*emerges from lab, with messy hair, eyebags, and carrying a conspiracy board*
We've been thinking about Frisk's personality the wrong way! They're not either merciful or murderous, or flirty or childish. They're all of them at once. Their personality is one of possibly. They aren't one individual option, but choice itself.
They represent something we don't consider a part of their personality as a human, and that's something that makes them *so* human. Because humans aren't a set of choices, but all of those choices combined, and the drive and possibly to make any of them at any given moment.
They're not a blank slate or something you project yourself onto. They're their own character, you just help them choose.
The choices are always there, Frisk always has them. The choices are not ours, they're theirs.
The Frisk who flirts with every monster, being silly and becoming friends with them? That's Frisk.
The Frisk that's pissed off at everyone but still wants to be friends? That's Frisk.
The goody two shoes who's as nice as possible? That's Frisk.
The Frisk that does what is necessary to achieve the best ending? Frisk.
And the Frisk who kills off everyone, just to see what happens? Still Frisk.
They only allow the player to choose between a very specific set of actions. Fight, Act, Item, Mercy. And the ACTS change from monster to monster, only a few they seem really fond of staying the same.
As expected from a kid, they seem to be driven by curiosity. They want to know as much as possible about a given Monster. Conversations- there's quite the extensive set of options when calling someone. You don't have to give them any input for what to say if they choose to call anyone. Simply calling is enough.
It's implied they made quite a dirty joke if they're told to flirt with Toriel after calling her mom. Because believe it or not, kids sometimes know about weird topics without engaging in them.
Even their expression could be used as evidence: -_- is now they look- their eyes closed, they're allowing you to guide them.
Despite how people portray them, they're not a silent protagonist, they're not speechless. They're actually quite talkative.
It's like they recognize that you want to play the game, and that you can only do that by giving them choices. And they allow you to give them choices. But only those specific ones.
It's like they're saying "you can play, but you gotta play by my rules"
Not to mention the circumstances that have to happen for you to know their name.
Because despite all these options, the kid does have a preference. They want to be friends with everyone. Or at least, they want everyone to be as happy as they can make them. That's why, only once you manage to help them free everyone, you get to learn that they're called Frisk.
"You're not really [Player Name], are you?"
That? That's Asriel, not just acknowledging that Frisk is not his childhood friend and kindered spirit. The one he misconstrued in order to relate to them, who wasn't perfect, but still trying their best. He knows Frisk not them.
No, he's acknowledging that, despite everything, despite the choices made in their regard, Frisk is happy. Someone chose for them, but they did it by their rules. Everyone is happy, just like they wanted. And Frisk did not change as a person.
You do not learn Frisk's name if you do not appease them.
Instead, they disown your choices, and you by refusing to let you know who they are, if you don't make them happy.
If you do the opposite of what they want you to do, you only get what you've been doing reflected back at you.
By someone bearing your name but not your face.
And they? [Your name]? Chara? ? They will remind you, even if Frisk is gone, that you were the one to drive them away.
"You didn't follow the rules, you betrayed the trust I gave you. You proved yourself unworthy of control. I won't even allow you the illusion of playing through me anymore."
You thought you could do what you want with them, but now, they're rejecting you.
Despite how little control they seem to have, Frisk is the one pulling the strings.
Do you have any kind of headcanon or interpretation of Frisk’s history? Like why they climbed the mountain, what their life was like prior to the game's beginning, etc?
A lot of my headcanons about Frisk are ripoffs of sad Asian films about kids with bad parents. Or Matilda.
Mostly being a lonely child with self-centered, distant parents until some kind, rough-around-the-edges strangers brighten their life.
I feel like the game implies enough that Frisk doesn’t care one way or the other to return home to any family. I tend to interpret that as neglect, and that Frisk just comes and goes as they choose.Like, Frisk is the abandoned quiche. Their parents aren’t always visibly rotten, they’re not physically abusive. But they’re parental failures and don’t do much for their child’s needs and are mostly absent. Frisk is very independent as a result.
I’m more of a “I’ve got places to go” ending person myself. At least in that I feel like Frisk eagerly wanting Toriel to be “mom” doesn’t add up with wanting to leave the Ruins or get to the surface so badly. In my post-pacifist stories, Frisk still ends up living with Toriel, but continues the tendency to drift around and ditch home.
I think whatever their past, they don’t feel like they have roots, and have a hard time planting new ones. Like, you know in Earthbound how Ness gets homesick for his mom? Frisk has absolutely zero of that. If they feel any homesickness, it’s for a nebulous concept they’ve never actually experienced.
Personally, I think they just went to the mountain because they heard kids went missing there and were curious to check it out. Potential death be damned, because they really don’t care.
i actually dont really get how sans is mostly portrayed as a dad/uncle figure to frisk in the fandom while basically most of his interactions are just like how he does to a friend/stranger. i mean, i think the only thing people picked up from it is his way of talking and pretty much protecting them with toriel's promise? i see in canon he's kinda neutral to other characters except the one hes a bit close to like pap. idk its just my opinion and i cant stop seeing him as a regular friend of frisk
Yeah, in canon he IS pretty neutral to Frisk. That’s like, his defining character trait besides being a goofy weirdo.
The idea though is that that coolness towards Frisk we see in the game is a product of Sans’ situation, his depression, his apathy, his pessimism.
He drops hints throughout the game that, either because you’re a human or because you’re the anomaly, he expected worse from you (”dead where you stand”), but HOPED for the better (”I was hoping we could’ve been friends”).
So given a more optimistic outlook and a better ending, his behavior might become warmer too. During the game he’s holding back on committing one way or the other on whether he likes you. In “Whatever Happens After The Game” land, I can see him making a firmer decision to hate you or love you.
Since most people write a True Pacifist Frisk, Sans is reacting to a kid he looked out for that ended up being really really great. I don’t think it’s that much of a stretch to write them as having a strong bond after the game. YMMV on how strong or what kind of bond it is. But given how he’s all in on Papyrus, I like imagining that when he cares, he cares hard.
Personally, I picture the two of them being in some weird fuzzy grey zone of close but “family-adjacent.” Not necessarily seeing each other as “dunkle and nibling” but… “in this together.” …Or at the very least, “i’ll always have your back, because i’m still contractually obligated to do so.”
If Frisk really doesn’t have family on the surface as it seems to be implied, then I think by necessity, the monsters would raise Frisk (not just Toriel, but all the others too). Sans would be a part of that group. Probably very significantly, since he’s besties with Toriel. It’s not like he intends to be the primary male figure in Frisk’s life and he doesn’t put effort into being a role model, but oops. That’s just how it worked out.
1/2 I'm having a lil trouble to understand why so many people think we are playing as the child we name in UT. To me it is rather obvious that we're playing as Frisk, the child that barely speaks (never hearable to us) or does anything by themselves, has an ambiguous gender, past, personality, skin color and even facial expression. Or short - is pretty much made for us to inhabit.
2/2 Chara, on the other hand, has a really clear personality and we're not only knowing a lot about them and their past, they are also commenting on everything we do as Frisk in the game. While I get that it is not made really clear as who we play because the two big endings addressing us either as Chara (pacifist) or Frisk (genocide), I'd rather think we are supposed to be Frisk most of the time.
The dialogue directly addressing Chara (Flowey’s post-pacifist plea, “It’s me, Chara”) is probably the biggest evidence for it. And Frisk also does do some actions and have facial reactions on their own, not controlled by the player.
It’s possible there’s a mix of who we’re “controlling” at any given time, depending on the route and scenario.
But there’s two basic ways of looking at the main character(s) that I think equally make sense:
You are playing as Frisk influencing Chara. Chara’s essence(?) comes when you call it (name your player). Your bad deeds encourage Chara to take up their old hatred of the world. Your good deeds soothe the soul and allow forgiveness. Chara mentions being confused about why they were brought back. Depending on what you do as Frisk, you show them the reason. In regards to “It’s me, Chara” in a Genocide route, it may be that it’s not Chara speaking to themselves, but rather that you’ve become something that Chara recognizes as themselves, similar to the way Flowey/Asriel calls Frisk “Chara” when that’s what he wants to see.
-or-
You are playing as Chara influencing Frisk. Either Chara learned from their previous mistake or is doubling down on their anger depending on what you pick, and is pushing Frisk in either direction. The “angel or devil on the shoulder” scenario. The flavor text shows a lot of NarraChara evidence (though it IS just a theory and not explicitly canon). So if the flavor text is not Frisk, then it’s reasonable to imagine that making choices in the menu is also not Frisk. Plus, if we’re naming the fallen human, it makes sense that that person is likely the one we’re playing as. (Though IIRC the game is careful not to refer to that as “your name” at any point.) Then, after Frisk has clearly left the picture in a post-pacifist route, “you” still exist as Chara.
I’m a little more in camp A than camp B, personally. There’s a part of me that wonders if you are Frisk in most routes, but Chara in only the Genocide route. But I don’t think I like the idea of there being a switch “from good to bad” that way, since you can always abort at any point. It would go against the game’s moral complexity themes if one character was distinctly the good one, and one the evil one. Both their moralities are completely up to how you decide to play. That’s how I feel, anyway.
It doesn’t entirely explain why you are addressed differently at each ending though. Why Chara talks to you. Why Flowey calls you Chara. The big problem is we don’t get to see where Flowey figures out that there’s a distinction between Frisk and Chara as the person resetting. Last we saw, Asriel admitted Frisk wasn’t Chara. Then on the next time starting up the game, he knows Chara exists separately from Frisk and is the one triggering the resets, AND can address them directly.
So... I don’t know how strictly that ending should be followed, tbh. There are a lot of instances in the game where characters say and do stuff because it sounds like the thing to do (read: it’s cool and/or funny), but it doesn’t make sense with the rest of the plot. The game doesn’t take itself super seriously, so you can probably get away with whatever theory you like.
I found it really unrealistic for Frisk to be an Ambassador. I mean they are a child. Which adult human would actually care about what a child has to say about an important political issue like that?
I think it’s more of the idea that “here’s a human that doesn’t hate us and that we didn’t kill! Look, we can be friends!” Asgore probably does the heavy political stuff. Frisk’s just there to keep everyone in the room from screaming when they see Asgore.
I figured Frisk’s biggest role was helping to “translate” human concepts to monsters on their way to the surface. There’s going to be a lot that monsters don’t know about. It’s good for them to have a human that they trust who can say things like “don’t freak out guys but this is what we call thunder and lightning,” “don’t greet humans with magic, that hurts us,” and “this is a toilet.”
Ambassadors don’t really make the policies, they’re just the go-between to represent their countries and culture. Frisk’s job might actually be more or less “done” after the initial transition to the surface.
Why do you think nobody uses Frisk's full personality potential? There's so much you could add other than them being a little angel. And I really like your Papyrus, he's so much like the game Papyrus. You're really good at getting his personality right!
I think it’s just to offset the common interpretation of Chara as the perfect little devil. When you’re super bad you plainly get Chara. When you’re super good you plainly get Frisk. And we don’t get much in the way of Frisk’s personality in the game so it’s hard to know what else to do with it.
I’ve seen some different interpretations of Frisk that I’ve really liked. But mostly the “non-angel” Frisks come from stories that... are actually about Frisk? Haha! I think you see “good noodle” Frisk so often because they’re mostly being used as a plot device for one of the other characters (read: Sans). I’m sort of guilty of that too. I haven’t totally figured out what I want to do with Frisk as a character yet.
Pap is really, really hard to get right. He’s so steeped in the game’s brand of humor that I don’t think I’m clever enough to replicate lmao. I’ve only read like, two fics that I thought nailed it.
Half of him is taking things at face value and being ill-informed, and the other half is being shrewd and manipulative and overthinking things. Usually when encountering something new or unknown, he errs on the side of optimism. IIRC he’s only particularly negative about things he’s familiar with (Hotland, Grillby’s), but it’s been awhile since I played the game. It’s a rough balance between the naivety and sharpness, and between being a sassmaster and a Pollyanna.
