#true lab

So my read on the recurrence of the phrase “here we are” through Undertale is that it’s sort of… the ‘Good Twin’ for ‘But Nobody Came’, in a way.

“But nobody came” is a sentence used in instances of isolation and loneliness. Sometimes because one has been left abandoned and helpless in a traumatizing way

Or it could be because one is deliberately cutting themself off from human Monster connections and also killing Literally Everyone.

“Here we are”, is the opposite of this. It’s all about the ‘we’, it’s about that experience of companionship, about the act of making friends. That’s why it appears in every Dating Sequence in the game and other important bonding moments.

As well as our encounter with Asgore, as it’s basically the climax of the New Home/Undertale Story Time sequence that exists to make Asgore sympathetic to the Player and he has this sense of companionship and community with all of the Monsters.

It’s the title of the True Lab music track both because, well, on the one hand, despite how creepy it is, it is a Pacifist-Route Exclusive Location. Actually, it’s the location that ‘locks’ you into the Pacifist Ending. By reaching the True Lab, a Player has already proven their commitment to making connections and bonds with all of their monster friends.

But on the other hand, the True Lab can also kinda be said to represent the darker side of “Here We Are”. The Amalgamates are ‘bonded’ together, ‘connected’ on such an extreme level that they are stuck as one being. Incapable of ever alone again, incapable of being their own individuals again.

Of course, the True Lab and the Amalgamates is also the main appearance of the “But Nobody Came” motif for a Pacifist Playthrough. The horror of the Amalgamates’ situation is that they suffered through the worst parts of both “Here We Are” and “But Nobody Came”. Both bonded on such a level they cannot ever be themselves, but also hidden, lonely and isolated from their loved ones.

The Amalgamates’ happy ending is the game reinforcing the importance of bonds and the horror of isolation. Even the worst, most horrifyingly literal manifestation of “Here We Are” is better than being hidden and isolated and lost. And the right bonds can always improve the situation, make it not just tolerable, but good.

There’s kind of a Yin-and-Yang thing going on here too, the Pacifist Run embodies the idea of friendship and connections that “Here We Are” represents, and so that phrase appears over and over in that run. But the Amalgamates and the True Lab gives one a taste of the horror and isolation and loneliness of “But Nobody Came”.

The Murder Run is the embodiment of this disconnection of “But Nobody Came”, but there is just one little mention of “Here We Are”, the one and only connection the Player does make.

The only connection a Player has in the Murder Route is with this corrupted echo of Chara.

So with all of this said…

I dunno how I feel about the fact that “Here We Are” has such a small presence in ‘Deltarune’ so far. As of Chapter 4, past the halfway point, these words have only been spoken twice. Once during Asgore’s introduction, seemingly just because this scene is directly quoting from his introduction back in Undertale.

Which leaves the only ‘real’ Deltarune-specific use of “Here We Are” to be just this scene from the start of Chapter 2.

Of course, there’s at least some level of ‘balance’ being maintained, since “But Nobody Came” has also been used extremely sparingly so far (and also only on Chapter 2, interestingly enough).

But this relative lack of “Here We Are” still makes me worry on some level… Are we still waiting on a deeper level of interpersonal connection we haven’t reached yet? Is the amount of secrets the Fun Gang is keeping from each other stopping them from being truly genuinely connected?

During the Undertale 10th Anniversary Stream, there was a moment in which the walls of the True Lab start laughing at the player!

This is actually something Toby has talked about before in the Undertale artbook, claiming he didn't want to add it in fear that it'd be too spooky for some and too cheesy for others.

You laugh,