I bring a “Undyne’s violence against the player being treated more sympathetically then the players violence against Undyne or the other monsters is good and on purpose” vibe to the UT fandom that people who don’t want to analyze what UT has to say about power, responsibility, and oppression REALLY don’t like.
“But self defense” What are you defending yourself against friend? You can’t die, cant get permanently injured or harmed, you are literally the most powerful person in the underground due to being human. You have nothing to lose when fighting Undyne other than progress.
Meanwhile Undyne is the “hero of monsterkind” fighting to free her people from the collective punishment that she had been forced her entire life to live under to spite having nothing to do with the initial human-monster war. What Undyne does to you is wrong, and is presented as such, but it’s also presented as an understandable reaction to a legitimate grievence against the actions of an oppressor that you (as a human) have the power to mend.
Which is why when you DONT either by killing monsters before meeting Undyne or by killing Undyne herself the game calls you out and guilt trips you for it. Either with Undynes dialogue
(You did it because it was easy, because it was fun)
Or via Undynes extended death sequence. Which is in my opinion one of the saddest deaths in the entire game. FR watch Undynes neural death scene on YouTube it’s harrowing.
“But dying over and over is traumatizing” cool fanfic idea! But it’s not supported by the original text. The only times Frisk is implied to be particularly shaken up about dying is during the Asgore fight and during the Flowey fight. Even then the former is just them losing count while fighting Asgore, while the latter seemed to make them more pissed and stubborn then sad and afraid. There are instances in Undertale where Frisk is shown BEING SCARED (like when they first meet Undyne in Waterfall) but dying itself specifically has not really shown to be a point of ptsd driven angst for Frisk.
UT IS NOT STARS IN TIME. The way it explores the effects of resets and reloads as an in world mechanic is much more about how having that much POWER the POWER to treat the world like a game and TRAP YOURSELF IN THE PAST FOREVER, hurts and CORRUPTS you. Less about how dying and resetting sucks and gives you ptsd.
This is in part because, outside of the end of pacifist and very specific scenes, Frisk is not a very well defined character. So at many points in the game “Frisk” is used as a vessel to talk about YOU on a meta narrative level. About the power you AS THE PLAYER have over the world.
People calling UTs treatment of violence “hypocritical” and complaining about how Frisk or the previous fallen humans dont get enough sympathy from the narrative are missing the point. The philosophy UT takes to the players/Frisks violence can best be summarized by this quote from Sans of you kill Papyrus on a neutral run.
“this is an odd thing to say, but...
if you have some sort of special power...
isn't it your responsibility to do the right thing?”
The answer UT gives to this question, over and over again, is a resounding YES. That you as a human in the underground (and on a meta level as a player in a video game) have all the power and thus all the responsibility.
You can disagree with this sentiment for one reason or another and think it’s unfair to Frisk but it IS a deliberate thematic and creative choice, not some accidental oopsy by Toby Fox.
