Searching for an editor for a UT/DR theory youtube channel
A lot of people have regularly advised me to take things to the next step and create my own YouTube channel regarding UT/DR theories.
At first i was a bit hesitant, but i must say that the idea has really grown on me.
The only issue is: I'm bad at editing. Like, reaaaaally bad. I did try to learn through some friends or on my free time but it quickly turned out that editing was simply not for me.
An independent team has helped me with the editing to make a first video already : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kix9-Yy38Gg
However, i cannot stay dependent on their help to produce content for YouTube forever.
So... yeah, i'm putting in a job offer, I guess?
I can provide the scripts, my voice recordings and other necessary media. The job is only to assemble all of it into a video format fit for YouTube.
I am not looking for professional work, just something simple and smooth.
Things like organisation or compensation for the work are all entirely negotiable.
You can contact me anytime on this tumblr or through DMs on Reddit for more details.
There's something about your 'Chara couldn't save' theory that interests me. Chara couldn't save, yet File 0 exists. Do you think there's a different DT amount required to own a file vs saving in it or resetting? How do files even come about?
Following what we can theorise of those files, it seems likely that pretty much anyone can own one (human, monster, even something that is neither). The only real recurring pattern that can be drawn seems to be wether or not that entity has ever inhabited a body with enough determination to SAVE at any point.
If the answer is yes, you have a numbered file, if not, you do not.
This suggests that pretty much any character, like let's say, Undyne since she actually might have gotten somewhat close to that, would have had a file if she had ever passed the treshold of determination required to SAVE at a point in the story.
(There is not any specific evidence that points to a difference between the DT required to own a file, to SAVE, or to RESET. So by default, they appear to all be the same amount.)
Files don't really "come about", its more like, let's say that everyone out there is given a movie ticket once they set foot in the underground for the first time, but its only once you actually go to the movie theater that your ticket's printing number gets registered (cashed in) from now on.
Except here, you're only allowed to go to that theater once you've passed the DT treshold. So the case of file 0 would be that Chara's ticket was printed out a long time ago (thus getting a smaller series number than the others), but was only "registered" way later when Frisk took it and went to that theater for them after 8 other people that had gotten their own tickets printed after Chara had already done so.
That is how you would explain file 0's placement in an in-world sense.
However, i do feel like it might also be quite possible that the decision was made for a much simpler reason : It was convenient and that's just how computers count.
If you ask a computer to count up to 10, it will not do 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10.
Instead, it will do 0-1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9.
Since there were to be 10 files, Toby may have just simply decided to do just that, and then gave out those resulting numbered files to each character in the order of their chronological apparition in the underground, which led Chara to get n°0.
That would make the "number" of the files more of a semi-meta thing. A thing that was mostly created the way it is for coding/gameplay/convenience purposes, but that was also made into an in-world implied story element via a few back and forth acknowledgments between the game and the files.
In the second Undertale 10th anniversary stream, Toby Fox has said something which sparked a lot of reaction among Chara fans :
This quote has many implications. Both for the character, but also in regards to understanding how Toby felt about the character he had written, and how those feelings changed over the years.
Before beginning to discuss the meaning of the quote, however, there is something else worth addressing.
Some fans have suggested that the line might also be readable as Toby having said "Now there is only one person to save, Chara." using a comma rather than a dot.
This interpretation of the line would have a fairly different meaning. As it may imply Toby talking about Asriel to Chara, rather than about Chara.
Luckily, we dispose of several elements which allow us to be highly confident of which phrasing was the one that Toby intended.
First, as shown in the images above, Toby's text to speech during the stream disposed of a live text-equivalent.
This is important for two reasons.
The first reason is that Toby in this quote was imitating the speaking style of Undertale's narration. This means, if extrapolated, that we can reasonably expect him to have been following the punctuation patterns of Undertale's narration as well.
In this instance, doing so would suggest that the return to line followed by a new textbox asterisk we observe would only be fit following a dot, not a comma.
The second reason is that a text to speech should remain consistent throughout the stream in regards to things such as the delay between the spoken words. (If using the same punctuation)
Once again, the delay between the words observed in practice matches perfectly the interpretation of the line which uses a dot.
Another thing to add to this, is that the quote was delivered within a particular context :
Toby insisted for "Chara" to be used as the name of the fallen human during the fight against Asriel.
The couch was cut during this battle, leaving us alone with Toby's words to build tension/emotion.
Toby chose to make the reveal by paralleling not just that particular line from the in-game scene, but also the greater "someone else" sequence, by having us wait for the next lines to find out about the person, etc...
The stream had been setting up that something new related to Chara was coming, with Toby being uncharacteristically forward about the character.
After Toby Fox said this, he then proceeded not to say a word afterwards for the full rest of the Asriel fight. Suggesting that the last word he said was meant to be a dramatic "mike drop" type of reveal.
I have some more things to say later in the post about some of those contextual elements, but for now, i would just like to draw attention to the fact that all those context clues suggested that the line was likely meant to be taken as a twist, something that would defy the initial "We save Asriel" reading made of this scene by a first time player. And that it would be about Chara, with them as the subject/centerpiece of it.
Because of this, the interpretation with a comma tends to fall a bit flat relative to how Toby had set things up. And does not feel as natural as the other one.
This albeit fairly theoretical point is more properly illustrated by the fact that in practice, the interpretation with a dot was the natural first reading of what Toby had said made by just about everyone during the stream. Even those that had been strongly opposed to the implications of this interpretation. The alternative interpretation only came second, if at all.
Lastly, as we will see in more detail in just a moment, Toby had been foreshadowing that he was going to make this reveal for a pretty long time.
Looking back at those foreshadowings now, it is fairly obvious that the reading of the line that was being foreshadowed was the one in which Chara is the one being saved.
For an example that came only shortly before the stream itself :
Now, the key to understanding what all of this really means actually lies not just within the game text itself, but also within Toby Fox's behavior when it came to Chara over the course of the last several years.
It seems as though Toby has been planning on making this reveal during the 10th anniversary stream for nearly 3 years ahead of time, if not even longer.
To understand why that is, we need to look back in time a little.
Initially, after Undertale came out, Toby was very reticent in getting involved in anything that regarded Chara as compared to other Undertale characters.
To the point of sometimes acting as though the character did not exist at all.
The only real answer as to why that might the case we had was one he gave in response as to why he did not want to make any merch of Chara :
Toby had said that he did not desire for there to be merch of Chara at the moment as he feared that portraying Chara in such ways may fail to represent the character as he imagined it properly, and be unable to convey the messaged they were meant to carry.
(Note : You can find a more detailed analysis of Toby's response here. It aged pretty well.)
In the end, Toby held true to those words for a very long time. Years passed by without any further acknowledgement of Chara from Toby at all.
Until suddenly, a little white dog pressed a switch, and things turned around.
The change was fairly progressive. Each step just slightly more bold than the previous.
Toby first promoted an Undertale fan-animation in which Chara was present, briefly shown playing along with Asriel. This was somewhat noteworthy at the time but ultimately not very relevant.
The first significant step was when Toby read and approved the Undertale Legends of Localisation book, including a section which affirmed Chara was present in all routes of the game.
This section had been, ultimately, written by someone other than him, allowing to maintain a level of distance between Toby and the extract.
However, it was the first real break from Toby's Chara taboo in years, and it came with a really strong implication in favor of an important lore statement.
During the 9th anniversary newsletter, more steps were taken.
The letter had a lot of explicit Chara theming. As they are strongly associated with the number 9.
This time, it was also directly coming from Toby. And of course...
The first explicit new official Chara content bit in years.
Finally, The de-taboo-ification of Chara was complete when Toby bluntly broke his own former rule, and made Chara merch.
(Note, although the design looks closer to Kris' shirt, it was primarily intended to be Chara's. More information here.)
Now put yourself in Toby's shoes for a moment.
If you were to reverse your position on Chara content/merch this way after having been so concerned about the ability of such content to represent the character properly for so long, it is extremely likely that you would only do so under the intent of doing your best to not do the one thing you were so concerned about.
This means that Toby had to either clear up what the part of Chara that couldn't be bought in a store was, or at the very least be extremely careful with the Chara content he made so that they would at least contain hints or traces of the part of the character that those couldn't properly convey, so that they would not feel like missing the point of the character too much.
So, lets take a slightly closer look at those things again :
The alarm clock dialogue had Toriel and Asgore reminiscing about Chara together, in spite of their strained relations.
The fan-animation showed Chara and Asriel playing around.
The book strongly hinted at Chara's presence in the pacifist route.
The newsletter fleshed out some parts of Chara's character whilst portraying them positively from past Asriel's point of view. The way Toby presented the special letter to us also strongly hinted at Narrachara.
The merch emphasised the importance of our connection to Chara and the ties between our loves.
There are some fairly visible patterns.
All of Toby's direct involvements with Chara related things since 2017 have been things that either hint at NarraChara & how their presence in any path of the game is important. Or things that through the lenses of those they once knew, show Chara as someone that, while not a good person, may still be someone else who we could decide to see as worthy of being saved.
And so...
This is, likely, what the above all culminated towards. It was the natural continuation & conclusion of what Toby had been doing with his Chara hints for the last several years.
Toby has probably been planning on making this revelation for about as long as he has been acknowledging Chara specifically again.
While i find it more uncertain wether he already had this in mind for the animation or the alarm clock dialogue, where Chara was hardly a major focus and the links to those themes were vaguer, he was definitely sneakily setting this up on purpose at least by the time of his role in the legends of localisation book.
Setting up the day he would finally stop being so vague about that "something more" about Chara's character that he used to rather keep quiet about than risk misrepresenting.
(In a way, the fact that he went that far to make the reveal of Chara's presence in pacifist not feel like a 180° policy flip on his part really showcases just how much Toby cares about this character, despite how little of them he actually made explicit in-game.)
All of this is also further evidenced by Toby's behavior during the anniversary streams, which makes so much more sense once examined with this knowledge.
The one thing about Chara that Toby had still yet to do until the 10th anniversary was to actually refer to them by their name.
Sure, we've known Toby calls Chara as such for a while. The name was featured way back on his concept arts. And Toby had to participate in translating the name for Undertale's japanese version. But "Chara" remained a name he never uttered. Sort of reflective of the way he would speak so little of the character for a time.
Until.
In the second anniversary stream, Toby seemingly ripped off his "im not allowing myself to talk about Chara" bandage.
Suddenly, he was taking every chance he had to speak the true name.
He did it so enthusiastiscally too, despite the text to speech.
As others have already worded it, Toby almost sounded like a proud dad finally being allowed to speak about his dear child.
And in context... Yeah ! Pretty much !
To Toby, this was going to be the one stream where he cleared it up.
This was going to be the stream where he gave away the main secrets about them he had previously felt so protective about.
For once, he didn't feel the need to treat Chara elusively, and so he did not.
Toby was clearly having just as much fun finally talking about Chara as the rest of us were hearing him, and it was a pleasure to see.
Speaking of.
As i alluded to earlier, it is pretty apparent rewatching the true lab section of the stream that both Toby and the rest of the team were fully aware of what Toby was going to do, and were growing a bit nervous that having "Togore" as the name of the fallen human during the reveal would undermine the dramatic effect of it.
Hence why Toby eventually broke their rule of "We support whichever name is currently losing to get charity the most money." by making it increasingly clear that he wanted people to vote for Chara. With the others soon joining in telling people to please do what Toby wanted them to do.
...They just weren't going to let a meme get in the way of this moment after three years of setup.
Note : (Toby likely knew way ahead of time that he would be able to get rid of "Gaster" and "Frisk" to rig the results if needed, but "Chara" also ending up losing to a community initiative name too might not have been the plan, hence Toby dismissively treating "Togore" as "a weird thing that took off recently for some reason" during the streams)
Yeah, the outcome was kinda rigged in a way, but it was probably for the best in the end.
Toby was served the wrong outcome, and yet still managed to spin it around to not only still get what he wanted out of it, but also raise even more money for charity thanks to it by organising a donation battle.
Classic Toby W.
One important question remains, though.
"Saving" Chara.
What does that mean exactly ?
While Toby clearly intended Chara to be savable in pacifist in some form, this does leave open the question of what exactly are we saving Chara from here ?
...From Asriel ?
...From themself ?
It is an important context to know that prior to the 10th anniversary stream, the theory that Chara was being saved in this scene was primarily based on Narrachara, on it sounding like a very Toby Fox-like thing to write into the game, and on the multiple convenient wordings used during the sequence (Things like, "The soul", "their" name, the ambiguity between the SAVE act and saving metaphorically,...) making Chara interpretations somehow barely be viable in spite of lines like "one last person remaining to be saved".
However, those things were never real evidence properly speaking. They rather merely just sounded like perhaps too many oddly convenient things were aligning for this reading to be able to work for it to only have been chance.
However, in term of actual proper in-game evidence, the theory was always really lackluster. If anything, things like Temmie Chang having refered to the cutscene as "Asriel regaining his memories" once went against it a little bit, as it made Asriel appear to be made the main focus of the section.
That is why many theorists had remained somewhat skeptical of this interpretation, seeing it as kind of a stretch, including myself to an extent honestly.
All of this is to say, that past it having been an intended reading after all & being narratively satisfying, the details of what "Saving Chara" means in practice in-world remain a bit unclear due how little there actually is in-game to work off of.
And in a way, maybe that was kinda the point. Maybe this is meant to be one of those things where your answer as to the specifics of it matters as much as Toby's.
Maybe you guys feel only my answer to these questions counts or matters. But to me, I only feel the opposite. [...] And i invite you to come behind the wall with me." --Toby Fox.
I did not mean for this post to be about my thoughts on the topic as much as i wanted it to be about peeking at the other side of the wall in regards to this particular line using hindsight.
However, now that i've written this much, i think i would like to share one thought after all.
There is an important difference between our "saved" Chara and Asriel.
Asriel's words near the flower bed have him reflect on his former self. Whilst ultimately bittersweet, it brings his character a rounding and a closure.
Chara does not have that. They do not have a closure.
In fact, they hardly have anything at all. Chara is never explicitely referred to nor acknowledged after the Asriel fight, nor does the narrator have some sort of tirade that we could infer from.
And its not like there weren't opportunities for that.
Even in the game credits & the alarm clock dialogue. The only "new" thing we hear about Chara is that their presence is not revealed to the monsters in the near future on the surface.
It kind of feels like 'saving' Chara hasn't really changed anything, has it ? Have they not changed at all ?
Well, perhaps Chara's saving is to be taken less at face value, in terms of direct immediate changes, and moreso in terms of opportunity.
Chara may not have changed much as a person, but this doesn't mean they're incapable of it.
The tone of the narration gets noticeably friendlier over the course of a playthrough :
They may not have let go of the feelings that had led them to their first death or to their participation in the genocide route, but perhaps those tone shifts suggest such things aren't set in stone forever. Or that at least they could be toned down eventually.
Asriel was "Saved" from a moral standpoint, but his fate remained sealed.
There's something pretty amusing about the fact that Fangamer released a Chara-themed shirt with a description and name that follows the patterns and themes used in Undertale by Chara or to refer to Chara, putting Undertale before Deltarune in its credits in english whilst only crediting Undertale in japanese, to go along with Toby Fox sharing a Chara-relevant newsletter for Undertale 9th (strongly Chara associated number) anniversary.
...And yet so many people still seem to have confused it for a Kris shirt.
I mean, obviously it isn't irrelevant to Kris, to an extent it is meant to serve as both. But it should be rather obvious that Chara was the intended primary focus of the item here, and Kris the secondary one.
I suppose there is some kind of recency bias going on towards the newer game.
Either that, or people unfamiliar with Fangamer's long past history with not making their clothing designs super accurate to the source material rushed to conclusions over the Chara-Kris shirt design nuances.
It feels like Toby has been purposely avoiding saying that there would be 7 chapters for quite a while now. Whenever it comes up, he only mentions "more chapters" or "future chapters."
I wonder why that is.
Today, we've gotten good news.
What ? Deltarune chapter 3 & 4 announcement coming out ? Nono, that's not what i was refering to, i meant that we no longer have to deal with the "Deltarune tomorrow" memes.
Gasp. A new video ? On the YT channel ? After over a year ? Impossible.
So, this was supposed to be out a very long time ago, and since then, there are actually quite a few things that i would change about this video script.
But for the most part, i am just glad to be able to post this and say that hopefully, this time it'll stick and i'll be able to start making videos at an acceptable rate in the future.
Also, this one is a YT exclusive ! Not based on an existing Tumblr post like the first one.
A lot of common Undertale-related debates revolve around the morality of a character.
But among these, the one about Sans' reaction to Papyrus' death somewhat stands out. Both because of how widespread it is, but also because of the way two opposite yet equally inaccurate interpretations of it repeatedly seem to clash against one another.
So let's take a look at how Sans actually behaves in Undertale after his brother is killed :
First, we can observe a number of changes in his behavior, showcasing that he is not unaffected by it.
To start with an obvious one, the fact that nearly all of Sans' other casual appearances during that playthrough will be gone, Sans just... doesn't show up.
No pranks with telescopes, no stacking 29 hotdogs on your head.
While one flavor text with Shyren mentions that he is still 'watching over us' in some form even then due to his promise, he is evidently not as thrilled about this as usual.
But his lack of enthusiasm when it comes to watching over Frisk isn't the only thing that changes.
For instance, there is a present for Papyrus under the tree in Snowdin. However, as soon as Papyrus is killed and Sans vanishes, the present disappears along with him. Implying that Sans has retrieved the gift that his brother will not be able to open anymore.
He also appears to not have gone to Grillby's after our passage in Snowdin this time around. Something that's apparently quite unusual for him as it is part of his routine for that time of day.
And of course, in some iterations of his judgement scene in neutral routes :
...Needless to say that claiming Sans is totally unaffected by the death of his brother is inaccurate. While we do not see much of it, it is fairly solidly implied that Sans does grief his brother at least in his own way. And he does hold it against us to an extent.
However, that isn't all there is to it.
Sans' knowledge of RESETs does play a role in the way he handles the situation. Just not quite in the way it is often portrayed.
First, Sans may be aware of resets, but he does not remember them. This means that for a given Sans, the loss of his brother still feels permanent for that particular timeline iteration's Sans.
Knowing his brother will probably be alive again in another timeline eventually doesn't mean his loss in this one isn't real. Even if it does happen, he will not be there to see it. At least not this version of him.
However, Sans does still have a couple tricks up his sleeve, that maybe, if things work out, could spare of that fate the other Sans'es.
I showed this line earlier on :
However, this line isn't just Sans showing us his feelings about our actions. Instead, it is a part of a much more tricky strategy Sans begins engaging in after Papyrus is killed :
Psychological warfare.
The anomaly has reset this world many times before, and in neutral routes, he is left with the impression that it will likely do so again. This thought had previously been a demotivating one for Sans as he explained in genocide.
This was the case whilst Sans lived a semi-regular life under the constant threat of everything being undone on the snap of a finger.
However, now that what Sans incorrectly believes to be the anomaly has revealed itself and killed his brother, the situation has actually somewhat changed.
A reset, while it would wipe out his memories, would still bring his brother back to a different Sans. Papyrus' death doesn't have to be truly permanent. Because of this, Sans now wants the anomaly to reset. Not to keep doing it forever, but at least just one more time, to make sure that this timeline won't be the one that'll end up sticking around for good.
He also has a secondary motive :
While he is at it, he might also try to get the anomaly to changes its ways. Of course, Sans knows he's not a time traveller, not a god, but just a guy who is probably not capable of forcing a being such as the anomaly to change.
That being said, maybe, just maybe, he could help in giving it a little push to make it decide to want to change on its own.
To incite a RESET to happen, Sans has one main strategy : Making the anomaly regret its actions.
Sans believes that the anomaly keeps on RESETing the world because it is unable to find fulfillment, and that it keeps consuming timelines out of a desire to find happiness one way or another.
Thus, Sans aims to make the anomaly feel like this timeline can't be what they were looking for. Ensuring that, for the anomaly's quest for happiness to continue, they will have no choice but to reset this timeline as well.
That is the reason why Sans asks us this question :
The question was very carefully chosen on his part.
It both serves to confirm the anomaly's identity, but also more importantly, no matter what they answer, it allows him to either point out that the anomaly's actions did not match with their own morals, or forces them into making a selfish confession which he can then use to make them feel like they've done the wrong thing.
In either case, Sans is able to present his brother's death as an event that would only bring the anomaly further unhappiness. And thus, might get the anomaly to reach by itself the conclusion that the only way for it to find happiness now would be to RESET this world once more and avoiding killing Papyrus again in the future. A pretty good outcome for Sans.
This is what he refers to as taking it the 'easy way' to deal with an aggressive anomaly in a few routes. (as opposed to the 'hard way' he mentions halfway through his genocide dialogue).
In the neutral endings in which Papyrus was slain, Sans once again attempts a similar strategy. Although the awareness that a RESET still hasn't taken place even after quite some time passed since the anomaly was last seen in the underground & his last attempt at it is likely quite worrying to him.
This leads him to be a little more blunt than last time when it comes to the ways he tries to make the anomaly feel like this timeline isn't the one. Although his approach method remains broadly the same.
Though these lines are still rather noteworthy :
Given Sans wants the anomaly to go back, they might sound odd to hear at first.
It turns out that the more brutal we have been throughout the run, the less optimistic Sans' approach to dealing with the anomaly becomes during the phone call.
Here, Sans might be trying to play on another bleaker aspect of his psychological profiling of the anomaly : The consideration that they may view the world as a kind of game to explore, in which if they 'can', then they 'have to'.
By saying it is not welcome down here, he is also saying that it won't be able to keep exploring the possibilities of this world unless it makes them all forget everything.
In another of the neutral endings where both Toriel and Papyrus are killed, Sans seems to begin to doubt wether the anomaly can really be redeemed after all.
This all ultimately culminates in the leaderless endings.
In this one, Sans acknowledges that this is likely not our first time hearing him saying those kinds of things over the phone.
And that his 'strategy' seems to have failed to push it towards the right path.
In this route, Sans appears to have reached a similar conclusion as in the genocide one, that his hope of a redeemable anomaly merely looking for happiness may have been just naive/wishful thinking on his part after all.
In sum, Sans' awareness of the RESETs does not prevent him from missing his brother if Papyrus is killed. However, it allows him to weaponise his own grief using the psychological profile he has made of the anomaly in order to attempt to push it to RESET. Although he knows his own memories would be wiped out if he is successful, it would ensure Papyrus' death isn't permanent. Depending on the run, he also still harbors a dwindling hope that the anomaly itself could be steered towards a better path.
He mostly just needs to convince them to RESET one way or another though.
Past that point, it'll be up to the other Sans'es.
By finishing a neutral route over and over again multiple times, Flowey has some unique dialogues in which he mentions various trivia or shares his thoughts on some of the other characters.
One such character is Sans, who Flowey notably gives us a warning about.
However, the way he words that warning feels a little intriguing :
While Sans is generally a very perceptive character who is often capable of making pretty good guesses from limited information, Flowey makes it rather obvious that he is speaking from experience rather than simply making a general comment about Sans' observation skills.
But a question that isn't brought up very often is, what was it exactly that Sans would frequently "find out" about Flowey to warrant this warning ? And how ?
While the question may seem unanswerable at first due to Flowey not giving us any specifics whatsoever, there are a few details scattered throughout the game which may allow us to deduce our way towards what was most likely the intended answer.
First, we know what solution Flowey ended up settling with in order to deal with whatever that issue was : Simply avoiding Sans.
In any given timeline, Flowey took the habit of avoiding to be seen by or around Sans at any point, unless he specifically had something in mind that required him to do so. (such as in the pacifist ending) As a general rule of thumb, he would avoid Sans altogether as much as possible.
However, even with that effort on Flowey's side, a quick mention of a talking flower from Papyrus is already enough to seemingly get Sans at least a little suspicious that something may be up with that.
This is our second clue : The fact that it took Sans so little information for him to get suspicious of what Papyrus told him about a flower.
Our last clue is the few words we hear from Sans after he sees and hears Flowey at the end of the pacifist route :
In order to find out what to make of those clues, we need to introduce a fourth element : Sans' scientific background.
Luckily, none of the more complicated or speculative nuances of that side of his character are required here, all that we need is to highlight his somewhat-hidden friendship with Alphys.
She knows him well enough to call his jokes in advance :
Or here, the game more obviously points out that these two seem surprisingly friendly.
Sans tries to play it off, but it is clear they know a lot more about each other than seems at first glance.
But how much exactly ?
Well...
To go back to our main point, if one were to call Papyrus' phone in front of Alphys' lab, the conversation between the skeletons brothers would eventually deviate towards the question of wether or not Alphys is hiding dogs inside of her lab.
To which Sans answers, winking :
If it had just been this one joke, it may have been a coincidence, but the game doubles down on this exact same implication if you call Papyrus from within the lab as well, showing that this connection between Sans and Endogeny was absolutely intentional :
While the determination experiments were sorely Alphys' entreprise, it appears that Sans was at least made aware of the way they ended up playing out.
We cannot affirm with certainty how much detail exactly Sans has regarding the experiments, but if he is aware for the dogs and possibly even involved in dealing with them (as he had the dog food bag in his room), then he most definitely would also know about the vessel too. It was the main goal, after all.
This vessel had a few particularities.
First, it was a golden flower, the flower from the outside world, chosen for symbolic reasons.
But second, that specific golden flower was chosen because it was different from the rest.
It was at the center of the garden, it had grown before all the others, those were the ones mentioned by Alphys in her entries. But there was one more specificity which she omitted to bring up :
Golden flowers in Undertale are a species of flowers which has 5 petals.
But our "vessel" had a mutation, resulting in an extra 6th petal.
A design choice in part, perhaps, but one that takes a very real in-world importance within this context.
Adding to this that, from the view of the current timeline iteration, the vessel seems to have suddenly vanished one day and...
Since it is likely for Sans to have been aware of all of this, now, it makes a lot of sense that the mere idea of a new mysterious talking flower that says strange things showing up out of nowhere would immediately put him on high alert. A potential connection with the missing vessel is easy to make.
Actually, now that we have this context, even Alphys seems to make the same connection as well after hearing Papyus mentioning a talking flower just before Flowey arrives.
But most of all, it now feels incredibly clear why Flowey needs to avoid being seen by Sans so much.
His entire appearance, and particularly his obvious extra 6th petal, are all dead giveaways of his origins.
Could Sans, who is skilled enough at analysing faces to tell the difference between the face of someone that has died 9 or 10 times in a row, really miss out on such blaring evidence ?
Of course not.
Flowey might as well have written "i am the vessel" on his face with a marker as far as Sans is concerned.
Chances are that merely seeing Flowey even once would be all it takes for Sans to be practically certain that Flowey must be the former vessel.
Not only that, but given that those experiments were all about determination, the so called "resolve to change fate", Flowey would also immediately be considered extremely likely to be the anomaly, too.
This is what we see in this scene :
Not only does Sans get to see Flowey here, but the speech that Flowey makes during this scene also provides him with definitive evidence that Flowey really was the "anomaly" he had been worried about, as his psychological profile matches extremely well with the one Sans shows us to have built for the anomaly in a genocide route. But, it also shows him that Flowey has, for now at least, lost his anomalous time powers to Frisk, and is thus struggling to keep them in his "game".
This suggests that for now, Frisk actually still has the advantage, and that despite all those crazy speeches, without his reset powers, that weirdo has got nothing on them.
But this is all later on in the story.
During Flowey's earlier RESETs, being seen by Sans, even once, quickly becomes a major pain for Flowey in every timeline iteration in which it happens.
At best, he might get "pranked accross time and space" a number of times. At worst, Flowey might have no choice but to reset and start all over again on whatever he was aiming to do.
Except this time around, without letting the smiley trashbag learn ANYTHING about him.
It seems we finally have some new Chara content in 2024 !
At the end of the latest newsletter, Toby shared one more letter with us, which contained some very interesting things.
Let's try and dissect it a bit.
First, to start with the obvious, this is a letter written by Asriel about Chara. We can see this from such as things as :
Using the term "best friend"
But also because 9 is already a number associated with Chara.
Of course, it is present with them rather strongly during the genocide route. Such as during its ending, but also through things like the statistics given to some items associated with them in the route.
The same can also be said for Narrator Chara too. Such as how new special dialogue appears from the narrator if one were to attempt to talk to Asgore precisely 9 times.
The idea that it would be their favorite number thus comes fairly naturally.
Next, the few following lines rationalise this association, all the while phrasing it in a way that reminds of their speech at the end of the genocide route.
Finally, we have a few more minor implications.
Asriel & Chara with flowers together may call back to this image :
But it was also a very old concept, that could be found way sooner in Toby's concept arts for the game.
While Chara's "creepy faces" are openly mentioned in-game.
The friend is also refered to as "they", which may be noteworthy.
As for laughs...
The letter ends with
...But alright, what can we learn from it ?
Quite a few things, actually.
First, obviously, Chara's favorite number being 9 feels more like confirming some trivia or association that had been noticed by fans a long time ago than actual true new information.
But it isn't the only noteworthy thing in this letter.
Here are some lines that i had cut earlier on :
The last few lines feel somewhat unprompted from that initial context. But they may have secondary meanings.
First, they may be used to indirectly refer to a type of numbness brought upon by killing mentioned by Sans in his neutral judgments.
However, while that hint may have been intentional on Toby's part, it surely wasn't the main thing that the "in-world" Asriel who wrote this letter was trying to suggest.
The main "in-world" intended meaning of this section was far more likely refering to this :
While Chara did not ever tell Asriel exactly what happened in their past, Asriel seems to believe that the humans they had known did not make a good impression on Chara. Suggesting that they may have been abused or even have come to the mountain to disappear because of them. Regardless, this was all something that had worried Asriel regarding his best friend.
Of course, in the original game, those things remained mostly implicit or speculative. Asriel did not know these things for certain. And neither did we.
But bringing it back up today after so many years certainly feels like a very interesting choice on Toby's part...
Of course, this is all still from Asriel's point of view, which is limited. But metatextually, this is saying more than it looks.
Asriel associating Chara's favorite number the idea that with it, "Nothing can hurt you anymore" is a much more direct way of saying that he believes Chara was hurt by humans in their past than we'd seen before.
Again. This content comes from Undertale's 9th anniversary. It was pretty much Toby's one special occasion to show us content about Chara again. Which he actually did with this letter.
He only disposed of a limited number of characters or lines to either tell us something new about them, or give more precision/information about something which he believed was important for us to see.
From the metatextual context of asking "What was Toby trying to do by showing us this letter ?", him choosing to give more detail on Asriel's belief that Chara may have been abused of all things would serve no other purpose than to volontarily insist on pushing forward his line of reasoning to the fandom.
This suggests that Toby is very likely trying to tell us that Asriel is at least largely correct, and thus that the idea of Chara having been hurt in some form by the humans in their village is now significantly more likely.
Indeed, this had been an issue in some parts of the fandom. While that interpretation had been largely popular amongst most of it for a long time, there had been some voices calling out to the lack of clean proper evidence pointing to that which weren't somewhat speculative. So this seems a lot like Toby attempting to point us in the right direction. Seems like the simplest answer may be the right one, Occam's razor strikes again.
A new questions also now asks itself : Is this meant to suggest that this was Chara's motivation for power ?
Having power, so you are no longer weak ?
Not being weak, so you can no longer be hurt ?
A way of feeling "in control" ?
There were already some implication of Chara disliking to show weakness to others in the past. This would be coherent with those.
In such case, the genocide route may be a macabre recontextualisation of this original motive on Chara's part.
It might also be made relevant in the context of Chara's plan, though that deserves its own future post.
Besides, Asriel saying this highlights how much he cares about Chara. Which is always nice to see.
As a side note :
Between the demo and the final version of the game, the flavor text for the faded ribbon was changed from a regular one to one which raised a few eyebrows :
While some people had tried to use this line as evidence of Chara having been abused, many other voices had (fairly rightfully) pointed out that this piece of "evidence" was quite fragile, due to things like other interpretations of it being just as plausible, the fact that it specifies " 'monsters' won't hit you as hard" which wouldn't fit Chara all that much, or simply the lack of other similar implications elsewhere in the game.
Now that we do have such implications, this argument, whilst still a bit of a long shot, is at least not quite as far fetched as it used to be anymore. The item is a thing which gives you DEF (increases your numbers), and prevents you from being hurt.
We are not quite done yet, though :
These lines feel like they also have meaning.
Once again, there is an indirect reference to the genocide route, with 99 being the maximum value for things like HP, or the next required EXP to gain LOVE. When you have them, you cannot get any more. It is the absolute.
However, there seems to be another strange connection to make here.
What is the opposite of a so called "good memory" ?
The bad memory is an item obtained from the memory head amalgamate.
It feels noteworthy as it, along with the "Last dream", are the two items in the game who's effects are theorised to have something to do with NarraChara in the way they are presented/work. (Suggesting that the memory/dream may come at least partially from Chara.)
For a reminder, the bad memory is a item that actually decreases HP by 1. Unless it is eaten on the brink of death, in which cases it restores all HP instead. Bringing it to the "highest number".
On top of that, this item also had a strange specificity to it :
It is impossible to drop it.
With this additional context, one may draw parallels between the Bad memory item's effects and what Asriel is saying, only in a reversed way, and applied to Chara.
In the same manner as previously. The previously existing theories trying to tie the bad memory to Chara now find themselves being rendered more plausible. In fact, given that these lines directly follow the previous ones, you may even associate them to make the argument that the memories could be of Chara's past on the surface hypothetically. Though that would likely be stretching it.
Also :
39 left.
Pretty impressive, the way every last line in this letter can be read as a genocide route reference one way or another.
And... the code of the page describe the contents of the page as "Here's a letter".
This is also the wording used in the lines with which Toby introduces us the letter.
This wording of this feels very significant considering who the letter is talking about...
So i suppose that makes for even more NarraChara fuel to have Toby writing down such things.
For one last thought, those couple lines.
If one were to follow a certain interpretation of things such as "Mr Dad Guy", the "future of humans and monsters", and Chara's relationship with the concept of "efficiency" & "usefullness", then they might be readable as an allegory for pre-death Chara's view on their role within monsterkind & one of their motivations regarding their plan. (along with their hate of humanity).
And this odd insistance on the term "happy" throughought the message..Is there a chance it could be refering to those secret lines, stored within the game's code in the echo flower room number #9999 ?
Some of the things mentioned in this post are somewhat stretchy admittedly. I am not yet certain of which ones of these would i actually argue for and which are only a product of first impression brainstorming.
Nevertheless. There are many many new ideas to explore regarding Chara now.
Hi, I recall seeing a post on reddit by you of an analysis on the narrators progression over the course of the game? I was wondering how you determined which catagory each line went into?
The process wasn't particularly complicated actually.
First i went one by one through every line the narrator has in the game, and sorted out of those lines the ones in which the narrator says something which is relevant the question of how do they treat Frisk. (The other ones could be ignored for the goal of this analysis)
Once you have those ones, it was simply a matter of grouping them by type, and showcasing the evolution of which "types" appeared the most frequently in each of the game's areas.
Most of the time, that category attribution process tended to be surprisingly simple and straightforward. A joke is a joke, an insulting comment is an insulting comment. There aren't many possible mistakes to make.
The choice as to what the possible categories would be in itself though was a slightly more nuanced one, but it was chosen mostly via my prior knowledge of which type of lines were common from the narrator in that regard, and of which categories could be used in order to make them both form a gradual scale from more to less rude/friendly and to make sure to maintain the categories broad and distinct enough to have as many representative data points as possible so that the end results would be as unbiased as they could be in reflecting the big trends of the narration.
There are a few cases here and there though where more extensive literary analysis was required to accurately be able to judge the meaning of certain narration lines to settle on their category, but those cases are actually quite a minority, and even if you were to ignore them all, the overall result of the analysis would actually have remained the same, since it is based on broader trends rather than individual examples. So im not too worried about these.
That "literary analysis" can consist of things like watching out for context clues, making comparisons with other things the narrator says, wether it makes references to another thing from the game or not, character speech patterns, or established things regarding Chara's character (as that analysis did assume NarraChara theory as pre-established) amongst other things. I also in some cases went out of my way to ask other people on discord or such for their thoughts on some of those lines in order to make sure that my personal biases or interpretations would not skew the analysis through my category choices for some of the most debatable lines.
Its difficult to make a general answer to that as most of those were determined on a line-by-line basis, but that was the idea.
Really, though, most lines were actually very simple/natural to rank.
Hello, I am a UTdr theory enthusiast from China. Thank you very much for your long-term efforts in theory construction, and I hope to get your permission to translate your article into Chinese. I wish you a happy life and thank you here.
