I’ve seen a lot of anti-Soriel posts lately. I would like to do my best to counteract them because I think that there is an argument to be made for Soriel in the canon. I’ve given it a lot of thought and have got some screenshots for the game so without further ado, allow me to present the most overly in depth pro-Soriel post I’ve ever written.
Let’s break it down into the 2 major characters: Sans and Toriel, and how their individual personalities and tendencies make them such a natural match.
What do we really know about her, personality wise? Quite a bit, actually. She’s protective. She’s kindhearted. She’s compassionate. She’s hardworking. These are traits she’s always had but they are magnified through her struggles and her pain. Toriel copes with the immense heartache, emotional agony many of us could never imagine, by working extra hard to protect Frisk. You’ll notice that her house is very safe for them, with sharp objects hidden or filed down to keep them from getting hurt, even accidentally. She’s had years to prepare her house for the presence of children and even goes as far as to set up a curriculum for their education. Toriel begs Frisk not to leave the Ruins because King Asgore will kill them. She knows this because she has seen this six times before. Now, we all know this. But I think it bears repeating since all of this will become important at a later time.
We know less about Sans’s history but we do know quite a lot about his personality. Sans clearly suffers from depression, caused by being forced to reset over and over. “You can’t understand how this feels,” he says as you fight him, “knowing that one day, without any warning, it’s all going to be reset.” This knowledge also helps explain why his dialogue as a Lost Soul reflects hopelessness and pain: “just give up. I did.” But I think a lot of people misunderstand Sans’s character.
Many people call him lazy. But Sans isn’t lazy. In fact, Sans is one of the most hardworking characters in the entire game.
Preposterous, you say! But allow me to explain. What can be construed as lazy is actually a lack of motivation and a feeling of helplessness. But we know from the game that he loves his brother and actually puts effort into keeping him happy. He helped Papyrus make the costume that he now wears everywhere. He encourages Papyrus’s hobbies and friendship with Undyne. He berates you for calling Papyrus uncool. Little details that I don’t have time to map out here imply that Sans works very hard to keep Papyrus happy, from telling him his friends are on vacation when Papyrus is the only survivor to paying all of their rent to getting Papyrus the best books and toys while living in a very barebones (pun intended) room himself.
And if you don’t believe me about the rooms, see for yourself. Notice how Papyrus’s is full of toys and a nice bed and lots of decorations, even a computer:
Not notice that Sans has a much smaller room with the bare necessities:
Sans doesn’t even have bed sheets. No bookshelf. No computer. Absolutely nothing. He has worked hard to ensure that Papyrus is happy all while taking very little for himself. He may sleep on the job but Sans will work extremely hard for those he loves.
So what does this have to do with Soriel? Quite a bit. Both clearly will work very hard for those they love. But while Sans is a bit more standoffish, Toriel is warm and welcoming. Where Sans stops working when he feels things are hopeless, Toriel works harder. This balances the relationship quite a bit.
But here’s where things get interesting: their meetings with each other already change the other for the better. You can see the effects in the game if you’re looking.
Considering how much pain Toriel has endured, she seems oddly jovial when you meet her. She smiles a lot and even suggests you tell the Dummy a joke. Considering we do see Toriel’s pain when we spare her (”Pathetic, is it not? I cannot save even a single child.”), we know that the happier exterior masks her inner heartbreak. But the fact that Toriel is able to smile at all is, in part, due to meeting with Sans. Sans has helped her enjoy life a bit more and has staved off the depression.
Now how has Toriel impacted Sans? Well we know from what I said above the Sans will work extremely hard for those he loves. Therefore, we don’t see him working hard for anyone except two characters: Papyrus and Toriel. Papyrus is fairly obvious; he’s Sans’s little brother and he is the one thing keeping Sans sane through all the resets. But his interactions with Toriel have cause him to respect and even love her enough to spare Frisk in every single route except Genocide. In fact, let’s look at his Genocide dialogue. Before Sans fights you, he expresses his sorrow that he couldn’t keep his promise to her:
This has clearly been on his mind for a long time. He followed you, watched over you, tried to find any good in you to justify keeping his promise. He failed in that endeavor and makes the conscious decision to break the promise he made to save you from yourself. One could argue that he kept the promise in that he did try to keep you from having your soul taken. I wouldn’t call this laziness, I would call this motivation, which, as I said before, he usually lacks.
Time to address the elephant in the room: the old lady comment. A lot of anti-Soriels assume that this makes that possibility null and void. But I think if that’s the best argument you guys can come up with, it’s pretty indicative that you don’t have much to stand on. Toriel frequently refers to herself as an “old lady.” Why wouldn’t Sans use this terminology when she uses it on herself? It seems more like an affectionate term rather than him actually seeing her as an old lady.
Another piece of evidence that Sans is absolutely nuts about Toriel is the fact that she and Papyrus are the only characters to get a mention during his fight:
The Genocide fight reveals not only that he knows you’re resetting the timeline but that he remembers the resets. Don’t believe me? How’s this for an example:
Now where would Sans have heard the part about special attacks? No one mentions them in the Genocide run. He would have to remember Papyrus talking about them in a Neutral run. This just makes all the resets even more depressing. How old is Sans, anyway? Well we can assume he’s much older than he looks. He can’t age when he’s been reset so many times. That means, for all we know, he and Toriel could be the same age or within a handful of years of each other. The age argument really is a lame one because we know nothing about them in terms of their ages.
So… okay. I can hear you guys out there asking “that’s all fine and dandy but what about your argument for them becoming a romance? Why can’t they just be friends?
Well of course they can. But there is evidence for romance and it all comes from body language.
Let me break this scene down for you. First of all, look at what Toriel says here to Asgore, for whom she has nothing but disgust and contempt now:
This is a romantic nickname because Alphys and Undyne both address her as Toriel after the ending (Alphys in one of the dialogues after the True Ending and Undyne while calling for her to talk to you on the phone). But Sans?
Sans is the only character to call her that other than Asgore. Her former lover. This is not a coincidence.
Still not convinced? Okay, I’ve got more.
Notice how Asgore is depressed when Alphys and Undyne introduce themselves to Toriel:
He’s not crying. He’s just depressed. He acts this way from Undyne through Papyrus’s introductions. But check out how he reacts when Sans shows up:
Wide eyes. He’s surprised. Who is this strange man? Why are he and Toriel so chummy? He knows what’s going on. Check out Papyrus as well, he can tell something is up.
But check out how he continues to react:
He’s crying. Toriel has obviously found someone else. Look at the way they’re staring into each other’s eyes. Asgore isn’t stupid. He knows this isn’t just her meeting a best friend. This is her meeting someone she obviously likes a lot.
And the next thing you know, Undyne’s telling him to find someone else.
Look at the animation here. Sans and Toriel are standing right next to each other and staring into each other’s eyes. They’re positioned in such a way that it looks like they’re holding hands. This is not a coincidence because Alphys and Undyne also maintain that eye contact. And it’s not like they became a thing, right?
But here’s something else I noticed, and it’s definitely intentional. Sans and Toriel make eye contact again for a very brief section just before Flowey shows up.
And Papyrus is back to eyeing Sans suspiciously.
Now this eye contact thing may not be all that important but again, this is a device Toby used to imply a ship since Alphys and Undyne are the only other pair to stare at each other during this particular scene. You can even see it if you scroll up at the screenshots I already put down! So why would Sans and Toriel have the exact same body language as Alphys and Undyne in this scene, even to the point of making that eye contact again just for a couple of lines and having Asgore and Papyrus obviously react the way they do?
Come on, guys. It’s simple. Soriel may not be strictly canon but there’s a lot of evidence to imply that their interactions are headed that way.
One Asgo/riel shipper claimed that Sans and Toriel don’t talk about anything, they just tell jokes. We know that’s not true. Look at this line right here:
Now you could argue that she said this after all the events. And she probably said she baked pie for Frisk after Asriel’s fight. But she definitely was talkinga bout baking before that scene. Check out this little part of the hangout/date with Papyrus:
Sans? Lazy Sans decided to bake something? Why would he do that? And Papyrus goes on to say that the thing Sans bakes was like a quiche but filled with a “sugary non-egg substance.”
Sounds like a pie to me. And where would Sans have gotten the idea in the first place? Toriel.
Still not convinced? How about this line?
Looks like it wasn’t just jokes. She was talking about her baking. Sans was talking about Papyrus. I think the evidence speaks for itself. Also, you could say that they only talk about superficial things. Sure. But please give me your evidence that they definitely don’t ever talk about the superficial. You have none. Just has I have none that they do.
We know they don’t know each other’s names. But that’s about it. Sans can even tell if she’s upset without seeing her face so I’d say he knows a bit more about her than “she bakes.” As for why he doesn’t know about the human stuff, that’s some pretty dangerous information. Toriel has her reasons for not revealing herself to Sans and it’s mostly to do with the fact that she wants to be separate from the world. That doesn’t mean they didn’t have deep conversations. But they kept things to themselves that they kept from everyone else. You can’t fault Sans for not telling Toriel things he won’t even tell Papyrus. And you can’t fault Toriel for not telling him things she wouldn’t even tell you. That doesn’t mean they didn’t get to know each other. Only that anything related to their identities were kept secret, as they were from everyone else. If true love means spilling every secret you’ve got, I’ve got quite a few Alphy/ne criticisms to talk about too… But the fact remains that deep discussions can be had and two people can get to know each other very well despite not knowing their true identities or every single secret they keep. This is a nonsensical argument, to be honest.
Oh I could go on about why Soriel is far more likely to be canon than Asgo/riel. Let’s talk about the fact that Toriel became disgusted by Asgore’s actions and left him as a result but that he still continued to do what he did even though he wanted Toriel back. Why’s this important? Because Sans keeps his promise, even when you kill both Papyrus AND Toriel. This proves that Sans’s devotion to Toriel is even more important to him than the entire Underground where Asgore selfishly refused to go back on what he said when he realized that what he was doing was so wrong. He was unwilling to sacrifice anything for Toriel where Sans was willing to sacrifice everything. Additionally, as I said before, it could be argued that Sans does keep his promise in Genocide since he’s trying to save Frisk from losing their soul. In a twisted way, killing them kept them safe.
So, with all this evidence laid out in front of you guys, how about Asgo/riel shippers stop accusing Soriel shippers of having no evidence or no deeper reason to ship Soriel. There’s plenty of evidence and there are plenty of deep reasons to ship it. And the evidence suggests that Soriel is, or at least will be, canon.
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