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UNDERTALE IS AN INDIE RPG DEVELOPED BY TOBY FOX RELEASED ON SEPTEMBER 15, 2015.IT CAN BE FOUND ON STEAM, OR ON ITS OWN WEBSITE.*** SPOILER WARNING ***THE FOLLOWING CONTAINS INFORMATION ABOUT THE NEUTRAL ENDING,AND THE PACIFIST AND GENOCIDE ROUTES.DO NOT READ PAST THIS POINT IF YOU DO NOT WANTSPOILER INFORMATION REVEALED TO YOU.Undertale: How to Save Asriel within the Rules of CanonAcaylThis account is a detailed exploration of the canon of Undertale, followed by a conclusion that leaves Asriel salvageable within the boundaries of the canon.We tend to agree that the pacifist ending of Undertale is emotionally unresolved. Asriel is an innocent, blameless, and kind creature. He suffers a toxic friendship with Chara, and his only attempt to resist Chara’s cruelty leads to his death. Post-mortem, he is forced by circumstances largely caused by Chara to suffer existence as a soulless being deprived of the ability to feel compassion. He has done nothing wrong, nor has he been allowed the chance to lead a full life past childhood, and yet he asks the player to accept the fact that he will degenerate and suffer for the rest of his life.Much of the force of the tragedy comes from the disconnect between the intense kindness of Asriel’s true form and the intense cruelty of the degenerate form he is meant to become. Neglecting him the possibility of returning to his true form leaves the ending of the Pacifist Route unresolved, not merely because it is unfair to Asriel (though this seems to be the primary reason), but also because in degenerate form, he still has a great amount of determination at his disposal, and thus the ability to alter save states—he can still abuse this out of the perverted mentality of his soullessness, and put the Pacifist Ending at risk.We tend to believe that, within Undertale’s canon, Asriel cannot be saved from degenerating back into flower form at the end of the Pacifist Route, and thus that the emotional wreckage that is the Pacifist Ending cannot be resolved within canon rules. However, the fact that the canon involves real-world material, like the game’s save mechanic, changes certain fundamental rules about how a canon works, and it may be the case that, because these rules operate differently, it’s not quite true that the canon itself dictates that Asriel return to torment at the end of the Pacifist Route. If we investigate the canon closely enough, without any foreign theorizing, but solely using the canon rules and the original spirit of the game, using only the most rational and plausible answers to any unclear questions, it may in fact be possible to completely save Asriel.The rules of the canon itself are not hard, fast, mathematically rigorous rules. This is because there are conflicting theories as to how to interpret the game’s text. As a result, there is a significantly wide freedom of interpretation of the game, so that the only thing we can actually agree upon is the text directly presented in the game itself. Some interpretations are logically stronger than others, but none are absolute.Because of this, I won’t insist on my own interpretation as being the only correct way to interpret the game. My reason for offering them is merely to provide an emotional resting place where we can settle. I consider my conclusions to be justified by the emotional fulfillment that follows after, rather than any airtight logic built up before. The emotional justification, I think, will be sufficient as a grounds for mutual agreement. Those of us who want Asriel saved, I think, will be willing to agree to them. Those of us who could care less about Asriel are free to draw their own interpretations, but they would be no more or less canonically “correct” than mine.The developer of the game, Toby Fox, has stated on his Twitter account that he regards Undertale as essentially complete, and has little to no interest in adding further material to the game, or any more games to the franchise. Therefore, it’s safe to assume that the canon of Undertale will not have any major additions, changes, or plot twists after what is already provided by the game.In order to obtain Undertale’s canon as accurately as possible, the only resource I cite as necessarily true to the canon is the game text itself. But I do borrow suggested interpretations from player theories online, Toby Fox’s Twitter, and the Undertale Wiki. This explanation won’t be nearly as in-depth as the Wiki, as here I assume that the player already knows the routes of the game. It should be noted, however, that the Undertale Wiki in its current state still hasn’t finished piecing together all the parts of the canon, and still leaves important questions unanswered or unaddressed, that I have looked at here. It also makes assumptions that aren’t necessarily entirely supported by the game’s text, though they tend to be intuitive and I will challenge as few of them as I can.The question I consider to be the most important is this:Is there an interpretation of the canon in whichAsriel’s true form is salvageable in the post-Pacifist ending?From here on, all indented passages in Consolas font are quotes taken directly from the game.OutlineThe canon of Undertale can be divided into three parts:MetaphysicsHistoryCurrent events (the playable routes)Undertale’s metaphysics explores three concepts: the soul, determination, and essence.Undertale’s history can be divided into eleven events, listed here in the most likely chronological order:The war between the humans and monstersThe establishment of Home and the move to New HomeDr. Gaster’s creation of the Core, and his deathThe birth of Asriel and the discovery of CharaChara’s plan to gain powerThe deaths of Chara and AsrielThe appointment of Undyne as head of the Royal GuardThe divorce of Asgore and TorielThe appointment of Dr. Alphys as the new Royal ScientistDr. Alphys’ experiments on souls and determinationThe creation of FloweyThe current events of Undertale can be divided into the Neutral Route, the Pacifist Route, and the Genocide Route. Here, only the Pacifist and Genocide Routes will be examined, with particular focus on how they end.MetaphysicsThe SoulThe “soul” is a central concept in the game. Every human and every monster possesses a soul. But the nature of the soul is different between the two races. A monster’s soul always possesses the ability to feel and express kindness, but a human’s soul may lack this ability.DeterminationThe soul possesses a quantified essence called “determination.” A great amount of determination enables the individual to resist death.Both monster and human souls possess determination. However, the determination of a monster’s soul is usually very small, while the determination of a human soul is usually very great. The amount of determination is what makes humans as a race stronger than the monsters. Alphys’ experiments reveal that there is an upper limit to the amount of determination a monster is capable of having, past which their physical form melts and they fuse together into beings called amalgamates.Determination is very closely related to the game’s “save” mechanic, and appears to be a way in which Undertale’s story canon overlaps with its game mechanics. Whenever the player encounters a save beacon, determination is mentioned. Even on the textually minimalist Genocide Route, when not displaying a monster kill count, the text displays: “Determination.” Additionally, much of Asriel’s dialogue, both inside and outside of his Flowey form, suggests that possessing a great amount of determination is the cause of being able to use the game’s save mechanic.When I saw you in the Ruins, I didn’t recognize you. I thought I could frighten you, then steal your SOUL. I failed. And when I tried to load my SAVE file... It didn’t work. [Chara]... your DETERMINATION! Somehow, it’s even greater than mine!When Flowey fights the player at the end of the Neutral Route, possessing the determination of all six human souls, he demonstrates an ability to break certain rules of the game. He can choose his own level, his own form, and his own attacks. He can edit the game’s introductory scene. He can edit the player’s game over scene. He can close the console at will. What this suggests is that determination is something more than just the ability to use “saves” and “loads,” and that a very great amount of determination allows the individual to violate the rules of the game.Absorbing SoulsWhile monsters’ souls are limited to very small amounts of determination, they do have a special ability to absorb human souls that persist after death. When a monster absorbs a human soul, the monster becomes capable of drawing upon the determination of the human soul, and thereby takes on a very great amount of power, exceeding that of humans.EssenceEssence appears to be a different thing from “soul.” This idea isn’t referred to in the game nearly as often as “soul” and “determination” are, but it does answer some very important questions about the canon, in particular the question of how Asriel came to be reborn as Flowey.The only resource in the game that explicitly references essence is the school report in Snowdin Library:When monsters get old and kick the bucket, they turn into dust. At funerals, we take that dust and spread it on that person’s favorite thing. Then their essence will live on in that thing.As far as Asriel is concerned, it seems to be a matter of literal truth as opposed to customary belief that the “essence” will live on in the “favorite thing” after death (in his case, the golden flower).ConclusionEssence carries the consciousness of the individual, the soul carries the individual’s ability to feel and express compassion, and determination is a power of the soul that allows the individual to resist death.HistoryPart 1: The WarLong ago, two races ruled over Earth: HUMANS and MONSTERS.One day, war broke out between the two races.After a long battle, the humans were victorious.They sealed the monsters underground with a magic spell.Undertale’s canon begins with humans and monsters coexisting on Earth. The first event of the canon is the war between them.These events are revealed to the player by the tablets in the Waterfall level, which are given below:“The War of Humans and Monsters.”Why did the humans attack? Indeed, it seemed that they had nothing to fear.The tablets imply that the humans attacked first, and are responsible for starting the war.Humans are unbelievably strong. It would take the SOUL of nearly every monster just to equal the power of a single human SOUL.But humans have one weakness. Ironically, it is the strength of their SOUL. Its power allows it to persist outside the human body, even after death.If a monster defeats a human, they can take its SOUL. A monster with a human SOUL, a horrible beast with unfathomable power.The power to take their SOULs. This is the power that the humans feared.This power has no counter. Indeed, a human cannot take a monster’s SOUL. When a monster dies, its SOUL disappears. And an incredible power would be needed to take the soul of a living monster.There is only one exception. The SOUL of a special species of monster called a “Boss Monster.” A Boss Monster’s SOUL is strong enough to persist after death, if only for a few moments. A human could absorb this SOUL. But this has never happened. And now it never will.In the game, the Boss Monsters are those who, after the player kills them and turns them to dust, leave behind a grey heart.There are only two Boss Monsters directly shown in the game: the King and Queen—Toriel and Asgore. It’s likely that Asriel, their son, is also a Boss Monster, but his soul is never directly encountered by the player. Thus, the only Boss Monsters are the goat-dragon creatures that make up the Dreemurr family.The humans, afraid of our power, declared war on us. They attacked suddenly, and without mercy.The humans attacked out of fear of the monsters. In particular, they attacked because they were afraid of the monsters’ ability to take a human soul after death and thereby take on incredible amounts of power. They were afraid of the monsters’ potential strength.In the end, it could hardly be called a war. United, the humans were too powerful, and us monsters, too weak. Not a single SOUL was taken, and countless monsters were turned to dust.Hurt, beaten, and fearful for our lives, we surrendered to the humans. Seven of their greatest magicians sealed us underground with a magic spell. Anything can enter through the seal, but only beings with a powerful SOUL can leave.Creating the barrier separated the humans from the monsters. The humans lived on the surface, while the monsters lived in the Underground. The only information the monsters could gather about the humans over time was the trash that flowed down into the Waterfall area of the Underground from the surface.There is only one way to reverse this spell. If a huge power, equivalent to seven human SOULs, attacks the barrier, it will be destroyed.But this cursed place has no entrances or exits. There is no way a human could come here. We will remain trapped down here forever.However, there is a prophecy. The Angel, the One Who Has Seen the Surface, they will return. And the Underground will go empty.Gerson, the old turtle merchant in the Waterfall level, reveals to the player that the prophecy is ambiguous. The “Angel” could be a being that comes down to break the barrier and free the monsters (the Pacifist Route), or a being that comes down to kill all the monsters (the Genocide Route). Either way, the Underground will go empty.Oh yeah... The prophecy.Legend has it, an ‘angel’ who has seen the surface will descend from above and bring us freedom.Lately, the people have been taking a bleaker outlook, callin’ that winged circle the ‘Angel of Death.’A harbinger of destruction, waitin’ to ‘free’ us from this mortal realm...Part 2: Home and New HomeToriel possesses a history book about the monsters in her bookcase by the fireplace. The segment revealed to the player is the following:Trapped behind the barrier and fearful of further human attacks, we retreated. Far, far into the earth we walked, until we reached the cavern’s end. This was our new home, which we named, “Home.”As great as our king is, he is pretty lousy at names.A book in Snowdin Library, perhaps the same copy that Toriel owns, briefly reveals to the player the history of New Home:“Monster History Part 4”Fearing the humans no longer, we moved out of our old city, Home. We braved harsh cold, damp swampland, and searing heat, until we reached what we now call our capital. “New Home.”Again, our King is really bad at names.According to these texts, monsters retreated from the barrier into the back of the cavern, and established Home there. They lived in Home until the shock of the war and their fear of the humans died down, at which time they became curious about exploring the Underground and wandered out of Home. Eventually, Asgore established New Home in front of the barrier, perhaps in attempt to study the barrier and find a way to destroy it.It was only after the monsters moved out of Home that Home became the Ruins.Part 3: Dr. W. D. GasterThe existence of the character of Dr. Gaster is perhaps the most well-kept secret of the Undertale canon. Direct references to him can only be found by editing the game’s files. Nothing about his relation to other characters is explicitly told except that he preceded Dr. Alphys as the Royal Scientist, but the most popularly accepted theories propose a relation to Sans.When the player edits the files to make hidden grey-colored characters appear in the game, one of them says this:It makes sense why Asgore took so long to hire a new Royal Scientist. After all, the old one... Dr. Gaster. What an act to follow! They say he created the Core. However, his life... was cut short. One day, he fell into his creation, and...A second hidden character in the same location says the same information:I understand why Asgore waited so long to hire a new Royal Scientist. The previous one... Dr. Gaster. His brilliance was irreplaceable. However, his life... was cut short. One day, his experiments went wrong, and...According to this information, Dr. Gaster was hired by Asgore for the purpose of finding a way to provide power for the Underground. Beneath New Home, in Hotland, he built a Core that converts geothermal energy to magical energy, to be cooled down with ice from Snowdin. But by freak accident he was accidentally killed by his own inventions, which may or may not be the Core.A third hidden character says this, speaking in rhyme:Alphys might work faster.But the old Royal Scientist, Doctor W. D. Gaster?One day, he vanished without a trace.They say he shattered across time and space.Ha ha... How can I say so without fear?I’m holding a piece of him right here.A fourth hidden character says this:Have you ever thought about a world where everything is exactly the same... except you don’t exist? Everything functions perfectly without you... Ha, ha... the thought terrifies me.How exactly did Gaster die? How exactly was Gaster torn across space and time?There are multiple theories that attempt to answer these two questions.The most intuitive theory is that he died by having fallen into the Core, which apparently did not kill Gaster normally, but rather made him shatter across time and space, and removed his presence entirely from the game.Another theory borrows the information on monster funerals from Snowdin Library, stating that Gaster’s essence lived on in the Core after he died, allowing him to see all of the Underground, and be everywhere at once.It’s very possible that Sans is related to Gaster. Sans is capable of crossing space instantaneously and jumping across timelines. When visiting Sans enough times at the end of the game, he gives you a key to unlock the door to his room. Inside of his room is another key, which opens the locked toolshed beside Sans’ and Papyrus’ house, and inside that shed is a collection of blueprints and a broken machine under a curtain. The prevailing theory is that the machine is a kind of time machine, and that using it somehow enables the user to travel across space and time. It was used by both Gaster and Sans, but as a side-effect it removes the user’s mark from all timelines of the world when the user dies. This side-effect is only applicable to Gaster, as killing Sans on the Genocide Route does not remove him from the game. Therefore, the best explanation appears to be that Gaster used the machine incorrectly, rendering him vulnerable to the side-effect, while Sans used the machine correctly, leaving him invulnerable to it.It could also be the case that Gaster died in the time machine, rather than in the Core. To once again borrow the information from Snowdin Library would suggest that his essence lives on in the time machine, which is why it was split across space and time.The grey-colored hidden characters throughout the game may be the “pieces” of Gaster spread out across time and space and removed from the world.Additional “garbage” information in the game’s files reveals some text in the Wingdings font. One of the rooms not used in the game has an amorphous figure at the center that says “[REDACTED]” in Wingdings. Additionally, one of Dr. Alphys’ log entries in her True Lab, Entry #17, is missing, but can be found in the game data in the Wingdings font, translating to the following:ENTRY NUMBER SEVENTEENDARKDARKERYET DARKERTHE DARKNESS KEEPS GROWINGTHE SHADOWS CUTTING DEEPERPHOTON READINGS NEGATIVETHIS NEXT EXPERIMENTSEEMSVERYVERYINTERESTING...WHAT DO YOU TWO THINKIt’s more likely that Gaster wrote Entry #17 instead of Alphys, forcing Alphys’ log to skip ahead from Entry #16 to Entry #18, but since Alphys wrote all the other entries that do exist in the game, it may be possible that Entry #17 was written by her in some altered mental state. It may be the case that this entry is an instance of Gaster’s shattered state across time, and that by the “next experiment” he’s referring to Alphys’ secret work ordered by the King, from which Flowey would be created as a side-effect. The reason for Gaster’s interest in the experiment may be because he regards Flowey’s ability to save and load the game as “very very interesting.”The most popularly accepted theory is that Gaster is a brother or father of Sans and Papyrus, taking on the family trademark of embodying the theme of their namesake font, and that his given initials “W. D.” stand for “Wing Dings.”In any case, after Gaster died, the Royal Scientist position became vacant for a long time, until it would later be filled again by Dr. Alphys.Part 4: Asriel and CharaThe end of the Pacifist Route reveals a plot twist that the “fallen human” referred to when starting a new save file is not, in fact, the player character, but rather that the player character has the given name Frisk.The “fallen human” is actually the first human that fell into the Underground after the monsters lost the war. The game’s developer, Toby Fox, suggests on a Twitter post that this character’s name is supposed to be the player’s own name. But the game itself suggests that the character’s true name is Chara, as inputting this name changes the text that normally says, “Is this correct?” to, “The true name.” Additionally, the name “Chara” is used in the game by default if it has no player input.When is it appropriate to call the fallen human “Chara,” and when is it appropriate to use the player’s input name?The most likely case seems to be that Chara is the name of the character by default when we talk about the game abstractly, but when a given player is interacting with the game, the “fallen human” is meant to take on the name that player would typically call their RPG player character.From this point on in text quoted from the game, the bracketed name [Chara] stands in for the name input by the player.Toward the end of the Neutral Route, on the way to Asgore, a gathering of monsters tells the history of Asriel and Chara. It begins with the following text:A long time ago, a human fell into the Ruins. Injured by its fall, the human called out for help. Asriel, the king’s son, heard the human’s call. He brought the human back to the castle. Over time, Asriel and the human became like siblings. The King and Queen treated the human child as their own. The Underground was full of hope.At the time, the King and Queen—Asgore and Toriel—were very happily married, and Asriel was their son. It seems that Asriel was the first to encounter Chara when Chara fell into the Underground, and he took Chara to his family to be adopted as a second child.It sounds like it came from over here... Oh! You’ve fallen down, haven’t you... Are you okay? Here, get up... [Chara], huh? That’s a nice name. My name is [Asriel.]Asgore, Toriel, and Asriel were all inherently kind, compassionate, and loving creatures.But Chara was a human being devoid of sympathy.Part 5: Chara’s PlanWhat was Chara’s plan?More information about Asriel and Chara is revealed to the player on the Pacifist Route, through a collection of five home videos stored in Alphys’ True Lab. The sounds of the text scrolls in the game indicate who the speaker is.Tape 1 was filmed when Toriel was pregnant with Asriel, before Chara was discovered in the Ruins:Toriel: Psst. Gorey. Wake up.Asgore: Mmm? What is it, dear? ... Err, and why do you have that video camera?Toriel: Shush! I want to get your reaction. Gorey, dearest. What is my favorite vegetable?Asgore: Hmmm... carrots, right?Toriel: No no no! My FAVORITE vegetable is... edaMOMe... Get it???Asgore: ... Go back to bed, dear.Toriel: No no!! Not yet! Hee hee hee. Now, if I were a dog, what breed of dog would I be?Asgore: Hmmm... I don’t know, honey. What kind of dog would you be?Toriel: I would be... a MOMeranian.Asgore: Hohoho! You sure are excited to have this child. You know, if you keep making jokes like this... one day, you could be... a famous MOMedian.Toriel: ... Well, I am going to bed.Asgore: Hey! Come on, Tori! That one was funny!Toriel: Hahaha, I know. I am just teasing you. Goodnight, dear.Asgore: Goodnight, honey.Toriel: Oh dear, perhaps it is too dark in here for the video to come out...Tapes 2, 3, and 4 were filmed by Asriel, after the family had adopted Chara, and in them Asriel is the one speaking.Tape 2Okay, [Chara], are you ready? Do your creepy face!AHHHH!! Hee hee hee!Oh! Wait! I had the lens cap on.What!? You’re not gonna do it again...? Come on, quit tricking me! Haha!“Creepy face” is quite the premonition.Tape 3Howdy, [Chara]! Smile for the camera! Ha, this time I got YOU! I left the cap on... ON PURPOSE! Now you’re smiling for noooo reason! Hee hee hee!What? Oh, yeah, I remember. When we tried to make butterscotch pie for Dad, right? The recipe asked for cups of butter... but we accidentally put in buttercups instead. Yeah! Those flowers got him really sick. I felt so bad. We made Mom really upset. I should have laughed it off, like you did... Um, anyway, where are you going with this? Huh? Turn off the camera...? OK.Here we get the first clue that Chara had no compassion for the Dreemurr family. Chara laughed at Asgore’s sickness, while Asriel was afraid for his father.The wording at the end suggests that Chara had developed some kind of plan related to the poisonous property of the flowers. Additionally, some theories suppose that the buttercups that poisoned Asgore may not have been so “accidental,” but was rather intentional cruelty on the part of Chara.Tape 4I... I don’t like this idea, [Chara]. Wh... what? N-no, I’m not... big kids don’t cry.Yeah, you’re right.No! I’d never doubt you, [Chara]... never!Y... yeah! We’ll be strong! We’ll free everyone.I’ll go get the flowers.Tape 5Toriel: [Chara]... can you hear me? We want you to wake up...Asgore: [Chara]! You have to stay determined! You can’t give up... you are the future of humans and monsters...Asriel: Psst... [Chara]... please... wake up... I don’t like this plan anymore. I... I... No, I said... I said I’d never doubt you. Six, right? We just have to get six... And we’ll do it together, right?The home videos together reveal that Chara had created a plan, and convinced the monsters to assist them with it. Chara also mentions a “plan” that had failed when talking to the player at the end of the Genocide Route. It’s likely that this was the plan being referred to.Asriel very likely had a central role in the plan. Entry 7 of Alphys’ log found in her True Lab includes the following information:[A] monster cannot absorb the SOULs of other monsters. Just as a human cannot absorb a human SOUL.Therefore, Chara would be unable to absorb the six human souls by themself. It’s likely that they wanted to use Asriel’s body as a vessel to carry the souls. This may be why they only wanted six souls rather than seven, because Chara would simply supply their own soul first, and then afterward gather six more. This may also be why Chara was interested in being a dominant friend to Asriel.The argument could be made that Chara’s cruelty is due to a lack of soul. But this argument loses its strength in light of information from one of the books in Snowdin Library:Love, hope, compassion—this is what people say monster SOULs are made of. But the absolute nature of “SOUL” is unknown. After all, humans have proven their SOULs don’t need these things to exist.It’s possible that Chara was the “proof” implied in the book. In that case, Chara had a soul just like any other human, but that soul was devoid of love, hope, or compassion. There isn’t much reason to suppose that Chara was inherently soulless. Thus, if they only needed to gather six human souls and the power of seven was required to destroy the barrier, the plan implies that Chara would have their own soul to provide.Additionally, the wording at the end of Tape 3 suggests that he wanted to use the poison of the flowers as the means of killing himself. This suggests that Tape 4 was filmed right before Chara convinced Asriel to bring him the poisonous flowers for them to consume, and Tape 5 was filmed after he had fallen unconscious from the illness and begun the descent into death.Therefore, Chara’s plan was most likely this:Become a toxic friend to Asriel. Brainwash Asriel to give up his sense of compassion, and dominate his will.Use the prophecy to convince the monsters to help obtain seven human souls in order to develop enough power to destroy the barrier. Feign self-sacrifice as a rhetorical strategy through offering up their own soul as the first mit suicide by ingesting poisonous flowers, and supply their own soul to Asriel as the first soul.Force Asriel to bring their dead body past the barrier to the human village. Attack and kill humans at the village, and force Asriel to absorb their souls.With the power of the human souls, destroy the barrier to the Underground, bringing the monsters their freedom. This will plunge the Earth into a second war between humans and monsters.With Asriel’s will dominated, take over his body and mind, and become the “beast with unfathomable power.”The monsters believed that the purpose of this plan was merely to gather seven human souls to shatter the barrier and free them from the Underground. This is most likely why Asgore began to regard Chara as “the future of humans and monsters.” However, Chara was using the plan simply to gain power for themself, and lied to the monsters by telling them that the plan was for their freedom, as a way of gaining support.Part 6: The Deaths of Chara and AsrielChara’s plan was on track up until the return of his dead body to the village by the strengthened Asriel. Toward the end of the Neutral Route, a group of monsters collectively relate the story of the deaths of Chara and Asriel to the player, though they omitted Chara’s plan itself:Then... one day... the human became very ill. The sick human had only one request, to see the flowers from their village. But there was nothing we could do. The next day... the human died.Despite knowing about Chara’s suicidal plan, the Dreemurr family was deeply affected by the loss of Chara, especially Asriel. This may be because, even if they knew that Chara was willing to supply their own soul, Chara did not inform them of when or how they planned to die.Asriel, wracked with grief, absorbed the human’s SOUL. He transformed into a being with incredible power.Asriel with the human soul became the “horrible beast with unfathomable power” warned about in the Waterfall tablets. He absorbed Chara’s soul as part of Chara’s plan.With the human SOUL, Asriel crossed through the barrier. He carried the human’s body into the sunset, back to the village of the humans. Asriel reached the center of the village. There, he found a bed of golden flowers. He carried the human onto it.Suddenly, screams rang out. The villagers saw Asriel holding the human’s body. They thought he had killed the child.The humans attacked him with everything they had. He was struck with blow after blow. Asriel had the power to destroy them all. But... Asriel did not fight back. Clutching the human... Asriel smiled, and walked away. Wounded, Asriel stumbled home. He entered the castle and collapsed. His dust spread across the garden.This is the moment where Chara’s plan was derailed. At the end of the Pacifist Route, when talking to Asriel at the Ruins, he reveals to the player that Chara had intended to use Asriel’s body to attack the human villagers. But Asriel himself had resisted, for the first time actively rebelling against Chara’s dominance over him. By having resisted, no human souls were reaped at the village, but instead Asriel himself was beaten and wounded by the villagers, and he returned home near the brink of death. When he arrived at the King’s garden, he fell upon the golden flowers and died, collapsing into dust.What happened to Chara and Asriel after they died?It’s difficult to say exactly what happened to Chara and Asriel after this moment, but the most plausible case seems to be the following:With Asriel’s body reduced to dust, Chara’s soul and Asriel’s soul parted.Asriel’s soul shattered shortly after it left his body.Chara’s soul was recovered by the King and stored in the basement in a coffin, as implied by Flowey toward the end of the Genocide Route.A funeral was held for Asriel, of the kind mentioned in the school report at Snowdin Library. Asriel’s dust was spread upon the golden flowers, as these had been Asriel’s most cherished object. In so doing, Asriel’s essence passed on into the flowers, without his soul.The monsters’ monologue at the end of the Neutral Route continues as so:The kingdom fell into despair. The king and queen had lost two children in one night. The humans had once again taken everything from us.The king decided it was time to end our suffering. Every human who falls down here must die.Thus, it was his grieving Asriel’s death that Asgore decided to kill any human who wanders into the Underground, and gather their souls in order to build up enough power to destroy the barrier. This is why Asgore forces the player into an ultimatum—he allows the player only two choices:To give up their soul to Asgore and allow Asgore to destroy the barrier, thereby freeing the monsters and declaring a second war against the humans.To kill Asgore, take his soul, and cross the barrier, leaving the monsters trapped in the Underground.We’ll call this “Asgore’s Ultimatum.”Why did Asgore adopt his ultimatum?Asgore acted out of blind rage over the death of Asriel, but he was also merely following through Chara’s plan, mistakenly believing its purpose to be as Chara had told him: the monsters’ freedom. Since Asriel himself had failed to gather human souls, the task should fall to Asgore instead. This is why he resorts to killing humans that fall into the Underground, despite his inherent kindness.Asgore’s Ultimatum is a side-effect of Chara’s plan. Thus, it originated from Chara’s selfish interest in gaining power. It is unbecoming of his softhearted personality because it was not his idea to begin with, but Chara’s.The monsters understood that the death of Chara was planned. But the death of Asriel was not. It was because of Asriel’s death that the monsters lost hope, as Asriel was intended to be the one to destroy the barrier according to Chara’s plan.As he reveals to the player at the end of the Pacifist Route, Asriel himself was aware of the monster’s loss of hope, and knew that it resulted from his own decision to derail Chara’s plan. Seeing that his decision had brought ruin to his friends’ hope, Asriel began to regard his death as a sin, and his torment after death as punishment.Asriel’s psychology underwent the following logic: since attempting to spare suffering had only brought suffering, it must be the case that to spare defeats its own purpose. Therefore, it is no longer an ethically legitimate choice—the only two viable options that remain are “kill or be killed.” Having become emotionally attached to his conclusion, Asriel becomes driven to prove it to the world.From this point on, we’ll call the “kill or be killed” philosophy “Flowey’s Ultimatum.”Note that Flowey’s Ultimatum generalizes Asgore’s Ultimatum. Asgore permits the player only two options—either to kill Asgore, or to be killed by him. He denies the option to spare—at the end of the Neutral Route, this act is literal. Flowey’s Ultimatum is communicated to the player in part to warn the player of Asgore’s Ultimatum. Rather than physically removing the option to spare as Asgore does, Flowey simply tries to dissuade the player from using it.Part 7: UndyneAs part of his efforts to capture and kill humans that fall into the Ruins, Asgore created the Royal Guard and appointed Undyne as the leader.Undyne grew up wanting to be a warrior. At the end of the Pacifist Route, Gerson, the old turtle merchant in Waterfall, relates to the player that he had once been a powerful warrior, and had trained Undyne when she was young. When Undyne’s training was finished, Gerson retired and became a historian.When the player befriends Undyne at her house, she talks about how Asgore had trained her in combat before granting her the position. Undyne reveals to the player that she has a low impression of Asgore’s merciful spirit, viewing it as weakness, and compares the player to Asgore in this respect (since this scene is played only on the Pacifist or Neutral Route).As head of the Royal Guard, Undyne also has the responsibility of recruiting and training new members. Among the recruits is Papyrus, who signs up in attempt to gain popularity and friends. While Undyne is impressed with Papyrus’ combat skills, she nevertheless believes that she cannot allow him to join the Guard because he is too merciful. As an alternative, she gives Papyrus cooking lessons, hoping that he will eventually see a future in cooking instead. But, as the player finds out through befriending her, Undyne’s aggression makes her a terrible cook, which is likely the reason why Papyrus’ cooking is also terrible.Fighting Undyne on the Genocide Route reveals that she appears to be a notable exception of a monster with enough determination to resist death, becoming “Undyne the Undying.” Her soul, however, still doesn’t persist after death, since she’s not a Boss Monster.Part 8: The Divorce of Asgore and TorielAt the end of the Neutral Route, when the player brings Asgore to near zero health, he surrenders and says the following:I remember the day after my son died. The entire underground was devoid of hope. The future had once again been taken from us by the humans.In a fit of anger, I declared war. I said that I would destroy any human that came here. I would use their SOULs to become godlike, and free us from this terrible prison. Then, I would destroy humanity and let monsters rule the surface, in peace. Soon, the people’s hopes returned.My wife, however, became disgusted with my actions. She left this place, never to be seen again.Asgore continued to insist on his ultimatum, his reason clouded by his grief for the wrongful death of Asriel. But Toriel disagreed with its cruelty, viewing it as a foolish solution.Toward the end of the Pacifist Route, when Toriel intervenes in the player’s fight against Asgore, she says this:If you truly wanted to free our kind, you could have gone through the barrier after you got ONE SOUL, taken six SOULs from the humans, then come back and freed everyone peacefully. But instead, you made everyone live in despair, because you would rather wait here, meekly hoping another human never comes.Why exactly did Toriel disagree with Asgore?What Toriel wanted was for Asgore to have taken as peaceful measures as possible to shatter the barrier. He should have taken the first soul he could at the very beginning. This would have been Chara’s when Chara died, and thus Asgore should have taken it instead of leaving the task to Asriel. And then, after crossing the barrier, he should have negotiated peacefully with the humans, persuading them to end the monsters’ banishment to the Underground and to give him six souls to allow him to break the barrier. Doing this would have spared Asriel’s life.The best explanation seems to be that Toriel was frustrated with Asgore for making Asriel to do the work instead of him, and thereby allowing Asriel to be killed, and the monsters’ hopes to be dashed. What she expresses in the game as her greatest concern is the monsters’ sense of hope, as well as the safety of humans that fall into the Underground, which she views Asgore as weak-spirited and cowardly for having violated. But it would be intuitive that much of her emotional drive would involve her grief of Asriel’s death.It was on this disagreement that their love for each other died. Toriel lost her faith in Asgore. She left Asgore, renounced the Dreemurr family name, and moved to the Ruins.Who were the six fallen humans?Over time, Asgore and his Royal Guard caught and killed six humans, and took their souls as they wandered into the Underground, one by one.Nothing is explicitly told in the game about the six humans. But in the fight against Flowey at the end of the Neutral Route, a correlation can be drawn between the attacks used by the souls and each of the equippable items that the player finds ingame (besides the temy armor). In particular, each soul seems to correspond to a certain weapon item and a certain armor item, together sharing a certain personality theme.The color of each soul can be correlated to each theme by looking at which healing item the soul gives to the player after the player calls all six souls during the battle against Flowey:The correspondences are the following. The table includes every weapon and item found in the game (besides the temy armor).HumanColor of soulWeaponArmorHuman’s PersonalityItem LocationPlayerredstickbandagePlayerStarting Item1light bluetoy knifefaded ribbonchildRuins2orangetough glovemanly bandanafighterSnowdin Shop3blueballet shoesold tutuballerinaWaterfall4purpletorn notebookcloudy glassesnerdGerson5greenburnt panstained aproncookHotland6yellowempty guncowboy hatcowboyBratty and CattyChararedworn daggerheart locketCharaAsgore’s Homereal knifethe locketThe most likely theory seems to be that each human had a certain occupation, and brought a weapon and an armor of that occupation into the Underground. And when each human was killed by Asgore, their weapon and armor were scattered throughout the Underground, to be found by the player.By the time Asgore had collected the six human souls, the first soul—Chara’s—was missing from its coffin. Thus, a seventh soul was still required to take the place of Chara’s.Part 9: Dr. AlphysTalking to Bratty and Catty reveals to the player the backstory of Dr. Alphys. She grew up with Bratty and Catty as a “big sister,” having taken interest in visiting the dump finding scraps in the trash as a hobby since childhood.According to Bratty and Catty, Alphys originally had a romantic interest in Asgore, and wanted to impress him. It’s difficult to say when in Alphys’ history her Mettaton entertainment robot creation was first built, and whether or not it was built with Asgore in mind to begin with. But since Asgore was interested in killing humans and collecting their souls, she modified Mettaton to include anti-human combat features as a way of getting Asgore’s attention.Asgore ended up taking great interest in Mettaton, and responded by offering the royal scientist position to Alphys, which she accepted. Since then, Alphys had disappeared from the public, staying “in her lab all day” doing “science stuff.”Alphys’ experiments commissioned by Asgore were to study the nature of the soul, so that the power of monsters’ souls could be used to break the barrier as an alternative to human souls. Asgore and Alphys communicated to each other, probably directly, throughout the course of the experiment. She constructed a second, secret lab beneath her original to run these experiments, which came to be called the “True Lab” by players.After her experiments failed, Alphys kept the position of Royal Scientist, but returned to her hobby of collecting scraps in the trash, and her love interest shifted away from Asgore and toward Undyne. She began to feel guilty about the horrific failure of her experiments, and thus tried to keep them secret.Since then, she lost her faith in being honest, preferring to lie about herself in order to be socially accepted. She convinced Undyne that the anime collection she has gathered from the trash were real segments of human history in order to use knowledge to impress her and gain her attention. She also installed cameras throughout the Underground in order to watch for any new humans, and Mettaton eventually reveals to the player that she reactivated puzzles, disabled elevators, and ordered Mettaton to torment the player as an act in order to create opportunities to assist the player and make them look up to her. When Alphys tells the player that she attempted to disable Mettaton’s anti-human combat features and accidentally programmed him with a desire to kill instead, what really happened was that she programmed Mettaton to create nonexistent dangers for the player and allow her to assist the player in overcoming them.These acts of dishonesty originate from her feeling of guilt regarding the failure of her experiments commissioned by Asgore.Mettaton, however, eventually thwarts Alphys’ final attempt at saving the player, as a “plot twist,” because his true motives are not to kill the player, but rather to entertain, and he views the plot twist as having greater entertainment value than continuing Alphys’ dishonest “charade” with the player.It should be noted, however, that even though Mettaton wasn’t actually programmed to have the ultimate desire to kill humans, he still allows himself the option to kill if it means a high entertainment value. On the Genocide Route, it is revealed that Mettaton has no interest in killing all of humanity because doing so would be a severe limitation to entertainment.Part 10: The ExperimentsOn the Pacifist Route, the player learns through Alphys’ log in her True Lab that Alphys is responsible for having created Flowey as part of her secret experiments assigned by the King.1. This is it. Time to do what the King has asked me to do. I will create the power to free us all. I will unleash the power of the SOUL.2. The barrier is locked by SOUL power. Unfortunately, this power cannot be recreated artificially. SOUL power can only be derived from what was once living. So, to create more, we will have to use what we have now. The SOULs of monsters.The difficult part of the experiment, however, proved to be trying to preserve a monster’s soul outside of the body.3. But extracting a SOUL from a living monster would require incredible power. Besides being impractical, doing so would instantly destroy the SOUL’s host. And, unlike the persistent SOULs of humans, the SOULs of most monsters disappear immediately upon death. If only I could make a monster’s SOUL last.Alphys decided to investigate human souls and how they can survive the loss of the body. In order to do this, she needed to study the six human souls preserved there. Thus, the experiment must have taken place after Asgore had already collected the six human souls.4. I’ve been researching humans to see if I can find any info about their SOULs. I ended up snooping around the castle, and found these weird tapes. I don’t feel like Asgore’s watched them. I don’t think he should.She eventually isolated determination as a material essence:5. I’ve done it. Using the blueprints, I’ve extracted it from the human SOULs. I believe this is what gives their SOULs the strength to persist after death. The will to keep living, the resolve to change fate. Let’s call this power DETERMINATION.Having done so, Asgore asked the people to bring in dying monsters for experimentation, and Alphys tried to inject the material of determination into the monsters’ souls to see if this would allow them to survive the loss of the body.6. Asgore asked everyone outside the city for monsters that had “fallen down.” Their bodies came in today. They’re still comatose, and soon, they’ll all turn into dust. But what happens if I inject DETERMINATION into them? If their SOULs persist after they perish, then freedom might be closer than we all thought.In order for the power of the souls to be harnessed, however, the souls would have to be absorbed by an object. Since monsters cannot absorb a monster soul, she would need to use an inanimate object instead.7. We’ll need a vessel to wield the monster SOULs when the time comes. After all, a monster cannot absorb the SOULs of other monsters. Just as a human cannot absorb a human SOUL. So then, what about something that’s neither human nor monster?She chose a flower from the garden where Asriel died.8. I’ve chosen a candidate. I haven’t told Asgore yet, because I want to surprise him with it. In the center of his garden, there’s something special. The first golden flower, that grew before all the others. The flower from the outside world. It appeared just before the queen left. I wonder, what happens when something without a SOUL gains the will to live?According to this entry, the flower she chose had some special characteristics:It was the first golden flower.It originated from the “outside world.” It is unclear whether or not this is a reference to the surface above the Underground. But in any case, it suggests that the golden flowers were not native to the Underground, but a plant introduced from outside.Since it was in the garden, Asriel’s dust had fallen onto it when he died.It appeared just before Toriel divorced Asgore and moved to the Ruins.It seems to be the case that all of these details serve the purpose of stating the following:The flower is important.The flower has Asriel’s essence.What Alphys would discover is that when something without a soul gains the will to live, if that soul had a life essence ritually passed into it, that life would be revived in the form of that thing. This event must be the purpose of the information on monster funerals given to the player at Snowdin Library.For a while, Alphys’ experiment was delayed because the monsters’ bodies weren’t decaying. Without any monsters’ souls, she couldn’t use the vessel.9. Things aren’t going well. None of the bodies have turned into dust, so I can’t get the SOULs. I told the families that I would give them the dust back for the funerals. People are starting to ask me what’s happening. What do I do?10. Experiments on the vessel are a failure. It doesn’t seem to be any different from the control cases. Whatever. They’re a hassle to work with anyway. The seeds just stick to you, and won’t let go.12. Nothing is happening. I don’t know what to do. I’ll just keep injecting everything with DETERMINATION. I want this to work.It’s unclear exactly what these experiments mentioned in Entry 10 could have been on the flower, since Alphys didn’t have preserved monsters’ souls at her disposal yet. But Entry 12 suggests that, as part of desperately “injecting everything with determination,” Alphys had also injected the flower with determination, and in so doing revived Asriel in the form of the flower. Thus, these experiments were most likely just as simple as injecting the flower and “control” objects with determination and seeing what happens in response.Instead of letting the monsters turn to dust, determination seems to have revived them.13. One of the bodies opened its eyes.14. Everyone that had fallen down has woken up. They’re all walking around and talking like nothing is wrong. I thought they were goners.15. Seems like this research was a dead end. But at least we got a happy ending out of it. I sent the SOULs and the vessel back to Asgore. And I called all of the families and told them everyone’s alive. I’ll send everyone back tomorrow. :)But then their bodies begin to melt, and they begin to fuse into “amalgamates,” such as those encountered by the player.16. No No NO NO NO NO NO19. The families keep calling me to ask when everyone is coming home. What am I supposed to say? I don’t even answer the phone anymore.20. Asgore left me five messages today. Four about everyone being angry, one about this cute teacup he found that looks like me. Thanks Asgore.21. I spend all my time at the garbage dump now. It’s my element.In the midst of Alphys’ panic, the flower, having taken on the essence of Asriel revived by the injected determination, wandered away.18. The flower’s gone.At the end of the True Lab, Alphys reunites with the player and explains why the experiments failed:You see, unlike humans’, monsters’ bodies don’t have enough... physical matter to take those concentrations of “DETERMINATION.” Their bodies started to melt, and lost what physicality they had. Pretty soon, all of the test subjects had melted together into... those.Ultimately, what the experiments reveal is that monsters are unable to take too high an amount of determination.These details also reveal what Flowey really is. Flowey is the life essence of Asriel, separated from his soul, corrupted by his submission to Chara, infused into the form of a flower by his funeral rite, and revived by determination injected into him by Alphys. Flowey does not qualify as a monster because Flowey’s body is not made of the material of “magic” like monsters’ bodies, but instead is made of plant matter. This is what allows Flowey to hold much higher amounts of determination than a monster can hold, to the point of being able to take over the game’s save mechanic.Did Alphys know that Asriel’s essence was in the flower she chose for her experiment?This question has no clear answer within the game’s canon, but evidence seems to incline ever so slightly towards the affirmative—that Alphys did in fact know she was using Asriel’s essence.There are three rather weak points that suggest the affirmative:1. It may have been an attempt to bring Chara’s plan back on track, so that Asriel would be the one to gather determination and shatter the barrier.2. The “control cases” were probably other flowers or other inanimate objects, which were not involved in the death or the funeral of Asriel, and thus did not have life essence passed into them. The most likely case, given the language of Entry #10, and the presence of other flowers in the True Lab, was that the “control cases” were other golden flowers, taken from places other than the King’s garden, and lacking Asriel’s essence. If Alphys distinguished the garden flower from “control” flowers, she must have known that there was something special about the flower to begin with, even before it absorbed any monster souls since she never had a chance to do so. The most likely distinguishing factor she would have considered was that it had Asriel’s essence.3. The determination extraction machine in Alphys’ True Lab has a similar appearance to Flowey’s monstrous form encountered at the end of the Neutral Route.It appears to have an elongated snout, like the dragon-goat form of the Dreemurr family. It may be an attempt to imply that the shape of the machine represents Asriel’s skull. If this was intentional, then perhaps Alphys knew that Asriel’s essence was in the flower, and it may have been the reason why she chose the flower in the first place.In any case, it was by injecting the flower carrying Asriel’s essence with determination that Asriel was reborn in the flower, as Flowey.Part 11: FloweyAsriel reveals to the player at the end of the Genocide Route how he, in flower form, degenerated from his pure self into a corrupt personality.I remember when I first woke up here, in the garden. I was so scared. I couldn’t feel my arms or my legs... My entire body had turned into a flower! “Mom! Dad! Somebody help me!” I called out. But nobody came.Eventually, the king found me, crying in the garden. I explained what had happened to him. Then he held me, [Chara]. He held me with tears in his eyes, saying, “There, there. Everything is going to be alright.” He was so... emotional. But... for some reason... I didn’t feel anything at all.With the memory of his compassion still fresh, Asriel was still driven to recover it however he can.I soon realized I didn’t feel ANYTHING about ANYONE. My compassion had disappeared! And believe me, it’s not like I wasn’t trying. I wasted weeks with that stupid king, vainly hoping I would feel something. But it became too much for me. I ran away from home. Eventually, I reached the Ruins. Inside I found HER, [Chara]. I thought of all people, SHE could make me feel whole again... She failed. Ha ha...I realized those two were useless. I became despondent. I just wanted to love someone. I just wanted to care about someone. [Chara], you might not believe this, but I decided... it wasn’t worth living anymore. Not in a world without love. Not in a world without you. So... I decided to follow in your footsteps. I would erase myself from existence. And you know what? I succeeded.Even after he found he could not recover his compassion, he still had some shadow of it. And out of that shadow of compassion, he chose to kill himself rather than bring himself to kill others. But he was brought back, by the determination that was injected into him from Alphys’ experiment.But as I left this mortal coil... I started to feel apprehensive. If you don’t have a SOUL, what happens when you...? Something primal started to burn inside me. “No,” I thought. “I don’t want to die!” ... Then I woke up. Like it was all just a bad dream. I was back at the garden. Back at my “SAVE point.”It’s here, at precisely this point in the canon, that Asriel first expressed some knowledge about the game’s save mechanic. Now that he had sufficient determination to use it, he began to learn how it worked on himself. Asriel learned how to take over the player’s computer console.Interested, I decided to experiment. Again and again, I brought myself to the edge of death. At any point, I could have let this world continue on without me. But as long as I was determined to live... I could go back. Amazing, isn’t it, [Chara]? I was amazed, too.Still with some residue of his original compassion left, Asriel in flower form used his ability to take on the save mechanic to bring about good to the world.At first, I used my powers for good. I became “friends” with everyone. I solved all their problems flawlessly. Their companionship was amusing... For a while. As time repeated, people proved themselves predictable. What would this person say if I gave them this? What would they do if I said this to them? Once you know the answer, that’s it. That’s all they are.But, because he knew it was just a game, he saw the responses of the world as dictated by game rules. This made him lose faith in the other characters, because he saw their responses merely as effects programmed by computer coding. Because of that, he got bored with their responses, and compassion seemed to be entirely superfluous. Having wandered away from seeing his world as spirited and toward seeing it as a product of coding, Asriel began to see the characters around him as sets of routes in a mathematical puzzle, and began to feel curious about exploring other routes. Routes that were once forbidden by his feeling of compassion, which was now removed from him.It all started because I was curious. Curious what would happen if I killed them. “I don’t like this,” I told myself. “I’m just doing this because I HAVE to know what happens.” Ha ha ha... What an excuse! You of all people must know how liberating it is to act this way.Then, Asriel expresses an inexplicable knowledge not only of the save mechanic, but also of Let’s Plays. Not only does he know about games, he knows about gaming culture.At least we’re better than those sickos that stand around and WATCH it happen... Those pathetic people that want to see it, but are too weak to do it themselves. I bet someone like that’s watching right now, aren’t they...?Asriel began to feel the finite nature of the game. That the maze had an end. And once he totalized all the routes of the game, he got bored again. Until something else intervened from outside the game’s rules and coding. That is, a player from the real world.Nowadays, even that’s grown tiring. You understand, [Chara]. I’ve done everything this world has to offer. I’ve read every book, I’ve burned every book. I’ve won every game. I’ve lost every game. I’ve appeased everyone. I’ve killed everyone. Sets of numbers... lines of dialogue... I’ve seen them all. But you... YOU’RE different. I never could predict YOU, [Chara].While the player was in the world, Flowey begins to spy on them, and communicate discreetly to Papyrus, giving him advice and encouragement.Current EventsCommonalitiesThere are certain commonalities that take place throughout all the routes.Sans is stationed at the beginning of the Snowdin forest area, by the door to the Ruins, to watch for humans. Out of boredom, he practices knock-knock jokes with the door. In so doing, he discovers Toriel, who answers back and begins to share jokes with Sans, though neither of them know each other. When Toriel allows the player through the Ruins, she makes Sans promise to look after the human, and keep them from being killed. Sans agrees to the plan, using his ability to jump across space and time to follow the human.Alphys is also watching the player, using cameras she installed throughout the Underground.Pacifist RouteOn the Pacifist Route, the player refrains from killing any monster, and befriends Papyrus and Undyne.When the player completes the Core and backtracks to the Hotland Resort over the bridge, Undyne calls the player and asks them to deliver a note to Alphys. The note turns out to be an invitation to a date, but since it’s unsigned and the player is the one handing it to Alphys, she mistakenly believes that it’s meant to be a date with the player rather than with Undyne. However, on the date, Alphys and the player encounter Undyne, and the truth is revealed that Undyne is in love with Alphys. Undyne and Alphys then become a couple.Now that the player has befriended Alphys, her newfound friendship allows her to muster the courage to disclose her secret experiments commissioned by Asgore to the public, and return the amalgamates to their families.However, after the player discovers her secrets in the True Lab, Flowey traps the player in an elevator, forcing the player to ride it up to New Home.When the player meets Asgore at the barrier, Asgore begins to fight the player, but is stopped by Toriel as she refuses to allow Asgore to be defeated simply to allow the player out of the Underground. While Toriel expresses her frustration with Asgore, they are joined by the rest of the monsters, who the player had befriended. Eventually, they discover that Papyrus had summoned them to meet Asgore and the player, at the advice of none other than Flowey.Therefore, bringing together the player’s friends had been part of Flowey’s plan. By allowing the player to make friends with the monsters, and bringing them together at the barrier, Flowey was able to take the six human souls as well as the monsters’ souls. With this power, Flowey would be able to recover his true form (Asriel), and prevent the player from leaving the Underground and finishing the game.Huh? WHY am I still doing this? Don’t you get it? This is all just a GAME. If you leave the Underground satisfied, you’ll “win” the game. If you “win,” you won’t want to “play” with me anymore. And what would I do then?But this game between us will NEVER end. I’ll hold victory in front of you, just within your reach... and then tear it away just before you grasp it. Over, and over, and over... Hee hee hee.Listen. If you DO defeat me, I’ll give you your “happy ending.” I’ll bring your friends back. I’ll destroy the barrier. Everyone will finally be satisfied.But that WON’T happen. You...! I’ll keep you here no matter what! Even if it means killing you 1,000,000 times!!!Toward the end of the fight, Asriel says this:[Chara]... do you know why I’m doing this...? Why I keep fighting to keep you around...? I’m doing this... because you’re special, [Chara]. You’re the only one that understands me. You’re the only one who’s any fun to play with anymore.... No... That’s not JUST it. I... I... I’m doing this because I care about you, [Chara]! I care about you more than anybody else! I’m not ready for this to end. I’m not ready for you to leave. I’m not ready to say goodbye to someone like you again...So please... STOP doing this... AND JUST LET ME WIN!!!STOP IT!! STOP IT NOW!!!... [Chara]... I’m so alone, [Chara]... I’m so afraid, [Chara]...[Chara], I... I...Asriel’s ultimate motive for trapping the player is that he misses Chara. He thinks the player is Chara, and wants to keep them. His ultimate drive is the fear of loneliness.With all the souls, Asriel recovers his true form and fights the player. The player responds by recovering the lost souls, and finally Asriel himself.At this point, Asriel realizes that the player character isn’t Chara. The player character then introduces themself as Frisk. With the six human souls and all the monsters’ souls inside of him, he recovers his sense of compassion, and is returned to his true self. He uses the power of the souls to destroy the barrier, and then releases all the souls, returning the monsters’ souls to their owners.Then, he says this:Frisk... I have to go now. Without the power of everyone’s SOULs... I can’t keep maintaining this form. In a little while... I’ll turn back into a flower. I’ll stop being “myself.” I’ll stop being able to feel love again. So... Frisk. It’s best if you just forget about me, OK? Just go be with the people who love you.Frisk wakes up, and is reunited with Asgore, Toriel, Sans, Papyrus, Undyne, and Alphys.If at this point the player returns to the very beginning of the game, in the Ruins, they will find Asriel. Asriel has a lot to say to the player at this point.The first time the player talks to him, he says this:Don’t worry about me. Someone has to take care of these flowers.This is exactly what Toriel says when you backtrack to talk to her after you spare her.The second time, he says this:Frisk, please leave me alone. I can’t come back. I just can’t, OK?The third time:I don’t want to break their hearts all over again. It’s better if they never see me.The fourth time:... Why are you still here? Are you trying to keep me company? Frisk...... Hey. Let me ask you a question. Frisk... Why did you come here? Everyone knows the legend, right...? “Travellers who climb Mt. Ebott are said to disappear.” ... Frisk. Why would you ever climb a mountain like that? Was it foolishness? Was it fate? Or was it... because you...? Well. Only you know the answer, don’t you...?The fifth time, he begins to reveal the evil nature of Chara. Provided that the player has not yet played the Genocide Route, this is the first moment in the game where it is explicitly revealed to the player that Chara is an evil character.I know why [Chara] climbed the mountain. It wasn’t for a very happy reason. Frisk. I’ll be honest with you. [Chara] hated humanity. Why they did, they never talked about it. But they felt very strongly about that.The sixth time, he begins to look back and see the truth about the toxicity of Chara’s friendship, whereas before he had deluded himself by projecting his own kindness onto Chara:Frisk... You really ARE different from [Chara]. In fact, though you have similar, uh, fashion choices... I don’t know why I ever acted like you were the same person. Maybe... the truth is... [Chara] wasn’t really the greatest person. While, Frisk... you’re the type of friend I wish I always had. So maybe I was kind of projecting a little bit. Let’s be honest. I did some weird stuff as a flower.The seventh time, Asriel explains what happens at the human village when he returned Chara’s body and was attacked by the humans. He explains how he had derailed Chara’s plan, how he blamed himself for losing the monsters’ hope of freedom, and how it led to Flowey’s Ultimatum. He also realizes at this moment that he has no reason to regret sparing, and that sparing had, in the long run, been the better choice of action than submitting to Chara’s cruelty.There’s one last thing I feel like I should tell you. Frisk, when [Chara] and I combined our SOULs together... The control over our body was actually split between us. They were the one that picked up their own empty body. And then, when we got to the village... They were the one that wanted to... to use our full power. I was the one that resisted. And then, because of me, we... Well, that’s why I ended up a flower.Frisk... This whole time, I’ve blamed myself for that decision. That’s why I adopted that horrible view of the world. “Kill or be killed.” But now... after meeting you... Frisk, I don’t regret that decision anymore. I did the right thing. If I killed those humans... We would have had to wage war against all of humanity. And in the end, everyone went free, right?I still feel kind of sad knowing how long it took... so maybe it wasn’t a perfect decision. But you can’t regret hard choices your whole life, right? Well, not that I have much of a life left. But that’s besides the point.The implication at the end of this quote is that Asriel sees the loss of his true form as a kind of death.The eighth time, he takes back Flowey’s Ultimatum:Frisk, thank you for listening to me. You should really go be with your friends now, OK? Oh, and, please... In the future, if you uh, see me... Don’t think of it as me, OK? I just want you to remember me like this. Someone that was your friend for a little while.Oh, and Frisk... Be careful in the outside world, OK? Despite what everyone thinks, it’s not as nice as it is here. There are a lot of Floweys out there. And not everything can be resolved by just being nice.Frisk... Don’t kill, and don’t be killed, alright? That's the best you can strive for.Well, see you.The ninth, and all subsequent times, he’s done talking.Frisk... Don’t you have anything better to do?This is the last that the game has to offer of Asriel. After this, he degenerates into a flower, Frisk leaves with the monsters to the surface, and humans and monsters coexist once again.Genocide RouteOn the Genocide Route, the player kills every monster they encounter. Unlike the Pacifist Route, this dramatically alters the course of the game from the very beginning. Monsters immediately begin to evacuate under the order of Undyne, leaving many areas of the Underground abandoned.On this route, Flowey continues to believe that the player is Chara, and thus takes great interest in them.When I saw you in the Ruins, I didn’t recognize you. I thought I could frighten you, then steal your SOUL. I failed. And when I tried to load my SAVE file... It didn’t work. [Chara]... your DETERMINATION! Somehow, it’s even greater than mine!Still thinking the player to be Chara, Asriel begins to wonder how he found them in the Ruins. He hypothesizes that when Chara’s soul was held in one of the coffins, Toriel took it out of the coffin and away from the King, and brought it to the Ruins to be buried rather than kept in the basement of the King’s castle.I just have one question for you, [Chara]. How did you get back to the Ruins from here...? ... Wait, I know. She must have taken you when she left. And decided to give you a proper burial, rather than hanging out in the basement forever... But, why then...? What made you wake up? Did you hear me calling you...?Then he starts to plan ahead with Chara, returning to his memories of friendship. But this time, without his sense of compassion, he is in total agreement with Chara’s cruelty.It doesn’t matter now. I’m so tired of this, [Chara]. I’m tired of all these people. I’m tired of all these places. I’m tired of being a flower. [Chara]. There’s just one thing left I want to do. Let’s finish what we started. Let’s free everyone. Then... let’s let them see what humanity is REALLY like! That despite it all... this world is still “kill or be killed!!”Then...? Well. I had... been entertaining a few ways to use that power. Hee hee hee... But seeing you here changed my mind. [Chara]... I think if you’re around... just living in the surface world doesn’t seem so bad.We don’t even need to leave to get them this time. The king has six of them locked away. I’ve tried hundreds of ways to get him to show me them... but he just won’t. [Chara]... I know he’ll do it for YOU.However, up until this point, Asriel never quite understood the reason for Chara’s cruelty. He never quite understood the value of power, but, out of his inherent innocence, thought it was a perverted, yet liberating, act of preserving friendship. When Asriel tortured the player as Flowey, he tells the player that his reason for doing so was so that he could keep playing with the player forever. Due to having projected his own inherent kindness onto Chara, he never quite came to the realization that Chara themself simply wanted to abandon the world after it was conquered, and move on to the next.Unlike Chara, soulless Asriel isn’t a totally cruel character. Asriel’s motives ride on keeping his friend. He wants to perpetually destroy and reset as a way of keeping his friend with him, while Chara wants the opposite—to destroy, leave destroyed, and move on to consume the next world. At this point in the monologue, he realizes that Chara doesn’t share his desire for friendship. He realizes that Chara simply wants to destroy the world, including him, and move on. This is the breaking point for Asriel. He very quickly loses faith in Chara, and starts to be afraid.Why am I telling you all of this? [Chara], I said it before. Even after all this time... you’re still the only one that understands me. You won’t give me any worthless pity!Creatures like us... wouldn’t hesitate to KILL each other if we got in each other’s way. So that’s... So... that’s... why... ha... ha... what’s this... feeling? Why am I... shaking? Hey... [Chara], no hard feelings about back then, right? ... H-hey, what are you doing!? B... back off!!I... I’ve changed my mind about all this. This isn’t a good idea anymore. Y-you should go back, [Chara]. This place is fine the way it is! ... S-s-stop making that creepy face! This isn’t funny! You’ve got a SICK sense of humor!Whenever Asriel says, “you’re the only one that understands me,” he’s projecting himself onto Chara.Additionally, this “creepy face” is probably the same one mentioned in the home videos in Alphys’ lab.Asriel makes a last-ditch effort to appease the player, by pretending to run to Asgore, crying. When the player reaches Asgore, Asriel assists the player in killing him, trying to convince the player that he can be useful. The player, however, kills him—their last kill in Undertale.Chara is the final character to appear to the player. Chara reveals to the player that they are, in essence, not a character confined to the Undertale world, but rather an aspect of the player. In particular, Chara is essentially the mentality of the traditional RPG player character. In other words, Chara is the player’s gamer ego.Greetings. I am [Chara]. Thank you. Your power awakened me from death. My “human SOUL.” My “DETERMINATION.” They were not mine, but YOURS.At first, I was so confused. Our plan had failed, hadn’t it? Why was I brought back to life? ... You. With your guidance. I realized the purpose of my reincarnation. Power. Together, we eradicated the enemy and became strong. HP. ATK. DEF. GOLD. EXP. LV. Every time a number increases, that feeling... That’s me. “[Chara].”Now. Now, we have reached the absolute. There is nothing left for us here. Let us erase this pointless world, and move on to the next.Considering Chara to be an aspect of the player rather than an Undertale character allows us to explain the origin of all knowledge of outside of the game’s world as coming from the player. Chara knows about game mechanics because the player knows about game mechanics.Asriel is the only other character who expresses any knowledge of game mechanics or gaming culture in a canonically crucial way. Asriel’s knowledge of the save mechanic can be explained by the fact that he has a past very closely intertwined with that of Chara. Thus, it could easily be the case that Chara passed that knowledge onto him. Thus, Asriel knows about game mechanics and gaming culture because Chara knows about game mechanics and gaming culture, and Chara knows this because the player knows this. Only by being injected with determination from Alphys’ experiments was Asriel able to use that knowledge, and only by having lost his own soul (and thus his ability to feel compassion toward the other characters) did the nihilism implied by that knowledge hit Asriel at full force.It would be a bit much to say that Chara is entirely an aspect of the player, rather than an independent character, considering that Chara has a backstory and dialogue independent of the player. But at the same time, Chara is not entirely an independent character. Even without using allegory and symbolism, much of the evidence in the game points to the idea that Chara is, literally, the player’s gamer ego made into a character. Chara themself says at the end that their “human soul” and “determination” are actually the player’s, and that they are the feeling that takes place when a number increases. It would explain why every other Undertale character has a justifiable reason for any of the evil they do, while Chara themself is one-dimensional—simply pure evil without a reason. The reason would be because, while the surface details of Chara (their name and backstory) are of the world of Undertale, what Chara is at the core (their personality and knowledge) is not.Chara could exist as a canon element before the game began, because the player’s gamer ego already existed before we knew about Undertale. Having played older RPGs and leveled up and completed these older games did the work of building up a gamer ego inside the player. Undertale’s canon then does the job of taking that gamer ego, building around it the shell of a character, and giving it a separate character role and a default name before throwing them down into the Ruins to begin torturing Asriel. Chara views Undertale as being only one among the series of RPGs that they player will encounter in their life, and thinks nothing of the desire to totalize and consume this one, and move on to the next RPG, as they (that is, the player) have done with RPGs past. Chara is entirely without compassion or involvement with character relationships in Undertale because these experiences are entirely outside of the player’s gamer ego.Ultimately, whether or not we consider it literally or metaphorically true that the core essence of Chara is the player’s gamer ego doesn’t matter, as saying it either way amounts to saying the same thing. What we should consider, however, is the idea that Chara’s knowledge is derived from the player’s knowledge. This idea has more sensibility, has more emotional value, and is more interesting from the point of view of artistic critique, than what would be suggested by a “closed canon” interpretation of Undertale—that Chara’s knowledge is merely arbitrary and lacks any explanation whatsoever.There is another source of emotional value to the “literal” interpretation: since Chara and Asriel had such a close friendship, it implies that, as a canonical backstory, Asriel was close to an aspect of the player, albeit only the evil “kill, consume, level up” aspect that is the player’s gamer ego. Those of us who played the pacifist ending and responded emotionally to befriending Asriel would find that implication to be quite moving.In any case, at the end of the Genocide Route, Chara destroys the world, expecting the player to consider the game to be complete, and looking forward to beginning to consume the next game. If the player reopens the game, they will find that the game’s world is destroyed. After waiting about ten minutes, Chara reappears, and offers to rebuild the world at the cost of the player’s soul. If the player agrees, then the Pacifist Endings are irrevocably altered, showing Chara possessing the body of Frisk.ConclusionsPost-Game Pacifist vs. Post-Game GenocideHaving Chara take over the body of Frisk post-Genocide at the end of the Pacifist Route shows that completionism misses the heart of Undertale, just as much as maximizing player statistics does. When a player decides to pick all the game choices, they are still sacrificing one choice for another. Once the player chooses completionism and corrupts the Pacifist Ending, they cannot go back. Likewise, when the player decides to follow the spirit of Undertale, they cannot return to the game without losing the spirit. The player cannot make both choices.There is an important message here. By choosing completionism, the player no longer expresses a distinct identity within the game. The game’s choices are only meaningful when the player chooses the most self-honest answer.If the player decides to remain inside the game of Undertale to the end, then they will eventually exhaust all the routes, and give over to their Chara aspect, which is their gamer ego. Thus, the player is left with a choice: to keep going inside the game, or to stop when the meaning of the game has drained away.The spirit of Undertale (that is, the expressiveness of the characters) is finite within the game—when it runs out, the player is invited to either (1) follow the spirit outside of the game (the “post-game” Pacifist Route), or (2) stay within the game, watch it become stale, and consume it (the “post-game” Genocide Route). Neither choice is the “correct” one, but to choose one is to sacrifice the other.If we take our emotional responses to the Pacifist Ending seriously, and decide to choose to follow this choice over the egotistical choice of exhausting the game, then we must depart from the game. This is still within canon, however, because the canon is more than just the game—it includes the player’s psychology.Therefore, if we choose Pacifist, then the canon would ask of us that we follow the spirit of the characters, rather than confining ourselves to the rules.Asriel’s UltimatumThere is, in fact, a third ultimatum in the game, revealed to the player at the end of the Pacifist Route. Asriel allows himself to have only two choices:To take back all the monsters’ souls, and keep his true form.To let himself revert back to a flower.We’ll call this “Asriel’s Ultimatum.”Since Asriel considers the loss of a soul to be a form of death, he would consider choice #1 to be essentially killing, and choice #2 to be being killed. Therefore, Asriel’s Ultimatum is in fact an application of Flowey’s Ultimatum to himself, without his realizing it, and he is choosing to die. He has still not yet freed himself from “kill or be killed.”Asriel’s Ultimatum is a natural product of his attempting to operate within the rules of the game. Without determination, he is incapable of breaking these rules. Only with a great amount of determination can the game’s rules be broken.Sacrificing Frisk’s Soul to AsrielWhen Frisk encounters Asriel in the Ruins at the end of the Pacifist Route, it would certainly be consistent with the spirit of Frisk’s character to offer his own soul to Asriel in order to allow Asriel to keep living.This is precisely the premise of certain fan made art. Why does art like this exist? More importantly, why do so many fans accept this idea? What is it about the idea that holds itself together? The best answer seems to be that it follows the spirit of Undertale’s canon, out of the game.What justification could there be for leaving out this option within the game, and insisting that Asriel revert? The most likely reason seems to be that it’s just an oversight on the part of the story writers. Nevertheless, Asriel’s Ultimatum is a game rule. But it rule misses the spirit of Undertale. This leaves the player with two choices:Genocide: Accept Asriel’s Ultimatum, stay inside the game of Undertale at the sacrifice of the spirit of Undertale, and let the game force Asriel to revert back into Flowey.Pacifist: Reject Asriel’s Ultimatum, abandon the game of Undertale and follow the spirit of Undertale, and propose that Asriel lives on, either by Frisk sacrificing his soul or by some other means.The game’s canon is not confined within the game itself. Rather, the game is confined within the canon, and the canon includes elements outside of the game—in particular, the psychology of the player, and the player’s gamer culture.Thus, in the end the canon leads us to ask this last, and most important question:Is the game itself really worth it?Why did we buy Undertale to begin with? We wanted a good game with a good spirit. But in the end, the spirit begins to divorce itself from the game, forcing us to make a choice. Whichever choice we make is up to us individually, but both choices are within the canon. We can either choose to take the characters out of the sinking Titanic of the game, and let them live on in their own way. Or we can stay inside the Titanic as it sinks, and watch the characters stale up and die. In that sense, the post-game follows precisely the same pattern as the game itself—we can either choose the compassionate route of keeping the characters, or the egotistical route of insisting on the boundaries of the rules and eating away at everything.If we have the determination to do so, then we have every capability to choose Pacifist in both the game and the post-game. What results from that is independent artistry. We break the shackles of our slavery to rule and consumption, and turn around and create. This creative drive, this refusal to let the rules stop us, is the ultimate end of the Pacifist Route, when we follow it past the end of the game.Those of us who decide to throw away those rules that deny life, and employ their artistic power instead, are the Pacifist players. Those of us who keep within the game and insist on the rules are the Genocide players. Neither is the “correct” route in any absolute sense—they’re both right in their own ways. All it takes is the right amount of determination to make the choice confidently.The Pacifist choice post-game is viable because we can collectively agree on it at an emotional level. We agree that it is emotionally fulfilling. It violates the rules, but that’s simply part of the sacrifice. Whatever comes out of it we might not agree on, but the choice itself is validated by its collective emotional agreement. Determination, that is, our refusal to let the characters die, is all that’s required of us to say that this is enough. Anyone who disagrees, who refuses to see this choice as viable, does so simply because they have taken the other path—Genocide.Therefore, saving Asriel is certainly possible within the game’s canon, and requires nothing more than the right amount of determination from the player post-game. ................
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