Why are Kris, Frisk and Chara so similar? - An UTDR Timeline Analysis
simply put, DELTARUNE is an overlap between UNDERTALE's past and future. or either, UNDERTALE is a split between DELTARUNE's own TIME and SPACE.
it is stated on ralsei's unused manual that DELTARUNE's currently taking place in 202X. for the sake of clarity, let's suppose kris, susie, ralsei and noelle are all 15 years old and that the DELTARUNE events take place in 2020.
in UNDERTALE, it's stated that the child who fell to the underground in 201X was chara, let's suppose that this event ocurred in 2015, and that chara was 10 years old. asriel by that time was a little older than them, so it could've been 13 years old. let's call that time period UT's past.
it is indeed very safe to assume that dess disappeared in 2015 in DELTARUNE too. kris, susie, ralsei and noelle were all 10 while dess and asriel were both 13.
in UNDERTALE, we do not know what year it is when we play as frisk, it could have been decades, even centuries after chara's death. it is also very safe to assume frisk, susie and noelle are all 10 years old as well. the gameplay period is UT's future.
please take into consideration my shitty timeline illustration.
but that begs the question, how come the characters we meet in UT's future are also in DT if it takes place at the same time as UT's past?
the physical world of DELTARUNE is practically the same of UT's future, with some minor differences due to the events of UT's past never happening in DELTARUNE, and also that asriel and a new person with chara's unique traits are both alive by that time.
that is because frisk represents SPACE, meanwhile chara represents TIME.
(note that 'true pacifist' isn't definitive, i do not believe there is a correct UNDERTALE ending. all of them are also related to DELTARUNE.)
kris represents both TIME and SPACE. the three of them are, therefore, not different people, neither the same people. they can only physically exist because of each other, and none of them showed up 'before' or 'after' anyone, because there is literally no sense of chronological time in their relation between each other. kris is the bridge of communication for chara and frisk. kris, chara and frisk are a paradox.
kris is the room inbetween, the state between dream and reality, the prophecy lost to time and space.
UNDERTALE's timeline is also one where sans, papyrus and wd gaster were not supposed to exist in. it is a universe where everything worked perfectly without them... until they started to exist there too.
in case you don't know, i'll try to explain briefly, but in short it's very likely that sans and papyrus are originally from DELTARUNE, then at some point in the story they will stop existing in DELTARUNE and start to exist in UNDERTALE. this interpretation comes from various evidences, but some of them include:
sans is able to bleed in UT like susie in DT but unlike the other UT monsters.
monsters in UT state that sans and papyrus just 'showed up' out of nowhere.
papyrus remembers vaguely how life was before he and sans moved to snowdin, he states 'the grass was green' but gets interrupted by sans.
papyrus has heard of toilets isn't sure of how they look like (there are toilets in DT but not in UT).
in UT sans states multiple times he wish he went back to the past, but was never able to, similar to frisk's journey trying to go back home.
'it's raining somewhere else' track in UT has a complementing track in chapter 4 called 'the place where it rained'.
the lab behind sans' house has a photo with people frisk doesn't recognise, and the photo says 'don't forget'.
but also, wd gaster is very likely a relative to sans and papyrus. first name are fonts, the mystery man (heavily implied to be wd gaster's appearance) looks similarly enough to a skeleton, sans' attack is called 'gaster blaster', in chapter 4 toriel conveniently avoids using sans' last name despite calling him 'mister', and i doubt heavily he is actually called 'sans sans'.
taking all that into consideration, it isn't too much of a stretch to assume wd gaster is also a lightner living in DT who will be transported to UT along with sans and papyrus.
but when in UT timeline are the three of them going to appear in?
this is definitely before chara's death.
when the monsters got trapped in UT, they got to the bottom of the cave and built HOME/the ruins (where is exactly under mount ebott) from fear of the humans. they wanted to distance themselves from the barrier the most they could. after chara fell and got adopted by toriel and asgore, the monsters were filled with hope and started to expand their exploration towards the barrier. first snowdin was founded, which is probably where sans, papyrus and gaster first appeared. after this came waterfall and hotland. by some time around there, wd gaster was given the role of royal scientist and the true lab. gaster helped the underground by building the CORE after hotland was expanded, and only then was when NEW HOME was built. chara and asriel died together while living in NEW HOME.
the experiment that shattered gaster across time and space was definitely the one related to the dark worlds. we don't know when it was done, but it was some time after the CORE was built.
now i don't have much evidence to back the rest, but here's the general idea of what i think happened.
the reason for gaster's experiment with dark worlds could have been because gaster wanted to get back to DELTARUNE with sans and papyrus. the dark worlds themselves may be what sent them to UT in the first place. i think by the end of DR lightners will be aware of dark worlds since the game is hyping a really big disaster involving light and dark worlds.
this is what led gaster to research dark worlds in UT, as a way of creating a portal that goes through the main dark world, ralsei's, and going back to the light world from there. it went wrong though, and gaster 'died' (or rather he became omnipresent), while sans was left alone with papyrus with no way of going back.
sans tried and tried to mess with gaster's machine but no success of opening another portal ever again, to the point he gave up and accepted his life in the underground.
by the time sans meets frisk, centuries since all this happened may have passed, which makes his story way more depressing. if papyrus is killed in the geno route, sans' feelings in his fight get clear as water. he first lost all his friends in DR, then gaster, then he was alone with papyrus, the last person he loved dies.
i hope you enjoyed my analysis and that it gives you a new perspective when looking at UT/DR. if you have any counter arguments or wanna correct me about something please let me know, i really don't like leaving my stuff outdated or straight up contradicting something.
