#mootland

•The Skeletons

Sans and Papyrus. Two very popular (and enigmatic) figures in undertale. I’ll cut right to the chase.

SANS

Sans was a halfling. Papyrus was a man. They aren’t blood related I bet. Halflings are highly resistant to chaos and warp trickery to an insane degree. This would explain Sans’s pseudo-awareness of the timeline resetting. Not fully aware but evident enough to show he stands out amongst the rest.

As a race, halflings are short, gluttonous and lazy bunch. This fits who Sans is fundamentally.

Height

His height is comparable to Frisk who is a human child despite sans from our knowledge being fully grown. (I lost my halfling BB team sadly so I had to find reference of a couple other pics). Here’s some pics of halfling size vs man size and sans vs papyrus size. I chose official art and minis only. Size wise and proportionally Sans pretty much perfectly lines up with a warhammer halfling as we see here.

Food

Now let’s talk about food. Halflings are always a hungry bunch. Part of their lore is that they are some of the best cooks in the land. In fact many of their minis implement that aspect of them such as the pot launcher in WHFB, or the literal in-game balls they use in their Blood Bowl team (they use a sandwich and a hot dog). In fact they became official citizens of the Empire of Man due to their culinary skills canonically. Sans is seen being a bit of a foodie throughout the game. First seen with how he’s confirmed to be a regular at Grillby’s. He’s said to have a lot of knowledge from food from the outside world as well. Sans is at the bar for breakfast brunch and everything else. In the same scene he’s even seen drinking ketchup! We also get to see how he has a hot dog stand later in the game, unused in the game, but if you get through it extremely fast, Toby was gonna have an easter egg in the judgment room sans is eating an ice cream cone as he didn’t anticipate you coming so fast. In a Q&A, Sans also revealed another junk food habit of his.

Personality Traits

Halflings are stereotyped as lazy, apathetic, and unambitious, which matches with Sans’ mentality throughout a majority of Undertale. Sans knows everything could be reset and so really doesn’t play an active role throughout the game, masking that fatalism with humor.

Type of undead Sans is

Now we can discuss the current state we find him in the start of the game, and why specially he is likely a wight or barrow rather than average undead fodder. Sans’ attacks in the game put a purple draining effect on Frisk when damaged by him (image taken from the Sans boss fight by Suwako Moriya on YouTube). Similar to how the weapons of a wight king is described “draining life” and imbued with magic. Sans status effect being purple also coincides with this since the death wind of magic is indeed the same color. Shyish flows inside every skeleton, vampire, zombie etc. On top of that Sans and Papyrus’s attacks are essentially controlling and commanding bones. May be a stretch but it is similar to how Wight Kings control hordes of skeletons.

Along with that, an Undead eyes will glow when imbued with magic as seen here just like Sans during his boss in the Genocide route.

Papyrus

Now for Papyrus. I’ll be honest and just say I think he’s just a dead man that was revived. I don’t think Sans and he are blood related. Mainly because they not only look completely different but Sans knows what the sun looks like and Papyrus doesn’t according to the pacifist run ending. Likely Papyrus is a generic skeleton warrior revived by Sans perhaps. I think he may have died away from where Sans was too before being revived and the two just tagged along perhaps. Papyrus’s almost single minded ambition to join the royal guard seems to match up with how these undead really only feel a compulsion to be soldiers as stated by the 5th paragraph. Unlike a wight their memories and autonomy wouldn’t stretch much further than that.

Where they’re from

When in a Q&A, the skeletons are asked where they are from and it’s revealed simply to be grassy. Mootland is a place where the halflings are from and it matches that description and Sans matches the description of the denizens of that place. Hell, their Blood Bowl team is even called the Greenfield Grasshuggers.