Something regarding the original Undertale that I've been thinking about for a while. For all the talk regarding Chara's morality (and the gender debates more controversally) and the game being over 10-years-old, I have never seen this massive flaw in the game's theme writing pointed out. This will probably get me stoned at the gallows, hence why I'm not applying the main tag, but hear me out.
So the gist of Undertale is that the player is controlling everything, correct? Poor little Frisk and Chara at the mercy of the mean old player who is playing the video game like a video game. It's your fault for killing everyone. It's your fault for the events of the game. It's your fault everyone is suffering. The game's promoted main theme is about how your actions, good or bad, will matter, correct?
Here's the thing . . . Undertale tries to have it's cake and eat it too, when the messages are completely opposite.
Apologies for the quality, these are YouTube screenshots and my video quality loves being inconsistent.
Why is it that when a genocide route is played, all of the blame goes to you, the player, while in the pacifist route, all the praise goes to Frisk, the character? Both times, Frisk is equally controlled by the player. The player is still the one making all of the good choices, not the video game character. As neat as that "Frisk LV 20" theory is, Frisk is still the same person in the pacifist, neutral, and aborted genocide routes. Is that also not the most famous quote in the game?
Which is it? Is it that the player controls everything and that Frisk is a self insert? Or is Frisk their own person that is being controlled? The two main routes contradict themselves! And how does Chara play into this because again, the game is trying both and confusing itself. Chara is a third entitiy, a victim being taken advantage of with no power, controlling Frisk, and fighting for control with you all at the same time. Does "your actions are important and have consequences" truly apply or does it only mean bad consequences, since the good consequences are apprently Frisk's consequences? Is that not the most pessmistic and contradictory message for a game supposedly about love and hope and acceptance? "People are inheriently evil and will cause pain and when they do something good, it actually doesn't count and was the reason of something else."
There's a sense of mean spiritdness too in the same way Deltarune does with it's "feel horrible about your choice to play while nothing matters at the same time, you must take everything seriously while we taken nothing seriously" attitude. I really need to, as they say, lock in and take all my annotated notes for that Deltarune analysis video. Oh I have thoughts. Many thoughts.
The easiest solution to this problem is to either not give Frisk a name and have them be a self insert, or establish a very clear disconnect beteween Frisk and the player in all routes. Sure, sure, "less complex narrative" or whatever, but it this a case of a complex narrative or a convoluted one? It doesn't even feel like an intentional effect, rather like Fox didn't want to go into the nuances of the topic of choice and have an easy explaination and defense for Frisk (Anything good = Frisk did it, anything bad = Frisk didn't do it), or didn't want to write the backstory and personality of a character that is relevant for longer than two scenes and/or is made up of implications that stay implications and theories. This applies to Chara's "liquid hate" thing too. Interesting how this vague element doesn't affect any other character except Chara, during the moment where they're most obviously appearing as a villian (and if we argue this is Determination, then how come it doesn't turn the monsters eviler than they are and while being at the same level of power, it's potrayed as a positive thing in the pacifist run?). Sadly, as much as I love AUs and Killer, they do not count or excuse the writing as the jumpscare was prioritized over sense.
Personally, I'd go for the self-insert route as it would make the emotional beats Undertale attempts far more impactful, such as killing or hugging Toriel being your choice, vs how the game truly is with it saying no, Frisk chose to hug Toriel despite you clicking the button, while you are 100% responsible for killing her.
I also can't help but find that the way the "evidence" for Frisk being their own person is treated reminds me of Pixar theorists with the Pixar theory. If you're unfamiliar with the Pixar theory, it's the idea that all the movies are connected thanks to easter eggs scattered throughout the films. However, the problem is that many theorists will put heavy emphasis on some details being cruical to the theory (i.e Sully from Monsters Inc being drawn on a piece of wood in the home of the witch from Brave's home), while insisting other details are just easter eggs and not worth discussing since they make things complicated (i.e Boo from Monsters Inc having a toy of Marlin from Finding Nemo).
A five second cutscene of Frisk walking towards a curtain, a five second hug cutscene (an option that requires an input from the player to happen right before, but let's ignore that), and the mention of not liking soda in Undyne's house are the main sources of evidence for Frisk being their own person. I will not be counting the pronouns because that applies to both ideas of a self insert for the sake of neutrality and not needing to add a feature that flips between three different scripts of the game, or Frisk being their own person. Sue me. Apparently, their genders are also brought up in a book called Legend of Localizations, but if you've seen my other posts or comments critiquing media, you know how much I despise creators hiding cruical pieces of information in sources outside the actual media. Include it in the game or don't include it at all. Therefore, I will not count this book.
Firstly, I'd argue both of the cutscene moments are cutscenes for impact and story value. The first scene is meant to build up tension and horror. If you played it, you'd be walking very slowly, which is annoying while pushing on a key or joy stick harshly, so that irritation becomes where part of your emotion goes. Plus, you'd be able to stop and if you can stop with nothing happening, would that not kill the tension and worry the scene is going for as there is nothing to fear? The Asriel hug scene is similar to a lesser extent. You'd be able to stop your character and that moment would lose some of it's sentimental value.
Secondly, riddle me this, why is this "sickly yellow liquid" soda detail treated as more significant evidence than the fact you can choose Frisk's personality?
Rude, kind, apathetic, flirty, maybe I'm looking into this one too much, but these constant moments of actively choosing Frisk's behavior through ACT are brushed aside as not being important to both the game and fanbase. It doesn't matter how you ACT or if it's consistent, since nobody will comment besides one line of dialogue for that turn despite that also being a choice, if my memory serves me correct.
All of this excess to say that I find the "Frisk is their own person" integration very weak, if that was even the intention and not one of Undertale and Deltarune's many, many examples of theory bait.
I did write a rant about how the fanbase contributes to this contradiction of Frisk and Chara regarding "they are a self insert that you can choose everything for EXCEPT for their gender and if you actually call them a self insert after treating them like one you're (cue insult of choice here)", but I decided against including it as I didn't want to have my in-game critique bring in out-of-game critique. Although I could go on a whole other rant about how strict the Undertale fandom has become with interpretations of all the characters and fanart due to over correction and "fixing" problems that weren't even a big deal in the first place, like potraying Papyrus as hating puns, while ignoring the real ones such as the harassment over how you play the choice game.
Kris and Deltarune is a hot mess of game with a narrative that also has this same issue as Frisk and Undertale. The game guilt trips you over and over for being such a horrible person for possessing this poor innocent kiddo, and then turns around and treats Kris like nothing but the same video game narrator that they were criticizing you as with constantly ignoring their personal issues in favor of other characters. I'm looking at you, Tenna, and how you're the vessel the game chooses to explore the theme of divorce with instead of the protagonist child living through a divorce who's emotions are ignored to focus on you.
There. I have spoken my peace on the matter. I think Undertale fumbles it's morality message as it's too scared to apply hard discussions onto the characters while being overly negative to the player and is unclear as to whether Frisk is a self insert or a character, which confuses the game as it implies only your negative choices mean anything. I hope this made cohesive sense as I went through a few edits.
i also have a similar post critiquing Asgore's writing that has been in my drafts for months unfinished if anyone is interested. Long story short is that I believe he's a severely underwritten character with obvious negative writer's bias, backstory and lore information that is told through an unimportant character rather than shown, and he falls into the Toby Fox trap of, "I'm scared to write a villian so I turned him into a joke, while also using him as the punching bag to ignore the implications and consequences from every other character".
