undertale meta deepdive: sans is not a good person (OR the sans theory masterpost pt. 1)
Sans is far from this valiant epitome of good that the fandom so often paints him as. He’s not a hero—hell, he might even be a bad, terrible person. At least in the past. My intention in this post isn’t to crush popular fandom interpretations of Sans in a bad faith argument, rather, it is to challenge preconceptions that have existed for years and to open up discussion on the dubious morality of this popular and loved character; I certainly love him a little more after doing this analysis.
Section I - A Bad Person (The “What”)
Sans is certainly not opposed to leaving us little breadcrumbs for us in regards to his mysterious past. We get the idea that Sans is separated from his home, likely due to something he did. Something he had thought was important. Something that led him to take his home for granted.
So based off of the previous dialogue, this “type” that he intimately knows… he’s talking about himself. He was very “determined” to do whatever he did, which cost him his home, likely nearly everything he cared about given his angst.
So let’s say Sans used to be “determined”.
Sans is also aware of the SAVE function, meta knowledge that only the player and Flowey should know about because they have or have had this ability in the past.
“Take it from me”: accept that what I say is true, because I know or have experienced it. Sans should have quit when he had the chance. Never satisfied, too determined to bow out. But is he talking about the same thing we’ve been doing?
When Sans threatens us with the infamous “bad time”, he is NOT referring to the fight… but what comes after, because only after he is struck down, he gives us one final piece of advice:
But HOW does he know that the world is going to be thrown into the “abyss”? Unless he has experienced this first-hand.
This is Papyrus confronting us in the genocide run antecedent to his fight…
…and this is him on Sans. An eerily mirrored piece of dialogue from Papyrus describing us and his brother. What do we know so far? Both Sans and the player need to be kept on “the straight and narrow”, both are “determined”, and both do irreparable damage to the world, possibly sending it to “the abyss”.
Purgatory: a place or state of suffering inhabited by the souls of sinners who are expiating their sins before going to heaven. Not to mention the suspicious usage of the word “abyss” by Papyrus.
From the evidence gathered, it seems that the reason why Sans isn’t able to return to his world is because he destroyed it in the same manner we destroyed Undertale in the genocide run. Why else would he say “take it from me”; he empirically knows what happens when the world is pushed to its very limits.
But which world could he have destroyed? What world did Sans come from?
(Continues under the cut because this gets really long.)
janainaart
jacobvanloon
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