If we look at how almost every character in Undertale treats Papyrus, everyone talks about him as though he’s a young child despite him being either a late teen or young adult, and they all think of him as naive and innocent. However, the one person who explicitly states confidence in Papyrus (while also admitting he can be tricked easily by those who aren’t honest about their intentions) is Sans, Papyrus’s brother and therefore the one who knows him best. Additionally, in the neutral ending in which Papyrus becomes ruler of the Underground, we see him showing much more maturity than most characters give him credit for, even insuring a policy that humans can’t be judged all good or all bad–something we don’t see other rulers do.
Papyrus’s experience of being treated as childish and naive by everyone except his relatives despite showing a great deal of maturity is highly reminiscent of autistic teens/adults’ treatment in mainstream society and media. In this essay, I w
Jfc a couple of days ago this post was at 400. Well, I guess let me label this post:
Autism Explains Nearly Fucking Everything About Papyrus As A Person: An Essay
And I’m not just talking about the big stuff. I’m talking about some subtler details too.
(warning because this is gonna be long as hell)
To start, let me address arguably the most visible trait: Difficulty regulating emotion.
Without much explanation, this is easy to notice in Papyrus, so I’ll only go over it briefly. When he’s excited, such as when he sees Frisk for the first time, he gets really, REALLY hyped. When he’s annoyed or frustrated (like with the Annoying Dog’s various shenanigans), he yells or gets huffy. When he gets angry (such as when Sans asks him to look at the lamp), he gets really angry to the point where he starts stomping his foot.
Which leads me into my next point, and arguably just as easy to notice as the first thing: Stimming.
Almost no other character expresses their emotions through stimming like Papyrus does. Undyne, arguably the most impulsive character (especially when angry), expresses her anger by yelling. Her fighting the protagonist is less a result of her own anger and more a result of her duty. The only other times she gets physical are when she’s doing it for fun, like the multitude of points at which she rough houses with Papyrus.
Meanwhile, Papyrus? He stomps his foot on the ground when he gets mad. Furthermore, him rattling his bones in the middle of the battle could be a form of excited stimming.
The most noticeable example of stimming takes the form of echolalia, though.
His catchphrase, “Nyeh heh heh”? It’s not just the way he laughs. It’s something he repeats because he likes it.
Often related to stimming (although it doesn’t seem to be in Papyrus’s case) is sensory problems, such as sensory overload or issues with certain sensory input.
This one seems less obvious, but once you start looking for it you notice it EVERYWHERE.
Many of his gripes with Hotland could even be attributed to sensory-based issues. While he’s there, he complains about steam vents, lasers, conveyor belts, and various combinations of those elements. Not much could be said about the steam vents as far as sensory issues go (though arguments could be made), lasers and conveyor belts could easily be sources of sensory problems: lasers are bright and intense, and the movement from conveyor belts could easily cause problems.
Where he seems to have the most problems is with food. There are actually very few foods he’s willing to eat that we know of. Look at how he talks about Grillby’s.
He mentions repeatedly disliking Grillby’s because all the food is covered in grease. Grease is often a source of discomfort for many autistic people.
Additionally, on the Undertale Q&A Tumblr, the response to the first question “Papyrus, what’s your favorite food?” is:
When faced with uncertainty regarding a fact about himself, Papyrus’s first instinct is to ask Sans. And how does Sans, walking encyclopedia of all things Papyrus who could tell you just about anything there could be to know about him, respond to this question?
“beats me.”
In Undertale, we hear of many characters’ favorite foods, or characters just liking certain foods. With Papyrus, on the contrary, we only hear him complaining about food. Even with spaghetti, despite making it very frequently, Papyrus says himself that he’s never eaten it before.
What do we know of him actually eating? In the Q&A Tumblr, Toriel says she doesn’t know his favorite food, but usually packs him “a cheese sandwich, an apple, and some milk,” and later on, Flowey reveals his favorite food is “that oatmeal with the dinosaur eggs”. We don’t get any confirmation about anything else he’s willing to eat, or with any sort of frequency.
Often related to sensory issues is what often happens when it reaches a tipping point: autism shutdown.
The only place I know of where this can be seen is the phone calls in that one room in Waterfall with multiple echo flowers repeating things at each other (though it’s more known for having multiple slates on the walls).
If you call after befriending Undyne, Undyne will be the only one on the phone. She’ll briefly explain how the echo flowers being right next to each other results in them repeating their words back and forth to each other, distorting and overlapping until it becomes white noise. If you call again, she’ll get angry and tell you to “stop calling from that creepy room”.
If you call before befriending Undyne, however, and you get dialogue from Papyrus… briefly.
And if you try to call him again:
This feels less like him feeling creeped out and more like straight up distress. He doesn’t stop to explain why he has to hang up, or say anything about the room after asking about the weird whispering sound. He only has one thing on his mind: retreating from the sound. And you can’t get him to engage in conversation until you leave to another room.
Responding to certain (intense) sensory inputs with distress, trying to escape in any way possible, and needing isolation (even from a friend he really cares about) bears an uncanny resemblance to shutdown.
Many autistic people have special interests, whether it’s multiple or only one, and Papyrus definitely fits the bill for this.
Arguments could be made for his desire to capture a human and join the royal guard being special interest-related. I personally wouldn’t say it’s a special interest and more as a desire for recognition and to prove he’s a capable adult. (I’ll touch on this later, don’t worry).
Where else could Papyrus have a special interest, if not in capturing a human or joining the royal guard? Puzzles, of course!
Call him in any room where there’s a puzzle, and he’s gonna talk about the puzzles that are present. Whether he’s joyously explaining a puzzle, talking about the history behind a puzzle, complaining about Asgore wanting to put safety restrictions on the puzzles, or ranting angrily about Hotland’s puzzles, he’s talking about the puzzles whenever he can.
Hell, that’s not all we see of his special interest in puzzles. Look on his bookshelf, and he’s got a bunch of books on advanced puzzles, and Papyrus says himself that his favorite book is “Advanced Puzzle Solving for Critical Minds”.
And it doesn’t even stop there, either. More information from the Undertale Q&A shows that he even likes his sandwiches cut into mazes.
One often overlooked aspect of his character is how Papyrus thinks very visually, something common in a lot of autistic people.
When faced with a problem, Papyrus’s instinct is to approach the problem visually, whether it’s by looking at his surroundings to see if there’s a visible solution or making a diagram to help him visualize what’s going on.
When he realizes the protagonist is still in his room even after the date/hangout, his solution is to draw them a diagram of a door. Additionally, if you call him during the second steam vent puzzle in Hotland (the one with the flipping arrows), he says this before asking you to draw a picture (never mind how he can even see things through the receiver, maybe modern monster phones are just like that, maybe it’s just Papyrus):
The way he says this implies that being able to visualize the puzzle is absolutely critical for him to understand it at all.
There’s a hell of a lot more autism traits that Papyrus exhibits, but the last one I’m gonna go in-depth with is his trouble interpreting social cues/figurative speech/sarcasm, taking things literally, etc. (but I will have a short list of further autism traits I’ve noticed afterward).
Papyrus’s struggles with social situations can be seen multiple times throughout the game. In the date/hangout, there are various instances where he misinterprets the protagonist’s actions in one way or another, such as assuming their distaste in his spaghetti is approval, assuming that their clothes mean that they wanted to date/hang out from the beginning, and assuming that their kindness indicates a romantic interest or obsession with him, depending on whether you flirted or not.
Additionally, there are multiple phone calls with both Undyne and Papyrus in which Undyne’s lack of awareness of Papyrus’s problems with detecting social cues results in her accidentally confusing Papyrus. I don’t remember the context exactly, but after one phone call in Hotland in which Undyne gets angry at Papyrus for something (yet fails to explicitly state her anger), if you call again the dialogue is:
Furthermore, while Undyne makes a joke about how ducks suck the guts out of bread with its fangs, Papyrus gets confused and asks if bread actually has guts. Undyne, not realizing that Papyrus is asking a genuine question and not joking along, gives a joking answer, only to realize her mistake after Papyrus takes her answer literally.
Those are the major ones, but here’s a brief list of other traits that I’ve noticed Papyrus display:
Inflection that doesn’t reflect feelings/Seeming blunt, rude, or uninterested without meaning to (“You should take a hike. It’s good for your bones!” I can’t actually find the correct phrasing but that’s the general gist)
Often invents words and expressions to describe things (“Boondoggle”; “Slightly bonetrousled”; etc.)
Volume/inflection control issues (He speaks in all-caps and uses exclamation points more frequently than everyone else)
Other speech quirks in general (”Wowie”, ”You didn’t do a violence!!!”, “You should learn a privacy”, etc.)
Participating in a restricted range of activities (Preparing puzzles, making spaghetti, etc.)
Finding it hard to make friends (“Once I reach a few dozen followers, I’ll finally have double digits!”; talks about having no friends frequently and his desire to have friends)
Liking to plan things carefully before doing them (The whole Snowdin Forest puzzle segment, honestly, especially how he explains the puzzles)
Forgetting names (Calling Napstablook “Spooky Bloo Bloo” and ”Napper Hog” and Flowey “Flowery”)
Interests in things that most would consider childish (In addition to advanced puzzle books, he also has various children’s books on his bookshelves, plus he has a race car bed, action figures, and a pirate flag–all things that most people his age would think are childish or immature)
Sleep problems/insomnia (He says he never sleeps because he’s always too busy, and he says this as though sleeping is an inconvenience as opposed to someone who doesn’t sleep from being overworked)
So, how does this relate to the initial post?
Well, seeing how various characters treat Papyrus (most noticeably Undyne since she arguably interacts with him the most, aside from maybe Sans), it would make sense that treating him as more “innocent” would be a result of him being autistic.
It’s not just how the characters treat him, either. A large part of the fandom (at least half, probably even more than that) belittles him and treats him like a child, or at least treats him as more innocent than he is.
(I don’t like saying this out loud, but god, I really, really hate how Papyrus gets treated by most of the fandom.)
At best, this is portraying him as not showing anger at things he’d normally get angry about.
At worst, this is directly contradicting his canon character with preconceived notions about his character as a result of treating him like a child or “innocent bean uwu”.
This is most obvious by the notion that he doesn’t understand death (he actually does, it’s just that people often lie to him about it to spare his feelings) or the notion that he’s oblivious to the topic of sexuality (he actually says multiple things suggesting the opposite is true: “I wish I had eight legs… so I could wear four pairs of hot pants!”, “I heard you got to meet Mettaton!! He’s my favorite sexy rectangle,” “I just want to have beautiful, bishonen eyes…”).
(like aside from my aroace!Paps headcanon this is legit the only problem I have with the Papyton ship, just have Sans and Paps be in character and I’d be fine with it)
The most blatantly I’ve seen people belittle Papyrus is the argument that the brother Sans is referring to in this line from the Undertale tumblr:
“besides, it’s rude to talk about people that are listening, right? not everyone is as tough as my brother.”
couldn’t possibly be Papyrus because, and I quote, “We all know Papyrus isn’t tough.”
Papyrus is tough. Undyne herself says that the reason she doesn’t let Papyrus into the royal guard isn’t that he’s too weak. She herself says that Papyrus is “pretty freaking tough”. Considering Undyne is captain of the royal guard, personally trained by fucking ASGORE, we can be fairly certain that UNDYNE finding anyone a challenging opponent means that they must be pretty tough in battle.
But Papyrus is also tough in other ways. Even when he faces off with the protagonist in a genocide route, he sticks to his principles of kindness despite acknowledging that they’re doing bad things and their life is going down a dangerous path. As I’ve said in another post, him trying to help you isn’t something to attribute to naivety on Papyrus’s part, but dickishness on yours if you kill him.
Heck, if you abort a genocide route by sparing Papyrus, he even says “TO BE HONEST, I WAS A LITTLE AFRAID…”
It’s not that he’s too naive or innocent to get his hands dirty. It’s that he believes that there’s a kind, nonviolent solution to things, even when faced with someone willing to kill him and potentially others, and he believes that everyone can change if they want to and try hard enough.
(Don’t pretend that that isn’t EXACTLY what the protagonist does in a True Pacifist Route).
Papyrus isn’t innocent or childish. Papyrus isn’t weak, either.
Papyrus is strong, kind, and a mature adult.
And Papyrus is autistic, too.
