Top Posts Tagged with #undertale character analysis

A Definitely Normal Fan’s Guide to Papyrus Undertale’s Dialogue

Do you want to write Papyrus Undertale’s dialogue? …Or just read a way-too-in-depth analysis of his speech habits? Then you’re in the right place! Here’s a breakdown of some tricks, tips, and copious amounts of analysis I use when writing him.

I made this for myself to reference, but a couple of people wanted to see it, so this is a cleaned-up version.

Disclaimer: I make no guarantee that this is the most accurate thing out there, even if I use lots of references. There is extrapolation in this, so a lot of it is up to interpretation. These are just my personal notes that I made public.

Edited: I fixed the formatting so you can actually read it on tumblr.

#papyrus undertale #papyrus #undertale papyrus #undertale character analysis #character analysis #floof rambles #wow rereading this thing #the amount of disclaimers i put in here is ridiculous #folks heres my paralyzing fear of ever pretending to be an authority on a subject on display #and my fear of confrontation #or even just talking about anything ever #im already regretting this

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"Let them be flawed and let them be young." - An attempt to understand Chara.

#undertale #chara undertale #chara #nobody gets them but me #undertale analysis #undertale character analysis #undertale chara #chara ut #undertale essay #oughhhh the way Chara is talked about sometimes just really annoys me #so i'm getting it out #I don't think it's possible to truly understand chara like one can sans or flowey #but i'm really tired of the mark being missed so hard

Despite her good intentions, Undyne lied to Papyrus about his training and had no intention of being honest with him. In this video, I explore this unresolved plot point, why it's unfair to Papyrus, and how it goes against Undertale's messages. This is not a character teardown, as I adore Undyne, but as someone who’s experienced a similar level of sugarcoating, it’s always made me uncomfortable and been a big blemish on what’s otherwise a fun and wholesome friendship.

#undertale #utdr #papyrus #undyne #undertale analysis #undertale meta #undertale character analysis #character analysis #video

A Character Analysis of Flowey/Asriel and Chara Dreemur (and why some people view Chara as evil (or its source)

So in the fandom, there's a bit of a disparity in how people view characters, a notable and parallel example is Asriel Dreemur, Chara's spiritual brother so to speak. Asriel is interpeted at a sad fluffy goatboi who really just got fucked over by seemingly every conceivable force in the universe. Chara is sometimes interpeted as an evil psychopath with very little to redeem themselves.

So why do people view Chara differently?

It's context. We got so much more time with Asriel Dreemur and similar controversial or "bad" characters, but we got none at all with Chara.

There are only six instances (that I am aware of) where we can glean anything from the game as to what Chara is like. Four of them come from the genocide route, but the two that comes from the True Pacifist Route doesn't paint them in a much better light either.

The first is where Flowey recognizes us as Chara immediately after exiting the ruins, which is telling that Flowey seems to recognize the first genocidal human as his dearly departed best friend.

The second is in New Home on the Genocide Route. (I didn't include Neutral or Pacifist as it's from the perspective of the monsters, and it doesn't really talk about who Chara was, or what they acted like, just how the Underground felt as a consequence of them being there with the monsters.) At this point in the run, Chara seems to be mostly in control of Frisk, however, is not kind or warm at all to their supposed best friend, even scaring Flowey with their "creepy face". That creepy face could either be the face where Frisk does not emote (which Sans points out) or Chara's signature smile which we see whenever Chara is shown, which is, admittedly, very little.

The third is after the Sans boss battle, where Frisk (perhaps under total control of Chara by this point) strikes down both Asgore and Flowey. If we are under the impression that Chara is controlling Frisk, then that means Chara willingly struck down their best friend and father figure. Even if we assume Chara is just an onlooker, they simply brush off the fact that Frisk just killed the only two members of their family, even though that not even a second after we kill Flowey, Chara comes up and is fully capable of killing us.

The fourth instance is the fact that Chara is fully willing to endlessly revive the world for the player to murder everyone over and over again.

The fifth is after the Asriel Boss Fight, where Chara's OWN BEST FRIEND admits that Chara wasn't all that great, not evil, but this is the same guy that was willing to destroy and reweave the fabric of the universe just to have Chara by his side again, that's a lot to do for one person, and a lot to pull an Uno card on.

The Final one which comes from the completion of a Soulless Pacifist Run, is where Chara kills everyone regardless of the fact that you went out of your way to spare every monster.

But now that we've discussed Chara, we need to talk about Asriel.

I don't think I need to say this, but Asriel and Chara's circumstances are wildly different.

For Asriel, he didn't start out as a mass murderer, he started out helping and befriending everyone. And his genocides didn't necessarily start as him wanting to kill monsters, he became curious after (presumed) countless cycles of doing the right thing.

For another, potentially the biggest factor is that Asriel lacks a soul, which seems to be the source of ones empathy. Even when you give Chara your soul at the end of a Genocide route, they still actively choose to kill everyone you befriended at the end of the Pacifist route, while at the end of True Pacifist, Asriel learns and accepts that he is wrong, even believing that he's not deserving of forgiveness, and he won't fight it if you decide that you don't.

In the end, Asriel does what's right by relinquishing all the souls, even though it means he must return to the worst possible version of himself, an unfeeling, uncaring flower. Asriel must make that sacrifice, even when it's understandable for him to want to be selfish, to want to cling onto this new chance at life.

This gets even better though. At the end of the Omega Flowey fight, Flowey will actively protest the idea of you sparing him, and won't try to dodge if you choose to strike him. Even as an apathetic flower, he still seems to understand why you'd want him dead, but not why you'd ever consider sparing him after he's tried killing you several times.

We never see anything like this for Chara, no growth, no development, so it's hard to see redemption for a character that seems to be uninterested in it.

That's not to say that Chara is necessarily evil, but their actions most certainly are.

When it comes to these sort of grey areas, I like to think about two quotes that work in conjunction from the same game

"Just because you do bad things, that doesn't make you a bad person"

And

"No matter how far you push your feelings down... they'll always come back somehow. And what you do with those feelings... That will be your truth."

Both of these work in tandem to say that it's not your actions, but how you respond to them which tell on who you are at heart.

There's all of that and probably even more, but to add to this, it's also about the sympathy a character can garner. Chara chose to enact out a plan which would result in their death and that of countless humans, seemingly disregarding how it would make Asriel and everyone else feel. Asriels death is a direct result from the plan being put into action, and it often feels like Asriel got the short end of the stick throughout life. Being forced to watch your friend die of their own volition, being forced to carry out the plan, being slaughtered by the humans, and fading away in front of your mother and father. Not even mentioning everything with Flowey. And finally, being so close to being whole again, only to have to fade away into a flower once more, all for the sake of doing what's right.

In the end, Asriel accomplished what he and Chara set out to do, but he isn't even able to celebrate it properly because he's the only monster that can't be there with the rest, all because fate is a bit of a shithead, and really screwed him out of his own life.

For Asriel Dreemur, there is no happy ending for him. He started out good and got corrupted, and finally regained his own sense of self after coming to terms with what he did, Chara at most started out okay, and became corrupted. Like I said, we just don't know enough about Chara Dreemur to map out their psychology, or who they were as a person.

In contrast, we don't really see anything that makes Chara nearly as sympathetic. They seemingly chose to die of their will, but Asriel never got to make peace with that.

So I've tried to go through and catch everything, but if something seems out of left field, or sounds like it's responding to something, it's because this was initially a reblog about a post where the user not-so-subtly suggested that because some people view Chara as female, that it was somehow the only/main reason Chara would be viewed as evil for their actions throughout their influence on the various routes

I don't understand how anyone could come to this sort of conclusion, and as should be obvious, I think the discussion is more nuanced than it being boiled down to sexism. That isn't so say it can't be sexism at play, but I don't believe it's got some allure or captivating hold on the Undertale fandom.

In any case, after finishing the rougher draft of this post, I figured it might be considered rude to throw a whole ass analysis as a reblog. So I decided to make it an original post.

I know this is likely not new, or unique, but I still put so much effort into this analysis to just throw it away.

I also understand that I may be incorrect about some of the things I said, I may have neglected to mention things, I am always open to a kind and common debate about my post, please keep it civil, however.

If you read this, thank you so much for taking the time to, have a good rest of your day!

Random Character Observations

I was thinking about Asgore’s weapon today. First off is the question of whether its a pitchfork or a trident. Funnily enough, snooping into the game’s code reveals that its actually called a spear (spr_asgore_swipe_spear.sprite.gmx) in the sprite files. At first I was inclined to write that off because clearly it wasn’t a spear. But after a bit of research I realized I was incorrect. Part of a Trident’s definition is that it is a three pronged spear. Okay so its a trident right? Well maybe. Tridents are commonly identified by having barbs on the end of the prongs, rather like those you see in Posideon’s trident. And a trident is was initially used as a fishing spear, that’s what the barbs are for, to help keep hold of the fish you stabbed and are trying to pull back out of the water. Another common attribute is that tridents often have a “curve of third order”. (Math is not my strongest suit, but from what I can gather it has to do with the curving of the prongs outward in three different directions and then a fourth opposite one made by the handle.) So Asgore’s weapon has the curve for certain and is identified in the code as a spear, but it doesn’t have the barbs on the end of the prongs. It does, however, have the association of a fishing spear. Since Asgore trained Undyne in fighting and she is a fish based monster. Others have suggested that his weapon is a pitchfork, and I want to look into that as well. Pitchforks are agricultural tools. Often they can have three prongs, but they can have more depending on the specific job you wish to do. Three pronged pitchforks are most commonly used for picking up bales of hay and straw. Of course some even go as far as to pull in the symbolic connection to the Devil. Because he too had a pitchfork, right? Wrong. This idea is not native to Christianity at all and comes from Greek Myth. Hades, the God of the Underworld, bears a Bident. The use of this tool was different for several cultures. Ancient Egyptians used a form of it as another fishing tool (only unlike the trident it was tied with either a line or feathers to find it and thrown), the Romans used it as another agricultural tool. But the Greeks used it in the form of bronze weapons, and a symbol of Hades (but only in the Renaissance! The Greeks happily depicted both Posideon and Hades as having three pronged weapons). The idea was that Zeus had a lightning bolt which was basically a single prong. Then Hades had the Bident with two, and Posideon the Trident with three. (”dent” comes from Latin root “dentis” meaning teeth.) Early Christian Writers often identified Hell as being the Classic Underworld, comparing and analyzing the characters found in both, such as the monsters that run the Underworld being depicted as Christian Demons. This sort of thing appeared and evolved through literature and artwork well through the medieval period and onward. But somewhere along the way the bident was exchanged for a different farming implement (because though the Greeks used it as a weapon, the lingering Roman influence was still very strong). The Pitchfork. This is what became cemented as the item the Devil wields, however many many modern depictions have him bearing a trident with barbs and curved prongs (tines) instead. Since Asgore is depicted as the Main Antagonist for most of the game, possesses fire magic, and is the ruler of an underground kingdom... the symbolic connection to the devil is definitely there. And even the agricultural connection for a pitchfork is there as Asgore is known for his gardening and love for plants and growing things. But its important to note that the Trident is used in the modern day as another agricultural tool (specifically a decorticator) and historically was used as a weapon in Ancient Rome. So which is it? Based on the evidence, his weapon is useless as a fishing tool. He does use the stab motion necessary, but it wouldn’t bring the fish back up. Yet it wouldn’t be much use as a pitchfork either because of the curved tines and the space between those tines, it would be a very clumsy gardening tool. Trident however also has the definition as being a Scepter (staff or wand held by a ruling monarch as an item of royal or imperial insignia). Since he’s the King, a scepter would be fitting. And it also has a little flower on it, which goes with most of Asgore’s characterizations. It is this, and Toby’s sprite name of it being a spear, that makes me choose Trident over Pitchfork. However this trident is a summoned weapon, made of magic in a similar manner to Undyne’s spears or the Skeleton Bros’ bone attacks. There’s evidence in the game that though such magical items can be conjured and vanished in battle, they can also remain for a significant if unspecified amount of time afterward (Papyrus’ bone attacks are kept in a box in his room after your fight. They do not seem to vanish). Also we can guess that magical weapons of this sort are fairly consistent in shape and design when summoned. It could be a specific technique, handed down, or it could be something that grows and changes with the Monster over time (which could explain the little flower on the weapon). I was going to talk about the actual fighting tactics he goes into with this trident and historical trident fighting styles, but I’ve run out of time. So that might be a post for tonight. Hope you enjoyed this character lore dive anyway.

#king asgore #asgore dreemurr #undertale #undertale character analysis #undertale weapons #asgore's trident #video game analysis #video game theory #game theory #undertale theory

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Undyne’s Prejudice (Part 3)

Undyne’s Prejudice (Part 3): Undyne's Improvement

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"So," the reader may be wondering, "Undyne is prejudiced. But surely she's less prejudiced by the end of the game?" While just the hangout seems to lower her anti-human prejudice, it surely doesn’t remove it completely.

At the beginning, she has a few "cracks" in her persistent, severe prejudice. She has a crush on the human-loving Alphys, and enjoys human "history" (manga and anime). Believing anime is real, she thinks humans are “cool” with their “giant robots and flowery swordswomen”. Yet, evidently this is a theoretical admiration; seeing Frisk, she compares them unfavorably to the humans in Alphys’ media, justifying her hatred. Without the hangout, she fares poorly from the loss of her Royal Guard job and wants revenge on even a pacifist Frisk.

While Frisk’s kindness in reviving her doesn’t make her change her mind, Frisk hanging out with her does. She’s initially hostile, no matter the options chosen. However, Papyrus uses a clever bit of psychology. By framing befriending Frisk as a challenge, he sets Undyne's honor and inability to resist a challenge against her prejudice, tricking her into befriending someone she repeatedly tried to kill.

Bizarrely, if Frisk chooses the "incorrect" options, her desire for (retributive) justice manifests as a desire for revenge. For "the perfect revenge", she considers making Frisk enamored with her in the process of becoming "besties". (Despite the fact she didn't befriend Papyrus out of revenge...)

Yet, whether Undyne's improvement sticks or whether she improves more depends on the ending. In the best Neutral ending, in which Undyne was befriended, the Royal Guard is disbanded. Undyne is no longer captain; in fact, she says she "quit her job" (as compared to the less voluntary-sounding "I have a new job now" or "I lost my job”). She doesn't seem unhappy about this. She talks happily about her new job assisting Alphys and being a gym teacher for Toriel's school, and she’s more sympathetic to Frisk about Asgore's death.1

In a variation of that ending where Frisk killed fewer than ten monsters (with or without befriending Undyne), Undyne fares worse. The royal guard is disbanded, and while Papyrus says he has "no idea what to do with [his] life", he says Undyne's "the one that's got it bad". She lost her job and her house, and he and Sans take care of her in a "sleepover there's no escape from". She works at Sans' illegal hot dog stand, and hates her job. Undyne blames Frisk for Asgore's death, and often talks to Papyrus about an unlikely plan to cross the barrier and get revenge on Frisk by beating them up.

If the protagonist killed at least ten monsters after Undyne (Undyne cannot be befriended if monsters are killed first), Undyne hates Frisk even more. She feels hurt, betrayed, and angry at herself for befriending Frisk, when Frisk killed monsters later. Papyrus cannot understate how much Undyne hates Frisk, to the point of warning Frisk never to come back.

Other endings are, of course, even worse for her. In one ending she becomes empress of the Underground, creating a military dictatorship and being determined to kill off humanity.

It's obvious only a situation where Frisk doesn't kill anyone and befriends Undyne lowers her anti-human prejudice, though it's unclear by just how much.

That Improvement is Relative

While Undyne’s prejudice does lessen over a Family Ending (best Neutral ending) or a Post-Pacifist ending, it’s likely she still has some prejudice.

One should compare her to Toriel, Asgore, and Papyrus. Given Asgore lived and likely ruled through a war that killed off most monsters and sealed the rest underground, one might expect him to be prejudiced against humans. Yet, he raised Chara as he would his own child, as did Toriel. While Undyne is angry at humanity for their crimes, Toriel suffered the same fate, and yet took care of several humans over many years.

Papyrus changes his mind about humans rather quickly compared to Undyne. His plan to gain prestige, power, and popularity by joining the Royal Guard depends on capturing a human. Upon seeing Frisk likes puzzles and pasta, he quickly wants to be their friend. When he notices Frisk's interest in puzzles and pasta, he wants to be their friend. Though he dismisses the idea to fight, during the fight he changes his mind: he apparently figured out his plan depended on killing Frisk, or only then did his plan stop being an abstraction. Though he knows the benefits of killing humans, he wants Frisk to stay alive so they can be friends.

It’s possible he changed his mind so fast because his self-concept is malleable (that is, fragile: he lies to Undyne about loving grease), or his goals are so broad they can be achieved in different ways. He doesn’t have as much of a stake in the belief “humans are evil and should die”. In fact, he does what he can to prevent Undyne from killing Frisk without outright lying to her.

Undyne’s beliefs don’t change just by seeing Frisk is nice and pacifistic. Even later, her beliefs don’t change as much.

At first, she doesn’t predict Asgore will try to kill Frisk, despite being such a “fluffy pushover”, because of the war’s popularity. She doesn’t question the morality of the war with humanity. In fact, she’s willing to wait until a “mean human” falls down, and kill them instead. Even by the end of the hangout, she threatens Frisk: not only can she not figure out that Frisk and Asgore may have good reason to fight, but she also says that if Frisk fights Asgore, she’ll absorb some souls, cross the barrier, and kill Frisk herself.

Part 1 → Part 2 → Part 3 (here)

If the Neutral Run is started a second time, Flowey won't kill Asgore after he's defeated. Instead, he will sacrifice himself in his despair so Frisk can pass through the barrier. Undyne excuses Frisk with "you were just doing what you had to" and "it's not your fault he [died]", but it's unclear whether she meant "go past Asgore to the barrier" or "kill Asgore". Undyne would surely cut Frisk some moral slack if she learned (through Flowey) that Asgore killed himself so Frisk could go home, rather than Frisk murdering him. ↩︎

#Undertale #Undyne #Undertale Meta #Undertale Analysis #Undertale Character Analysis #Undyne's Prejudice

For years, Asgore has been the subject to some of the worst discourse and bad faith criticism of the Undertale cast. People often boil him down to his crimes without considering the nuance of his character, his regrets, and how he himself despises himself and his mistakes. This video seeks to give a proper analysis to Asgore, the good and the bad, and hopefully shed some light on facets of him that are often overlooked without resorting to the tried and to Toriel bashing that often results from these discussions.

Plus I go into his role in Deltarune and his concept art/development, too. :)

Reblogs are super appreciated! I worked very hard on this and would love to see it get out there.

#asgore #undertale #undertale meta #undertale analysis #character analysis #video #video essay #undertale character analysis #asgore dreemurr #deltarune

Did you know that Muffet has an entire unique speech in Undertale’s No Mercy run? In this video, I explore this oft overlooked characterization and contrast it with her presence in the neutral and pacifist runs in order to paint a more complete picture of Muffet’s personality. There’s a lot of neat stuff most players have never seen!

#undertale #muffet #undertale meta #utdr #undertale character analysis #undertale analysis #undertale muffet #video essay