Undertale - Pet dogs and date a skeleton!

...Undertale sure is full of leitmotifs.

https://soundcloud.com/chocolate2890/wow

 

The music being so brilliant is one of my favorite things about Undertale. The technical finesse that goes into the character/situational leitmotifs being present everywhere is absolutely gorgeous

Spoiler: For example

As far as I know the unused track 'Song that might play when you fight Sans' includes thematic material from Bonetousle, NYEH HEH HEH and sans., but most importantly it features a snippet of another unused track. W.D. Gaster's theme, which can only be found in the soundtest at a specific Fun Value. This is currently one of the most definitive clues that Gaster was/is related to the skelebros.

 

As an eldest child who happens to be 4 foot 10, I also headcanon Sans as oldest. (My younger brother isn't taller than me yet, but my sister is.)

A ton of No Mercy speculation/rambling in the spoiler.

Spoiler: Many No Mercy Route Spoilers

Okay, so I finished watching an LP of the No Mercy Route (yeah, Flowey, I'm too weak to actually kill everyone myself, so sue me) and I definitely agree with a thing someone else said (either somewhere in this thread or elsewhere on the internet) about how going through the No Mercy Route brings out the best of all the characters? Like, Papyrus believes you can be a better person even as you're killing him, Undyne refuses to die so that she can protect monsters and humans alike, Alphys evacuates everyone to safety, Sans takes a final stand against you. Even Mettaton gives you the chance to prove you're not completely heartless (if you whiff your attack, he concludes that you may hate monsters, but you're not hateful enough to destroy humanity, or something along those lines). (He also says that there are some people he wants to protect; if you destroy the world, evacuation won't save anyone. Thus, Mettaton NEO is your final chance to back out of the No Mercy Route (aside from quitting and resetting completely, that is.))

Except... Asgore. After defeating Undyne the Undying, she says that Alphys is watching, and that Alphys will evacuate everyone and tell Asgore to absorb the 6 human souls. Alphys did evacuate everyone, so why didn't Asgore absorb the 6 human souls? 6 souls was enough for Flowey to become pretty damn powerful, enough to fuck with the game itself. Did Alphys neglect to tell Asgore? Or did Asgore simply not want to absorb the souls until it became strictly necessary - and given that he doesn't recognize the player as human when you show up, he may not have realized it was time?

Granted, by the time you reach Asgore you're LV 20, and Chara has become powerful enough to destroy the whole world. Perhaps Asgore absorbing the souls would have been futile...? When Flowey absorbed the souls, his save file claimed he was LV 9999, which presumably is more powerful than LV 20 ... but Asgore would never have been able to attain such LV. So... I don't know if it would have helped, but it would've been nice to see Asgore rise to the occasion, to do as others did and make a final stand... but I guess he was too nice to see evil even when it's right in front of him.

Speaking of not recognizing the player as human: In the No Mercy route, many of the important characters note that you are not human:
Flowey: "Hahaha... You're not really human, are you? No. You're empty inside. Just like me. In fact... You're Chara, right? We're still inseparable, after all these years..."
Sans: "well, i'll be straightforward with you. my brother'd really like to see a human... so, y'know, it'd really help me out... if you kept pretending to be one."
Papyrus: [when Sans says to look over at the player, after doing ridiculous spinning] "SANS!!! OH MY GOD!!!! I'M DIZZY. WHAT AM I LOOKING AT?" [Sans: "behold."] "WHY ARE YOU TELLING ME TO LOOK AT A ROCK." [Sans: "hey, what's that in front of the rock?"] "OH MY GOD!!! I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THAT IS."
Undyne: "Human. No, WHATEVER you are!"
Mettaton: "OH, THERE YOU ARE. YOU UGLY LITTLE CREATURE." [Granted, this one could just be an insult.]
Asgore: "Howdy! Erm... What kind of monster are you...? Sorry, I cannot tell."
(Toriel, if you attack her once she's stopped fighting you: "To think I was worried you wouldn't fit in out there... Eheheh!!! You really are no different than them!" )
(Side note: out of all of these, it's only Toriel and Asgore who equate you to monsters. Everyone else just says you're not human or is confused as to what exactly you are.)

It's repeatedly emphasized that what you're doing is inhuman, monstrous. That you are not human. Which reminds me of one of the entries in the True Lab:

ENTRY NUMBER 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?​

After killing Toriel, you talk with Flowey, and he says: "You're Chara, right? We're still inseparable, after all these years... Listen. I have a plan to become all powerful. Even more powerful than you and your stolen soul." And at the end of the No Mercy Route, if you want to play again, you have to sell your soul to Chara. Which raises a few questions:

• If Chara's already stolen your/Frisk's soul, why is it necessary to sell it back to them? Granted, you can abort a No Mercy run and switch to Neutral until the very end, so maybe they don't have full possession of it until you sell it to them? Or maybe it's supposed to differentiate between Frisk's soul and your/the player's soul?
• How can Chara hold another human's soul if "a human cannot absorb a human SOUL"? Is it because they're "empty inside" and/or lost their soul when they died? Apparently if you complete a second No Mercy run after completing the first, Chara will call themself "the demon that comes when people call its name." I suppose a demon would qualify as "neither human nor monster," but why are they a demon if they were human in life? Did being dead warp them, or is it your horrendous, murderous actions that make them a demon?

So... yeah. I would never be able to do No Mercy route myself, but... it provides some interesting information.

 

Spoiler: Such spoilers

I don't think the stolen soul is Frisk's soul, since Flowey says that that early in a No Mercy run, and Frisk doesn't sell their soul until the end of that run.

The stolen soul that Flowey refers to is Asriel's monster boss soul. Flowey doesn't have a soul, and that's the biggest problem he has.

At the end of a normal run, after sparing Flowey, he complains that he can't understand love and mercy, and runs away... At the end of a true pacifist run, after he feels everyone's love for Frisk and souls, he temporarily manifests as Asriel again.

If Frisk talks to him, Asriel tells Frisk about what happened back then. That the being who picked up Chara's body, walked through the barrier, brought the body to the flowers, and walked back was a mix of Asriel and Chara, jaeger-piloting Asriel's body. That their shared body died shortly after returning, and that their parents scattered the dust on the flowers.

Asriel might not know this, but one of the flowers in that garden was a being neither human nor monster; a flower injected with determination. And some mix of magic, and determination, and monster boss soul and human soul combined to make a flower with the memories of that dust and the determination to live.

Flowey is the soulless remnant of Asriel and the determined flower.

And Asriel tells Frisk that he won't last; he'll go back to being the soulless flower, and to please not think of Flowey as being Asriel. That part of why he became Flowey was the betrayal of feeling Chara's intentions to use Asriel's body and powers to murder humans. That, in his betrayal and grief and confusion, he started believing that kill or be killed worldview.

And yet, even after recognizing the grief and betrayal, and feeling better having felt everyone's souls and believing in Frisk, Asriel is convinced that Flowey will be the same Flowey. That without a soul he'll lack any feeling of connection to others, no sense of love or grief or anything that motivates him to be kind.



(I disagree with him about that.)

(Maybe it's true for him. Maybe his only motivation for helping people live happy lives that include him in them is feeling love for them. Maybe having that connection torn away really does reduce him to the choices of amusing himself by murdering everyone, or exiling himself so he doesn't hurt them anymore.)

(Maybe he's an idealistic kid who's been hurt in a way he has no clue how to heal from.)

(I think Flowey could stand to watch a little more Winney the Pooh to see Eeyore being kind even when he doesn't feel any happiness about it.)

(And to chat with Seebs about the motivations for being kind to people they don't care about.)

(I can't take the true pacifism ending as happy because I don't have reason to believe Asriel's right about Flowey.)

(I like to see fic that explore the what if of Frisk convincing Flowey to spend time with other people. I think he'll be hairtrigger and irritable and rude as shit, and that maybe he really won't feel the love that he used to... I also think his idea that he needs to exile himself to keep from hurting them is bullshit.)

(Chara.... would take even more work than Flowey. But it may be possible.)

 

Spoiler: I love my murder son

My idea is that when Chara was alive they were just a human. A particularly angry and hateful human but a human. Had things gone differently perhaps Chara wouldn't be what they are now. As is they died and spent time being just pure determination and soul. Given how fucked up Asriel got when he wasn't "whole" so to speak I suppose it would make sense that someone who is just pure soul might be fucked up having been given time to just. Stew and be pissed that they had failed.

Then Chara ends up attaching themselves to Frisk during the game and through the player's actions Chara may begin to gain influence over Frisk. Basically replacing Frisk with themselves entirely by the end of the game in a geno run. Your determination and will power ends up feeding into Chara and their simply human soul. Because it's not them who had the power to do what happened.

It was you. All you. She outright tells you this at the end of the genocide run. It was your soul and your determination that let them because what they are at the end.

By doing what you did you just powered him up and turned him into whatever in the fuck he is at the end of the geno run. Choosing to sell your soul to human binds you to him completely. So now he has the power to take over whenever he pleases while you go on about your business. You might think that you're still in control but you aren't.

A thing to note is that she does say "SINCE WHEN WERE YOU IN CONTROL?" Which I don't entirely read to mean that they had control over you directly from the start. That happens when you sell your soul to them. Instead I think they are more making a statement akin to what Sans tells you earlier. You're just doing this because you can and because you feel like you have to. You're a slave to your determination and Chara is subtly rewarding you for that. So while they aren't directly in control they are encouraging you from the sidelines. They are the "feeling when a number goes up" after all. I don't necessarily know if that is literal though. That he is a feeling. They're definitely an individual of...some manner. I think it is that Chara is both a demon literally and figuratively everything disgusting about you. So they're both you and not you.

So in a way Chara is like Mara. Both a literal demon and also a more figurative one.

The actual mechanics as to how they ended up this way might also relate to the save and load system. Saving and loading broke Asriel and turned him from helping people to killing them and eventually to a nihilistic mindset (the other part was Chara having a shitty outlook on life and feeling he fucked up with the humans). Sans meanwhile has very little will power to keep doing what he has to do. He says that Papyrus has no idea how busy he is and I think he's right. But knowing what he knows and doing what he does is severely sapping his will. And it's why in the pacifist run Sans has just given up entirely when you need to save him.

In the case of Chara themselves they were already spiteful and cruel when they weren't stuck in their weird limbo. Imagine now being mostly powerless save for suggestion and stuck to some fucking kid that isn't you while some asshole carts you two along. Through sheer hate and frustration Chara may well have made themselves something that they weren't in the past: a demon.

 

Alright. Just finished my pacifist run. I'll have a better response to you, @Aondeug , after I finish a no mercy run.

Spoiler: I reopened the game to get proper screenshots

So after a pacifist run, quitting, and re-opening, Flowey shows up.

Just him, in the featureless black. Commenting on how everyone is happy; monsters have returned to the surface at last. But there's still one threat, one thing that can ruin everything, erase everyone's accomplishments, and he's talking to them.

Flowey comments that he knows that power; it's the one he wanted to use. But now... he doesn't think he could bring himself to use it anymore. "Not after that."

Spoiler: Following 'not after that'

The "you" he's addressing is Chara. That lingering soul with the power to reset the timeline, to puppet Frisk through the underworld to the End. And in a way Chara, the fallen child, is us, the player. What we can be when we have the determination to treat their world as a game. What we are when we grind through their lives to explore all the possibilities, when we erase their hopes and dreams for the sake of gratifying our curiosity and boredom.

Spoiler: what sans can do vs what we can do

I'm pretty sure that sans is not a time traveler. Not like we are, with the power to load save files and reset the world.

He does seem to have the power to teleport through space, given his constant shortcut fuckery.

He knows that time travel can be a thing, and has codewords prepared for that possibility.

He has that secret lab with schematics, a broken machine, pictures of strangers (and a picture of you and all your friends, despite having not gathered for taking a picture yet), but he doesn't seem to be able to time travel himself.

After all, if he could, couldn't he do so in the last hallway, when you're confirming yourself to be a time traveler?

But maybe he once was.

His chat near the Core, and his secret room




He has that broken machine, those pictures of people you've never met, and the shopkeeper in Snowdin says the brothers just appeared one day.

I still need to go check out the Gaster stuff, and see what else people fucking with files have uncovered.

*edit to fix the images in the linked imgur album and a typo

 

Spoiler

Why would I not be in control? I *named* him, didn't I?

 

Spoiler

is someone who gets manipulated into doing something to experience everythign they can experience in control? And who allows you to name them? Names have power, sure, but what makes you think just because you name someone doesn't mean they aren't using that connection as a string to pull on you. After all namign things makes us care about them. And if you care about somethign it can be used against you
:)

 

Spoiler

Nobody has to manipulate *me* into doing bad things in order to experience something new - I live at the intersection of completionist gameplay and transformative fandom. I break the things I love all the time. This is my turf and I am comfortable here. I still maintain I am perfectly capable of pulling a "I ain't been vampirized, you've all been Weatherwaxed" on Chara.

 

Spoiler: Chara is Mara and hello I am super Buddhist did you know?

You named him, but you aren't in control for the same reason no one who is unenlightened isn't in control. You're tempted constantly and blind to how you're influenced by it. The very act of saying "I am in control" is to reveal that you are far less in control than you thought. Because you are caught in an illusion of actually having control and being aware of what you're doing and what reality is. When if you really were in control then you would be like the Buddha. Because there would be no logical reason not to.

That is just my very Buddhist interpretation of the line though and only Buddhists deal in absolutes. (HAHAHAHHAH STAR WARS PUN but no it's true we care about absolutes in buddhism)

 

Spoiler

If I understand correctly, Buddhist wisdom as applied to this situation boils down to "turn off all those games and go outside".

 

It can. This depends on how one goes about things. One also has to keep in mind that not everyone is a monk nor is everyone bound to act like a monk. It should, I think, also be kept in mind that Dhamma can be found anywhere. Art, while a distraction, can also potentially be a tool. It can get people into Buddhism or into thinking about Buddhism. While I may not be Mahayanist I do agree with the principle behind why certain Mahayanist temples make use of especially song like chanting. Or why that one Zen group is turning to rap.

Not everyone is a monk. Not everyone is going to be a monk in this life. However reaching people is still important. And it is important for those who are not yet in the monkhood to try and find Dhamma in things they go through or consume. It's important to think about Buddhism. Especially when one isn't certain about whether they want to make that step into the Sangha just yet. Take your time. Don't rush.

So for me personally I feel that Undertale is a useful tool for the Buddhist layman. It provides things to think about where it concerns Dhamma and the nature of Mara and Dukkha.

 

A further addition to make I feel is that, while I am not a Zen Buddhist, I do feel that Zen teachers and the like do have it right. Traditional Buddhist practices can be just as much of a distraction and impediment to progress as art can. Meditation is lovely! But it can hold you back.

That and I feel it needs to be stressed that even those who partake in art and live a life in society at large have place in Buddhism. We are the only reason the monks are able to exist as they do after all. And it's not like we don't have time. We have so much time in fact that it is basically completely impossible to actually fail at Buddhism. Since at some point in time you're going to get everything right.

 

Sorry, I may have worded that badly. I didn't mean "wouldn't Buddhism tell you to stop playing games and go outside?", I meant "doesn't Buddhism value letting go of attachment, realising the world is an illusion, and striving to get away to somewhere beyond, and if we take the game to be the 'mortal world', doesn't 'enlightenment' then translate to 'turning off the game and going outside'?"

 

That's what I got from your post. That the determination to explore all the possibilities and decide on the ending of the story is... a little too attached to the illusion of control.

 

It values letting go of attachment, yes. Depending on how exactly we are defining things, I guess. Zen gets into some very weird places and its answer to all of your questions would be variously yes, no, yes and no, no and yes, and neither.

I responded how I did because people, even monks, do take it as literally get the fuck outside and stop with art. Especially in Theravada which is artphobic often times. Just so you know. Anyway.

Turning off the game and going outside I think would just lead you to another part of the illusion. Since Undertale is very meta, in a way, we are part of the game world? The act of finally setting it down would be a useful lesson to learn though. Flowey's response to you when you try to true reset is important in that note. While it isn't a literal setting down of attachment it is an act of it. A bit of it. Which is important and neat, I think.

Especially since you, or at least I do, have that feeling of "Wow but I want to keep playing. I don't want to leave. Not yet." That is how I feel about life as a whole. I want to keep playing. I don't want to leave. I am scared to. Even if I end up hurting others and myself I am too scared to leave. Because my friends are there. But I have to at some point.

My insistence that it is good and Buddhist to play the genocide route is important too. As is playing the pacifist route. Or the neutral. There are lots of things to think on from my perspective in it! And that is part of why I like Undertale so much. It lets me explore concepts and such from my religion and think about them in a safe environment.

 

Yeah, the fact that I can't seem to stop thinking about the stupid game and it irks me so much probably shows I've got some attachment going on I need to discard.

 

*hey...
*what do you think...

 

Despite everything, it's still you.

 

Spoiler: No Mercy run screenshots and commentary thus far (up to Snowdin)

Angel waited in the room like Toriel said to... for quite a while. But they got bored. Walking back and forth didn't get any encounters in that room, after all. Not much to break up the monotony. Called her every couple of minutes, until...


...Huh. What a wonderful idea, Mom. I'll be sure to do that.


Napstablook does not have good prospects for an acting career.


It's me, the angel of death.


Me neither, lady. How about we play a different game?


You're really not making this easy on me...


That's more like it.




Don't get sentimental on me, flower.


....
...Oh no...
...the dogs make the worst whimpering noises when you kill them (or their spouses)... :(
Honestly, I had a harder time killing the dogs than Toriel, because she doesn't whimper. No sound of crying dog to distract me and remind me of empathy. Just the game sounds, and the face I've seen before.

And yet my least favorite enemy thus far: Fucking Jerry. With his 20 defense. I can't manage over 11 damage on him with my best shot. Killing him is tedious, and he showed up 3-4 times!


Fucking Jerry. Didn't even notice me murdering his friends right next to him.

Also, here's a weird thing that came up:

So... Angel... what exactly about Sans has your attention?

eta a long time later: the comedian is actually Snowdrake. This message appears until you kill him.