Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-27997069-20160317174518/@comment-27907368-20160410054348

" By directly interacting with the player in such a vital way to the story, Chara shows self-awareness as a fictional character and reminds us that we're playing a game.  In summary, Chara plays a meta role."

On self-awareness or knowing that someone is watching: 

On Chara reminding us that we're playing a game:
 * Chara does not exhibit self consciousness. The encounter with Chara is a fight. Chara is looking into the fourth wall as any other NPC does when they fight us - their dialogue is directed at the playable character.
 * They eventually walk up to the PC and slash them. Human on human good times.
 * How? You also said:
 * "As part of punishing the player, Chara is meant and used to reflect the player."


 * Removing us from the game is a garbage way of punishing us. This is why Chara talks about STATS, the timeline and the Underground as if they're real. There's nothing meta about Chara's dialogue.

"Logically speaking, Chara is either talking to Frisk or the player.  But Frisk receives no characterization whatsoever, and there is no evidence to suggest that there is a next world in undertale that doesn't mean timeline."

In analysis of the dialogue:
 * "You" is consistently used in neutral and pacifist to refer to the playable character (PC); Chara is speaking to the PC in this encounter. At the least, there is no indicator that they are speaking directly to us.


 * The PC is aware of timelines/resetting/saving. Some of their talk text is telling bosses that they've seen them die before. Flowey also mentioned these mechanics early on.