Gamer boyfriend vibes yk

I can't believe this is my first real post on here, but here we go! For a long time we haven't really gotten to the bottom of what the red heart means in Undertale and Deltarune. I think I have a pretty good idea! I'm going to try to keep this short (editor's note: didn't happen) and at least somewhat visually engaging. Spoilers for both Undertale and Deltarune up to chapter 5! Let's begin.

The Gist (Colors and Attributes)

As I'm sure everybody knows at this point, all of the other hearts are given a special attribute that influence the souls:

This excerpt comes from the now well-known ball game in snowdin, which has watered the gardens of many fandom creations. Each color responds with a soul color of the fallen children before Frisk. Naturally, it has been assumed that these traits in some way inform how the previous children acted. Some other less obvious hints to this lie in the soul modes! They seem to correspond to these traits, and gameplay elements of each soul mode are referenced with each color in ball game. The yellow soul shoots monsters head on, the kindness soul takes a more defensive role as it reflects attacks, perseverance has you move through the confines of the strings you're put on-- and hey, even the new orange soul mode corresponds with bravery, as you charge into attacks head on! In fact, the deltarune chapter this mode debuts in has a lot to do with this discussion...

But I'm going to get to these guys later.

You may ask yourself (if you didn't know already) "well that's great and all, but shouldn't we know about the red soul's trait if it's mentioned in the ball game?" Well. That's the funny part.

This is why we've been stuck for ages. We don't actually get a trait for the red soul. All we get is Ball Game. Because of this, going on eleven years, we've been forced to make up what we think the red soul is. There has been a common answer for a long while on what the red soul's trait is, but I'm going to give you my best reasons as to why it isn't.

The Classic (That Probably Isn't Correct)

Okay, there would be no point in me making this post if I thought it was determination. It's the fandom's frontrunner and has been for a while. I probably don't have to tell you why, but I'm going to.

The save points! Because of these bad boys, determination has been cemented as THE undertale word! And these save points are only accessible to you, the possessor of the red soul. Not a terrible leap of logic, I'd say, but there's a lot of issues with this idea. I think if I really want to get my theory across I'll have to dismantle this.

The big one comes when talking about determination and perserverance. They are literally synonyms.

Not kidding. Google determination synonyms right now. Perserverance will always show up. Some of you might consider that Toby Fox might not have known this when making the traits, but I think that stems from a current trend of not giving him enough credit. Like c'mon guys, he's made a game good enough to be talked about for ELEVEN YEARS, even if you don't think he googled this, you don't think he asked someone who could point this out either? Anyway, I think determination being something other than a soul trait makes enough sense for this coincidence to happen. When you consider two other characters, I think it becomes even more obvious why it doesn't work.

Now, the red soul shown to be unique compared to all other souls. It has done things the others have not. And our dear friend flowey here is walking around chock full of determination! He has access to save points too! If determination was the secret sauce, it suddenly would be a lot less special. As well as that, Flowey is often said to be soulless. By who? Well, himself!

Wouldn't it be odd for a character to embody a soul attribute, yet ALSO be soulless? As well as that, Flowey is hardly associated with red. He's associated with gold, like his petals... like the checkpoint. I think this part really makes my point, but there's still some more to discuss about determination in relation to the red soul.

I don't think he provides anything new, but for me, Flowery provides the final nail in the coffin. This nail takes the shape of a meta love-letter to the fandom's perceptions of the souls.

The seven flowers take on the role that the seven souls have had in the fandom for years now; they interact with each other as one big happy family! To me, it's obvious that this is paying homage to those undertale comics of them all happy, alive humans, which seems to be a pretty big deal to the flowers. However, there's one fella missing-- or, rather, replaced. Instead of a red flower, there's a gold one. Now, this corroborates what I said about the red soul being unique. Not even a resemblance to it is allowed in the game. However, with the angle of paying homage to the fans, we get another very interesting idea. Remember what I was saying about the fandom perception of the red soul? Of how its original trait was overridden to be determination, even if it didn't completely add up? It's like it REPLACED the red soul entirely... But, with the ending of chapter 5, we get another hint to lead us away from determination.

Flowery, despite all of his determination and posturing as a Main Character type, wasn't enough. He wasn't able to beat the knight. He doesn't have the capability. He doesn't have the soul capable of doing so; the RED soul. Determination isn't enough by itself, and we can see that with this.

It would be fair to say that I'm reading in-between the lines too much. You could say I'm relying too heavily on Toby Fox's potential awareness of the fandom, and that he would never use the game to lead us to the proper conclusions while including fanservice involving popular theories and headcanons.

There's just no evidence to corroborate this!

The Truth (What Is the Red Soul?)

Its less fun if I just tell you, so I'm going to try and lead you through my thought process. It's always nagged at me how I hardly see any discussion around what it could be. Especially since it's, like, us! We should be trying to figure that out first!! The reason it's been so difficult is that it's so purposefully obfuscated, and not like other mysteries where it feels like we will learn later. It feels like we're not told, almost as if it's better off that way, as some mystery that's much funnier (or important) if left unsolved. When I thought about that, I had this shot-in-the-dark idea that stuck with me. A real. Big Shot.

Spamton might give us a big clue to this, and I need you to hear me out. Spamton has a similar gimmick to the trait of the red soul, where there's a specific word or phrase that he can't say. Instead, it's replaced with "[[Hyperlink Blocked]]". It's largely just something funny to say, but some people have dedicated some time to figure out what this elusive Hyperlink Blocked may be! The best and most in-depth video about this topic is by the YouTuber, Jaru, and if you have an hour after reading this crazy long post, I'd highly recommend watching it (here's the link)!

I'm going to get to the kick of this segment, so apologies if I don't explain this right. There are a lot of options for what this could be, but there is one that I favor, and is favored by the creator of the video linked above. Hyperlink Blocked is something that is desired (see above), can be made ("you've been making [[Hyperlink Blocked]]"), can be given ("we will transfer my [[Hyperlink Blocked]]", and something you can be ("I'll get so [[Hyperlink Blocked]]"). We also should avoid things that Spamton has said, like freedom, or money, or fame. With all that gone, what could fit the criteria? What is something that we want, that we've been chasing after, that Spamton desperately wants just as bad, and yet, can also give to us?... There's no way to build up to this. It's Love. In every way we can think of.

The Reframe (Let's See How Much It Makes Sense)

Suddenly, it all made so much sense to me. Spamton, an analogy for Kris, desires love and affection so badly from everybody else. When we start fulfilling his quest he says he'll get so Hyperlink Blocked. He'll get so LOVED. Loved by all who discarded him in the first place, because the power he'll attain will force everyone to pay attention to him, to love him. On the weird route, he accuses us of Making Hyperlink Blocked. Making Love. That's because we've been getting Noelle to become stronger. To him, love is power. To us, love is also literally power, as explained by Sans in Undertale.

Kris wants love too, from Susie and from Ralsei. But also, from us. They want our Love, our red soul. They NEED it. Before we get ahead of ourselves, let's strip it down even further. The primary selling point of both games involve that you don't have to settle things with violence. By showing compassion-- showing Love to these monsters, you get to befriend them and achieve a happy ending. But what about the flipside? What about when you decide to murder every monster? Is that Capital-L Love? Absolutely. Just a different kind; it's a love for the game. To love something so much you're willing to squeeze the life out of it to get every last drop of content. People love those moments in the genocide route just as much as they love the moments in the pacifist route. This extends to Deltarune as well.

From various lines in the weird route, it becomes obvious that Love is playing a big part in the story here as well. Besides being criticized by the game for enjoying it (see the mantle mini game, heavily theorized to be reflective of the weird route), Kris and Noelle are often framed as a romantic pairing, much to their dismay. In the end, because of us (the red soul), they end up sharing a moment where they hold hands, in a scene taken up by the pretty obviously canon pairing in the normal route. It's that twisted love that underlies the weird route and gives it that unsettling feeling. But what if we untwist that love?

In the normal route, love is just as important! How interesting! In fact, the prophecy has something to say something about love, too.

Now, assuming that Susie is the girl, what do we see happen time and time again during solo Susie fights? She doesn't manifest her own soul, OUR soul appears and finds its way to her. Our Love.

As solid as I think that point is, it pales in comparison to just... thinking about it. Red hearts have been associated with love for so long. In fact, they're associated in-game, as level increases are referred to as LOVE instead. For the game to outright say that the soul's trait is love would be so trite that it would almost ruin the story written around it. It was just a good move to not explicitly say it. It let the themes about love hit so much harder.

Let's look at ball game one last time. We get our six traits from here, but there's something else. The game frames them as traits we used all at once to complete the ball game. Fellas, anyone here been in love? Can you all think of something that needs the bravery to express it, the justice to do it right, the integrity to follow through on it, the kindness to possess it in the first place, the perserverance through all the wrong moments for it, and the patience to be able to wait for the right one? I can think of something that fits.

The Conclusion (My Final Thoughts)

i think i forgot to post it here also

Being credibly accused of acting from hate is devestating to a person's credibility. People are far more willing to excuse terrible behavior if they believe the person is genuinely worried about others and is trying to protect them. See: child abuse, Christianity, and the psychiatric system for three random examples. On the other hand, if it's clear other people's safety isn't as important to the bigot as hurting someone, this massively undermines the bigot's arguments and results in their suggestions being viewed with far more defauly suspicion than would otherwise be the case.

This is a vital strategy because many people are themselves bigoted, and sympathetic to the idea that some women are a threat and should be monitored. But you need more than vague sympathies to foment prejudice into hate mobs and legislation—not much more, true, yet this loss of credibility is an actually useful way to push back against Rowling's worldview.

The thing is that the Knight isn't weak, hell no, it's just that they're petty.

Extremely petty.

I feel like the Knight loves being the big bad scary guy the heroes are trying to defeat. I mean, look at how they were moving. They LIVE to be sassy dude.

But there's a couple of times where they drop that evil playful shtick and go straight to the point.

-When Tenna ignores their orders.

-When Susie thinks they're weak.

-When Susie thinks they're weak Again.

-When Flowery tries to defy them.

There's a common pattern among those cases.

The Knight isn't seen as threatening.

The Knight could've defeated the Fun Gang at any moment during their battle, - hell, they could've killed them - but where's the fun in that? So it lets them struggle, because it wants to making itself seem undefeatable, a looming threat that will haunt them until the end of their journey.

But then they manage to get their health down by like, 30%, and Susie chips their sword. And at that moment, it isn't fun anymore. If they aren't scared, then what's the point?

And what do they do to Kris, who gets an attack boost as soon as their friends are swooned during the fight?

They get them on 1HP and remind them of their place. Remind them that they will never be in control by making them kneel.

In the Dark Sanctuary, the Knight prefers to watch from afar, being an ever-present threat hanging over the heroes' heads.

But when they reach it at the end of the dark world, they go back to toying with them, mocking them for thinking they even have a chance.

(Also they dodge Susie's Rude Buster so they were probably purposefully letting themselves get hit by it in the fight.)

But, yet again, they stop playing pretend because of Susie. Because she implied that they are weak.

So what does the Knight do seeing a 16 year old talk shit about them?

They summon a goddamn Titan.

The Titans are never mentioned in the Prophecy unless it's about the Roaring, so the Knight was fully willing to start the Roaring early because Susie made them mad.

Of course, they could've thought that, in the end, it wouldn't actually kill the Fun Gang, but for all we know, they didn't know that either. But it shows that the Knight doesn't like not being taken seriously.

And finally, there's the most recent one: Flowery.

Flowery already didn't think much of the Knight before they even appeared, but when they come to take Asgore, he immediately rushes to save him.

And I think that the most important part here is that, when Flowery taunts the Knight, they actually speed up, to the point they crash into a wall due to being distracted.

Flowery poses no threat to the Knight, not only is the Knight far more powerful than any character we've seen, but Flowery is constantly said to be very fragile, even by Darkner standards; the Knight had no reason to even attempt to outrun him outside of competitive pettiness.

And when he does catch up to them, the Knight stays kneeling for a moment, not necessarily because the wall genuinely hurt them, but at the sheer shock that the goddamn jarona guy is trying to put up a fight against them.

The same way they ended the fight as soon as Susie got too confident, the Knight barely bothered to play along with Flowery. He isn't scared, he isn't cowering, and that's not what the Knight wants, so it gets rid of him.

My point is that the Knight is powerful, but it doesn't want to be just that. It wants to be threatening, it wants the heroes and anyone that opposes it to be terrified of their mere presence. But when they don't? When they do try opposing it? It gets mad, because it takes away the enjoyment they get out of purposefully holding back and toying with them.