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Undertale analysis: Chara was a bad person but not because they were an "evil serial killer child" like the fandom portrays.

TW: mentions of mental illness, self harm, and suicide. SPOILER FOR UNDERTALE. yes this game is 8 years old and scarily popular, but its still worth playing! its 10 bucks on steam! get it! Post also contains stupid edits I made to ENHANCE your experience by at least 50% guaranteed or your money back (post cost $0)

first: some backstory. I played Undertale way back in like, 2016 when the game was still fresh yet gaining popularity quickly. The fandom soon after became criminally insane and went on a moral panic where people were harassed for "playing the game wrong". I remember stories of youtubers cancelling Undertale let's plays because they would kill a character and people would get upset. other than AUs, the biggest thing that stuck out to me was the strange obsession with claiming Chara is an evil demon child who is the root of all evil and eats puppies and enjoys drinking the blood of the innocent. and then counter-culture made it so that chara is actually innocent and that the PLAYER is the horrible evil monster eating puppies etc etc.

two extremes that i half-agree with, but mostly disagree with. There was an INSANE black and white mentality that flooded the Undertale space with no breathing room for mistakes. nowadays people have matured and the fandom calmed down, so now would be a great time to explain why i think Chara is a more complex character than people give them credit for. please don't hurt me.

1- Chara very much had mental health issues.

and not in the horror movie way where they were a caraaazay evil serial murderer

a huge misconception is that people assumed the garden tools in toriel's house being dulled was somehow "proof" that Chara was an evil serial murder or something.

though... I think people also forget Chara heavily hinted at struggling with serious depression and misanthropic tendencies.

Chara climbed the mountain to end their own life. the reason the garden tools were dulled wasn't because the Dreemurs were trying to protect other people from Chara, they were trying to protect Chara from themself. it baffles me how a lot of people didn't catch onto that. It could be that we were young teens and didn't know better... but i digress! "but kat? how is Chara a bad person ? are you saying people with depression are-" get that objectively wrong idea out of your head. Having a mental illness does not make you a bad person. If you struggle with suicidal thoughts please get help from loved ones and don't EVER think you are a bad person for struggling. no. chara is a bad person because...

2- Chara was a bitter misanthrope that didn't care about anyone else or their feelings.

there are several lines of dialogue that point to the fact Chara did not like humans. There is a high probability that Chara had a hard home life before falling to the underground and that is possibly why Chara was the way they were. I am not going to send you a million screenshots as to every single bit of evidence of this, I am not made of time and jpegs. (besides i spent the entire budget on photoshop edits) I am however, going to send you the most damning evidence on my side: the true lab tapes. In the pacifist run, you can visit the true lab and find Asgore and Toriel's old home videos. The tapes basically showcase Chara's plan to Asriel where they were to eat the butterscotch flowers, and then Asriel will absorb their soul when they died.

you can watch this youtube video on all of the true lab tapes. to recap the story, Chara died, Asriel absorbed the soul, took Chara's body to the human village and then the humans thought Asriel killed Chara. Asriel refused to fight, walked back to their home and died in the flowerbed. Later on if you talk to Asriel, He mentions he wasn't the one who went to the human village, but it was Chara that was controlling him. He refused to hurt the humans and fight back and essentially they were both taken down. so here are my thoughts (please remember this is my interpretation you are OK to disagree with me)

-Chara probably just used the freedom of the monsters as an excuse to off themselves, Then put that emotional responsibility on Asriel. -They then USED Asriel's body to try and enact revenge on the humans in their death as some kind of messed up murder-suicide but in the wrong order -This ends up Killing Asriel, then he later became a bitter misanthropic husk after being reincarnated by Flowey. Possibly due to the trauma. -This ends up putting the ENTIRE underground in a depressed state with no hope and causing a massive war with the humans -their adopted parents are now divorced due to this tragedy and both Toriel and Asgore started to have conflicting issues on the topic of humans -Asgore basically trapping everyone with him in his own grief because he didn't want to actually face what happened and played the long game collecting souls one by one. -Toriel struggling to move on and essentially trying to mother any human that falls down without facing her demons. -Litterally all of undertale happened. essentially Chara was not a bad person because they were a child version of Jason Voorhees Chara was a bad person because they manipulated their family into having emotional responsibility for their self-inflicted death and hatred of humanity. They made their issues everyone else's problem and didn't consider how their horrible actions would affect others. and in a way, that is one of the morals of Undertale If you don't care about others and how your actions will affect others, then you would be making the world a shitty place in the end. Lets get back to that thing I said earlier about fans harassing other players for little mistakes. killed Toriel on your first play through ? congratulations! you are a horrible irredeemable person who deserves to get death threats ! /s God forbid we have nuance and acknowledge that most players at this point feel BAD about what happened since this is their first play through! And that they CARE about what they did to their new friend! These kind of people ignore the fact that the issue with the genocide run wasn't just the deaths, but that the player didn't consider how the monsters felt after you just ripped away their happy ending. which is the mentality that both Chara and Flowey had.

here is a video i recommend. to quote this video about the sans fight: "They call out the player not for acting immorally but for acting with no moral guidance whatsoever. Flipping back and forth between good and evil for no real reason except that they want to see what happens. In the boss’s own words, committing genocide “because you think you can, and because you can, you have to.” " Chara offed themself and made Asriel emotionally responsible for Chara's fucked up revenge fantasy without considering others feelings The player restarted the timeline (more than likely the good ending) to kill everyone all for the reason of curiosity without considering others feelings. the reason why Chara goes after you at the end of the genocide run is because you basically VALIDATED the deep dark desires of a mentally damaged person and made them watch their loved ones get ritualistically murdered. meanwhile in the pacifist run (with no history of the genocide path on your file), you simply let Chara remain as they were when they passed away. You didn't validate their dark mentally unstable desires, you simply shown Chara that the world isn't a horrible place and that actually caring about other people leads to a better life. If you HAVE played genocide before the pacifist ending, then the lesson does not sit because you still basically led them down a dark path in the end. By caring about how others feel and the impact you leave on people, you are helping retain hope for a better future for everyone, and that is one of the many reasons why i love Undertale.

thank you for reading this massively long analysis, it took me a lot of time and effort to get this put together.

I've come to love this scene much more after reading the latest newsletter because it demonstrates how Asriel's relationship/understanding towards Chara changed for the better after the Pacifist ending.

It shows that even after saying that Chara "wasn't the greatest person", Asriel doesn't completely hate or resent Chara despite their failures and shortcomings as siblings, and he still wants to see them happy and content.

When Asriel said Chara "wasn't the greatest person," it meant that he let go of his unhealthy view/relationship with them; NOT THAT HE LET GO OF THE LOVE AND CARE HE STILL FEELS FOR THEM AS HE STILL WANTS TO HAVE A RELATIONSHIP WITH THEM!

Another way this scene greatly demonstrates Asriel's growth as a character is that it also shows that despite everything, Asriel/Flowey still recognizes Chara's CAPACITY FOR GOOD DESPITE THEIR MANY FLAWS.

The line "nothing can hurt anyone anymore" PROVES that he isn't saying that because of wishful thinking, but that he KNOWS FOR A FACT that Chara had good intentions (even if they paved the road to hell with them).

So when Flowey tells Chara there's nothing to worry about, he's reassuring/comforting Chara by telling them that they finally got what they wanted and that the people they care about have got the freedom and prosperity that Chara wanted for them all along, even if it didn't happen the way they intended!

Okay, I've cooked lunch. Let's get to real cooking now.

Basically once every few years I like watching a 100% playthrough of Majora's Mask (usually that ancient commentated one by Zelda Dungeon but this year I opted for a single video 10 hour no-commentary HD mod playthrough), and this year as I was practicing this tradition I started reflecting upon what I like about MM. It's not just that its themes are more reflective of death, it's not just that everything in it is written in a way to always culminate in the end of the 72 hours. What I like the most about it is how compact it is compared to OoT. The lack of Hyrule Fields means that everything in Termina is closer together. It feels like a more closed, more comfortable experience than the vast expanse of Hyrule.

Another thing I really like, and that's more coincidental than anything, is that the models and characters are all more or less the same as in Ocarina of Time, but they all have completely different roles and relationships to one another, although not exactly that much different from OoT. This is what made my synapses fire up at 1 A.M. to post the sentence "I think Undertale is Majoras Mask for Deltarune's Ocarina of Time" nine hours later after i wokeup

Here's my reasoning: I mostly understand Majora's Mask as an allegory for Link's existential crisis and his way of coping with loss and change from the end of OoT when he chooses to continue being a child. Termina is all centered around the idea of imminent impact, imminent change, something you can't control and yet will still come, the end of a world as you know it and beginning of something you don't know. That's a very vivid picture of what Link might be feeling during OoT, realizing he's not a fairy boy and becoming a knight for a princess and being part of a prophecy that perpetuates for generations and having to defeat the literal incarnation of evil who is a huge buff man and having to grow up and travel through time and link's like 12. That's a lot of change in an incredibly small amount of time. Of course Link'll be thinking about it for a while.

So, taking the interpretation that Majora's Mask is allegorical, I circle this back to Undertale and Deltarune: I think Undertale too is some sort of allegory for Deltarune. Deltarune is obviously the more expansive game of the two, has been worked on the longest and was intended to come first. All of the characters that appear in Undertale are present in Deltarune in more... Let's say grounded roles, and sometimes less idealistic than in Undertale. To illustrate my point:

"divorced mom and dad" -> "mom who lives in isolation and dad who lives far away and also they're the royals"

"suddenly there new grocery shop owner and his little brother who i wanna befriend so bad" -> "two cool skeleton brothers who showed up out of nowhere that everyone likes and who are your best friends"

"old man who died long ago who was beloved by all that you've never met" -> "old man who is still alive who tells you cool stories and is super smart and fun to hang with"

et cetera

Add onto this the concept that Undertale is a comfortable and safe game, which is something I really like. When I first played it, Undertale made me nostalgic for something I've never experienced; nostalgia without a subject. Finally, after 8 slutty, slutty years, I figured out why. It makes me nostalgic for a time in your infancy where you understand the world as friendly, because you're still too small to have experienced much more than your own home. Everyone is looking out for you and nobody wants to harm you. Undertale feels so comfortable to me because I know no characters in that game are dangerous due to bad intentions (which is another part of my disdain for evil gaster headcanons but i'm getting ahead of myself there), and I know that most of the characters, when they are threatening, are just putting on a show to interact with you (I promise you, if you play Undertale with the mindset that all of the monsters are either humoring or babysitting Frisk it turns into such an amusing little game). And in that regard, it's very contrastant how different Deltarune is. Deltarune is more mature in that sense – in the idea that there are ill intentioned people in the world, people who are not giving themselves the responsibility to be nice to kids and teens, a world that is more complex than a teenager would wish it to be.

So, in summation, Undertale appears to be an allegorical, idealized, safe world based on the world of Deltarune. Whether this means that Frisk is a representation of Kris from their own perspective, or something else, I don't think we have the information to figure out yet. But what would this mean for their unrelated-ness?

I do believe that when Toby let everyone know that Undertale and Deltarune were Unrelated, I don't think he meant it "completely". I think he meant it in a way to stop people from viewing them in a linear way, as in, one is a sequel to the other, in which the same logic and lore would apply. I think Undertale and Deltarune are related in either of two ways:

Undertale is fictional inside of Deltarune (thus, it actually has 3 levels of fictionality which is something I wanna talk about some other day)

Undertale is a rearranging of the Deltarune universe (if you're a homestuck girlie, effectively a post-scratch universe), in which some relationships and worldly rules are maintained and some are reworked towards a specific goal.

I think that, by the time Chapter 7 is published, we will have the answer to this, but for now, there's not enough canon info out there to draw any conclusion, including the one this same theory brings up: What is Undertale an allegory for?

(personally, I think it'd fit within the themes of escapism and idealization turned into unhealtiness, as well as the wish every older teen/young adult has to return to childhood, but that's again a topic for another post)

But yeah. This is why Deltarune is Ocarina of Time and Undertale is Majora's Mask. Enjoy the meal.

Do you see my vision?

i have some images now for reference 

 the second is one i coloured, i could be wrong about the floor being stone. 

i’ve also quickly added some pillars to the room to show what that could look like. but take note that these are based off the archways, the pillars in he rest of the ruins look different.

For you undertale timeline 

This is only something little and is probably either an oversight or a stylistic choice but I haven’t seen anyone else mention it and I thought it was worth mentioning. 

When Chara falls there are pillars in the first room of the ruins, with vines growing on them. By the time Frisk falls they’re gone. I don't know how much time would have to pass for them to wither away but I assume it would be a long time. 

Mini Deltarune theories I have that are not quite big enough for a true post, but interesting to note. In order of most confident to least.

Ralsei is luring the lightners to the Dark World in order to trap them

In chapter 2, Ralsei creates rooms for Kris and Susie that "they can go to no matter what is happening outside". Unlike Queen's rooms, which are guesses based on search results, Kris and Susie's rooms are accurate to an unsettling degree. Not only is Kris' room identical to their light world counterpart, but it also has all of Asriel's trophies on their side of the room with Asriel's side gone, a reflection of their potential secret desire to no longer be under Asriel's shadow. Similarly, Susie's excitement on even having a room suggests that Ralsei could know what Susie's light world home life is like or lack thereof if she's homeless.

By creating these rooms, Ralsei is fulfilling the lightners secret desires and judging on his phrasing, wants them to go there in order to avoid whatever is happening "outside" the dark world. By doing so, he is effectively strengthening their desire to stay in the dark world so they can't escape.

Chapter 3 isn't going to be Undyne or Napstablook, it's Asgore

Chapter 3 taking place in Kris' home with the fountain being created by Kris suggests to me that the world may mostly involve whatever the Dreemur family drama entailed, which would include Asgore who was the former chief of police. Not only that, but the combination of Toriel having troubles calling the police and the station being closed in a preview for chapter 4 suggests to me that Mayor Holiday could have closed the station during the night of chapter 3 after they failed to catch the mysterious criminal wrecking Hometown, leaving Asgore as the only character left who might want to resume his policeman duties when Toriel's call is made. It is also more fitting for Toriel to kill Asgore in the hypothetical chance the Snowgrave route continues with her as she already dislikes Asgore and possibly blames him for Dess' disappearance. Speaking of...

Asgore really was involved

There's a lot of weird forshadowing on an "evil Santa". Lancer believes that "ho ho ho", a laugh associated with the mystical Christmas gift bearer, being an evil laugh. Noelle is also scared of Santa and it's revealed in Undertale that Asgore dressed up as Santa to give gifts to the monsters. All of this seems setup to me that Asgore really was somehow involved in letting Dess disappear, something that may be revealed during Chapter 3's Snowgrave route.

Dess is ruder than she appears

This is a more playing by expectations theory, however there's certain lines and implications that become interesting once looked under the lens of this theory.

It's revealed that Dess once beat Kris with a wiffle ball bat for scaring Noelle by telling her that ICE-E "eats kids". This puts a precedent that Dess has at least somewhat violent impulses in order to protect her sister, even in situations that don't need it. It's also a bit odd that unlike Asriel, no one in the hometown mentions Dess after her disappearance except for Noelle. Even Berdly, Noelle's best friend, doesn't bring her up. It could be that the hometowners may not want to hurt Noelle by reminding her of the disappearance, however since she's so open about talking about Dess to even new kid Susie it may be another reason why the hometown doesn't mention her. It's possible that the simularities to Dess and Susie (both are horror loving, somewhat violent, tomboys) are deliberate and are setting up the reveal that Dess is/was actually a bully and a future scene with Noelle may parallel the scene in Undertale where Asriel reminisces that Chara wasn't that good of a person.

Gaster blasters are named after Gaster, but not created by him

If you spare Papyrus in Undertale after an aborted Genocide run, he will say this.

The most common theory is that the "Special Attack" would be a Gaster Blaster. What's interesting to me is the phrasing "my Special Attack", which suggests that Papyrus owns this attack and it could have been unique to him before Sans or the annoying dog stole it. If Gaster Blasters are really his unique attack, it could mean that Papyrus created the Blasters and named them after Gaster, rather than the fandom interpretation that Gaster made the Blasters then gave them away.

There might not be a singular "Knight" because anyone can dream

At the end of each chapter, the characters ask if the dark world adventure they had was some sort of dream. Since anyone can fall asleep and dream, it's possible the game is setting up that trying to seal the fountains is impossible because anyone can dream and thus become their own "knight".