"You write Sans as too nice!"
"You write Sans as too mean!"
Guys imma remind ya'll of a very important thing when it comes to my husband. Which is,
Sans is an extremely mysterious and furthermore extremely flawed character. Toby Fox literally said he wanted Sans to feel real so like most people there's a lot of layers and complexity to him
Not to mention similar to most people we know, we just don't have the full context behind a lot of what they do. This is especially the case with Sans.
Also should go without saying but this is about Vanilla undertale Sans, not his AU counterparts where their entire gimmick is that they are nicer or more evil than bis default self.
The first one "you write Sans as too nice", Sans is not a character known for cruelty
He's friendly if cheeky toward the player / Frisk, strictly talking within the pacifist route. While we'll talk about that whole promise to protect later but this isn't something exclusive to just the player or player character
Sans is established to be fairly popular and openly friendly within the underground, he has a decent amount of friends and people seem to like him. While I wouldn't call Sans a goodie two shoes that goes out of his way to constantly help others clearly he's established to a friendly and chill dude
Also while clearly he loves to play pranks and goof around, he's also down to go alone with the players antics as well to a certain extent
All this indicates that Sans is a good natured guy for the most part, plus it's worth nothing it's very implied that the reason Sans has so many jobs is to afford the place he and Papyrus live at
Sans sounds pretty nice, there's a lot of basis that allows you to interpet his character in a very positive light
Onto the next one "you write Sans as too mean"
Sans can do some shady shit
Granted he immediately attempts to play it as a joke and it's unclear how serious Sans is actually being here, not to mention his motivation behind saying this. The dramatic timing with the music stopping and everything certainly IMPLIES he wasn't joking but there's some room for interpretation. Besides I wouldn't be surprised if he was serious but wouldn't have followed through when the time came but more on that later
Also a friend pointed out while he jokes with everyone, he only plays pranks on Frisk, while we can assume he does it to other monsters we only witness it done to Frisk
Pranks can be interpreted in a variety of ways depending on your relationship with the person doing them, and whether or not you find the pranks funny. I found Sans to be funny and most did but, not everyone will
Trying to sell snow to a little kid (even if he doesn't follow through on the extremely high price), asking you to foot the extremely pricey bill at Grillby's (though again he doesn't follow through) the telescope prank or volunteering to stack hotdogs on someone's head without asking...all of this could be seen as passive aggressive forms of bullying. Not saying I think it is or at least if it was, that it likely wasn't all intentional on Sans' part.
At the end of the "dead where you stand" speech, this can casts his past actions in a negative light, he tells you he was, "Just kidding." Where is the humor in a "joke" like that? And then for the bonus round, he'll make a smart alecky comment that goes something like, "I've done a good job looking out for you. You haven't died a single time!"
But anyone who isn't a master at undertale gameplay (most players especially first time ones) has died at least once upon leaving the ruins if not SEVERAL times by this point
And Sans knows of resets, so this is him being a bit of a dick here tbh. Unless you go the route of assuming that Sans is truly completely 100% oblivious which the game doesn't support even if it's amusing to think about
Now on the trust pacifist ending at least we get solid confirmation, that Sans likes Frisk and is their friend but there's a lot of ambiguity about where this starts in game. Did he straight up not like Frisk at the start but kept his promise reluctantly? Did he only change his views at the end of true pacifist? Did it change in-between the journey? Or were all these pranks really just good natured and Sans never meant ill will to begin with? Up to you, which brings us to the next point
Though obviously the context for the genocide route vs the pacifist route are entirely different, I do think the information we're given reframes some of his actions in the pacifist route. We all wanna rag on Sans for threatening a literal child but-
We have the ability to reset. Which need I remind you the only other character we know for a fact had this ability was Flowey. Who uh, is not a good dude need I remind you and he did his own genocide routes in the past. The difference between us the player doing a genocide route is that we followed through until the end, Flowey didn't.
It can be a bit harsh but idk about you, if I found out someone, even if that someone WAS a kid had the ability to control time like that....would you trust them? Would you like them right off the bat regardless of how good of a person they seemed?
Of course how much Sans remembers different timelines is unclear and again entirely up to interpretation, for the most part he is aware of resets but doesn't remember them. But I have seen theories arguing he does so again depending on the context here this can reframe Sans' actions.
Also worth noting that he does mention that he did want to befriend the anomaly (the player/frisk), thinking they just needed a good laugh or something akin to that. Which certainly could indicate his pranks were truly good natured and not an attempt at bullying, but also he could just be saying this to throw the player off. Sans is not above using manipulation to get the player to stop, i.e him pretending to spare us for example
You're quickly noticing a trend here.
Sans may be doing something with the best of intentions, Sans may be just being a straight up dick. Sans does not wear his heart let alone his true intentions on his sleeve. Which is why he's such a compelling character to begin with.
That's not to say we know NOTHING about him, he cares about Papyrus clearly, he cares about Toriel (I will come back to this too dw), he's shown to be extremely clever, observant and he definitely does like jokes. The takeaway should not be that Sans is some unknowable character, the takeaway should be a lot of things are simply unclear about him. Much like people we know irl.
Think of Sans like a puzzle, we have some pieces but some are missing and while we can actively do our best to fill in the blanks we'll likely just never know the complete picture
However, a common theme with Undertale is there are no bad people simply people put in difficult situations with no right answer. Which brings me to the neutral routes which given the sheer number of neutral endings there are it'd be impossible to cover them all ESPECIALLY since this post is already super long
I will address a few things
The first one being "why doesn't Sans intervene when the human starts killing?" well the reason can vary depending on the extremity of the players actions here, however we have to address the main thing here.
We can debate how much Sans actually remembers about different timelines and previous resets all day, but he is aware of them. To quote the man himself if YOU lived everyday of your life knowing you'll just start over like your previous actions just didn't happen....what would you do?
The man is DEPRESSED as a result, he keeps through the motions but he has given up and doesn't believe his actions matter. Does that justify not doing anything up until the VERY end of the genocide route and straight up not doing anything in more brutal neutral routes?
Hard to say. Would you do though?
Sans knows who he's dealing with. It does not matter what he does he can't stop you. The only reason he trys in the genocide route is BECAUSE YOU'RE ABOUT TO END THE FREAKIN WORLD
Plus someone pointed out in a weird way waiting that long to see if you ever change your ways or show even an ounce of mercy by sparing a single monster is in a way holding true to his brother mentality of even the WORST person can change
Also remember he doesn't just NOT give a fuck if you kill everyone he cares for, Sans doesn't take action against you because he knows there's no point but Sans never goes "okay lol" he is very much upset at you ESPECIALLY if you kill Papyrus or Toriel
I couldn't find the screenshot of it but I believe in one of the neutral endings where you do kill toriel and papyrus he basically goes "you better watch yourself kid," implying he might actually hunt you down. Not 100% clear if the threat is meant to be interpreted that way, it could be more of a "stay away" than a "I'm coming for you" but still
Plus in some neutral endings he shows legit regret over not doing more
Now I've established Sans can be nice, Sans can be cruel or just kinda mean, Sans does a lot of things that pretty ambiguous in terms of intent, but Sans is also extremely flawed. Which brings me to the finale conclusion of this character analysis (?) (whatever you wanna call it?)
Now, this is not a Soriel post even if I do admit I like the ship. However, people who act like he doesn't care about her are legit smoking crack, his promise to her was legit to comfort her, he gets along with her, in one neutral ending becomes her roommate and is actively upset by her death
Regardless of how you wish to interpret that relationship, clearly he cares about her and the two have a strong bond.
But as many people have pointed out....Sans actually does break this promise, he doesn't really do anything to protect Frisk throughout the entire game unless you count not trying to kill them on sight. Now granted with resets being a thing this creates something of a loophole
Cuz yeah Frisk did die but didn't die ya know? They can come back. There's no perma-death
But while we all want to hold Sans up to the standard of being this ultimate protector, here's something to point out that I feel like a lot of people tend to forget
Sans has 1 HP, think about that. What does that mean for him as a monster? One hit and he dies, literally, one hit. I've seen some people make the argument that HP doesn't stand for Hit Points, it's stands for HoPE
What happens to monsters when they lose enough hope? They fall down. They die. So not only is Sans physically weak but honestly I think my human standards he'd be chronically ill as if he has one hope could he literally die at any moment?
Now. Granted there is a theory that the characters choose to display their stats and that they say so this could again be Sans trolling or straight up lying but if we're going to take the "you'd be dead where you stand" line at 100% face value then we take this at 100% face value
Can Sans really be that good of a protector or would doing so actually get himself killed?
Everyone talks about how hard the genocide fight is because THATS him acting as the games last defense to stop you. There is no one else. There will be nothing else if you continue. It's why he try so hard because he has to. There will be no more world. No more him. No more anything. He's pulling out all the brakes because otherwise he's just fuuuuuucked
If Sans followed Frisk around it'd take him getting barely hit for him to die, which while Frisk can reset imagine how tiring that would be. Sans is good at dodging yes, but he gets tired pretty easily. Now you can find workarounds sure but regardless it's a lot of hassle isn't it?
This also brings me to the reason why I don't think Sans would follow through if he did attack us right outside the ruins. How long would this man actually last in a pacifist fight? Especially if the human hasn't done any harm? I feel like he'd tire easily or quickly be talked out of it, Sans isn't a ruthless killer unless he's pushed to be one
How much can Sans actually do? Does he not act in the neutral routes not JUST because of extreme depression and a defeatist attitude but because he knows that he can't do much in a fair fight? Hell, even in genocide Sans has to actively fight dirty to be such a challenge
You can argue him not at least trying anyway is cowardly or bad, but idk man. If you were chronically ill and you knew for a fact this kid can just reset then come back life would you really bother? I don't think it's unreasonable to assume that the kid is fine and it's better to risk it
Frisk can reset sure, Sans can't. And Sans doesn't have any reason to trust Frisk would being him back to life if need be.
There's a lot of difficult questions to be asked here and decisions good or bad have been made, Sans is a good guy sure at least I think so but even good guys don't always know what to do or make the right decisions.
