#mod felt

lucabicono submitted to nochocolate:

I recently found this blog and got drawn back in to reading theories and speculations, and after reading a few, I noticed a common thread that I never had before, connecting a lot of elements regarding the narrative of Undertale, Chara's behavior and motivations, and the significance of the Goner/Gaster characters: the idea of being forgotten. I'm not sure if anyone else has pointed any of this out, but I wanted to submit it for consideration. I also haven't come up with any theories of my own in a long time, and my knowledge of the inner workings and unique scenarios (fun values, kill count changes, etc.) present in Undertale is elementary at best, so I figured you might be better at piecing this together and seeing if it holds water at all.

First off, the obvious connection to the idea of being forgotten, or rather, the concept of memory. The game itself remembers the actions of the player, even in new games and fresh resets, but it doesn't simply stop with the game. Characters like Sans and Flowey obviously either know about previous playthroughs, or at least have some awareness of them. Even Frisk is implied if not outright stated to have some recollection between runs; Toriel's comment that they look like they've "seen a ghost" if the player kills her and then reloads a previous save, and Frisk outright telling Asgore how many times he's killed them.

Another pretty obvious connection is with the Goner characters, specifically Gaster and his followers. Gaster himself was completely erased, past present and future; forgotten by existence. The only people remaining who know about him (aside from, implicitly, Sans) are characters like the Goner Kid, whose entire spiel is about "a world world where everything is exactly the same...except you don't exist", or essentially "a world that has forgotten you". The Goner Kid also asks for the player to forget about them when bringing them an umbrella.

And there are plenty of other allusions to the idea of being forgotten, and having the world move on without you. For example, the Echo Flower that Flowey speaks into says the following: "She'll find another kid, and instantly forget about you." This also ties into the game’s overall theme of letting go.

Having read the theory on here regarding how Chara's influence is tied to number of kills and how the player isn't necessarily corrupting them, as well as the theory surrounding the use of the “*...” dialogue, I began thinking, what exactly is Chara's motivation? Because just having them be a demon or whatever is boring.

Could Chara be motivated at least partially by a fear of being forgotten?

It would explain their hatred of Toriel during a genocide route, who took in fallen child after fallen child even after their passing. It would explain how they're able to one-shot Mettaton NEO despite his monster soul being protected by his robot body; the fountain having possibly been made in to celebrate Chara's arrival having been altered to instead honor Mettaton. I would explain why Chara makes sure to remind the player of the consequences of the genocide route in a soulless pacifist run. It would explain why, even when the player is on a neutral or true pacifist run and they have no soul of their own and basically no influence, Chara is still Determined to let the player know that they're there through things like flavor text ("You laugh and keep laughing", "All you can do is FIGHT", etc).

Now I can't find the evidence, did I hallucinate that??

I'm McLosing it

We cut open Ralsei so you don’t have to!

source: Deltarune’s FAQ 

By neither confirming nor denying a connection, this answer is a good way for Toby Fox to cover his bases!

Please appreciate this amazing animation frame that only lasts an instant.

Then there’s Toriel’s foreboding red eye accompanied by a message that is very similar and yet oh so different to the original trailer.

Then there’s the creepy tree with the Flowey face, and the 4-wheeler “Bone Cruncher” being driven by the annoying dog from the PS4 / PSVita release trailer. However, this time it’s carting off an old Nokia phone. Wait, that sounds familiar...

(undertale spoilers)

If you paid close attention to the game code snippets we’ve been sharing in recent theories, there is an interesting line in one script.

This can be seen near the end of the murderlv script, and it is the only known appearance of the word “murderboy”. There is no “murdergirl”, “murderchild” or any other variant. So what does it all mean? To unravel that, we must examine the code.

Code for scr_murderlv

the murderous code explained

murderboy is not a global variable, rather it is a local variable exclusively associated with the murderlv script. Keep in mind that “murderlv” is not the same as the player’s Level of Violence in the game. This script is used to check the player’s progress in the genocide route in order to determine which areas can be accessed, what battles are available, what flavor text to display, etc. 

For example, when the player interacts with the Locket gift box, the murderlv script runs. The result will determine which narration appears:

Map of English text (v1.08) 

Code from SCR_TEXT (v1.08)

The murderlv script only has two local variables: mrd and murderboy

mrd is likely short for “murder” and tracks the progress of the genocide route. Altogether, the sixteen conditions check if monsters from each area have been killed and that the bosses and unique monsters have been eliminated. 

Here is a rundown of the first three conditions:

To have a mrd value of 1, twenty or more monsters must be eliminated in the Ruins. The number of kills in the Ruins is tracked with flag 202.

To reach a mrd value of 2, the player must have a current mrd value of 1 and kill Toriel. Flag 45 keeps track of Toriel’s status. It changes to 4 when she is killed.

To reach a mrd value of 3, the player must have a current mrd value of 2 and kill Doggo. Flag 52 changes to 1 when Doggo is killed.

As each condition is met, mrd is increased. This is why it’s impossible to start the genocide route after leaving the Ruins. By the end of the genocide route, the player must have a mrd value of 16 in order to fight Sans.

murderboy, however, only appears once and seems to simply copy the value of mrd:

self.murderboy= self.mrd;

Or in plain terms: The murderboy variable is equal to the murder variable.

Code written in Gamemaker is notoriously inefficient, and considering Toby Fox is not a developer, unusual code is to be expected. However, while the mechanics of the script may not always be very efficient, the “murderboy” variable was named intentionally, as opposed to being automatically generated. It is never used by the game for calculating values, but perhaps it was used by Toby for debugging purposes.  At the end of the script, if the game’s save files have been edited to give flag 26 a value greater than zero, the mrd value will be replaced by this value of flag 26. The variable murderboy remains untouched.

Who is murderboy?

The first candidate for murderboy is Flowey, the child with homicidal tendencies. However, considering the variable is used to track the killing done by the player, it is unlikely to be Flowey or any of the NPCs. 

It is also unlikely that the variable refers to the player themself, since the player could be an adult or child of any gender, and “player” would serve as a much better variable for such a person.

Therefore, murderboy can only be one of two characters: Frisk or Chara.

One the one hand, Frisk may be the murderboy, considering that Frisk carries out the murders and bears the consequences of the LOVE. Frisk is the one with a visible sprite in the game, and the one who can continue or stop killing at (almost) anytime.

On the other hand, it may make more sense for Chara to be the murderboy. As the murderlv script checks for the genocide’s progress, the game changes to reflect Chara’s presence. With each condition met, more flavor text from Chara can be seen. 

Consider as well, the established relationship between murderboy and mrd.

self.murderboy= self.mrd;

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(undertale spoilers)

Killing monsters, which results in gains of LOVE, increases Chara’s control because of how LOVE and killing works.

In Frisk’s case, distancing themself from hurting others comes at a higher cost. In the genocide route, Frisk is distancing themself, which allows Chara to take control (in addition to cooperation from the player). In the neutral route, this distancing gives room for Chara’s personality to show through. The best example of this is the flavor text for punching Mad Dummy in the Waterfall dumps. The flavor text changes depending on Frisk’s LOVE.

LV 1

LV 2

LV 5

LV 8+

With more LOVE, Frisk’s actions become more violent, and the feeling becomes more distant. Moreover, the dummy punching commentary becomes more vague about who the feelings may belong to, transitioning from “You feel bad” (implicating Frisk) to a cryptic “Feels good.” It’s interesting to note that while high LOVE makes it easier to hurt others, it doesn’t necessarily mean it should make hurting others feel “good.” Perhaps Chara is the one who believes punching at full force “feels good.”