#imcrazy

The main question I ask on the debate of if Papyrus is aware of resets or not, is…if Papyrus, as we know him…doesn’t know about resets…Then would learning about that…change ANYTHING about the way he is now?

The most obvious trait of Papyrus is that he’s INCREDIBLY optimistic. He’s one to go in with his head held high, and keep it raised for basically his entire life. Everything he does is incredibly light hearted, and this leads to a lot of accidental flanderization and misremembering of his character. But to get more into that, I wanna address how Papyrus and Sans contrast and are foils to one another. They are complete polar opposites…and yet… SO alike. In their little bits they do in the Snowdin Forest puzzles, Sans doesn’t take anything seriously, while Papyrus takes EVERYTHING seriously, but in the end it’s all light hearted. I know some of that comes from just the games general tone, but I like to think some of it is part of their genuine character.

Analyzing characters in Undertale can sometimes be a tad frustrating in that way, since its hard to tell which jokes have meaning and which jokes are just jokes.

But back to my original point, Papyrus sometimes gets very mad, sometimes very confused, but seems to either flip on a switch with anger, or just roll with confusion, as seen with Papyrus being “mad” at Sans, or confused at what Undyne is saying on certain phone calls. He’s just naturally a very happy person.

Thats where the common trope of Papyrus lying about everything and actually being a completely different person from whats shown in the game comes in. I think thats inherently a tad silly, since “I lied.” is a bit of a lazy twist. THATS NOT TO SAY HES NOT DEFINITELY GOT SOME WEIRD SUSPICIOUS THINGS ABOUT HIM Its just to throw all of his actions in the game out the window in favor of “he was acting” “he was lying” is not how I like to analyze him (but if you do, more power to ya :D) (Some also argue that Sans is just like that, but I disagree since in the geno route when its properly revealed just how much he knows about resets, it completely makes sense and is more like an answer to a question we had for the longest time. WHAT does he know?? cause he clearly knows something. Additionally, in that fight, Sans doesn’t at all come across as a completely different person, its more like we’re getting to know him better. See a side that he’s buried for the longest time since he never thought it would come to this. Or at least hopes to god it wouldn’t)

Papyrus’ optimism/pacifism both comes across as naive, and extremely admirable. It takes different forms in different settings and perspectives, Flowey dismisses it as stupid, but thats because he’s Flowey- Sans genuinely admires it for several reasons which ill get into later! And Undyne…uhh…honestly i cant tell how she feels about that, just that she cares an awful lot about him and thinks itll get him killed one day (*cries vehemently*)

But my main point here is in the usual game/pacifist route, its very clearly established that Papyrus has a heart of gold and sometimes that can get exploited on how he is the one constant moving factor to help the route actually happen in helping Flowey set everything up. It’s lowkey giving foreshadowing on how he may be the knight in deltarune because of- OKAY OKAY- PUT DOWN THE GUN

Getting exploited is one of the downsides we see in the pacifist route, but in the geno, we get a VERY clear look into how far he is willing to take his faith in others. His willingness to see good in people is tested, and its established he doesn’t have a single distrustful bone in his body, always believing in people to change. It’s never “too late”. Even after you kill him too

This is HOW Papyrus would know about resets comes in

The King Papyrus ending is a moment in the game that I have many opinions on that disagree with a LOT with a big portion of the fandom (at least last time I checked)

Papyrus not being told about his friend's death, leads to 2 big assumptions about his GENERAL CHARACTER THAT I DISAGREE WITH. Sans lies to Papyrus on a daily basis, and Papyrus doesnt understand what death is. These are things that work in to fit every day life, and are proven by happening WHEN ALL OF HIS FRIENDS ARE DEAD 😭

I feel these are more a result of Papyrus’ unwavering trust, which can be certainly admired in a lot of ways, but of course, used, too. Even if people agree with me on that unwavering trust part, people still use that as ammunition for Sans lying to him being an often occurrence. But- Sans… right now- is being put in a REALLY bad spot. Telling his brother to his face that all his friends are dead isn't something I think anyone wants to do. So, him lying to Papyrus isn’t exactly proof that he thinks little of him in any way, it's more his desire to protect a person he loves from knowing a horrible truth, and having the opportunity to do so on a silver fukn platter. But even then it feels like Papyrus still knows…he’d just rather accept whatever Sans tells him. Thats Papyrus’ ONE AND ONLY FLAW

Papyrus also seems like he naturally thinks very black and white? and by black and white I mean only white.

The common consensus on his character is he only SEES good, but just like the assumption of how things work in daily life being attached to how these characters act when someone comes down and kills all their loved ones, I think thats working on a very surface level character-moral-compass. Its not that he only sees the good, its that he believes in the good no matter what. There may be bad, but good can and will, prevail

Papyrus sees and knows that people have the ABILITY to lie, he just also believes they are telling the truth when they say something like “I promise this is 100% true” because he still trusts everyone, and trusts himself to handle whatever happens as a result.

Papyrus sees that the world may never truly have an ending, but he believes that things will turn out eventually.

Papyrus is not stupid, he’s optimistic.