also he gave his drink to undyne to try, thats what she's spitting out her mouth. trust guys, i totally didn't forget i gave him a drink. trust.
also I'd like to add on, undynes shock is a mixture of "WHAT YOU WENT ON A DATE AND DIDNT TELL ME????" and "YOU WENT ON A DATE WITH FRISK????" except that second part took a sec to process....
"THERE WAS ANOTHER HUMAN????" -undyne
i actually dont know how to explain this in words but please do you guys understand me??????
guys, please tell me if im going insane. omygod omygod omy god,
I think all Undertale fans need to put the concept of amnesia up on the top shelf until they learn what it means and/or can give some actual evidence of it being the case that isn’t easily explainable by something much more plausible.
Because tbh I’ve seen the “Papyrus has amnesia” theory most often used to either discredit everything he says, ignore potential evidence, bend the text to fit the theory instead of seeing if the theory fits the text, or to prop up Sans as some sort of special magic man who didn’t get the timeline jumper amnesia we’ve suddenly decided is a thing with meager evidence because he gets to be more special than his brother for some reason!
“But Papyrus forgets people’s names and can’t tell Toriel and Asgore apart—“
Name/Face blindness is not the same as general or situational amnesia. Someone can have difficulty recognizing someone or confuse someone for someone else without having had a traumatic event, injury, or time travel magic put on them. Someone can be missing several years of their life without forgetting people’s names. These are not the same thing.
The “Spooky Bloo Bloo” line in particular was more likely Papyrus just not remembering Napstablook’s name because he doesn’t go to Waterfall much outside of Undyne’s house. He has no reason to put much effort into remembering the name of a random neighbor of hers that he doesn’t talk to.
“But he doesn’t remember what the sun is—“
Bluntly wrong! He mentions wanting the “sun on his skin” to Frisk before that ending scene, he knows what the sun is.
We already know that Papyrus has a tendency to say he doesn’t know what things are and then totally contradict that later or in a different context. Without Sans’s presence, he’ll go on about how his brother loves sciencey stuff and totally have the preconceived belief that the “lab” is associated with “science”, proving that he knows what those are. When Sans is with him on the call, however, he will start acting like he doesn’t know what a lab is. There’s a good couple potential reasons for this (ragebating his brother, playing a role for the bit, perhaps avoiding a difficult/uncomfortable conversation, maybe hiding something from Sans specifically), but we know he’s lying because we already have proof that he knows what a lab is, which is a conversation with Frisk that can happen before or without ever having Sans present for that phone call. It’s not unreasonable to suggest that, considering he mentions the sun long before the ending of the game, this is another one of those cases. Especially because he’s surrounded by people who are experiencing the sun for the first time ever and has a reason to try to blend in here if he does in fact know what the sun is!!!
“But he trails off when trying to tell us about where he lived before—“
I have no idea why people are taking an example of Papyrus explicitly remembering something as a sign of amnesia. Like, when you say it out like that, doesn’t it seem kinda silly??? This is the big time we get to hear the man recount something and he does and because he ‘didn’t tell us enough’ before leaving, he has??? amnesia??? Hello???
This newsletter interview conversation was so clearly Papyrus avoiding an uncomfortable conversation he doesn’t want to be having while trying to be nice about it. We know that Papyrus is avoidant as hell of anything he doesn’t want people knowing about, we see him do this all the time. Papyrus is given a new pair of gloves and instead of taking his old ones off even for a second, he just puts the new ones on over his old ones. Papyrus sees (or hears about) the Core in the distance, hits us with the face sprite titled “depressed” in the files, and proceeds to pretend his phone does not work beyond a certain point despite Toriel’s still working far beyond the Ruins (if I remember correctly, her phone says no one picked up, implying that it did ring even way off into the Core). Papyrus, our engineering science textbook collecting nerd getting sent puzzle prototypes directly from Alphys who literally tells us to go to the Lab to find her when he suspects she’s returning to it for bad reasons, who straight up has a lab on the back of his house and is out building things all the time, who gets super opinionated about the conveyer belt laser air vent puzzles of Hotland and then real quiet about the Core aka the famous creation of W.D. Gaster, pretends he doesn’t know what lab is in front of his fellow science nerd brother. Of course he would try to avoid saying as much as possible about where he lived before Snowdin if it’s literally connected to other timeline shenanigans of Gaster-ish flavor because it’s obviously something he wants to avoid and ignore and keep other people from finding out about!!! Like yeah he’s gonna first try to get away with saying as little information as he can without turning down the question because he doesn’t want to be rude and then use his brother getting out of the shower as an excuse to leave an awkward situation in a way that absolves him of the fault for not actually answering the question, that’s the type of thing he does!!!!!!! Pretty often!!!
It’s also ironic that he lies and doesn’t tell the whole truth on things like this because he’s often kinda bad at lying! Example: he threw out “there was green grass” as a generic descriptor to attempt to explain where he lived without actually saying where he lived, answer the question without actually giving an answer ya know, and in doing that he literally told us “I’m from the surface” because there is no green grass in the underground!!! He!!! Also!!! Does!!! Stuff!!! Like!!! This!!! The whole “she’s going home! Very home!” conversation about Alphys going back to the Lab comes off so suspiciously that people are convinced it’s somehow not even him, despite the fact that Flowey has never demonstrated the ability to copy the face or voice of anyone who isn’t in his family let alone for the length of an entire decently sized phone call! He tries to lie about what Flowey’s name is and comes up with “Flowery” as a stand in! He doesn’t want to have uncomfortable conversations and pretends he doesn’t know what the sun is or that he’s never seen the back of his own hands! He yells “uh I have to go to the bathroom!” and jumps out a window as his excuse to get Frisk and Undyne to hang out alone for a while! He’s not even a very great liar! Why are we falling for it!!!
So, please, when you see a situation involving what Papyrus knows and does not know, consider first: is it way more plausible than timeline amnesia that the guy who lies and avoids things is lying and avoiding things again?
Okay so with a 2025 release for Deltarune chapters 3&4 confirmed I want to get this off my chest and document it for future me to either feel vindicated by or have a good laugh at how wrong it was. This has been eating me alive since the Valentine’s newsletter and I never said anything but I want this out there before anything new comes out.
Disclaimer: I have no idea if this is a theory other people have already made posts on or not because all I ever see is “it’s Gaster!” or “It’s not Gaster, it’s Dess/Egg Man/[Insert mysterious character here!]”. If someone has posted this theory before I missed it entirely. Not looking to steal anyone’s theory thunder here.
I’ve convinced myself this is Papyrus and just want to get my thoughts down here.
So. I see a lot of people talk about how the flippant and humorous way it’s written makes them think this isn’t Gaster. To get the Gaster stuff out of the way, my stance is that everyone has their own preferred idea of how they think Gaster acts and whether or not he could have a sense of humor, but we really have yet to learn a lot about him in canon. I don’t love us trying to make rules about what is and isn’t “in character” for him when we really haven’t met properly and have very little dialogue to go off of. I get a lot of people are basing their ideas of him being serious off Entry 17 and the popular assumption that the intro voice is Gaster. I think that’s fair and very understandable, but even still it’s only an extremely limited peek at what the guy is like. Point is, maybe he does have a silly sense of humor and maybe he doesn’t. I don’t want to entirely dismiss the idea that Gaster wrote this based on “it’s too silly, Gaster is serious!”. But I also think that the idea that because the speaker is a mysterious voice with meta knowledge of Deltarune that it MUST be Gaster is also a bit shaky.
Anyway.
Is it just me or does the bizarre roundabout way of phrasing things in the letter perfectly fall in line with how Papyrus speaks?
One of my favorite notes in the Undertale Legends of Localization book (HIGHLY recommend by the way, a really fascinating read) was this:
While yes, it’s important to bear in mind that this was the quote of a localizer and not Toby directly, I think it still rings very true for Papyrus’s character. Don’t really think I need a laundry list of examples for this point, right? Papyrus’s fun and unique way of speaking is such a memorable part of his character that you encounter in all routes.
Which is why it’s so interesting to me that this mystery writer seems to have a highly similar way of phrasing things in a unique and playful way.
The first one that really sticks out to me is the “I never forget someone I don’t remember.”
Really reminded me of the little bit you get after a post neutral run reset.
While not something I originally weighed in to my theory, it is worth noting that this bit between Papyrus and Sans occurs immediately after Papyrus has recognized Frisk after seeing them for this “first” time. This makes the mystery valentine writer’s preceding comment that they will know the forgotten person they are looking for immediately upon seeing them extra interesting.
This bit also stood out to me:
Because it also felt like very familiar phrasing. It took me a while to realize what it was making me think of.
Down to the quotations around a common phrase like it’s an alleged thing not a very common thing??? Like MAN.
While these were the only two parts I felt directly and strongly paralleled specific phrasing Papyrus has used before in canon, there were a few other things that caught my eye.
A faith in the power of love, and the power of belief.
(Yes, I realize the “even if you don’t think so” appears to negate the idea of Frisk’s beliefs being an important part of their ability to change, but I’d say Papyrus is still emphasizing that his beliefs are significant in this.)
Very strange that the writer doesn’t dismiss the idea that the person they have forgotten they wanted to help could be themself. How could you forget yourself? But then again…
And while not really the same degree of strength in a parallel, I just want to bring up that the letter writer remarks that the reader is odd yet reliable for responding out loud to a piece of written communication.
It is strange that the author seems to have still heard the reader’s out-loud reply to the letter. A weird instance where a mode of communication that has limits on what SHOULD be able to be perceived by the other person somehow has those limits broken and allows that person to comment on something they shouldn’t be able to perceive.
Kind of like if you were having a phone call with someone far away from you but they still seemed to somehow be able to know exactly what you were looking at and where you were. Where have we heard that before…?
Also come on. You can’t tell me “PUT ON YOUR COAT AND WASH YOUR FACE! OR, PUT ON YOUR FACE AND WASH YOUR COAT. NOT NECESSARILY IN THAT ORDER. OR, IN ANY ORDER AT ALL.” doesn’t sound like a Papyrus-ism.
I know some people may point out that Papyrus already has Valentines that are very explicitly from him in the newsletter, so it would be weird to have three that are and one that wasn’t. But I don’t think that necessarily should refute this idea. It could be possible the “signed” valentines are from Undertale’s Papyrus, and this one is from Deltarune’s Papyrus. Even if you subscribe to the idea that UT Papyrus IS DR Papyrus, this could simply be a letter sent from a different point in time.
Anyway, this has been eating me alive since February so I wanted to get it off my chest. Maybe this is completely off base, but interesting to think about.
so we know papyrus isn't the knight, we know he's locked in the house and hasn't left, but why? What led up to this?
Ive got a VERY delusional theory for you!!!!
I think he saw inside the bunker.
Lets start back at the beginning.
Assuming papyrus is following in undynes footsteps, he was most likely an officier, or officer-in-training around the time Dess went missing. Knowing his character, he was probably all-in on finding Dess. But how would he get the keys?
Simple!
The pastor probably could see that he was pure of heart, so he got that key easily. Carol was desperate to find Dess, we know this. so having Papyrus looking for her, he was probably given the key easily. Now for Undynes key, she was probably there when it happened or she gave it to him.
Now, why would he lock himself away in his room and never seen for all 4 chapters? Simple. He got D3rl0rd-ed.
"But Galaxy, whatever could you mean?!"
Think about it! Kris, Asgore, and Noelle saw something, something that scarred them. Something nobody believes them about. Maybe it was friend, maybe jt was gaster (assuming Gaster Therapist Theory is invalid for this option), maybe it was something completely different. Whatever was in the bunker, he saw it. He decided he couldn't do this and locked himself away, never to be seen again.
So, Papyrus may have seen the horrors and refuses to keave knowing what's in that bunker or knowing nobody will believe him and will see him as crazy like they did with Asgore.
May i ask what papyrus’s “fun quirks” are after the accident? Or at least what you have them as in unexpected guests? Or is that something we might find out in future updates?
(I know him ‘floating’ is a big one, but i also know of the other headcanon stuff that I’m wondering if he’s got aswell haha, but then again i don’t want to spoil anything so no worries if ya can’t-)
haha, well, they're not really spoilers because most of them are just directly from canon, or things I extrapolate from canon--but here are the main ones:
As you mention, he cheerfully ignores physics when he wants
Like Sans, Papyrus knows about things that happen in the game ahead of time, before he has any reasonable way of knowing about them; this is what I have Sans term 'premonitions' in chapter 7.
He seems to be able to see from the player's perspective, at least sometimes...
As for things not supported by canon--while it's not a headcanon I came up with myself, I do like the idea that Papyrus can also shortcut, he just doesn't like to because it's lazy.
In general, aside from karma effects, I like to think Papyrus can do all the same things his brother can--he just usually chooses not to. :>
And no, I'm not saying that he's not important. In fact, he's one of the most important plot devices. But why Papyrus ?
List of stuff Papyrus did for the plot :
Helped Frisk befriend Undyne
Gathered everyone in the Pacifist ending
Worldbuilding (phonecalls)
Characters' personalisation (phonecalls)
Told Frisk to go to the True Lab (phonecalls)
Basically the reason we were able to get the Pacifist ending
Quite a lot, but it all could be easily done by the others.
Befriending Undyne? Alphys. Being manipulated by Flowey? Monster kid. Info dumping on the phone? Sans.
Even among the main characters he seems a bit off.
Toriel is the caretaker of the ruins and former queen. Sans is the royal judge. Undyne is the capitan of the royal guard. Alphys is the royal scientist. Mettaton is the biggest star of the underground. Asgore is the king. Asriel (flowey) is the prince.
And Papyrus is… just some guy.
He could easily be a secondary character like Napstablook. Especially considering his lack of backstory, no character development and a skippable battle in which you can't even die.
But instead he has the biggest amount of words in the game, huge impact on the characters in all of the endings, very detaled hangout/date and a PERSONAL Q&A (also the entire Underale Q&A was centered around him).
What about Deltarune
Papyrus didn't show up in DR yet, but I can feel with my GUTS that he'll be important.
We all know that DR was in Toby's brain even before Undertale, and also we know that Bonetrousle was meant for DR.
Based on some theories about ch3, we can assume that the characters from UT actually might play some big roles in DR.
So… you can tell what I'm trying to say here, right? What if the reason why Papyrus is so important in the game AND in a lot of additional stuff is because he's going to play some role in DR and even have a character arc or be shown from unusual side.
And this “busy” is hunting me 24/7. Too suspicious.
