#toriel analysis

One thing about Tenna that I find really interesting is how he reflects Toriel (I'm thinking especially of Undertale!Toriel). It's a little more clear how he obviously reflects Asgore (his nostalgia, ignorance, and neediness), but he's also so Toriel too as a consequence of Kris making the fountain. I want to discuss their connection and how Tenna highlights Toriel's struggles and flaws.

The human thing I do isn’t really an AU, it’s just the designs translated into humans. I don’t have a separate story in mind for those. But, I dunno, you can think of it as monsters being wizards and Frisk being a muggle. That’s fun.

But the dynamic between Sans and Toriel wouldn’t be any different from the game, however you interpret their relationship.

seriously tho where’s my Undertale cast in Hogwarts fic at

I had mostly been referring to the AUs where the character personalities and roles are drastically shifted, like Fell and Swap. Like, the Swap!Sans relationship to Swap!Toriel is super different to how it is in the game. There’s no aspect of anonymity between them, there’s an underlying “service to the queen” dynamic instead… It can be entertaining in it’s own right, it’s just different.

I don’t really know how their relationship would play out in any of the other AUs, since I’m not really familiar with most of them. Fell runs the range from tsundere fluff to depraved nonsense, so I’m not sure if they’d still be friends in that one.

This is where it becomes glaringly obvious that I don’t drink alcohol. :V

I could see Toriel blurting out some deep-rooted sorrows or emotional confessions after a certain tipping point, and if the conversation somehow jumped from pizza frisbees to child death. She seems like the sort of person who would only get that drunk in private company with people she trusts.

But the thing about Sans, is that I expect that he’s been completely plastered before at Grillby’s, and in the presence of like, half the town. They still don’t seem to know any of his secrets, or have any view of him that’s not a fun, party-loving guy. It’s possible he’s just never gotten so drunk in the presence of the other sentries that he starts getting emotional and personal.

In the first case, he’s still in control of himself enough not to spill his emotions everywhere. In the second case, he cuts himself off when he knows he’s getting too far along, and which he’d probably still do in the presence of Toriel. 

I’ve always liked myrobotlandlord’s skelebun ship, so I like imagining a Sans who’s totally hammered being extra friendly and spontaneous and making poor life decisions. But more out of seeking immediate, shallow pleasures than anything else.

I do have a Soriel comic that’s nearly finished that should show up soon (the one from last week’s stream). And then I have a Toriel & Papyrus comic that’s still at the layouts phase, but I definitely want to complete it. ...And maybe a short one with her and Chara? That one’s been on the backburner for almost a year now though, lol

I’ll try to draw some more little things with her in it in the meantime. I’ve had an itch to draw the other characters besides Sans and Pap for awhile now. She’s a lot of fun to draw. x>

But yeah. Sans is stationed the closest to the door, so I think during the events of the game, he’s one of the only ones she talks to. The monsters INSIDE the ruins think she’s scary, so it seems like she doesn’t have a ton of friends.

She also has a negative opinion of the monsters on the other side of the door, so even if someone besides Sans came up to it and started talking, she wouldn’t have given them the time of day.

In Post-Pacifist, she’d open up more. Probably reluctantly, but since Frisk makes friends with literally everyone, she’s forced into contact with other adults lmao Becoming a teacher who has to deal with coworkers and parents on a regular basis also helps her get back into casual friendships and acquaintances. 

Dumb and bad! That’s a garbage tier romance, homie.

But a potentially pretty cool duo for interactions otherwise? 

I think they’re more interesting as a student/mentor relationship. I still hold onto the idea that Muffet comes from the Ruins, and admires Toriel for being scary and unapproachable. “Someday I want to be as terrifying and aloof as that,” child Muffet thinks.

“And also I’d like to get good at baking.”

And so she did. 

That… Woah.

(I mean maybe it’s for the days when she DOES wear socks? Some days are just more socky than others. :V

I’m happy to see you do more analysis, @simonsoys. :)

I agree with you that Toriel would dislike Mettaton, but with different reasoning. Mettaton adores humans. The majority of the trouble he put Frisk through (everything up to his actual boss battle) was Alphys’ convoluted, passive-aggressive plan, and not actually dangerous. I feel like Mettaton promotes the “kill all humans” message in the way that Stephen Colbert “promotes” conservative politics… that is, he’s doing the opposite, and Asgore is just too earnest and dense to realize the “killer robot” that was built to impress him is actually mocking him.

And there’s the reason Toriel, uber-mother that she is, would dislike Mettaton: he has used mockery and bullying for humor. Sans’ humor never gets nastier than a whoopie cushion prank or the mildest ribbing; Mettaton does all that business with Burgerpants, plus a full-on public shaming of Alphys… now, Mettaton has a very legitimate grievance against Alphys, BUT Toriel is the type who’d counter “it doesn’t matter who started it / there is never an excuse not to do the Right Thing” and force them both to make amends. Likewise for the pursuit of Frisk, “I never meant any harm by it” or “I did it because Alphys told me to” are going to be very weak logic in the face of Toriel’s protectiveness. But if Frisk shows her that they view him as a friend after all, that possibly could thaw Toriel’s view, as you say in your last paragraph.

Yeah! Those are all really good reasons why I see her not being fond of him too. I wonder if he’d care much about her opinion of him, or if he wouldn’t be bothered by it?

Honestly, I think it might bother him a little bit if she felt very strongly about it. I feel like he might make efforts to improve her opinion of him. He seems like he’s pretty humbled after his fight with Frisk. I think he’s realized the mistakes he made to his family and friends and fans, and would double down on being a better person to all of them.

My other question would be whether she understands that he’s not really a robot. I imagine she’d be questioning everything surrounding Alphys and her creations and the amalgamates. She might make the suggestion to have MTT dismantled and reprogrammed if he’s going to be a danger to humans, and gets suspicious when the two of them are squirrely about it. I think she’d figure it out... she may even have known Mettaton as a ghost from before she left to go to the ruins. (One of Blooky’s best customers disappeared one day...)

I feel like she’d come around, after understanding his full story and seeing him work hard to be a great icon for monsters. I get the sense that MTT only has the mean humor with certain people he’s mad at or dislikes-- to everyone else, he’s very inclusive and body-positive and generally wants to make people feel good. If he can get past the mean stuff, I see him being known as one of the most generous monsters in the underground. 

And even if I think she’d figure out that he’s not *really* a robot, she’d keep it a secret. She’d be slightly amused watching Papyrus talk about him, wondering about his secret robot origins. But not once does she let on that might not be the case. She doesn’t usually agree with lying, but she’d get that he’s doing it to live the life he wants and to make a positive difference.

Aand the comment on this post.

How Undyne relates to Toriel is directly related to how she relates to humans, that is, how she relates to Frisk. (I looked up the ending tree at undertale.wikia.com/wiki/Neutral_Route) If Frisk befriended Undyne then she becomes gym teacher at Toriel’s school (not that people necessarily see their bosses totally positively). If protagonist/Frisk kills more than 10 monsters (or Papyrus; or Mettaton - because killing MTT pushes Alphys to “disappear”) Undyne stages a coup and chases Toriel back into the ruins. If Undyne befriended Frisk… as fierce as Undyne is, she doesn’t seem to hold a grudge?

@simonsoys Why do you say Gerson is the most pro-Asgore and so least likely to see Toriel positively?

I definitely feel the Asgore sympathy. He’s a wartime leader, with the lives of all the monsters weighing on his shoulders – his initial declaration of war was raw grief, but the subsequent anti-human policy was hard calculus, as in “the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few”, though the few be precious and innocent. Plus he was actively involved in the work of maintaining the soul health of the Underground population, ie instituting Christmas and playing Santa Claus himself.

I see Gerson as being more pro-Asgore because they’ve been so close throughout their time in the Underground. Gerson is Asgore’s closest friend, it seems like. While Gerson liked Toriel years ago as a friend too, and respected her intellect, I wonder if he’d really be happy to see her come back to claim the throne after Asgore’s been killed?

Gerson’s admitted stance on humans is that they can’t be trusted, and that they should never leave the Underground. Contrasted to Toriel’s stance, which is to care for every human who falls into the Underground, that they’re sweet and loving, not killers. Meanwhile, one just completely ruined their chances at exiting the Underground. The six souls have disappeared. In some endings, the monsters blame you for killing Asgore, and in some they don’t quite know what happened. I don’t expect Gerson to have knowledge of Flowey-- his assumption would probably be that Frisk killed Asgore in order to escape.

So now Toriel returns, saying we should love the humans. We SHOULDN’T fight them. In fact, no more Royal Guard. On top of going against his existing stance of “humans suck”, this goes against what he just watched happen. His best friend was just killed by a human. A human Toriel let through. A human Toriel could’ve stopped. She could’ve freed the monsters just then-- but her haughty morals meant more to her than her people. Now they’ve gone from six souls to none. And she wants to pretend she’s the queen of the people? They weren’t her #1 priority then, and they aren’t now. 

On top of that, consider the ending where Toriel attempts to take the throne, but Undyne usurps her. If Gerson was really FOR Toriel as Queen, I’m sure he could talk reason into Undyne. Say that this is for the best. But that’s not the case. I can only imagine that Gerson’s opinions fed into her rage.

(2/2) Part of me wonders if every monster in the underground would automatically see Toriel as awesome Goat Mom, or if there are monsters who see her as “abandoning” them. Like, we know monsters were falling down, or else the amalgamates wouldn’t be A Thing, and part of me wonders if there aren’t monsters who saw their friends/family falling down, and wondered where the queen was/why she had left them. I feel like, even in the Queen Toriel ending, her rule wouldn’t be 100% approval, you know?          

Yeah, for sure I think there’d be a lot of people wondering why she hadn’t been there for them the last 100 years (or however long it’s been).

At the same time though, a lot of the monsters in the underground seem to be really badly informed? I’m not sure most of them would even understand the circumstances, why she disappeared, where she was, why she came back, etc. Harboring anger doesn’t seem very natural to them, judging by their attitudes towards not just Frisk, but also Alphys after the Amalgamates are returned home.  

I think the characters who had the most conviction in line with Asgore would be the least likely to accept or forgive Toriel. I don’t think Undyne or Gerson would click with her after she came back, particularly for a Queen Toriel ending. They’re the ones that stood by Asgore without reservation. Suddenly Toriel shows back up after not caring for her people? In fact, actively hating them and trying to foil their escape plans? They wouldn’t be happy with it. They’d accept it as the natural order of royalty, but they wouldn’t be getting along necessarily.

That’s a scenario where they still remain trapped though. I think in a Pacifist ending where everyone goes to the surface, no one really cares. It all worked out in the end. Maybe there’s a little judgment of Toriel for leaving by the monsters who are old enough to remember her, but she’s engaged in the community now. Most monsters are meeting her for the first time on the surface, and she seems pretty nice! Asgore’s a gardener now, the political drama’s settled. I think everyone pretty much wants to put the underground behind them and focus on their new lives.

Surface Toriel is more well known as “Ms. Dreemurr, the teacher” or “Ms. Frisk’s Mom.” Her role as Queen is very much faded.