Hello Internet, welcome to GAME THEORY, where instead of putting a joke here I want to ask you a question. It's time to talk UNDERTALE.
Now I don't think I've ever gotten this many requests to cover a theory, (no requests times no requests is still no requests.) Anyway, across my tumblr dashboard, NO ONE has asked for this. And honestly, I'm disappointed. True loyal theorists will know that Undertale is my favorite game of all time.
Undertale is a game where every character, from goat mom to grind fodder has a sympathetic design and a unique personality, motivations, goals, fears. Whether you're saving or slaughtering them, the game makes you feel something every time you enter an encounter. But to me, one character stood out amongst all the rest. SANS. A skeleton named after the font, Comic Sans. ANYWAYS, Sans is, well, there's a lot of mystery around this guy. And before we get into it, let me put up a very special spoiler warning: UNDERTALE is a game best experienced blind. So if you haven't played it, pause your reading of this and come back after you've finished. I PROMISE YOU, I PROMISE you won't regret it. Alright, so everyone out of the pool and ready for the adult swim? Good. Because I'm feeling pretty determined to get to the bottom of Sans' mystery. So just to recap for those of you who haven't played the game and ignored the SPOILER WARNING, or just need a refresher, Sans is one of the two skeletal brothers who appears in the game. His partner is Papyrus, a loud, goofy trap lover also named after a font. But in the world of Undertale their origins are a big question mark. All you really know is what's given to us by a shopkeeper in Snowdin, who explains that Sans and Papyrus, quote, “just showed up one day and asserted themselves.” Weird, right? What's more is that, well, Papyrus is just kinda the goofy sidekick. Sans is much more complex.
He likes fart jokes, but he's also incredibly powerful and deadly serious. Not only is his boss battle the hardest in the game, he's one of the only characters who has knowledge and power over space and time. He can take shortcuts around the world through ridiculous routes. Even is walking through walls. He also acknowledges that he's only one of infinite versions of himself, making self-aware commentary of the various timelines that you've played through in the game. He can even count the number of times he's killed you. He acts like an arbiter of this world, passing out judgements on the player's actions in the game, even explaining the secrets of EXP and LOVE, or EXECUTION POINTS and LEVELS OF VIOLENCE, just to clarify. In short, he just doesn't quite fit in with the rest of the world of monsters. But then, what, or who, is he? Well, the idea that he doesn't belong in the underworld seems to be correct.
The evidence seems to point to the fact that he WAS, in fact, formerly a surface dweller. In the true pacifist ending of the game, as the group looks out onto the horizon, Papyrus asks Sans about the giant ball in the sky. Sans says, quote, “we call that the sun.” This is important because A, the usage of the word WE, and knowledge of the sun shows that Sans has a kinship or knowledge with other humans, and B, that despite he and Papyrus both being skeletons, or, supposedly, brothers, and apparently appeared in underworld at the same time, they CLEARLY have two very different histories. Why would Papyrus not know the name of the sun but Sans would?
We get further clues to Sans' origins as we hear him say multiple times he wants to "go home" or "go back." He says as much during his dinner date scene at the Mettaton hotel. He notices that the player wants to go home and says, quote, "I know the feeling." He then continues, "maybe sometimes it's better to take what's given to you." As though he ended up in the underworld by accident. AND in a genocide run during his boss fight he says, quote, "look, I gave up trying to go back a long time ago." End quote. And before you say he means going back to the surface world, that's clearly not the full story. His very next line of dialogue is, "and getting to the surface doesn't really appeal anymore either." Key word here is “EITHER.” Yes, he seems to hail from the surface and wants to go back, but based on his dialogue he no longer considers it his home. It's as though the surface world he once knew is gone, as though he's from a different time. It's pretty intriguing. So we're left with a being that appeared out of nowhere, presumably from being from the human surface, but from a different time period, who seemingly has the power to teleport. That's a lot of questions and not a lot of answers.
But here's where things get REALLY interesting. Sans has a hidden workshop that takes a fair amount of searching to find. You could say it takes a lot of DETERMINATION to unlock. Anyways, obligatory determination references aside, as you start to look for this easter egg Sans gives you a key to his room and says "it's time you learn the truth." After some searching you find the workshop which contains items that leave even more questions. A photo album featuring Sans and a bunch of smiling people you don't recognize, a badge, blueprints with illegible handwriting, and a broken machine hidden behind a curtain. In the latest update, one more detail was added. A hand-drawn picture of 3 smiling faces with the words “don't forget.”
So, what does it all mean? Well a lot of Undertale theorists have been linking these details to a feature to a character named W.D Gaster. A ghostly character who never truly appears in the game. Honestly, covering him is a theory all unto itself, and probably one best saved for another day. Even still, none of the Gaster theories I've seen have been able to explain all the details. In particular, the photo album, and the badge. And that's what kept nagging me as I researched Undertale. A badge? That one in particular really stuck out to me. Why would such an oddly specific item to be hidden in the huge easter egg of a room? Something that supposedly reveals the truth about Sans? Badges just aren't important in Undertale. Then it hit me. What if this badge isn't from Undertale? What if this badge is from a completely different series? And was, in fact, the most important badge in the history of gaming? One of the Iskall patreon badges.
Now, for those of you wondering what I'm talking about, the Iskall Patreon Badges are a pivotal item from Iskall’s patreon. You know, the one on Hermitcraft. Anyway, the Iskall Patreon Badges are a really important part of Iskall’s character. So I asked myself; what if the badge in Sans' drawer was ONE OF THOSE EXACT badges? Well first off, it made Undertale connected to my favorite youtuber, thereby making it even COOLER, but that's still a pretty big logical leap. I needed more. Let me tell you, as I started looking, more and more pieces started to fit into place.
In Hermitcraft Season 6, there are three Architechs. (This was before Stress joined in season 7.) These 3 were Iskall, Grian and MumboJumbo. And what does Sans happen to have in his other drawer? A photo album with pictures of Sans with people you don't recognize. Of course you don't know them, they're not characters present in Undertale. And note the word that's used here, PEOPLE you don't recognize. Not underworld monsters. So that's 2 items oddly linked to the Hermitcraft series.
But then, how do the blueprints and broken machine fit in? Well, in the final stretch of Hermitcraft, Iskall is the only one who hasn’t died since the Demise game, so he sells his own body to the highest bidder. Except, it comes with a cost. Everyone is poor. As a result, and with the help of ImpulseSV, the Architechs (minus Mumbo,) are forced to finally kill Iskall, ending his streak since the beginning of demise. I watched this episode in 2020 and I'm not ashamed to admit that when I first saw this scene, I cried. It's DEVASTATING.
Iskall says goodbye to his friends, his co-workers, this character you've grown to love and care about is suddenly promising to sacrifice his life. For all he knows, there is no possibility of him being able to come back after his Demise. It's this incredibly dark departure in the final moments of what was otherwise a fun, quirky, and colorful Season 6.
So what does all of this have to do with Undertale? A LOT, actually. But the first thing you need to know is that the hermits are known for their, let's say, unique written linguistic style.
That would explain the illegible handwriting on the blueprints. And the machine? I think a broken infinity portal is behind that curtain. Now that may seem like a stretch, but it actually explains a lot.
If Sans wound up in Undertale via whacky infinity portal hyjinx, it could provide a reason for why he's a skeleton. He used the machine as organic matter and suffered the consequences. Not killing him, but turning at least a part of him into a pile of bones. That could also explain why Sans has given up hope for going home. Remember the infinity portal is a time machine. By being in the underworld, he's not only in a different place, but based on how he talks, he's also in a different time, with no hope of travelling back to the time he came from. This could theoretically happen. It turned Scar into a wizard and completely disintegrated Welsknight, so the rules are… Flimsy at best.
But the crossovers between Hermitcraft and Undertale continue. In Grian’s episode, (EDIT IN TIMESTAMP) he mentions he’s amazed that Iskall only escaped his demise with a lost arm. He says Iskall had “a lot of determination to not die for real,” and that he’s going to continue to study this. Seems awfully similar to the same experiments happening in Undertale around the trait of determination, no? Especially since so much has shown that Sans was a key player in those experiments.
But I'm sure you also want physical evidence right? Well don't worry, because I have plenty. Take a look at Iskall and Sans side by side. Iskall’s left eye is replaced with a diamond loupe. Sans’ left eye glows blue when he’s mad. Both have extremely chill yet are known for their jokes and, dare I say, laugh.
In short, we have some incredibly strong proof that the Hermitcraft Cinematic Universe, (HCU) is somehow connected to the Undertale world, which brings us back to our initial question, WHO IS SANS?
Well, what if we took it one final step and said that Sans happened to be Iskall from Hermitcraft? Sent through the Infinity Portal at the end of season 6 to go to Season 7, carrying an Iskall Patreon Badge and his photo album. Not only do all the items in the workshop suddenly fit, but so does Sans’ behavior.
Remember, Sans can seemingly travel extremely quickly. And Iskall just happens to have an elytra, a device that allows people to travel hundreds of metres extremely quickly. This even explains why Sans bleeds when you finally hit him. He is, or at least, WAS, a human.
Oh and finally, Sans shares two out of five letters with the name Iskall. That's just a fun one. I thought it was worth mentioning.
But if there was any doubt, we have to look no further than the creator's previous work. Toby Fox, the man behind Undertale is actually DocM77, the creator of every hermit (besides Scar.) Now, if Toby Fox, the creator of Undertale, is also DocM77, creator of Iskall, we know they will most definitely share a universe. Which brings us back to Undertale. 2 faces, with “don't forget” written on it? It's Iskall, trying to remember his 2 friends. In short, Undertale is a continuation of Toby’s version of Hermitcraft Season 6, with Iskall never being able to get home, adopting the name Sans. The pieces all just seem to fit. Now all we need is an appearance from Ethoslab and we’ve got ourselves a true sequel.
But hey, that's just a theory. A GAME THEORY! THANKS FOR WATCHING!
