Why (I Think) Sans' Death in Undertale is done for Shock Value, and Why It Works.
When I say "Shock Value", what Exactly do I mean?
He's the only Character in the Game that Cheats against you in the Fight, by utilizing a Mechanic you've never Seen Before to Somewhat Be on even Grounds with You.
And you Beat him, by Also Cheating.
After this, He Bleeds.
Monsters are Known to Turn To Dust instead of Bleeding, so why is Sans any different?
It could be because of "Ketchup", as most Theorized/Joked About back then, but I think this is an Intentional thing.
With Each Main Character you Kill, their Deaths get more and more Brutal. Toriel being Wounded, Papyrus being Decapitated, Undyne slowly Melting, and finally, Mettaton Exploding. (Which I do Not have an Image For as he never Visually explodes, it's all Sound Effects.)
So what is the Next Logical step after All of those?
After you did These Horrible Things to Monsters? Who have Magic Bodies?
Making one of them Bleed.
And this is Very Important because of what Undyne says before Fighting You.
This isn't JUST about Monsters anymore. You've gone so Far Off the Main path that at This Point, you may even hurt a Human.
Now, I'm not SAYING Sans is "Secretly A Human and That's Why He Bleeds".
What I'm saying is... This is the Reason WHY he Bleeds.
He Bleeds because... It's Meant To Show just how Much Harm you're Willing to do. That You'd Even hurt someone with "the Same kind of Blood". In This Instance, someone who Literally Bleeds.
You Never Fully care because they all "Dust Away", and even if you Feel Bad about it, It's Usually more of a Fantasy-Aspect of this World.
But this is the First Time you see someone Bleed. The first time where You Fully Grasp just how much of a Monster You've Become. That you hurt Someone who is just Like You.
Just a Person, who is Trying to Survive.
And this is why I Think it works so Well. If you've already Played the Pacifist Route before this, you know that These Characters are just Average People with Average Lives, who just Want to see the Surface.
But in the Genocide Route, you Forget about That to "Complete The Game".
There's a Lot of Moments where you Get Reminded that what You're Doing is Bad. The Papyrus Encounter, The Undyne The Undying Fight. But I think the end of Sans' Fight is where you've Fully Turned into a Monster, and There Is Nothing Else you Can do to "Make Up" For It.
Even if you Reset, Even if you Try and Get a Better Outcome. The Literal Blood is on Your Hands, and You Have finally reached The Absolute.
Thanks for Reading.
I would love it if Frisk and Chara had interactions that the player couldn't see. It seems like Chara knows that we, the player, are a separate being from Frisk all things considered. They're directly connected to Frisk's soul, so it doesn't seem like a stretch that Chara would know that we're separate entities even if it's unclear how separate.
One of the things that I think supports this idea is that narration in Undertale seems to be usually used to show the player the player things they can't see directly. Like Frisk knows what they're doing in their world in a given moment and what is happening in front of them. Frisk most likely doesn't need narration to know they just found 30G behind a snowpoff, but we can't see it or tell it happened without the narration. However, there's no narration for Frisk telling Asriel their name in the pacifist route because that wasn't "you." There's no "(You tell him your name.)" or anything like that. It wasn't your choice. Frisk just does it by themself. We only know their name at that point because Asriel repeats the name right after, so I don't think it would be much of a stretch to say that we may not see the interactions between Chara and Frisk if they can interact with each other in the Undertale world.
I also just connected the dots that the pacifist route is the only route that Frisk is actually called by their name. My initial thought is that is that that fact kind of supports the idea the the pacifist ending is the "true ending" of Undertale. Anyways, do what you will with all this. Feel free to share your thoughts about this as well!
Ok so I have a question bout seams pronouns. Thought I’d ask this blog since you’re the first nb one I thought of. Sorry if this is a weird query. Anyway in-game Seam is referred to by no pronouns actually.. just name. But should I correct someone if they use pronouns in reference to Seam? Because in writing the only way to have gender-ambiguous character would be to use ‘he/she/they’ at all times when referring to said character or using the name or a title. (continues this ask)
(contd ask) So is it wrong for someone to assume Seams gender as
male/female/non-binary since it is never stated?? I am confused.
Aw, I’m flattered you thought to go to me first! I admit I haven’t been as involved in Deltarune-centric discussions as some other blogs, but I’ve heard some talk about this topic.
@everyone-needs-a-hoopoe was one of the first people I saw noticing that Seam doesn’t use any pronouns in canon. As they point out in their post, when Seam is referred to in third person, no pronouns are used.
This post also discusses the Japanese version and points out that Seam uses a first-person pronoun (atashi / あたし (translation)) which has historically been associated with men and with women. While Toby is notorious for avoiding making concrete statements about his characters’ genders, taking this into account alongside the English version‘s avoidance of using any pronouns for Seam, I think that for the time being, it’s reasonable to assume that is an intentional choice on Toby’s part and could very well be taken as a sign of Seam being nonbinary. Especially when you consider that a lot of nonbinary people don’t use pronouns in English and other languages. (apologies for the wikipedia link, it’s the best I could find on short notice outside people’s personal blogs)
So to answer your question, while the only official source we currently have is chapter 1 of Deltarune, if you want to stay true to canon it would be nice to try to refer to Seam as has been shown so far (example on how to skip using pronouns for someone). Plus, it can act as a vector for practicing how to refer to real nonbinary people who don’t use pronouns, which I think is an excellent side-effect of popular content featuring diverse nonbinary characters! :)
As for correcting people… This is only my personal opinion on the subject, but I think that depends on you. I can’t tell you to go out and fight people over this, but I do see that you are doing rather well in asking a nonbinary person (albeit one who does use pronouns) about a nonbinary character and considering how you can show the most respect to nonbinary people. So while I can’t tell you what to do, I think we could always use more people like you with open minds and open ears, and if you want to you can feel free to direct any friends you have who are curious about this subject to relevant discussion, and help nonbinary voices reach them! ^^
If you have any more questions, I would also recommend checking out @everyone-needs-a-hoopoe, @doge-w-a-bloge, @uselessundertalefacts, @suzyundertale, @determinators, @krispdreemurr and other blogs and nonbinary fans you can find involved in Deltarune/Undertale discussion!
Have you ever thought that maybe monsters can't kill humans because there's a fundamental problem with how they fight. They attack the humans' souls, which are very powerful, with their magic, which doesn't appear to be that strong. Humans, on the other hand, seem to attack the monster's body, and that seems way more effective. Asgore is the only monster known to kill humans, and he uses a weapon in combat.
This is a really fascinating idea. Really fascinating idea.
I think some of this depends on how we interpret the monster fights in Undertale.
I do agree with you completely that monsters appear to attack the human’s soul. We as the players manipulate the soul on screen and try to dodge the monsters’ attacks. When our soul collides with one of the obstacles, we lose HP points - and we know that, while other acronyms are misleading in UT, HP is about health. The young rabbit in the inn makes that clear:
Mom says that sleeping can recover your health above your maximum HP
And lots of the food items are described as “Heals # HP.”
Now, whether or not Asgore’s fighting is more effective because he uses a weapon in combat is something that I think is far more open to interpretation. Asgore fights with a trident in his Encounters... and so does Undyne. Undyne’s spears to me, with their ability to appear out of thin air, seem rather clearly magical. She is using a weapon that has physical form, which she can hold in her hand solidly, and which, according to her conversations with Papyrus on the phone, could be used as “kabob skewers.” But it’s magical.
And all of Undyne’s and Asgore’s attacks are shown the exact same way. We as players still have to move the heart - Frisk’s soul - around the screen to avoid being hit by attacks. There’s no difference between an Encounter where a character is creating magical fire out of nowhere - like Toriel - versus someone like Asgore who is waving around a spear. This could suggest that their attacks are still magical.
We could also suggest a different idea more akin to what you’re saying: that maybe they are trying to use physical objects like tridents to attack the human’s soul in a physical way. But it is vague. And I’d suspect that trying to attack a soul - which seems to be the source of magic - with a physical object... would not be as effective. Magic might do more damage to magic, since they’re of the same elements?
Also... let’s point out... the Royal Guards widely use spears, too. Royal Guards 01 and 02, lots of the dogs, they have physical spears, but their attacks are by far not the most powerful. To run with your idea, perhaps we could say that they have spears because they are trained to fight humans, and humans would need such physical devices to be more effectively driven back. But it’s all so hard to say.
I think most of us would say that Papyrus’ bone attacks are magic because the bones seem to come from nowhere. And yet we can find the bones from his attack in his room afterwards. There is an element of physicality to magic in the Undertale universe, too. It means it’s hard to tell where something magic ends and something physical starts. So it’s hard to say exactly how much of what a monster does during an encounter is physical, how much is magical, and precisely how they’re attempting to damage the human soul.
Frisk probably is attacking physically. Frisk’s weapons are all physical shapes - stick, toy knife, tough gloves, burnt pan, etc. That doesn’t necessitate that the attacks are physical, but it is something to point out that we see the characters get physically beaten at the end of the Encounters. Unlike seeing a soul suddenly split in two - what happens when magic kills Frisk’s soul - we see Toriel clutch a gash in her side, Papyrus’ head get knocked from his body, and Sans [arguably] bleed.
We could perhaps wonder if a human’s physical attack would be effective against magic. Would physical be more effective against physical, and magic against soul? Or can a physical attack significantly harm a magical being? I think that it does. From one library book we know:
While monsters are mostly made of magic, human beings are mostly made of water. Humans, with their physical forms, are far stronger than us.
The implication is that humans’ physical forms can outpower monsters from their physical abilities alone.
Now, are the monsters’ attacks fundamentally flawed because they’re using magic? To be honest, I don’t think that they have a better alternative. The quote above from the library book shows that monsters are at a disadvantage from a physical standpoint. Humans are made of water rather than magic and thus are physically more powerful. A monster trying to fight a human in a physical realm would therefore be overpowered - they’d be fighting the human with their own monsterly weakness.
Where monsters are most strong is with magic. Humans can use magic - seven magicians sealed all the monsters in the underground, after all - but we know that all monsters seem to use magic very well. Everyday citizens are comfortable with it and use it even to build pellet birthday cards. If we look at the average human (assuming UT humans are like real world humans), we’re not so explicitly, comfortably magical. I can’t conjure fire from my hands. I can’t intentionally use magic. So a monster attacking a human with magic is a monster using their strongest strength in a fight. You suggest that a monster’s magic isn’t that strong, but it’s certainly a step above what I or another average human can do consciously.
So monsters, by attacking with magic, are attacking with what they’ve best got. The big problem is that humans have not only a strong physical form... but determination and powerful souls.
A strong element to help set the mood if many scenes in Undertale is the leitmotif. This is the idea of a recurring theme, usually in a musical or literary work. I've talked about one before: Papyrus's theme, Nyeh Heh Heh. NHH plays during most of his appearances in Snowdin forest, and every time its associated with his boasting and puzzles. It also plays at the beginning of Papyrus's battle, setting the same funny mood once more. But, after he uses his blue attack, the song shifts into the ever popular Bonetrousle, which is a more realized version of NHH. That's Papyrus's leitmotif, and its change shifts the entire mood of the fight. More common uses of the leitmotif is in the use of Chara's and Asriel's respective themes, Once Upon a Time and His Theme, respectively. They're used in various parts of the game to evoke some sort of emotion in a scene, like during the Piano Puzzle or visiting Toriel's house. Ultimately, we have the hybrid of their themes in the song Undertale itself, which plays when their story is told. Another big one is a similarity between Dogsong and the song for the Tem Shop (I forget the name), as both are references to the biggest developers of the game, Toby Fox and Temmie Chang. You can even pick up on more subtle uses, like how a hint of Your Best Friend (Flowey's theme, and by extension a reference to Asriel) plays during Hopes and Dreams (which in turn is Chara's realized theme). My personal favorite subtle use is the touch of Heartache (Toriel's theme) and Determination (game over screen theme) play in Bergentruckung (Asgore's theme). It further connects Asgore and Toriel if the player hasn't made the correlation yet, as well as helps them realize that it is Asgore speaking during game over sequences. I'm making this post because I love this concept, but I've seen it used in odd ways in this game. First one that comes to mind is the theme that plays in the Ruins. That song, surprisingly, plays during Spear of Justice, Undyne's theme. There are no other connections between Undyne and the Ruins besides this, and the reasonings i can come up with as to why thus happens feels like I'm grasping at straws. Another weird one is Ghost Fight. This is Napstablook's theme, and a wackier version plays during the fight with Mad Dummy. This makes sense, as the both of them are ghosts that live in Waterfall. But you know where else this song plays? Spider Dance. I cannot for the life of me see the connection between the ghosts and Muffet, aside from a flyer in Napstablook's home advertising a spider bake sale. So yeah, the leitmotif idea is a great one and is used well in this game, but its also used oddly in a few cases. If you can find other strange or clever examples, share them with me, or talk about your interpretation of why the weird ones exist. Would love to hear your thoughts!
Iirc the commonly accepted reason as to why Alphys took so long to finish Mettaton’s body was that because if she did, he’d leave, and some details have me thinking that while this was true, and Mettaton definitely picked up on it, it wasn’t the whole story.
First some odd details. This isn’t required for the upcoming theory to work, but it lays a good groundwork for it. Warning: long and image heavy, also blatant metaphysicsery.
This is shortly before Frisk’s soul inverts in orientation, from that of human souls to that of monster ones (as exemplified by Asgore and Toriel’s) and becomes able to shoot bullets. It’s obvious the phone is responsible for this but-
Resonating with Mettaton’s presence? What?
Okay so the phone is designed to work in the presence of Mettaton, that’s fair.
Or… not? There is no indication the phone is used here. There’s no indication it isn’t, either, but it’s odd that no text or option for it pops up if it is. Frisk’s soul seems to be turned yellow as part of the initiation of the encounter. And yet the phone was definitely doing something last battle. A lot of Alphys’s “rescues” were shams, but it seems to be genuine, like the jetpack.
It’s weird.
Here’s more weird – it doesn’t happen in the battle with NEO.
(We’re assuming there’s no retroactive change in history between genocide and the other timelines here for the sake of avoiding a headache.)
Dialling back a bit, resonating is mentioned again in Undertale. From the rawr:
10754: * You feel something slightly& resonating within ASRIEL.
10755: * You feel something weakly& resonating within ASRIEL.
10756: * Strangely^1, as your friends& remembered you.../
10757: * Something else began resonating& within the SOUL^1, stronger& and stronger./
-
10818: * You called out to your& friends with all your& heart./
10819: * From somewhere^1, you felt& their support.../^
10820: * You reached out to ASRIEL's& SOUL and called out to your& friends./
10821: * They're in there somewhere^1,& aren't they?/
10822: * Within the depths of ASRIEL's& SOUL^1, something's resonating..!/%%
These are the only other places resonating is mentioned, and it’s in the context of SOULs. It seems like Alphys’s phone set up a resonance between Frisk and Mettaton’s SOULS, and that later this resonance happened without it’s assistance. A boss battle is supposed to be an exam of everything you’ve learned so far and Undertale’s not one to shy from mixing meta in-universe - for Frisk do these events act as the training wheels for this aspect of the Asriel fight? But that’s getting into conjecture.
The resonance with Mettaton (temporarily) changed the orientation and colour of Frisk’s SOUL. Could it have had a similar effect on Mettaton’s? The NEO form has something that appears to be a SOUL in it, in monster orientation. In the same area on the EX form, it’s in the human orientation. If Alphys built the containers for the six human souls (a big if, as we have no evidence of this) or had access to the requisite knowledge, then it’s highly likely this is Mettaton’s, safely contained.
And then he un-contains it, the numpty, but it can leave that form and survive in open air, just like a human soul can. And while monster battle sprites are monochromised:
ZOOM, ENHANCE.
It’s pink. (Red + White, but that might be reading too much into it). Not monster-white. There’s an assumption made here – that in NEO form the monster orientation also means monster colour. So a little grain of salt for that particular property is required.
Interestingly, while Frisk’s soul changes back after, this change (of orientation at least) seems to be more lingering for Mettaton. How come? This is the return trip towards the headcanon-country Alphys bit.
These are the blueprints that concern Mettaton, esp considering his presence on them post-pacifist. An injector of some kind lies next to an illustration of a monster soul being being inverted before being placed into a lying form.
Alphys is in one person very reminiscent of the multiple times in history that, on discovery of a new wonder-substance, people started using it in absolutely e v e r y t h i n g, it being so new that the dangers haven’t been determined yet (i.e., asbestos, radiation).
I’m not the only person to have thought along these lines.
The blueprint is dusty, meaning she hasn’t touched it in some time. If NEO’s soul is any indication, she never put it into practice.
She was going to inject Determination into Mettaton.
There was nothing to indicate it wasn’t safe. The legend of Asriel absorbing a human soul was well known, and it wasn’t that which killed him by the account – and it was known that monsters that did this became stronger. With what was known at the time, taking the substance that made a human soul strong and using it to make a monster soul strong was a reasonable hypothesis.
ENTRY 3: If only I could make a monster's SOUL last...
ENTRY 4: I believe this is what gives their SOULs the strength to persist after death. (…) Let's call this power... "Determination."
ENTRY 6: Soon, they'll all turn into dust. But what happens if I inject "determination" into them? If their SOULS persist after they perish, then...
What’s interesting is why she thought injecting determination into a flower might make it a suitable vessel for souls. The entries don’t show her thought process as clearly on this one.
ENTRY 7: We'll need a vessel to wield the monster SOULs when the time comes. (…) What about something that's neither human nor monster?
ENTRY 8: What happens when something without a SOUL gains the will to live?
Your mad scientist is showing there, Alphys.
ENTRY 10: experiments on the vessel are a failure
This is where the shaky parts of this theory start happening but – I believe she made some connection between Determination and human physicality (or physicality in general) at some point during this process. Judging from NEO, she could have made Mettaton his body just fine without it, so what problem was she trying to solve by involving determination?
They were both fans of humans – making him more human? I think, however, it was about helping him to bond to his body (although it probably wouldn’t have worked if he didn’t already have an attachment). Either way, it doesn’t matter; she was planning it.
ENTRY 11 (in its entirety): now that mettaton's made it big, he never talks to me anymore. ... except to ask when i'm going to finish his body. but i'm afraid if i finish his body, he won't need me anymore... then we'll never be friends ever again. ... not to mention, every time i try to work on it, i just get really sweaty...
ENTRY 12 (in its entirety): nothing is happening. i don't know what to do. i'll just keep injecting everything with "determination." i want this to work.
Her procrastination probably saved Mettaton’s life, because…
ENTRY 16: no No NO NO NO NO
If it’s on her workbench when Frisk finds it, that means it was the last thing she was working on before that happened, because after the amalgamation incident, its dust and the dust on the labcoats speak very much to an Alphys that didn’t do much science after (beyond messing around with seagrass).
Both Alphys and Mettaton know about the EX form prior to Frisk’s arrival (which means Alphys did complete it at some point), but Mettaton doesn’t use it, at the very least in public. Why? Stigma against humans? NEO seems to be either a prototype or a hasty upgrade.
Was whatever Alphys planned to inject determination for, the final hurdle? Grain of salt again, because there other possible in character explanations for this.
But it is very in-character for Alphys to promise someone something, only for something to go horribly wrong which makes it impossible, and then for her to lie and avoid telling the promised about it out of fear of what they’d think or do. The still-strained friendship Frisk arrives to see does fit in with something like that happening.
Tl;dr; The resonance performed the final step the blueprint depicted. Determination was safely transferred, like it is in a human-monster fusion, and then being the persistent thing it is, stuck around.
But this is just a theory.
[EDIT: Senshi76 just pointed out to me that this may be at least part of why the EX form is so much stronger than NEO, as well as why Mettaton can briefly rewind time in the EX battle!]
Yo! Mod Avery and it's way past my bedtime and I wanna respond cuz I'm on mobile but we HAVE seen an instance where "you" and"frisk" are seperate, Flowey talking to the player at the end of pacifist. Its all in the POV of the situation, Chara talking to the player and Flowey doing the same happens when you can't see the heart or Frisk on screen
Oh, yes, of course! Sorry I failed to mention that instance, I remembered it, however…
There are, of course, many instances where the word “you” is used! The reason I didn’t mention Flowey’s speech is because I was focusing on when the narration, that is to say, Chara as the very probably narrator, uses the word. And in the case of Flowey’s speech…
“Chara.”
It does seem he is talking to Chara, if he refers to them by name. Toby could have very well left that part out, ended the speech on “See you later…”, but he didn’t. I think that means something.
I can see the connection between characters talking in “the void”, where Frisk isn’t visible, but there are other such situations where we know Frisk is present!
Sorry I derailed your post, I do agree with the points focusing on Chara! I just thought that there wasn’t enough evidence to account “the Player” into the theory, when there were simpler answers in the game already! You are, of course, entitled to your headcanons, and I love seeing different interpretations of the game! However, I did see your post as aiming for a slightly stronger interpretation of canon, so I felt “the Player” as a theory was slightly unnecessary to it, as it could have worked well without opening that can of worms. ^^;;
I don’t know, I hope my arguments hold water, I don’t like to stretch it too far. I don’t aim to change your mind, just to have a friendly discussion and try to come closer to a possible canon!
Go to sleep, darling!! Sleep is good for you!
(screenshots courtesy of the Undertale Text Project)
