Crack Theory
Is Papyrus Gaster?
This seemed like a theory that shouldn’t work, and yet the more I think about it the less evidence I find against it.
Papyrus seems to have come out of nowhere just as much as Gaster vanished.
All the grey monsters we meet, with the exception of the skeleton scientist generally considered to be Gaster, are not new characters but messed up doubles of monsters we’ve met in the real world. It seems to imply that these are aspects of them – parts of themselves they’ve forgotten – rather than wholly new people.
Papyrus’ ambiguously childish behaviour and naivety about his own world would be consistent with amnesia. If everyone else forgot Gaster, perhaps Gaster forgot himself. Papyrus never mentions anything about his own past and despite his enthusiasm sometimes seems… empty. He’ll latch onto any idea with obsessive fervour – the royal guard, spaghetti – and make it a huge part of his identity.
The Core, built by Gaster, is, on top of its actual function, a giant, constantly shifting puzzle.
Papyrus’ hands are always hidden by gloves, a fact even lampshaded by his joke about knowing Hotland like the back of his hand.
Papyrus has some of what we might guess to be Gaster’s flaws, too. He wants to be popular and lauded. He wants to help, but it has to be him that solves things. He sometimes wilfully ignores likely consequences – I think part of him must have known that Frisk’s fate would not be good if they were handed over to Asgore. He can be obsessive about things.
And Sans loves his brother a bit too much and never really tries to stop him from doing anything.
That makes this line so much more meaningful…
Dang. D: It does.
