Undertale

[Moogs Parfait]

Spoiler:

the video tape where Chara laughs off poisoning Asgore really makes it sound intentional, as well as Asriel's reactions of "no no I'd never doubt you" don't sound like a healthy relationship at all

[UncertainJakutten]

I am less inclined to believe

Spoiler:

that Chara is evil

  This post is part of why. 

Spoiler:

Basically I'm a fan of Chara narrator theory and the only reason they're so awful in Genocide is because you corrupt them like the horrible piece of shit you are =).

  There's a better post somewhere else but I can't find it at the moment.

[Mr. Sacchi]

Spoiler:

the video tape where Chara laughs off poisoning Asgore really makes it sound intentional, as well as Asriel's reactions of "no no I'd never doubt you" don't sound like a healthy relationship at all

Spoiler:

that plus the fact that iirc Asriel implies that Chara was heavily trying to make Asriel kill the humans that attacked him when he went to the surface, but he resisted.

also can we please not forget the fact that Chara actually grabs the player's soul, something which literally should not be possible by the game's canon? (Monsters can't absorb Monster Souls, and Humans can't absorb Human souls.)

[Iryan]

Spoiler:

the video tape where Chara laughs off poisoning Asgore really makes it sound intentional, as well as Asriel's reactions of "no no I'd never doubt you" don't sound like a healthy relationship at all

Spoiler:

I don't think "laughing off" something bad that happens means that it is done intentional, nor that one actually finds it funny. And the "I'd never doubt you" could just as well be uttered between two protagonist friends in a shonen. I mean, it can, easily, be interpreted the way you do. There is nothing really proving either interpretation over the other. But I prefer mine for the reason stated at the end of my last post, heh.

Actually, that brings me to a little thing I realized a few weeks ago, and which is pretty cool.

Spoiler:

Sans's genocide dialogue basically comfirms that, for the in-game world, multiverse theory is in effect. This means that basically any headcanon you want, including ones that contradict the game (or each other) can all be valid in some timeline. Especially regarding fanworks, you can totally enjoy various things that totally contradict each other, just by assuming they take place in different parallel universes, and this is validated by the game. So both your interpretation and my interpretation can be equally valid.

Maybe I am overthinking things a little, as I tend to do, but still, I found it neat.  :V

Spoiler:

that plus the fact that iirc Asriel implies that Chara was heavily trying to make Asriel kill the humans that attacked him when he went to the surface, but he resisted.

Spoiler:

Chara had given their life so that Asriel would get a chance to collect more human souls to break the barrier and free the monsters. And then, Asriel backs off, after Chara is already dead. It was the plan. The last tape shows that Asriel knew that. He just couldn't bring himself to go through with it when confronted with the actual situation of having to kill people.

Spoiler:

also can we please not forget the fact that Chara actually grabs the player's soul, something which literally should not be possible by the game's canon? (Monsters can't absorb Monster Souls, and Humans can't absorb Human souls.)

Spoiler:

I am pretty sure that, at that point, Chara does not qualify as human anymore...

[Mr. Sacchi]

Spoiler:

I don't think "laughing off" something bad that happens means that it is done intentional, nor that one actually finds it funny. And the "I'd never doubt you" could just as well be uttered between two protagonist friends in a shonen. I mean, it can, easily, be interpreted the way you do. There is nothing really proving either interpretation over the other. But I prefer mine for the reason stated at the end of my last post, heh.

Spoiler:

The problem is that the line "I'd never doubt you" comes right after Asriel shows resistance to Chara's plan, and he even says "no...no..." right before the line itself. It's really not hard to believe that these two did not have the healthiest of relationships.

[ふねん1]

So I first discovered this game through Jaimers' no-hit bosses video, but I didn't end up playing it for the first time until a few days ago. However, I didn't go in completely unspoiled like people so frequently recommend. Even when watching Jaimers' video, I didn't think the gameplay (at least the bullet hell part of it) looked all that intriguing, and for a while I didn't think I would want to play it myself - I could just watch playthroughs on Youtube if I wanted to see the story (which I ended up doing anyway). Eventually though, I started feeling a stronger urge to at least try it out and see how everything feels... and I still can't say I'm that interested by the gameplay beyond its story significance. Ironically, I wonder if it's because I've played Touhou games for so long that the patterns in Undertale don't stand out. The bosses are a bit more fun than the regular enemies at least, especially once their special mechanics kick in.

And of course the story is still very good overall, even if I had spoiled myself first.

Spoiler:

Chara

is the part that stuck out to me the most - I've found that many of the stories that have stuck with me the most over the years are deconstructions of some kind, and this character is no exception. I know I'll be viewing RPGs differently from here on out. Though, in Undertale's case I'm actually playing for precisely the same reason that

Spoiler:

Chara

would, so I guess it only made sense for me to enter their name at the beginning. :V

There's been something  else I've been thinking about lately. Completing a Genocide run only affects the Pacifist endings, correct? Am I the only one who doesn't find that quite as jarring as others make it out to be? Let me explain. Even after doing a Genocide run, afaik you can still fulfill the conditions for a Pacifist run, and you'll get the same endgame sequences where you defeat the TLB and everything else in the Underground seems hunky-dory like in an untainted Pacifist run. The only reason

Spoiler:

Chara taking over Frisk in the two Pacifist endings

avoids a "bad guy wins out of nowhere" situation is because

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you know that you had to sell Frisk's soul to make that happen

. But even so (again afaik),

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Chara's

influence doesn't really show up anywhere else in the main story (outside of the usual dialogue changes that come up from previous playthroughs). Maybe this is a case of me expecting too much of it, but I would've thought going into this that

Spoiler:

Chara

would have found other ways to more directly screw with attempts at a Pacifist run.

[Mеа]

Spoiler:

Mmm, this Chara as narrator theory makes a lot of sense. I guess omniscient narrator doesn't make much sense as far as this game is concerned. It makes me question, though, who is Frisk? Also who is the player? Is the player Frisk? If not, who is Frisk that they are controlled by some outside force? And why does Frisk make all these different choices all the time? Are they really just a player avatar? But Chara does seem to distinguish between Frisk and the player.

[Iryan]

Spoiler:

Mmm, this Chara as narrator theory makes a lot of sense. I guess omniscient narrator doesn't make much sense as far as this game is concerned. It makes me question, though, who is Frisk? Also who is the player? Is the player Frisk? If not, who is Frisk that they are controlled by some outside force? And why does Frisk make all these different choices all the time? Are they really just a player avatar? But Chara does seem to distinguish between Frisk and the player.

Spoiler:

Frisk is their own person. You, the player, are an outside entity, an anomaly of great determination that influences the world through Frisk as your avatar. But if you choose to let Frisk act in a way that is congruent with their own nature, their true self and identity prevail in the end (i.e. playing through true pacifist allows you to learn Frisk's real name and establishes them as a seperate entity from the player, which does not happen on other routes.)

Basically, you are a god with Frisk and the monster world as your playthings, and if you ever do a genocide run, or even just reset after the true pacifist ending, you are probably not a benevolent one.

Of course, through the power of headcanon

Spoiler:

and the confirmed multiverse theory, you could argue that by copying and preserving the savegame file after a true pacifist (or any other) playthrough before resetting, you are merely taking control of another, unrelated timeline, rather than erasing the previous one with a happy ending completely, thereby keeping your hands clean. In a way.

Or you could come to terms with your own actions.
Or you could just completely unsuspend your disbelief and treat it as just another game.

Spoiler:

You monster.

[cerulean_blues]

Spoiler:

Am I missing something or is Alphys, as written, completely self-involved and lacking empathy towards others?  She only worries how things will affect her, and it makes it hard to see her as a sympathetic character.  The other characters seem to be aware of their flaws and struggle with them to some degree, but I feel like Alphys misses the point.  With her having a date scene in the game I expect she is supposed to be a sympathetic character, so this feels like a flaw in the writing.  Either that or I've missed something.

I really would have liked the ability to confront Alphys after MTT spills the beans.

Honestly I think the Alphys section is the weakest part of the game, there's no variation in how she interacts with you regardless of if you're going on a killing spree or not, no response if you've killed Undyne, etc.

I didn't dislike the content that was there, mind you, it was just a lot more linearly scripted than the rest of the game.

It's true that the Alphys-related parts had a couple of plot holes, and yes, your choices of interaction are limited with her, but I think she remains an very interesting character.

For me one of the big appeal of Undertale is that it's the story of badly broken outsiders.

Spoiler:

Most of them would be diagnosised with PTSD and/or depression. Most of them are haunted by a troubled past to say the least, sometimes one that is not even fully explained like Sans and Chara. Undertale tells you how they deal with it.

Alphys is perhaps one of the most broken one, as the True Lab section painfully reveals. It is constantly implied that she is on the verge of suicide. She's the reminder that a life of rejection, guilt, shame and self-loathing will eventually tear you apart. In a scale from Sans to Flowey in ways to deal with PTSD and depression, she is around the middle. Not strong enough to put on a brave face and keep cracking jokes with Cathy and Bratty, as Sans would probably do. Not broken enough to destroy the whole world in a fit of anger, Flowey-style(even though creating Mettaton could have been a nice attempt at this). What Alphys can do, is play the vain, self-absorbed, caricatural otaku, and - literally - hide in the basement. And maybe kid herself in painfully awkward, broken relationships, like the ones with Mettaton and Frisk. This is what she does, playing dumb, because she cannot face the world and the shame, because she cannot face herself and her desires. She is a reminder that narcissism is not vanity for vanity's sake, it can be a cover for much bigger issues, just like humor, or, on the totally opposite scale, sociopathy.

Alphys has a special distinction in the game. She's the only major character you cannot fight. I think that could have been both a strength and a weakness in the way she was inserted in the plot.

Her fate rests entirely in your hands in the neutral scenarios. She's one of the character with the most variations in scenarios in the neutral endings. Even though you do not lay a finger on her the entire game, your actions can actually kill her post-game(when I realized that it blew my mind, good job Toby Fox), as in many neutral endings it is heavily implied that she commits suicide. Put her on the very edge, however, and she becomes the heroine. She becomes the queen in the no-mercy neutral end, and makes sure to tell you how much of a barbaric monster you've become. She makes a vain attempt to save the Underground's population in the genocide route.

By the way her role in the neutral scenario is quite ambiguous. She's pretty much a double agent. Even though she doesn't even seem to be aware of that. Which tells you a lot about her indecision and a lack of self-awareness.

When I first met her I automatically assumed she was a cheap shot at the stereotypical JRPG audience by Toby Fox("look at this stereotypical otaku loser who reminds me of myself or [close friend X]", the main twist being that she is female). Which would have fit the game's tone very well, by the way. But Alphys is a bit more complex than that, really. Or is she? This is the beauty of Undertale, you do not really know where you stand with most of the main characters.