Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-31371445-20170222233857/@comment-27136653-20180706184703

"So, if that's the case, that would mean the magical traits would appear as a substance AFTER the one SOUL trait was determined."

I don't think they can appear as a substance at all. As I said, they are the flavor of a soul, they don't come in a physical form, they are a reflection of the structure of the soul itself. Kinda like the deep water being blue, due to it absorbing longer wavelengths of light and scattering the shorter ones.

"Survival is red, eh? Hm, what do we know about that has to do with surviving, the will to live? OH WAIT. (Determination)"

I mean, the root does deal with the concept of survival, but also, mainly, stability. In order to develop anything internal at all, you must first take care of the absolute basics. And the way I've merged it with the "being yourself" definition is, that perseverance, the end of the cycle, is telling you precisely what you have to do. It contains the knowledge of the 6 previous chakras after all. On the other hand, red has an infinite amount of possibilites, hence its ambiguousness. That's the point here. Perseverance could also be taken as a variation on determination, but it isn't. Same for red. Any similarities are only circumstantial. DT is a physical "boosting" substance, totally removed from the psychological feeling of survival and perseverance.

"If the root is survival, technically, the first two levels could fit in there."

Not really. Chakras are purely psychological. The first tier of the pyramid is about satisfying your biological needs. Those important for survival. The second level however is security, and deals with fear. The thing that the root chakra is all about.

"Somewhat makes sense-The former is closer to nature, for survival of the species, while the latter is purely social, and thus further away. It was grouped in with the first level of the heiarchy."

Which is also why the last level is about spirituality. It is the most removed one.

"So how can one even start their first cycle?"

By being born? ¯\_(°_o)_/¯

"True, there's observation, but one doesn't take note of what they've seen so far. They observe to see if one's guard is down, and then, when the oppertunity arises, strikes the foe. Purple, on the other hand, takes note of what happened so far, to come up with a strategy."

But also, remember, patience is a sign of wisdom, or at least, a certain degree of intelligence. It would be unwise to assume that there is no connection with learning whatsoever. But yes, due to how the cycle is structured, purple IS above cyan, so that makes it even more focused on learning. Although, learning of a different kind. Not raw information, but putting it all to use, as well as seeking new horizons, which is a process that technically already began on the 6th degree, blue. In any case, cyan cannot be just about patience, just like yellow cannot be just about karma and dexterity. I'd say, there is cyan in purple, hence why purple is still focused on learning. But the learning process began with cyan, where the mind calms down, stops acting and starts observing.

"There's no reason to assume a conspiracy when there isn't even a motive for it, and there's no grounds for suspicion."

Rule number 1, don't assume a conspiracy. Just, don't.

"We really have no reason to add to the traits, though. They are what the game says they are."

Yes, we have no reason to go outwards from here. If we exclude personal entertainment, that is.

"If the game was inherintly supposed to shatter the wall, tell we, why CAN'T we call the HUD canon?"

Because it makes no sense? Toby wanted to impress us. To make all the usual gaming tropes canon. But the more you think about it, the less sense it makes. We are exploring this game for its story, isn't that right? And Undertale works best as a game, due to the player decisions being canon. It is also self-enclosed for the same reason. And yet, we CHOSE to go out of its bounds, to expand upon the story. But when you expand upon the story, nevermind it being a literature, comic, or an animation, you are already breaking the established rules. But what's worst of all, the game itself endorses this at times, by purposedly hinting at certain things that would lie out of its own scope. For example, Frisk's backstory. They are not just a manifestation of the player. They actually are their own person. Which makes no sense whatsoever, since we are obviously controlling them. And so, you have two options here. Leave it be, or expand. But keep in mind, the moment you expand, you are already breaking the rules.

Yes, technically, everything we see on the screen is canon. Every single thing. Because the game has no exceptions. There is no difference between the lore and the gameplay. It's all combined into one content soup. Nothing has to make sense, because the game is making up its own rules. And we are not supposed to analyze them logically, we are supposed to take them at heart. The game pesters us quite a lot for our decisions. That's how Toby made it work.

But by doing that, he also unknowingly created an immense potential for a vast and extensive new universe, which is what everyone latched onto right away. Sometimes I feel like all those theories about Chara being good at heart exist solely so that fanfictions that depict them as such would make sense to begin with. The game can be incredibly vague on the lore sometimes, because of one simple reason: it's not always needed for the gameplay.

That's Undertale according to Toby Fox. An emotional/psychological experience. Plus a lot of puns.

And what's Undertale according to the fans? Take a look around. People who fully acknowledge the existence of HUD are scarce and nearly unknown. Those that do partially fill the other part with their own headcanons and proudly declare such series as "obeying the canon rules" coughlitch coughtale cough excuseme. And then there are people who say, "away with the absurd meta rules, everything meta has a full, self-enclosed in-game explanation."

I'm one of those people. Undertale according to Toby Fox is dead. Undertale according to the fans is still being developed. But development is forbidden, for the game is self-enclosed.

What we are doing here is forbidden. We already broke the canon rules, by trying to come up with information that exists outside the scope of the game. So, if we want to do this properly, we must not let the canon rules restrict us. The only thing we must obey is logic, and abolish the idea of the game being even slightly meta at any point in its story. If we want to obey the canon rules, that's fine, but there will be nothing left for us in there. Wanna see a fine canon theorizing work? Saveloadreset.tumblr.com is your person.

So, I am asking you here, do you want to discuss this game with the meta included, or excluded? Mind the latter is much more fun, and the former has already been milked to death and I have no interest in it either.

Also, a special category are people who think that the game corrupting or crashing also has an in-game explanation (e.g. a character doing that on purpose so that you wouldn't be able to do whatever bad thing you just wanted to do) and the use that to declare that their alternative timelines are T E C H N I C A L L Y canon. Camila Cuevas is surprisingly one of those people.

"Simply a grand theory that explains the mechanics of the game, and all the central focal points of the game."

There is no such thing waiting for you anywhere. Besides, the things you may think of as constants may be variables to other theorists. We will never find a common ground this way.

"So, it's best not to use Toby as an argument at all."

Yes. However, peeking into the code and asking ourselves, "why did Toby leave this here," perhaps "why in this order?" are also helpful questions. They may reveal HIS idea of the game's story to us, and that's better than any unconfirmed theory.

"I didn't say two barriers. I pointed out how the invisible wall can't be the Barrier at all, because anything can go through the Barrier, and there is no glow. Really, I'm saying the Barrier is somewhere between the end door and the Surface."

It is implied the barrier is stationary, hence the plot hole. Such a simple concept twisted to such a complex shape just because something else isn't aligning. We are turning the lore of this game into a mess, and you are proclaiming this is what Toby had in mind. You are still confusing him with Scott Hawton I believe.

"Not being findable doesn't mean it doesn't exist."

It can mean both. But knowing Toby Fox, I'd say it rather doesn't exist. It's not hidden, it was never constructed. The constants are scattered around randomly, and even if you do find a nice curve that connects them smoothly, someone else will find it ugly, because a nice universal one that would satisfy everyone simply doesn't exist, because as I said, the distribution of the constant points is pretty much nonsensical at times.

"We should all be striving for a theory without holes."

And that's another thing. There may not be any fitting curve at all. You may need to change your perspective, perhaps turn one of those constants into variables, that is, accept a different idea, and try again. Although I'm pretty sure by doing this you will eventually find an answer, the chance it will also align with the original game in every single aspect the way Toby imagined it is slim. Actually, it is impossible, since the game has its own absurd rules, full of conditional if else statements (flags), that may be incredibly difficult to turn into actual universal rules. Then, the univeral rules will start contradicting each other and you will have to make them even more complicated by adding in new conditions and in the end, we will end up with a system that's partially based on the meta aspect of the game, and partially on real-world rules. Here's a depiction of such theory: https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/southpark/images/5/5d/ManBearPigTransparentGorey.png

Seriously, WHAT will this give you? Satisfaction? That, I cannot understand. I cannot understand someone going through all this mess, just to be ridiculed by everyone later on. Everyone likes to believe in a different set of constants, and convincing people to change their constants just because it works in your system will be difficult. They will also be trying to find their own curve, without needing to modify their constants. Because their constants would be closer to the canon. By which I mean, they would be simpler, with less assumptions, or perhaps, that they collectively would amass to only a very small amount of meta points (or a very large, depending on what they like to believe in). That's another thing. Meta, versus in-canon. This is purely subjective, and people WON'T change their stances on this, no matter how good your theories may be. You may change their mind about the lore, but not about what is meta and what isn't. The only thing that would change their mind is a really good rational explanation, however, there are none left. We've already probed this game from all angles, remember?

"You need not to convert to my theory, which may very well have holes right now, but make an effort to fix the holes!"

Why would I want to fix the curve of a theory, whose constants I don't like? YOU change your constants.

"And if it's the only one standing without holes, it probably IS the real story!"

There can be multiple "real stories", depending on your choice of constants. What will we default to then? Occam's razor? I'd like to see that. "Hey, which one of these numbers is bigger? 3i+5, or 5i+3?" ... yeah.

"and could help explain why a green SOUL is possible in Genocide."

Or it may have a transferred meaning. We are shielding our own soul, we are being kind to it. No other mode gives it a shield.

"But surefire accuracy, putting an end to mayhem, is simply being orderly and accurate, to end chaos."

Are you SURE it was THAT specific? The opposite of chaos? For what we know, "mayhem" could have been the game in general, which we understand to be the goal. Ergo, yellow is to strike the goal with a precise accuracy. Sure, justice fits the opposite of chaos, so it works like that too. But as I said, truth is another thing that ties to justice, besides order. So if yellow is connected to order according to you, it is connected to "proactive truth seeking" as well.

"His definition of integrity is laughing at bad jokes, if we take that as definitive. Bad jokes is a big quirk of Sans-He'd clearly be biased here."

Again, are you SURE it was THAT specific? Toriel has a strong sense of morality. No matter what anyone tells her, she will stand her own. That's what we understand intergrity to be. So even if Sans did define this based on a joke (which would be very unlike him, to ABSOLUTELY trust a complete strange just because they like his jokes - I mean, we did too?), I am technically not wrong. Integrity IS morality. (Not justice though, mind you.)

"It's not acting during cyan attacks, it's waiting for the perfect oppertunity. The direct inverse of bravery is fear. More than likely running away from battle."

I meant the positive inverse. So, the opposite of attacking right away.

"Observing, possibly yes. But, taking notes? You're waiting for one specific thing:The enemy to not suspect an attack. There's no need to take notes on what they have done, you just have to see whether or not their guard is up. If it's down, that's your chance. It's that simple."

If patience is not about learning, then it is the direct positive inverse of bravery - to attack later, rather than now.

"Memories can be altered, though."

Yes, with yellow. Which would be akin to cutting the branch you're sitting on. Not much of an argument here, really.

"Even if the witness isn't a liar, they're still likely getting details wrong."

No, you're not getting it. Where is the one place you cannot extract an undisturbed piece of evidence by force from? The mind. You have to convince the person to give it to you. You can't just cut their skull open and take a look. That's the problem that yellow solves. Of course it can't reconstruct the memories if they're missing. But it can extract them if the person is purposely hiding them there. We're not dealing with truth here, as much as fighting against lies. If you want the truth that no longer exists, use the time travelling abilities of the green power to take a look.

"Remember, that slash is from the HUD, and likely isn't visible to monsters."

Then I wonder, why has this not been addressed? If such is true, and if Toby has had the time to patch all the plot holes, then why did he not explain that this slash is not real, perhaps by simply making some monster ask about where your attack came from? Also, WHY did Sans know?

"My World-LV9999"

Not the HUD. The maximum is 20.

"Undyne wasn't a warrior at the time, Sans and Papyrus likely weren't born yet, Mettaton wasn't created yet, and none of the humans fell to demonstrate their traits."

It may not be about those people. After all, there may have been other monsters with the same powers as them back then. And the humans...? I mean, the monsters probably knew a thing or two about humans when they were still on the surface, right?

"Yeah.. But.. Why? And why didn't he have to as Omega Flowey?"

Because the transfer of power wasn't perfect, due to his soul being composite. Omega Flowey didn't go through this, because he didn't want to reset. But I ASSUME he would need to, since his soul was composite as well. That's my explanation.