So, undertale theory: Sans isn’t a boss
Let me explain myself. Sorry if it sounds dumb or whatever. I’m just making up stuff man.
Okay, so let’s start with the beginning. Sans’s battle isn’t motivated by a strong desire to win or to harm people, or by some kind of personal gain. Sans isn’t fighting to escape the underground or seal it or because of the conflict between humans and monster. By all means, Sans is fighting for a greater purpose - one that a character in a game is usually not meant to be able to understand. This is only one part of what places Sans as the hero in this game.
Sans is trying to stop you, because things have gone to far, and you have become a horrible being. He has a lot of dialogue throughout the whole combat - some that is trying to convince you to stop, some that is just bravado, and some that is a reflection on the game itself. Sans is clearly aware that he cannot ever “win”, because the game can be reset as many times as you want it to. Even reaching a happy ending isn’t worth anything; you can still reset THAT and start another genocide path if you want. Sans even says that he has become demotivated with even trying to win this game.
What he exhibits here isn’t the usual behavior of a video game character. “Giving it his all” is what a normal character should be doing, but Sans has become desillusioned with his own game.
Sans is being here not a regular character, but a player. Further explaining:
Sans is presented as “the easier character”: he can only deal 1 damage. This is not boss like - but Sans, thanks to strategy and powerful, carefully crafted attacks, is still able to get you down. He is not at all like some RPG boss with only a couple powerful but repetitive attacks to deal. Sans also does not start the fight like every other boss does. Instead of starting out slow and gradually making his attacks worst, he goes all out on the first turn, and claims that he doesn’t understand why people don’t deal their strongest attack immediately. This is what a player does. Sans isn’t trying to drag out the fight or to make you enjoy it, to make it exciting, he just wants to get you down as fast as he can - which is what a player does.
Sans has options that regular characters do not have: he is able to avoid all of your attacks by dodging - and there is no kind of trick to keep him from doing so. He talks to you - not Frisk, but you, the person behind the computer - through most of the battle. Most importantly, Sans has an option no character has. He can interrupt the game. His “special attack” is simply to stop, make it his turn and never let his turn end, hoping that you’ll become bored with the game and end it there. By avoiding all of your hits, throwing very diverse and powerful attacks at you, and eventually stopping the game entirely, Sans is taking total control of this battle.
Another important part of it is that Sans is the one to spare you. He is the one able to make that move - a move that only you, the player character, can usually make. While sparing you, Sans will no longer attack you unless you attack first. He is making a decision that you cannot make. At this point in the battle, Sans appears more of a player than you do.
Compared to him, the actual player in fact has very little options. There is no way to escape this battle. You cannot flee, and accepting Sans’s spare offer only leads to him killing you. At this point, your only goal, your only way to succeed is to kill him. You have no other route - when for the rest of the game, you always have had a choice. You’ve more or less become an NPC. All you can do is throw the same attack again and again to try and take him down.
There’s more to Sans being a player here: when beaten, he is seen bleeding, which a skeleton should not be able to do. When slayed, he is also still able to escape the battle and is never seen dying. He just leaves the screen. Frisk, the player character, is also never seen dying; the screen just goes black until you revert to your last save. Sans’s leaving here seems almost a parallel to that.
When concluding a genocide route, you lose your ability to make choices. The only thing to do here is kill. There’s no going back, and no real going forward - you can no longer reach a true ending. Sans is aiming for change, trying to get you to change your mind, to reset the game. The roles have been reversed. In this game, you are no longer the hero, but the villain. Sans is the player and the hero; he has become the main character. During the battle, the music playing isn’t Sans’s theme, it’s yours. Sans isn’t the boss.
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