to immerse yourself into the game by allowing you to project yourself onto the protagonist. Leaving the character unisex allows this to happen.

You guys are talking a lot on the subject of "good" or "bad", as a motivational speaker, I give speeches on this subject to which I will share some insight. I have an extremely long speech ahead to which I implore you to fully read as it is quite possibly the most important speech I can give.

Human psychology is easy enough to understand once you grasp the essence behind things. As for Chara being "evil" or "bad", people are born neutral, it's only through our environment that we become "good" or "bad". Human beings have several "needs", such as air, food and water, but another lesser known need is "love". Love allows us to see the truth in things, reach enlightenment and evolve as people. Essentially, everything boils down to the two strongest emotions: Love and Fear, whereas fear can be seen as the absence of love. Every situation/memory/influencing decision in our life is dictated by if we have love in that situation or not. If there IS love, we are able to further reach enlightenment and grow. However in situations where love isn't present, the next strongest emotion must take its place: Fear. Fear clouds our understanding of the world around us and prevents us from seeing clearly. Our phobias, hatreds, dislikes, inner demons and everything that works against us derives from this fear.

Take for example a well-mannered kid being bullied at school. Is the bully "bad"? No, they are acting bad, but they themselves aren't "bad". In truth, it is likely the bully has a lot of fears or negativity in their life. Maybe their parents are abusive. Maybe the bully himself WAS bullied and is acting this way to prevent BEING bullied. Perhaps peer pressure has led them to becoming a bully. Either way, the essence of the issue is that the bully is hurt deep down and their bullying is just them lashing out. They aren't getting enough love in some important aspect of their life and so fear has taken root. Being a bully is seen as a position that is in control (When in actuality, it's really a cry for help), as they are preventing themselves from being bullied by instilling fear or even respect (by other jaded, fear-laden individuals such as other bullies). Bullying becomes a self defense mechanism where they are finally able to control an area of their life and by association, gain some confidence in theirself. The truth however, is that bullies aren't happy. Fear prevents them from seeing the truth and they believe that it WILL make them happy...when in actuality, it'll only bring them further grief. As I said before they are just lashing out in pain.

Now let's look at the well-mannered bullied kid, if he is missing love on this aspect, the fear might very well take root in heart and develop in a different manner of ways. Maybe they become a bully themself or become cowardly or antisocial? The other environmental factors will come into play for the resulting psychosis.

Now suppose he comes from a home abundent of love. He can be taught to see things from the bullies point of view, to understand that the bully is a person in pain who is lashing out. He can then go to the bully and attempt to give that bully the love they need and to help them see the truth. To help them heal.

Asriel as Flowey is a perfect example of this. Before the realization that Flowey is Asriel, chances are you either hated and extremely disliked Flowey. He is, after all, the percieved antagonist. However at the end of the Neutral route as you act as Frisk as a beacon of forgiveness and unconditional love by sparing him, his first impulse is to lash out "I'LL KILL YOU", "I'LL KILL YOUR FRIENDS", "I'LL KILL EVERYONE", eventually his anger dies out and he's left questioning why you're so nice to him. His incorrect perception of the world was that if you are weak, you will die and by acting with mercy in his moment of weakness, you throw the entire frame of which he understands the world into question. He can't understand it as you act completely opposite of what he's expecting. THIS is the first step Frisk and you as the player take towards healing him.

You see your ending and he shows up at the end, he says in so many words that maybe you're starting to show him a different truth, a different way. He gives you pointers on how to get an even better ending so that maybe he can learn from you. Make no mistake, while he does indeed betray you again, he is sincere in wanting you to succeed in this manner. What little bit of hope that does exist is holding out for that idea. That having been said, it's not easy to change the way you think, it's a process that takes time, so his old habits come to the conclusion that his view of the world IS correct, the problem was that he just didn't have enough power.

Through the Pacifist route we learn that Asriel is a very kind and compassionate soul, coming from a home of love as he worries about Chara who had fallen. As you watch the flashback scenes you can see the empathy in his expressions, the joy in family time. Even the videos you "watch" show his concern for his friend. The Genocide route tells the story of Asriel as Flowey, how he was so scared after coming back and after upon realizing he couldn't feel love, he didn't even want to live any more. Learning about his power over "determination", the ability to reset time and the inability to feel love, fear took root (Heh, "root") and manifested itself in an extremely harmful sociopathic and misanthropic view of the world. As he becomes Asriel once again in the pacifist ending he further lashes out by explaining how he'll just keep you around forever. In his disillusioned view, he believes you to be Chara, one of the three people he cared about the most in the world, a percieved positive anchor for him to hold on to. As you further wear him down and Frisk makes the realization to "SAVE" Asriel, the love starts to flow through him as he realizes someone is caring about him (Now that he can feel emotions again, it starts to penetrate his armor), he further lashes out as he has an inner battle with himself: One side believing that being powerful is the only way to prevent being hurt again while the other desperately craves and needs the love so that he might heal. In the end, you realize him for what he is, just a scared, good intentioned kid in desperate need of love to fight off the horrifying sense of loneliness.

ANYWAY SO WHAT DOES THIS HAVE TO DO WITH CHARA!? To answer the initial question based on human psychology: Chara wasn't always "bad", Chara was born neutral like everyone else. Something very tragic and painful had to happen to them to make them resent all of humanity. Perhaps they came from an abusive home, society or something else. Whatever happened allowed fear to burrow into their heart and it manifested itself in an illogical understanding that all humans are "bad" or "evil". They went up to Mt. Ebott for unspecified reasons, my educated guess is so they could get away from the people. They fell down, met Asriel and the other Dreemur's and began a new life.

Now, based on the context of how they "spread hope through the underground" and that there's no evidence to suggest Chara ever hated monsters in the Pacifist and Neutral routes, I'm assuming they found monsters a better people and was happier with them.

Video entry three in the True Lab tells the story of when they and Asriel accidentally poisoned the king and how Chara "laughed it off" while Asriel was concerned and feeling guilty. Now this can be interpreted different ways: Either Chara was just trying to make light of the situation and attempt to shrug off guilt by laughing OR (IMO most likely) Chara having been so damaged emotionally by humanity, didn't realize the consequence of such a thing or found it to be trivial.

By Tape 4, we're seeing the makings of Chara's plan to fuse their souls. Asriel protests out of concern while Chara bullies and peer pressure's him to tow the line.

Tape 5 shows the results of the plan with Chara on their death bed while Asriel is dismayed.

There's no further evidence that Chara had shown any hatred towards monsters as a race at this point, so it could very well be that Chara intends to free the monsters. I do believe Chara wanted to lash out at and take vengeance on humanity for Chara's previous tragedy, but they could ALSO have wanted to free Monsterkind as well.

Chara died, Asriel absobed their soul, they went to the surface to get 6 souls, Chara wanted violence, Asriel resisted, Asriel took control and went back to the Underground and died.

IF Chara didn't hate monsterkind in life, where did they take the turn? Had to be after death right?

Someone earlier hypthesized that Asriel resisting Chara caused this hated by "betraying" him. This is the likely causality for it isn't until the Genocide route that Chara is portrayed as having a hatred for all living things (Except you, the player).

IN CONCLUSION: Chara is just a hurt kid lashing out in their pain. They were never "evil", just misguided because of a tragedy in their past. The closest Chara ever comes to ever truely being "evil" is at the end of the Genocide route where their megalomania coupled with their Godly power has corrupted them almost completely. The strongest piece of evidence we have that Chara isn't entirely evil is in that they consider you a "great partner" and don't seek to destroy you in agreeing to destroy the world.

Hope this helps, sorry for the long read.