This follows my own thoughts on Chara pretty closely. The human Chara wasn’t necessarily evil, just troubled/traumatized, but whatever remains of them after death has become something else entirely. Just because it was made from the remains of Chara doesn’t make it actually Chara, any more than a leopard fur coat is still the original leopard.
Funny, I recall an exact same but opposite comment on a different analysis video of Chara. it seems nobody understands the character. Nobody ever has and nobody ever will. No matter how determined we are.
@@authorbat5562 That's because Undertale's lore is impossiblely vaugue. We know almost nothing beyond what we are shown in the game itself. Chara is just a term we use for a character that doesn't really exist.
@@authorbat5562 Chara is short for "character". There's just no reason most people even need to understand a character that doesn't play that big of a role in most playthroughs.
it’s honestly wild to me that there are still so many people in the big 2024 that don’t understand Chara at all and argue them as either pure evil incarnate or completely innocent and pure
I'm curious to see if chara will appear in deltarune. However, on chara as a character I kind of see chara as a kid who struggled with empathy but learned it through the monsters somewhat
I always felt like Kris are already combination of Chara and Frisk, and adding them is useless since everything Chara or Frisk could give, are both in Kris themselves already. if that makes sense. Even tho seeing Kris's personality be split in between these two in some sort of darkworld section could be interesting
Chara(cter) is interesting. They didn't make you do the No Mercy route. _the player_ did that independently. Chara just enforces a final consequence that neither Sans nor Flowey were able to do.
@@mechamedegeorge6786 Chara didn't make you do anything. The player CHOSE to do no mercy ON THEIR OWN. Flowey encourages the player to do bad, not Chara.
@@mechamedegeorge6786 Weird, because I don't remember that being done automatically at all. I don't remember having someone force my hand to tap the Fight button.
this is a good video! ive been increasingly chara-pilled this past month after reading oblivion theory (highly recommend, its a good theory and mainly meta analysis about undertale and deltarune) which goes over a lot of what you talk about here-- about chara being the representation of your desire to see numbers go up, to complete games. i dont think what chara is is necessarily Evil, because they are supposed to be a part of you. you arent evil by doing a geno run, youre just succumbing to the natural tempting desire to See What Happens, like what sans says. they are the demon that comes when You Call Its Name (by literally naming it), they are the exciting feeling of making your stats increase in games. (like... chara filling up their glasses of water to the brim, picking too many flowers that it covers their face.) even toby fox said that what chara is is too important to be sold in a store.
@@DetectiveMarI’d recommend reading the longer version, though it’s quite the long reading I personally don’t find the shorter and most recent version to be the more convincing one
OMG I was also going to mention Oblivion Theory!! This is the first time I've seen someone else mention it on UA-cam, I'm glad to know it's becoming more well known :D and yeah I honestly also recommend the longer doc, the new one is more concise but if you're willing to read a long doc the original has more evidence
I think this is a good video on Chara is in the Geno-route, there's serious irony that both the Dreemurr children became evil (and embody completion players). There are a few things I do want to point out as a bit of a critique: - Determination isn't the red trait (which go unnamed in the game), it's the color of the save points and the text color Alphys used when she discovered the power, gold. If it was, Alphys wouldn't be able to discover the power (it's a universal power, and implied that the previous humans had the power too with the Asgore fight) - the thing you mentioned about a theory people have regarding Chara learning from the player is their literal in game text before they ask if you was to erase the world. (They are also talking directly to the Player, whose DT awoke them, not Frisk's.) I will say this, you made a good video about Chara, I like the take you have on their character.
13:20 I think you're off a teeny tiny bit here. Souless beings in Undertale have no emotions, positive OR negative. It part of the thematic link between Flowey, soulessness and completionism What Chara retained after dying wouldn't have been her hatred. It would've been their determination. And if nothing else we can conclude that in life Chara was determined to kill humans. So this is the kind of determination they have after death.
Soulless beings cannot feel love and compassion, they can feel everything else. Otherwise, Flowey wouldn't have been so desperate that he would have tried to kill himself. He also had a fear of death when he did it. He was crying with fear when he woke up and saw that he was a flower. He was calling for help. Etc. Curiosity is also a feeling. If Flowey couldn't literally feel anything, then he wouldn't do any of what he's doing because he wouldn't have much motivation to do it.
@@justauser6078 I always interpreted it as Flowey doing what he is doing not because of malice, but because he can, and because he can he should, that kind of throughline. Flowey originally is pure determination without a soul. Alphys didn't also inject it with sadism for fun as far as I'm aware. But you have a point in that in general Flowey's emotional state is a mess when you think about and try to generalize it. I can easily make an argument that he can still have positive emotions since he is excited to see you, happy even on genocide. I could also point out that if you spare him after a Photoshop Flowey fight he is conflicted and confused, and delighted if you kill him. AND after a True Pacifist run he pleads with you for the benefit of all the monsters, in a show of selflessness. So an explanation can be easily invented/theorized for why he would cry at first despite having no soul. If there's one criticism I can levy against the game is that this idea of soulessness is not at all explained. But I'll be honest. I just subjectively don't like eqating a soul to only the good parts and emotions. Feelings are more complicated then that, and negative impulses also come from people's humanity. The villain of Undertale isn't hatred or greed or what have you. It's detachment, it's apathy, etc.
@@petre1758 >But you have a point in that in general Flowey's emotional state is a mess when you think about and try to generalize it. I can easily make an argument that he can still have positive emotions since he is excited to see you, happy even on genocide. Happy? Yes. Sadistic pleasure is still a pleasure. A positive emotion. It doesn't change the fact that he can't feel love and compassion. >I could also point out that if you spare him after a Photoshop Flowey fight he is conflicted and confused, and delighted if you kill him. Yes. Because he doesn't understand why you would show pity to someone who was trying to make you suffer. He doesn't understand compassion. >AND after a True Pacifist run he pleads with you for the benefit of all the monsters, in a show of selflessness. * But now, the idea of resetting everything... * I... * I don't think I could do it all again. * Not after that. He does not want to return to the same path after he had a reflection on his actions, when he received a soul and accordingly restored love and compassion. For some time. And now he doesn't want to repeat the same mistakes. >But I'll be honest. I just subjectively don't like eqating a soul to only the good parts and emotions. Feelings are more complicated then that, and negative impulses also come from people's humanity. The villain of Undertale isn't hatred or greed or what have you. It's detachment, it's apathy, etc. Players do not have detachment and apathy when they go to genocide for the first time. Many even cry while they do it. The problem is that they feel like they have to see what happens next, and that drives them. They care. But they can't afford to stop and not see what happens after. I can call myself Flowey now because I've killed monsters so many times (Undertale, fan games, etc...) that only special events can make me feel strong emotions. But not the person I was when I tried it for the first time.
@@justauser6078 find yourself a compilation of letsplayers and streamers fighting Sans if you haven't seen one yet. You'll find that basically all of them go through the same emotional ark: Invested in the story, reacting to the dialoge, some feel bad about being here, some are too intrigued by what Sans will do; Then they get hit by that first attack, their competitiveness turns on; Over the course of the fight and the many attempts it takes people stop caring, start skipping dialoge, talk less and less about the story, about Sans as a character, if the stream or letplay had any semblance of atmosphere its gone; Sure they still emote, are annoyed angry, even say they hate Sans, but they don't, they are not even talking about his character, the fictional person of Sans the Skeleton, his personality or story, they start only meaning his mechanics as an obstacle in a game; Then, they all celebrate beating the hardest boss in the game; Before geting getting hit in the feels by the Papyrus mention and going back to the sad vibes. To me that's a microcosm of what the game thinks of completionism, and the kind of detachment and deinvestment it causes in people. It isn't a complete emotionless thousand yard stare. Some people are very passionate about getting every achievement in every game they play. But it always means unsuspecting your disbelief and treating it like a task.
10:49 I think it could be explained by just the fact that LV is a thing. We gain none of it on Pacifist and niether we(the player) , Frisk, OR Chara become stronger. We gain maximum LV possible on Genocide and Chara gains enough power to show themself. They don't gain enough Power only on genocide because they're evil. They gain enough power only on genocide, because it's the only route where it is possible to gain enough power (or at all). It's not like if Chara was good they would be able to show up in Pacifist, because killing people is still the only way to gain LV/power. It's not about Chara being evil. It's about just actual rules of this universe..... Of course I'm not trying to say the theory's wrong. Just my thoughts
@@ssomenerdd Well I didn’t say that Chara as such was evil either, only Chara as they manifest to the player during the genocide route. But I think my point stands because, even with LV in the equation: what does LV have to do with Chara, if Chara isn’t connected with unfeeling completionism, or “evil”? If Chara is not evil in this sense during the genocide route, then there would be no reason for that power to go to Chara, it would then make no difference to Chara what you do, because Chara is uninvolved and unrelated to your actions.
@@DetectiveMar(I was looking too much into in-universe reasons rather than symbolic one EVEN THOUGH THIS WHOLE VIDEO IS ABOUT FUCKING SYMBOLISM. Fuck, I'm an idiot-)
Sincerely sorry@@DetectiveMarcause I suck at simpholisme explain so yeah I will talk only about lore explanation of connection between LV and return of chara So you gain max lv by killing every monster in Underground and how is said in on of tablet in waterfalls if I am not wrong (and I may be since haven't play in a long time) soul's of all monsters are equal to one human soul so by clearing the Underground you gain enough power to return chara her soul Sincerely sorry I don't mean to be mean or saying that ik better than you , cause in simpholistic part I believe you are right Sincerely sorry one more time
@@TheoDoreTheGreatIVX There are thousands of monsters in the underground. * Thousands of people wishing together can't be wrong! The king will prove it - Echo flower. We kill only hundred.
Funny thing about Chara: that’s not their actual name. Their actual name is whatever you name them at the beginning of the game. Naming them “Chara” does give the dialogue “the true name,” but this is simply a joke about how base gamemaker characters literally have the name “character,” shortened to just “Chara.” In reality, “Chara” should just be called what they’ve only really been called in-game: The Fallen Child.
@@MrGamernova The player names Chara after themselves. It's for creepiness effect at the end, where "in game you" speaks to yourself. My theory is that "player" is Chara in the game's narrative. At the end of Genocide Chara just breaks the 4th wall to creep us out.
@@QabalFella Yeah I know that, but that doesn't change that there is also a true name. & ignoring that out of game would make things so much more confusing then if we just kept to said true name when referring to Luigi.
This was a really cool take on UT and I'm pleasantly surprised you covered it! I'd love to see more videos on UT because you have a special lens through which you see and explain that's unmatched. Whichever you decide to do I'm excited to see what you have in store for us!
Something that I don’t like about Chara is how so much of the fandom views them as a black and white character, always seeing them as either pure evil or purely innocent when the game does a lot to imply that they are much more mentally complex, especially if you subscribe to the narrator theory (which I do). Chara actually seems to be a pretty realistic portrayal of victims of child abuse as they are heavily implied to be suicidal, use humor as a coping mechanism and be more quick to violence but not being completely void of empathy and compassion. They even show disgust and confusion when they learn that Frisk/the player only did the genocide run for fun at the end. Also one part that you missed about Chara in the game is that the reason they only appear in the genocide ending is because they got power from Frisk Levels Of Violence which is why they talk so much about power at the end of the game as it gad corrupted them, not to mention the fact that they were forced to just watch as they’re adoptive mother gets mudered which wouldn’t have helped with their sanity either. (That’s not me hating on your video though, I just wanted to correct that).
@@DeltaTheToon yes, I personally think the reason why Chara is the representation of the consequences of the player actions is because Chara died and got themselves killed because of their desire for power through violence (getting the power to destroy the barrier by killing 6 humans) and Frisk becomes more powerful the more they kill. (Also it is quite ironic that Chara is the representative of the consequences of our actions only for the fandom to use Chara as a scapegoat for their guilt).
I’m writing my own Undertale AU/expansion/retelling thing without a player entity, so I had to create a Frisk and Chara that could be feasibly go down every route (even if not completely game accurate): Our pair don’t get along at all at first, Chara sees Frisk as just other human, and antagonizes them as such, while Frisk is nearly unresponsive and emotionless, they came down here to give up their soul to the King, and they are set on that path. Throughout Frisk’s one day speedrun of the Underground though, they begin to soften, the walls they built so they could make this journey crumbling with every friendly face. And for Chara’s part, they put up with Frisk, and even start to actually help the kid. Because, in their mind, Frisk is going to hand over their soul, the last one needed to achieve Chara’s goal all those centuries ago, so getting the kid to the end is in their best interest. Then Photoshop Flowey happens, or ‘Horror-Flowey’ as Frisk calls him in the one-shot I wrote. Suddenly all the teamwork the pairs been forced to build is put to the brutal test, forcing some additional bonding that I won’t spoil too much. Main things that happen are Frisk finally admitting that they want to get out of the Underground alive, and Chara meeting the Souls. After the battle, Frisk let’s Flowey go despite Chara’s urging to end him, and then the pair talk. About why Frisk let Flowey go, about their new goals, and about Frisk’s past. They reintroduce themselves, Frisk asks Chara to stop them if they ever start to become like Flowey-setting up a Genocide Route explanation-and they move forward as partners. Attempt 2: it’s Chara’s turn at character development. Frisk takes their time wandering the Underground, talking to every monster they can, and exploring every place they can visit to buy time to plan and fulfill one of their goals: find out what happened the the fallen humans before them. And Chara changes, tries to grow as they wander. Seeing Frisk’s empathy for their people, hearing what the closest humans, ‘the Ebottese’, are like now, as well as the stories of the other fallen humans, only one matching their earlier view-Chara tries to become more understanding and overcome the flaws they knew they had, even if it was somewhat pointless. But that is eventually proven wrong when the pair are faced with Flowey, Asriel Dreemurr, once more. Chara’s brother, the living embodiment of their failures to the people they had cared about, and the one person Chara refused to fail again. (Enter happy ending with a few changes) The next day, once Asriel has faded back to Flowey, the pair visit him at the flowerbed where it all began. Frisk and him talk for a moment, then through the power of magic and Determination bullship, the pair grant Flowey access to see Chara. And they, the siblings who have been through and changed so much, have a moment while Frisk silently makes flower crowns nearby-ending in Frisk swearing to bring Flowey to the surface, whether he wants to or not, once everything in the city is settled. (And that’s our determined pair’s story, I honestly can’t wait to write attempt 2 in more detail, I’m having a lot of fun.) (Oh, and as for how Chara’s here in the first place, I decided that it was natural consequence of the plan failing. I imagine that if a monster takes a human soul and then expends/releases it in some way, like dying or breaking the Barrier, then and imprint of the soul goes back to the original body. That imprint then can be awakened by another soul of the same type, creating a ghost-like entity of the former soul.)
I still can't believe how people still like a character like Chara with so little screen time. It also hurts too. We could've seen more of Chara, but nah.
Ugh, you need more subs. I love a good Undertake analysis. Especially this one. Not taking an extreme stance that Chara is purely and solely evil, but also not that they're 100% good. And just misunderstood or something. Great video
So basically Chara is Flowey that can’t be redeemed? That raises the question, why does Flowey have some good still in him, but not Chara? Sure, Asriel was much nicer in life than Chara, which is why he felt so empty, and only became cruel after being bored and curious. But it still seems a bit weird, especially given Undertale’s message. Also, why is Chara so connected to the player, to the point where you name them? They only seem to have a direct connection if you do the genocide route, but you still name them regardless. And most people would likely name them after themselves. Is it purely to make the twist that the character you play as isn’t the character you name? There’s at lot about chara that feels contradictory, like two different characters made into one. But maybe I’m missing something.
So I saw comment that said chara was the player with a different name. That doesn't make sense to me. Because of the time like that was shown in the video 'you and I are not the same.' I should say I've not played the full version of undertale yet.
Great video but two things that should’ve been analyzed. Flowey even seeing through Chara, says their intention was to free humanity in the genocide route, to give more depth to the character. Perhaps Chara did have some feelings of attachment to monsters, but Chara’s last moments were Asriel being the reason they died. Chara also notes that they were asleep and can only recall the last memory dying when they woke up. “I was so confused. Our plan had failed didn’t we? Then I realized the purpose of my reincarnation.” I also realized the wording for “our” which seems to suggest either Asriel went along or was coerced into it if that’s anything to note. Probably the latter cause the whole “big boys don’t cry” seems to suggest Chara was trying to toughen him up for it. Another thing to note is the move onto the next world shenagains. People have debated whether Chara purposely baited you into this to get your soul or if they were genuinely confused why you’d want to go back. I think the fact you have to wait 10 minutes I’d go with the latter, and when they get your soul they ruin your pacifist ending probably as a way to troll you cause Chara talked about if they thought they were above consequences. And the consequences and talk about the soul had a pause since I imagine Chara was reconsidering what they can do if the player were so persistent.
Great theory. I finally stumbled on someone with the same interpretation of Chara. Honesly feels pretty nice, even if I think there is more to it then this. Take for example the colour of their soul (red). For years fans thoght that red is a color of determination. Exept it's not which has some intresting implications on Chara and worldbuilding in general. As it turns out the colour most strongly asosiated with substance known as determination is not red. Save points are yellow.All humans in undertale are said to have determination. It's substance not the emotion itself. But out of all emotions the one at which sparse evidence is ponting at is the yellow light of justice. Insted red seems to coralate with something else. As long as you have the most determination you can go back in time and avoid death. But there are abilities semingly disconected from both human determination and monster magic. That is the higly unique ability to erase timelines completly. In adition to that the only people conected to persisting after death even without a soul, posesions and being posesed as well as all of the eldrich/meta things are aside from flowey (who is a special case) Frisk and Chara. It's especialy weird when you take Frisk under scrutiny. Weird child that goes to mountain known as place of disaperances and falls down from high up without sustaing any injury. Like yeah there were flowers and stuff but Chara was hurt pretty badly by her fall and need Asreil's help to even walk. They have no one to come back to and after falling Again in waterfall they get flashback of Charas memory and once again sustain no injury even tho Undyne was pretty sure that fall would kill us. Is Frisk a haunted corpse?!? Undyne even remarks in her fight on how much damage you can take. After all pain is the biggest nerf to human determination and how certain monsters manege to win against them. Asgore fought humans with high determination and killed them by burning them alive until they lost the will to go on. And here goes Frisk with unlimited determination, eternal neutral face and going thought extrime situations without a flinch. Hell my "zombie theory" gets even stronger with the gaster followers lore (goners). So my take? "Frisk" is just Chara who after compateble kid falls and convienetly brakes their neck possese a copse and suffers from amesia and either embrace their new indentity or embrace their darkest impuses and turn into a demon. Any thoughts?
One big issue with that is the very name Frisk, why would Chara self gas light if Flowey already identified Chara? So the memories of Asriel flow into our view but not Chara's? Also if Frisk is a corps we should be unable to heal, heck we recover especially quickly sleeping, when if anything it should decay us more but we have more HP? At that point Frisk is just as much a haunted corpse as we are, arguably even less so.
question ive been wondering, is there anywhere the game directly confirms that charas soul is red? they distinctly Do Not Have One over the course of the game and the only other time we see chara directly is in the opening cutscene
This is an interesting, thoughtful analysis and you made a lot of good points... Is what I would have said if this video came out around 2016 and not in the present. I'm not saying that everything, or even most things you said here are wrong, but a lot of your points have already been made and then debunked or at least addressed in the nearly a decade since the game came out. Despite pointing out how large and multifaceted the game's fanbase is at the beginning of the video, you seem to have never touched the past research and arguments made by the community on the subject, and while I can't tell if this was deliberate or if you just weren't aware of this, there are a few problems with your analysis, and I just want to briefly outline the ones that jumped out to me the most: 1. The premise that Chara losing their soul made them incapable of compassion and empathy is contradicted by a book in the library which explicitly states that those things are only a component of monster souls. For humans, those things, when they are present, are independent of their soul, and therefore losing a human soul would not affect their capacity to feel them. 2. A more minor point, but Chara laughing at Asgore getting sick is not the only time an Undertale character laughed at something that was sad and painful. There are many examples from random NPCs, Migospel, Mettaton and others where characters "laugh out the pain", or in other words, use laughter as a coping mechanism for dealing with genuine sadness and suffering. 3. And probably the most important one: Chara does not appear exclusively in a genocide run. It is heavily implied that the flavor text of the game in every route is actually Chara's dialogue or at least from Chara's perspective, meaning they are in fact always there, being a guiding force for Frisk and quite possibly the previous six humans as well, and one who acts in response to the player. Even the file name for the sprite of the red soul is labeled "Our_Heart", strongly suggesting that not only was Chara's soul wasn't destroyed, but that it and Frisk's soul are one and the same. Overall, your analysis is interesting and you clearly put a lot of effort into it, but in doing so you have neglected to take into account the efforts of all the thousands of Undertale fans that were discussing the topic for many years, and the end result feels like something that came out much earlier into the discourse than it did. In fact, most of the arguments you made in this video have already been made in a less developed form in the very early days of the fandom (Even the idea that Chara represents unfettered completionism has been put forth by The Imaginary Axis in the only Undertale-related video he ever produced, in 2017 if my memory serves) and with all the issues that come with it. In the spirit of things, I will say that I hope the information I provided helped you rethink some things in the same way your video made other people rethink them, and I hope it will help everyone involved have a better understanding of the game and its messaging. Thank you.
1. Some of these points are similar to what another commentor said, but the book is interesting to note. As far as I can tell, the only book mentioning it says that humans have "proven" their souls don't need love and compassion to exist. But having proven that doesn't necessarily mean that humans can exist WITH love and compassion and at the same time WITHOUT a soul, though. That is what would be required for the theory to be unambiguously wrong. As long as compassion requires a soul in both cases, the point in question holds. 3. As I said to another commentor, it's not at all clear to me that the Narrachara theory is universally accepted. And the presence of certain memories of Chara's throughout neutral and pacifist routes doesn't necessitate that it's the same entity causing those things which manifests at Chara in genocide, that's just one possible explanation. There are plenty of people who still think Chara is representative of completionism, as evidenced by the 200+ page document on the "Oblivion theory" which another commentor brought to my attention. It seems to have been written a year or two ago at most. As far as I could tell from skimming through most of it, the essence of the theory I outlined here (certainly the symbolic part) aligns very well, although it's much less intricate and somewhat simplified using terms like "evil". In any case, I'm not entirely sure you've substantiated your criticism as more than an opinion.
10:47 Not just that, but why do we get upstaged as the main villain by them so instantly? 10:58 Then why claim to have “realized the purpose of my reincarnation”? Why lie about that? Doesn’t it have to be a lie if this is true?
So the fandom was right all along. XD What still pains me is that the only true appearance of Chara in Undertale is through genocide, but I wish to see more of who Chara is outside evil. Who is Chara as a person? I wish for this to be expanded on hopefully by Toby soon.
I know i already commented but i do have a question. Could it be possible that when we give chara our soul. Chara regains the more positive side of their personality. Basically, im asking do you think the soulless pacifist ending isnt actually a bad ending. But simply one where chara is pulling a sick prank on the player to make them think everyone is dead?
Interesting idea, but personally I find it quite unlikely unless you see some evidence for it I don't know about. I've thought about the possibility of Chara regaining their compassion when getting your soul, but it just doesn't seem to happen. Most likely it would only work that way if it were your own soul. I think Chara continues to exist as a kind of amalgamation of your own completionism and what's left of the original Chara after losing their soul, like I say in the video, even if you give them your own soul.
If that's true then there are no true consequences to doing Genocide, especially if you aren't spiritual. Besides we already got pranked with Asriel so it'd be pretty redundant.
@@MrGamernova yeah undertale is actually a very spiritual game low key. With that said, What’s your point of view regarding Chara, the vagueness of who they are and where they stand morally? There seems to be a huge split in the community regarding this question which is why I ask.
@@Musical_parks my view is that Chara before falling was a child that was pretty smart for their age. Though they did some silly and mischievous things I don't think they did anything too cruel till they fell. And if they never did reach the mountain they'd probably grow out of their Phase before they'd go too far. However in the underground they decide to take advantage of the monsters to kill humanity by fuseing their soul with Asriel's soul. Chara even lied to the monsters saying they just wanted to see the flowers where they live. Instead Chara attempted basically a snow grave route with Asriel, wanting him to kill humanity against his will. So while Genocide is all the players fault, it forces Chara to kill like it or not, but now Chara has finally found their straw man for humanity, at the cost of all the monsters. But then Sans comes and puts a wrench in the plan. Having dodged our final attack, Sans had managed to rest enough to keep fighting and make the fight unwinnable, the player will eventually give up and the war on humans will never happen. And to top it all off Chara will now have to deal the blow to Sans every Genocide you do in order to keep proofing their point.
@@MrGamernova I see what you’re saying. The game leaves a lot more up to interpretation regarding chara than I initially thought when I played years ago. Originally, after finishing all three routes, I just figured chara was outright a terrible person because, well, I thought it was kind of obvious but as I look back to this game and explore its community, I see that a lot of people beg to differ, and with a ton of great points and solid evidence at that. You said chara manipulated the monsters including their adoptive family when they fell down, and for the longest time I saw it that way, but I had a back and forth with this one guy under a reply section about this topic and he actually had some really sound points and lots of proof that pointed towards chara not hating monsters the same way they hated humans, and the whole plan with asrial was their attempt to free the monsters by gathering more souls, now my thought process is basically, okay but… that just makes it even more confusing and just raises even more question for me. If there are so many subtle clues throughout undertales lore that point to chara actually having quite a bit of redeeming qualities, especially in their past life, then why does the game itself try so hard to paint them as evil, especially the way it kinda beats you over the head with it in regards to how they’re presence is so much more associated and intertwined with the genocide route. I have no clue lol. I really don’t know and maybe I don’t want to know because every single person seems to have a completely different interpretation of this character and it’s honestly really cool to me. Perhaps Toby did this intentionally. Wouldn’t surprise me as he’s a very clever writer.
In UNDERTALE's files, Frisk is referred to in code as "mainchara", and Chara is referred to as "truechara". In DELTARUNE, Kris is referred to in code as "obj_mainchara". While there is no corresponding "truechara", we *do* create a GONER.
there is one problem with this theory tho.flowey being soulless did not make him heartless as even after he turned back into flowey he still kept his emotions and in the genocide route he felt fear which he had not felt in a long time.
It did make him unable to feel compassion, other emotions worked fine, as Flowey could still feel amusement, anger, fear, and such. But due to monster souls being made of love, hope, and compassion, without one, they lack it. However, it seems the events of True Pacifist has cured Flowey’s ailment, which, considering how many souls and memories he absorbed, makes sense that he has enough to reawaken his compassion.
@@JacksonVoet but if that were true flowey compassion would slowly fade since he gave away all the souls and the alarm clock hints that it take places atleast a few day after true pacifist
I mean they're not really non-binary unless you say so, their gender is just unspecified. To answer your question though, I always thought Chara seemed more like a girl and Frisk a boy, but that's probably just because of the difference in facial design.
They have no Gender, so I just go by whatever the person I'm talking to goes by with Frisk & Chara. I really hate that they were made Genderless JUST to make sure people wouldn't police their Genders & it's failed horrible to do that, if anything it probably made the policing worse.
@MrGamernova I mean, if you think about it... If a character is only exclusively referred to as 'he' or 'she', we never question whether they're really just male or female. As far as I'm aware stating that the intention behind using they was meant to 'prevent arguments' is unsubstantiated outside your personal opinion. I feel there's a certain hypocrisy in the idea that stating all pronouns are correct is somehow above the idea that the pronouns used consistently in-game are the correct ones. If someone corrected someone using 'he' for Undyne, would you see them the same way, as engaging in frivolous discourse?
@@chinchbug6934 But in practice it's accomplished nothing & thus the arguments happen anyways. & I personally find a certain hypocrisy in the policing of pronouns for Frisk & Chara when their canonical preferred pronouns are genderless for the sake of avoiding this, & by correcting someone using anything we are canonically miss gendering them for the sake of trying to respect their genders. & Undine is a different kind of character compared to Frisk, while we may get tad bits of flavor he/she/they are like the ship in an early shooter. Maybe we might have some lore about the pilot in some comic or whatever but for the most part Idk why a pilot/ai gets a way with it while Chara or at the very least Frisk can't.
@@MrGamernova So you're saying the game was misgendering the characters by using pronouns for them? From what I recall the game neither says anything explicitly about the characters being genderless (though agender people often still do have correct pronouns), nor does it use only the name and never pronouns. It simply uses 'they' as a pronoun. I would urge you to perhaps ponder why a game calling a character 'he' or 'she' is seen as enough to establish an identity and correct terms for a character even for silent protagonists (in other games), but a game using 'they' for one is seen as insufficient to establish correct pronouns. And especially why people may have found that stance potentially offensive or damaging, particularly in a climate where people choosing to use those pronouns even for themselves was contentious. (for the record, I am leaving this at that, but I do just want you to hopefully consider that the people you're lax about blowing off perhaps have both precedent and solid reasoning behind considering the correct pronoun to be 'they')
(I only watched the first 2 minutes, so if the creator tells some super evidence to Chara actually being evil, don't judge me please) Chara isn't evil by themselfs WE MAKE THEM EVIL Remember, THE PLAYER DID THE GENOCIDE ROUTE, NOT CHARA CHARA IS JUST A LOST SOUL WE CORRUPT DURING A GENOCIDE RUN THEY AREN'T INNOCENT AS SAID BY ASRIEL, BUT THEY WEREN'T EVIL BACK WHEN THEY WERE ALIVE THE CHARA THAT'S STUCK TO US DURING THE GAME IS SOULESS JUST LIKE FLOWEY, SO THEY DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO WE DETERMINE THEIR FATE are they gonna find happiness and be a hero? (At the end of Pacifist, Chara is the one that shows us the flashback that leads to Asriel's loss and without it, ASRIEL WOULD HAVE WON) Or are they gonna be a souless murderer that still doesn't know what they wanna be (If you do a 2. Genocide run, Chara suggests a Pacifist run or at least a Neutral and if you do a Pacifist, they are there to remind you about what you did in the Genocide run, THEY ARE JUDT REMINDING YOU OF HOW BAD YOU ARE, and we don't see them kill neither, cause the foto of everyone's face blanked out is only a foto that they may have altered to remind you of what you did, it doesn't mean that they killed them)
13:10 nope, red souls aren’t determination, red has never been linked to determination in all the entire game, it says all humans have determination. Either then that this is a really interesting analysis over Chara. I like how you interpret them as not literally satan or a misunderstood angel.
There are hints in the game in this direction, just not unambiguous. There's no issue with some humans having a special relationship with determination whilst all of them having some. In any case, it's not really an important point in my video as I replied to another commentor. Thanks for the compliment!
Many things are wrong here. Red isn't the color of determination, that's fanon. Chara is all but confirmed to be the narrator throughout all routes and yet only exhibits evil tendencies on the genocide route. Chara is the one that provides the flashback during the Asriel fight that allows you to save him. Chara urges you not to do genocide if you do genocide repeatedly and criticizes your insistence on destroying by everything over and over again because they can't understand this desire you have, this "perverted sentimentality". Lacking a soul doesn't make you evil or take away your positive traits, lacking a soul is just a symbolic representation of emotional detachment, seeing the world as a game rather than a real world with people, hence why we lose control over Frisk and eventually sell our soul during and after genocide respectively, we've stopped taking the world seriously. Chara is a reflection of us the same way Flowey is imo, it's just that Flowey's already completed his villain arc by the time we meet him, Chara mainly follows our arc I'd also argue Undertale is more about letting go of the past and moving onto better things than it is about empathy
Those were a lot of points, so I'll tackle them in turn: 1) I'm aware the association with souls is fanon, and I only mention it in passing because it is an easy way to illustrate the evident connection between Frisk and Chara (both souls are indeed red, and both characters are unusually determined as evidenced by Frisk making it all the way through the underground while other humans didn't). 2) I never say in the video that Chara is evil. I argue from a symbolic point of view first, and then I analyse Chara's very obviously antagonistic and "evil" role in the genocide route from a concrete POV. The genocide route is, like you say, a specific context, and that is the context I am using in the video as I believe I made clear. 3) Not sure what your point is with the flashback, please clarify. 4) I know Chara urges you not to repeat genocide, and indeed I discuss this at some length towards the end of the video when I talk about how genocide Chara is identified with a specific type of evil, namely evil + completionism, roughly speaking. Chara's dialogue here hints at an aversion to sentimentality and mindless repetition, which is in line with their character and the overall message of the video. 5) It's quite clear from Flowey that lacking a soul prevents you from feeling love and real positive emotion, at least when rooted in altruism or empathy. This implies the negation of one's positive traits, which leaves only the negative ones, hence "evil". I agree it's also symbolic, but all such things can be considered both symbolically and diegetically. 6) I very much agree Undertale is about letting go of the past, and that may actually be more central than the empathy component, but it really depends on your POV. Hope that clears things up!
@@DetectiveMar Rereading my comment, I feel I came off a bit pretentious which was not my intention, idk if this comment will come across that way but I genuinely don't mean to 1) The determination aspect wasn't really a big deal, just something that bugged me a bit and so I just kind of threw it in there, incredibly nitpicky of me 2) I haven't watched the video in a significant amount of time now, maybe I'm misremembering, but I could've sworn you said that you didn't buy the idea that weren't influenced into the evil they became by the player and that they were a representation of this RPG mindset while Frisk was pacifism or something along those lines, thus meaning Chara would exhibit the same goal-oriented completionism on all routes which I'd imagine you agree isn't the case. The narration in the pacifist and neutral route makes up most of the game's charm while the genocide route narration is to-the-point and disinterested in goofy shenanigans because you've told them their only purpose is to follow this completionist attitude, they're very clearly following you as the player 3) My point with the flashback was building on the previous point, they help you save Asriel on pacifist, not someone who's had their good traits taken by lacking a soul or whatever I vaguely remember you saying would do. I'd say they're not necessarily a symbolic representation of completionism but a reflection of you just as Flowey is, and so as you detach from the world and become like Flowey, Chara does as well as the representation of your will, your determination. They follow your arc, they become goal-oriented because you become goal-oriented, they're willing to engage in goofy shenanigans on other routes because you're willing to, that's primarily why most would be playing them even after detaching emotionally from the game. Chara follows where you lead yet judges you for where you choose to bring them because they can't understand why you'd still want more 4) I actually don't recall you discussing this so I'll have to rewatch at some point later today ig, not really getting much to agree or disagree with from just this that I haven't already said 5) Flowey lacking a soul doesn't make him evil. He can feel real positive emotions, but he has to suspend his disbelief to care about anyone or anything, it feels like a game and not a world and, to care about the people in it, he has to pretend it's real. Before he became the monster he is when we meet him, he didn't want to hurt anyone, he befriended everyone countless times and solved everyone's problems, he genuinely enjoyed the relationships he shared with others, but he got bored after countless resets, he knew every line of dialogue, he had exhausted all possible non-violent options, and so he gradually began to detach himself because he had no soul keeping him tethered, he was able to stop caring not because his positive emotions had been taken but because he had to suspend his disbelief to feel them. Idk how canon the alarm clock dialogue is but Flowey is shown in that to be able to act altruistically despite everything, but he hides it behind an uncaring facade. Most of Flowey's true evil is performative, a way for him to emotionally distance himself further due to his immense guilt and self-hatred, he thinks of himself as a monster for lack of a better term due to his ability to not care about others and so he makes sure to play the part, but lacking a soul doesn't take away his positive traits, it just, alongside determination, gives him the perspective of a player, the symbolism here is kind of the whole point. Iirc, you said Chara was soulless and thus had all of their positive traits taken which was what I disagreed with, maybe I'm misremembering though, my memory is generally terrible and I didn't rewatch the video for this comment. As you can probably tell, I find Flowey much more interesting and accidentally started rambling about him and had to throw in Chara at the end lmao 6) Fair enough, can't really argue against that
@@crypt5129 No worries! I think I see where the discrepancy is coming from better now. You're looking at things from the POV of the Narrachara theory.. Hence Chara accompanies the player throughout the entire game regardless of route and hence Chara is present and aiding the player during the pacifist route. This would indeed contradict much of the diegetic part of my video. But to the best of my knowledge, that theory isn't a no-brainer, and I'm not sure where you get the definitive idea that Chara helps you save Asriel at the end of genocide. It could easily be interpreted that way under Narrachara, but as far as concrete evidence I'm not aware of any, though that could easily be my ignorance.
@@DetectiveMar I feel like the narrachara theory (this name hurts me, there was an incredibly obvious pun like right there) is basically canon though, it's a theory in the same way Alphys creating Flowey is. It's heavily-implied to the point where it's basically just canon, but it's never technically said the flower Alphys injected with determination was Flowey as far as I can recall. All of the narration is spoken in second person except the bits where we know Chara is the narrator speaking of themselves, Chara repeatedly provides their memories throughout the game showing they're at least following us (the game over dialogue, the memory after falling in Waterfall, the memories provided to save Asriel since he's the only one that we save through reminiscing about the past yet have no positive memories of to work off of, etc etc) and much of the flavor text alludes to experiences Chara had that neither Frisk nor any other viable narrator candidate would know of. Evidence has been compiled in countless places, it's basically all but explicitly said to be canon. It is admittedly easier to miss than the example I compared it to hence why it's called a theory, but I'd say it has much more evidence going for it than the idea that Flowey was made by Alphys, which I imagine we'd both agree he was. Just feels undeniable idk, but I haven't heard any arguments against it either tbf, mainly because it's generally accepted but that's not really an indication of truth given what else is commonly accepted by the fandom
@@crypt5129 Hmm, well much of that can be explained in alternative ways and from what I gather people don't really seem to agree on this at all. I can't see it being more likely than Flowey being made by Alphys, since it's directly stated in no uncertain terms that Alphys injected a flower, which then disappeared, with determination. Such a statement is not open to interpretation at all unless you want to give up your right to use deduction. I suppose we have to accept a difference in points of view.
becuase they are a video game villain! that's how chara was made. that's what chara was made for (i'm just gonna start calling chara a she from now on) chara was made to be the bad guy of undetale (and deltarune from what the game is showing) flowey is a bad guy but not the main bady. she is. "player" isn't even a character,, blaming some made up player isn't even a good joke theory. it is lazy and unoriginal and basically hostile to people who want to play undertale since you would be calling them evil. the player didn't kill anyone. but chara killed everyone. in the video game lore. who was it that was killing? chara, "player" does not exist. chara is not some defenseless kid who can't save themselves. she literally calls herself a demon. she kills the game she is in at the end and is very powerful. she does not need protecting. you need protecting from chara. if by this logic of "the player did it" the player should be blamed for video game stories and not the video game characters. then i guess all of you are serial killers becuase some of you played twisted metal. i am an animal abuser. human genocider and space tyrant because i played games that kill humans in them. i played pokemon and i played universe sandbox 2 point is. chara defense morons.. no .. there is no "player" the person who plays the game and the character(s) in it are two different people... chara is the killer. not the player
Meanwhile that doesn't make CHARA only one responsible for genocide. After all at start they didn't understand why they even woke up and it was frisk or us who shower her why she was woken up and why she exists. Frisk or we made her evil to the point where she destroys the whole world. She wasn't controlling frisk even if player doesn't exist than frisk exists who could do genocide because they wanted to see what happens
This follows my own thoughts on Chara pretty closely. The human Chara wasn’t necessarily evil, just troubled/traumatized, but whatever remains of them after death has become something else entirely. Just because it was made from the remains of Chara doesn’t make it actually Chara, any more than a leopard fur coat is still the original leopard.
Reminds me of that meme: If Flowey isn't the same as Asriel, then why is genocide Chara the same as the Chara thay was Asriel's best friend?
pacifist and genocide end in kind of the same way where asriel/chara speak to the player and urge them to stop playing the game
also ill add that i think the origin of chara is probably based off of MOON RPG REMIX
chara doesn't urge you to stop playing, chara doesnt LET you play anymore period sksnsnsn
Finally. A Chara Analysis that doesn't claim that they are purely innocent.
Funny, I recall an exact same but opposite comment on a different analysis video of Chara. it seems nobody understands the character. Nobody ever has and nobody ever will. No matter how determined we are.
@@authorbat5562 That's because Undertale's lore is impossiblely vaugue. We know almost nothing beyond what we are shown in the game itself. Chara is just a term we use for a character that doesn't really exist.
@@authorbat5562
Chara is short for "character".
There's just no reason most people even need to understand a character that doesn't play that big of a role in most playthroughs.
So weird to have this narrative when its such a basic take, literally every chara analysis goes over the same things 🙄
it’s honestly wild to me that there are still so many people in the big 2024 that don’t understand Chara at all and argue them as either pure evil incarnate or completely innocent and pure
I'm curious to see if chara will appear in deltarune. However, on chara as a character I kind of see chara as a kid who struggled with empathy but learned it through the monsters somewhat
I always felt like Kris are already combination of Chara and Frisk, and adding them is useless since everything Chara or Frisk could give, are both in Kris themselves already. if that makes sense. Even tho seeing Kris's personality be split in between these two in some sort of darkworld section could be interesting
I completely agree. As much as I’d love to learn more about Chara, I don’t think they would add much to the narrative
Chara is just the player by another name...
I still hoped that Toby Fox could have at least expanded Chara as a character in the original game. 🥲
Chara(cter) is interesting.
They didn't make you do the No Mercy route. _the player_ did that independently.
Chara just enforces a final consequence that neither Sans nor Flowey were able to do.
The only remnant of Chara is the bad memories of their life.
CHARA IS NOT AN CONSEQUENCE!!!!
CHARA IS AN HELPER IF NOT MANIPULATOR OF YOUR BAD ACTIONS!!!!
@@mechamedegeorge6786
Chara didn't make you do anything.
The player CHOSE to do no mercy ON THEIR OWN.
Flowey encourages the player to do bad, not Chara.
@@TheSkyGuy77Chara straight up forces you to kill Snowdrake to continue the route
@@mechamedegeorge6786
Weird, because I don't remember that being done automatically at all.
I don't remember having someone force my hand to tap the Fight button.
this is a good video! ive been increasingly chara-pilled this past month after reading oblivion theory (highly recommend, its a good theory and mainly meta analysis about undertale and deltarune) which goes over a lot of what you talk about here-- about chara being the representation of your desire to see numbers go up, to complete games. i dont think what chara is is necessarily Evil, because they are supposed to be a part of you. you arent evil by doing a geno run, youre just succumbing to the natural tempting desire to See What Happens, like what sans says. they are the demon that comes when You Call Its Name (by literally naming it), they are the exciting feeling of making your stats increase in games. (like... chara filling up their glasses of water to the brim, picking too many flowers that it covers their face.) even toby fox said that what chara is is too important to be sold in a store.
@@unsleepingcities Thanks for letting me know about Oblivion theory! It sounds quite interesting from what I gather
@@DetectiveMarI’d recommend reading the longer version, though it’s quite the long reading I personally don’t find the shorter and most recent version to be the more convincing one
OMG I was also going to mention Oblivion Theory!! This is the first time I've seen someone else mention it on UA-cam, I'm glad to know it's becoming more well known :D and yeah I honestly also recommend the longer doc, the new one is more concise but if you're willing to read a long doc the original has more evidence
some kid (20-something Toby fox) living in his moms (andrew hussie) basement 😭😭 that got me ! Great video btw keep up the good work !! ❤️❤️❤️
Chad vulpix pfp
@@NatetheNintendofan Based Nintendo Enjoyer
So i think there IS a good version of chara, otherwise who tells you Asriels name during the pacifist fight...who gives you those visions.
In the game files those are actually name Asriel’s memories
I think this is a good video on Chara is in the Geno-route, there's serious irony that both the Dreemurr children became evil (and embody completion players).
There are a few things I do want to point out as a bit of a critique:
- Determination isn't the red trait (which go unnamed in the game), it's the color of the save points and the text color Alphys used when she discovered the power, gold. If it was, Alphys wouldn't be able to discover the power (it's a universal power, and implied that the previous humans had the power too with the Asgore fight)
- the thing you mentioned about a theory people have regarding Chara learning from the player is their literal in game text before they ask if you was to erase the world. (They are also talking directly to the Player, whose DT awoke them, not Frisk's.)
I will say this, you made a good video about Chara, I like the take you have on their character.
13:20 I think you're off a teeny tiny bit here. Souless beings in Undertale have no emotions, positive OR negative. It part of the thematic link between Flowey, soulessness and completionism
What Chara retained after dying wouldn't have been her hatred. It would've been their determination. And if nothing else we can conclude that in life Chara was determined to kill humans. So this is the kind of determination they have after death.
Soulless beings cannot feel love and compassion, they can feel everything else. Otherwise, Flowey wouldn't have been so desperate that he would have tried to kill himself. He also had a fear of death when he did it. He was crying with fear when he woke up and saw that he was a flower. He was calling for help. Etc. Curiosity is also a feeling. If Flowey couldn't literally feel anything, then he wouldn't do any of what he's doing because he wouldn't have much motivation to do it.
@@justauser6078 I always interpreted it as Flowey doing what he is doing not because of malice, but because he can, and because he can he should, that kind of throughline. Flowey originally is pure determination without a soul. Alphys didn't also inject it with sadism for fun as far as I'm aware.
But you have a point in that in general Flowey's emotional state is a mess when you think about and try to generalize it. I can easily make an argument that he can still have positive emotions since he is excited to see you, happy even on genocide. I could also point out that if you spare him after a Photoshop Flowey fight he is conflicted and confused, and delighted if you kill him. AND after a True Pacifist run he pleads with you for the benefit of all the monsters, in a show of selflessness. So an explanation can be easily invented/theorized for why he would cry at first despite having no soul.
If there's one criticism I can levy against the game is that this idea of soulessness is not at all explained.
But I'll be honest. I just subjectively don't like eqating a soul to only the good parts and emotions. Feelings are more complicated then that, and negative impulses also come from people's humanity. The villain of Undertale isn't hatred or greed or what have you. It's detachment, it's apathy, etc.
@@petre1758 >But you have a point in that in general Flowey's emotional state is a mess when you think about and try to generalize it. I can easily make an argument that he can still have positive emotions since he is excited to see you, happy even on genocide.
Happy? Yes. Sadistic pleasure is still a pleasure. A positive emotion. It doesn't change the fact that he can't feel love and compassion.
>I could also point out that if you spare him after a Photoshop Flowey fight he is conflicted and confused, and delighted if you kill him.
Yes. Because he doesn't understand why you would show pity to someone who was trying to make you suffer. He doesn't understand compassion.
>AND after a True Pacifist run he pleads with you for the benefit of all the monsters, in a show of selflessness.
* But now, the idea of resetting everything...
* I...
* I don't think I could do it all again.
* Not after that.
He does not want to return to the same path after he had a reflection on his actions, when he received a soul and accordingly restored love and compassion. For some time. And now he doesn't want to repeat the same mistakes.
>But I'll be honest. I just subjectively don't like eqating a soul to only the good parts and emotions. Feelings are more complicated then that, and negative impulses also come from people's humanity. The villain of Undertale isn't hatred or greed or what have you. It's detachment, it's apathy, etc.
Players do not have detachment and apathy when they go to genocide for the first time. Many even cry while they do it. The problem is that they feel like they have to see what happens next, and that drives them. They care. But they can't afford to stop and not see what happens after.
I can call myself Flowey now because I've killed monsters so many times (Undertale, fan games, etc...) that only special events can make me feel strong emotions. But not the person I was when I tried it for the first time.
@@justauser6078 find yourself a compilation of letsplayers and streamers fighting Sans if you haven't seen one yet.
You'll find that basically all of them go through the same emotional ark: Invested in the story, reacting to the dialoge, some feel bad about being here, some are too intrigued by what Sans will do; Then they get hit by that first attack, their competitiveness turns on; Over the course of the fight and the many attempts it takes people stop caring, start skipping dialoge, talk less and less about the story, about Sans as a character, if the stream or letplay had any semblance of atmosphere its gone; Sure they still emote, are annoyed angry, even say they hate Sans, but they don't, they are not even talking about his character, the fictional person of Sans the Skeleton, his personality or story, they start only meaning his mechanics as an obstacle in a game; Then, they all celebrate beating the hardest boss in the game; Before geting getting hit in the feels by the Papyrus mention and going back to the sad vibes.
To me that's a microcosm of what the game thinks of completionism, and the kind of detachment and deinvestment it causes in people. It isn't a complete emotionless thousand yard stare. Some people are very passionate about getting every achievement in every game they play. But it always means unsuspecting your disbelief and treating it like a task.
It’s nice to see someone who sees Chara as is, rather then twist and contort facts to make them good. As so much of the fandom does.
(You are incredibly underated btw…adore your analysis of indie games and everything in between !! )
@@scootie_scoot Thank you!
10:49 I think it could be explained by just the fact that LV is a thing. We gain none of it on Pacifist and niether we(the player) , Frisk, OR Chara become stronger. We gain maximum LV possible on Genocide and Chara gains enough power to show themself. They don't gain enough Power only on genocide because they're evil. They gain enough power only on genocide, because it's the only route where it is possible to gain enough power (or at all). It's not like if Chara was good they would be able to show up in Pacifist, because killing people is still the only way to gain LV/power. It's not about Chara being evil. It's about just actual rules of this universe..... Of course I'm not trying to say the theory's wrong. Just my thoughts
@@ssomenerdd Well I didn’t say that Chara as such was evil either, only Chara as they manifest to the player during the genocide route. But I think my point stands because, even with LV in the equation: what does LV have to do with Chara, if Chara isn’t connected with unfeeling completionism, or “evil”? If Chara is not evil in this sense during the genocide route, then there would be no reason for that power to go to Chara, it would then make no difference to Chara what you do, because Chara is uninvolved and unrelated to your actions.
@@DetectiveMar(I was looking too much into in-universe reasons rather than symbolic one EVEN THOUGH THIS WHOLE VIDEO IS ABOUT FUCKING SYMBOLISM. Fuck, I'm an idiot-)
@@ssomenerdd Nono, I totally get where you’re coming from. It’s always good to clarify :)
Sincerely sorry@@DetectiveMarcause I suck at simpholisme explain so yeah I will talk only about lore explanation of connection between LV and return of chara
So you gain max lv by killing every monster in Underground and how is said in on of tablet in waterfalls if I am not wrong (and I may be since haven't play in a long time) soul's of all monsters are equal to one human soul so by clearing the Underground you gain enough power to return chara her soul
Sincerely sorry I don't mean to be mean or saying that ik better than you , cause in simpholistic part I believe you are right
Sincerely sorry one more time
@@TheoDoreTheGreatIVX There are thousands of monsters in the underground.
* Thousands of people wishing together can't be wrong! The king will prove it - Echo flower.
We kill only hundred.
You had me at "it's like that episode of rick and morty"
0:39 My favorite UnderSwap take was mentioned!
Funny thing about Chara: that’s not their actual name. Their actual name is whatever you name them at the beginning of the game. Naming them “Chara” does give the dialogue “the true name,” but this is simply a joke about how base gamemaker characters literally have the name “character,” shortened to just “Chara.”
In reality, “Chara” should just be called what they’ve only really been called in-game: The Fallen Child.
Yes, but sometimes the name Chara is used online just because is shorter than calling them the fallen human
Then every name would be the true name.
@@MrGamernovaI think that's the point
@@MrGamernova The player names Chara after themselves. It's for creepiness effect at the end, where "in game you" speaks to yourself. My theory is that "player" is Chara in the game's narrative. At the end of Genocide Chara just breaks the 4th wall to creep us out.
@@QabalFella Yeah I know that, but that doesn't change that there is also a true name.
& ignoring that out of game would make things so much more confusing then if we just kept to said true name when referring to Luigi.
This was a really cool take on UT and I'm pleasantly surprised you covered it!
I'd love to see more videos on UT because you have a special lens through which you see and explain that's unmatched.
Whichever you decide to do I'm excited to see what you have in store for us!
Definitely would be interested in Omori-like videos for Undertale
@@LoArtesanal507 Thanks for letting me know!
IT FIXED MY OVERTHINKING BUG OF MY MIND ABOUT UNDERTALE
*SUPER RESPECT* ❤
Really? That certainly makes you deserving of a pat on the back, cause it hasn't fixed mine.
Something that I don’t like about Chara is how so much of the fandom views them as a black and white character, always seeing them as either pure evil or purely innocent when the game does a lot to imply that they are much more mentally complex, especially if you subscribe to the narrator theory (which I do). Chara actually seems to be a pretty realistic portrayal of victims of child abuse as they are heavily implied to be suicidal, use humor as a coping mechanism and be more quick to violence but not being completely void of empathy and compassion. They even show disgust and confusion when they learn that Frisk/the player only did the genocide run for fun at the end. Also one part that you missed about Chara in the game is that the reason they only appear in the genocide ending is because they got power from Frisk Levels Of Violence which is why they talk so much about power at the end of the game as it gad corrupted them, not to mention the fact that they were forced to just watch as they’re adoptive mother gets mudered which wouldn’t have helped with their sanity either. (That’s not me hating on your video though, I just wanted to correct that).
This is why I see Chara equal to Flowey, just with a slight amount of morality left. Either way Chara is the players punishment after all.
@@DeltaTheToon yes, I personally think the reason why Chara is the representation of the consequences of the player actions is because Chara died and got themselves killed because of their desire for power through violence (getting the power to destroy the barrier by killing 6 humans) and Frisk becomes more powerful the more they kill. (Also it is quite ironic that Chara is the representative of the consequences of our actions only for the fandom to use Chara as a scapegoat for their guilt).
@@Matt-zu2lu I mean, yeah. Why isn't the fandom also blaming Flowey? He's literally directly telling us to do those actions.
I’m writing my own Undertale AU/expansion/retelling thing without a player entity, so I had to create a Frisk and Chara that could be feasibly go down every route (even if not completely game accurate):
Our pair don’t get along at all at first, Chara sees Frisk as just other human, and antagonizes them as such, while Frisk is nearly unresponsive and emotionless, they came down here to give up their soul to the King, and they are set on that path.
Throughout Frisk’s one day speedrun of the Underground though, they begin to soften, the walls they built so they could make this journey crumbling with every friendly face. And for Chara’s part, they put up with Frisk, and even start to actually help the kid. Because, in their mind, Frisk is going to hand over their soul, the last one needed to achieve Chara’s goal all those centuries ago, so getting the kid to the end is in their best interest.
Then Photoshop Flowey happens, or ‘Horror-Flowey’ as Frisk calls him in the one-shot I wrote. Suddenly all the teamwork the pairs been forced to build is put to the brutal test, forcing some additional bonding that I won’t spoil too much. Main things that happen are Frisk finally admitting that they want to get out of the Underground alive, and Chara meeting the Souls.
After the battle, Frisk let’s Flowey go despite Chara’s urging to end him, and then the pair talk. About why Frisk let Flowey go, about their new goals, and about Frisk’s past. They reintroduce themselves, Frisk asks Chara to stop them if they ever start to become like Flowey-setting up a Genocide Route explanation-and they move forward as partners.
Attempt 2: it’s Chara’s turn at character development. Frisk takes their time wandering the Underground, talking to every monster they can, and exploring every place they can visit to buy time to plan and fulfill one of their goals: find out what happened the the fallen humans before them.
And Chara changes, tries to grow as they wander. Seeing Frisk’s empathy for their people, hearing what the closest humans, ‘the Ebottese’, are like now, as well as the stories of the other fallen humans, only one matching their earlier view-Chara tries to become more understanding and overcome the flaws they knew they had, even if it was somewhat pointless.
But that is eventually proven wrong when the pair are faced with Flowey, Asriel Dreemurr, once more. Chara’s brother, the living embodiment of their failures to the people they had cared about, and the one person Chara refused to fail again.
(Enter happy ending with a few changes)
The next day, once Asriel has faded back to Flowey, the pair visit him at the flowerbed where it all began. Frisk and him talk for a moment, then through the power of magic and Determination bullship, the pair grant Flowey access to see Chara. And they, the siblings who have been through and changed so much, have a moment while Frisk silently makes flower crowns nearby-ending in Frisk swearing to bring Flowey to the surface, whether he wants to or not, once everything in the city is settled.
(And that’s our determined pair’s story, I honestly can’t wait to write attempt 2 in more detail, I’m having a lot of fun.)
(Oh, and as for how Chara’s here in the first place, I decided that it was natural consequence of the plan failing. I imagine that if a monster takes a human soul and then expends/releases it in some way, like dying or breaking the Barrier, then and imprint of the soul goes back to the original body. That imprint then can be awakened by another soul of the same type, creating a ghost-like entity of the former soul.)
Chara was my waifu at 8th grade 😢
I still can't believe how people still like a character like Chara with so little screen time. It also hurts too. We could've seen more of Chara, but nah.
Yo I would love it if you made a patreon. you deserve it bro. so underrated
@@TheGrandcat-qw3tk Thank you! I might do so eventually if people actually want me to.
Ugh, you need more subs. I love a good Undertake analysis. Especially this one. Not taking an extreme stance that Chara is purely and solely evil, but also not that they're 100% good. And just misunderstood or something. Great video
So basically Chara is Flowey that can’t be redeemed?
That raises the question, why does Flowey have some good still in him, but not Chara? Sure, Asriel was much nicer in life than Chara, which is why he felt so empty, and only became cruel after being bored and curious. But it still seems a bit weird, especially given Undertale’s message.
Also, why is Chara so connected to the player, to the point where you name them? They only seem to have a direct connection if you do the genocide route, but you still name them regardless. And most people would likely name them after themselves. Is it purely to make the twist that the character you play as isn’t the character you name?
There’s at lot about chara that feels contradictory, like two different characters made into one. But maybe I’m missing something.
So I saw comment that said chara was the player with a different name.
That doesn't make sense to me.
Because of the time like that was shown in the video 'you and I are not the same.'
I should say I've not played the full version of undertale yet.
Great video but two things that should’ve been analyzed. Flowey even seeing through Chara, says their intention was to free humanity in the genocide route, to give more depth to the character. Perhaps Chara did have some feelings of attachment to monsters, but Chara’s last moments were Asriel being the reason they died. Chara also notes that they were asleep and can only recall the last memory dying when they woke up. “I was so confused. Our plan had failed didn’t we? Then I realized the purpose of my reincarnation.” I also realized the wording for “our” which seems to suggest either Asriel went along or was coerced into it if that’s anything to note. Probably the latter cause the whole “big boys don’t cry” seems to suggest Chara was trying to toughen him up for it.
Another thing to note is the move onto the next world shenagains. People have debated whether Chara purposely baited you into this to get your soul or if they were genuinely confused why you’d want to go back. I think the fact you have to wait 10 minutes I’d go with the latter, and when they get your soul they ruin your pacifist ending probably as a way to troll you cause Chara talked about if they thought they were above consequences. And the consequences and talk about the soul had a pause since I imagine Chara was reconsidering what they can do if the player were so persistent.
Great theory. I finally stumbled on someone with the same interpretation of Chara. Honesly feels pretty nice, even if I think there is more to it then this. Take for example the colour of their soul (red). For years fans thoght that red is a color of determination. Exept it's not which has some intresting implications on Chara and worldbuilding in general. As it turns out the colour most strongly asosiated with substance known as determination is not red. Save points are yellow.All humans in undertale are said to have determination. It's substance not the emotion itself. But out of all emotions the one at which sparse evidence is ponting at is the yellow light of justice. Insted red seems to coralate with something else. As long as you have the most determination you can go back in time and avoid death. But there are abilities semingly disconected from both human determination and monster magic. That is the higly unique ability to erase timelines completly. In adition to that the only people conected to persisting after death even without a soul, posesions and being posesed as well as all of the eldrich/meta things are aside from flowey (who is a special case) Frisk and Chara. It's especialy weird when you take Frisk under scrutiny. Weird child that goes to mountain known as place of disaperances and falls down from high up without sustaing any injury. Like yeah there were flowers and stuff but Chara was hurt pretty badly by her fall and need Asreil's help to even walk. They have no one to come back to and after falling Again in waterfall they get flashback of Charas memory and once again sustain no injury even tho Undyne was pretty sure that fall would kill us. Is Frisk a haunted corpse?!? Undyne even remarks in her fight on how much damage you can take. After all pain is the biggest nerf to human determination and how certain monsters manege to win against them. Asgore fought humans with high determination and killed them by burning them alive until they lost the will to go on. And here goes Frisk with unlimited determination, eternal neutral face and going thought extrime situations without a flinch. Hell my "zombie theory" gets even stronger with the gaster followers lore (goners). So my take? "Frisk" is just Chara who after compateble kid falls and convienetly brakes their neck possese a copse and suffers from amesia and either embrace their new indentity or embrace their darkest impuses and turn into a demon. Any thoughts?
One big issue with that is the very name Frisk, why would Chara self gas light if Flowey already identified Chara? So the memories of Asriel flow into our view but not Chara's? Also if Frisk is a corps we should be unable to heal, heck we recover especially quickly sleeping, when if anything it should decay us more but we have more HP?
At that point Frisk is just as much a haunted corpse as we are, arguably even less so.
question ive been wondering, is there anywhere the game directly confirms that charas soul is red? they distinctly Do Not Have One over the course of the game and the only other time we see chara directly is in the opening cutscene
@@outspade their coffin has a red SOUL symbol on it =)
This is an interesting, thoughtful analysis and you made a lot of good points... Is what I would have said if this video came out around 2016 and not in the present. I'm not saying that everything, or even most things you said here are wrong, but a lot of your points have already been made and then debunked or at least addressed in the nearly a decade since the game came out. Despite pointing out how large and multifaceted the game's fanbase is at the beginning of the video, you seem to have never touched the past research and arguments made by the community on the subject, and while I can't tell if this was deliberate or if you just weren't aware of this, there are a few problems with your analysis, and I just want to briefly outline the ones that jumped out to me the most:
1. The premise that Chara losing their soul made them incapable of compassion and empathy is contradicted by a book in the library which explicitly states that those things are only a component of monster souls. For humans, those things, when they are present, are independent of their soul, and therefore losing a human soul would not affect their capacity to feel them.
2. A more minor point, but Chara laughing at Asgore getting sick is not the only time an Undertale character laughed at something that was sad and painful. There are many examples from random NPCs, Migospel, Mettaton and others where characters "laugh out the pain", or in other words, use laughter as a coping mechanism for dealing with genuine sadness and suffering.
3. And probably the most important one: Chara does not appear exclusively in a genocide run. It is heavily implied that the flavor text of the game in every route is actually Chara's dialogue or at least from Chara's perspective, meaning they are in fact always there, being a guiding force for Frisk and quite possibly the previous six humans as well, and one who acts in response to the player. Even the file name for the sprite of the red soul is labeled "Our_Heart", strongly suggesting that not only was Chara's soul wasn't destroyed, but that it and Frisk's soul are one and the same.
Overall, your analysis is interesting and you clearly put a lot of effort into it, but in doing so you have neglected to take into account the efforts of all the thousands of Undertale fans that were discussing the topic for many years, and the end result feels like something that came out much earlier into the discourse than it did. In fact, most of the arguments you made in this video have already been made in a less developed form in the very early days of the fandom (Even the idea that Chara represents unfettered completionism has been put forth by The Imaginary Axis in the only Undertale-related video he ever produced, in 2017 if my memory serves) and with all the issues that come with it. In the spirit of things, I will say that I hope the information I provided helped you rethink some things in the same way your video made other people rethink them, and I hope it will help everyone involved have a better understanding of the game and its messaging. Thank you.
1. Some of these points are similar to what another commentor said, but the book is interesting to note. As far as I can tell, the only book mentioning it says that humans have "proven" their souls don't need love and compassion to exist. But having proven that doesn't necessarily mean that humans can exist WITH love and compassion and at the same time WITHOUT a soul, though. That is what would be required for the theory to be unambiguously wrong. As long as compassion requires a soul in both cases, the point in question holds.
3. As I said to another commentor, it's not at all clear to me that the Narrachara theory is universally accepted. And the presence of certain memories of Chara's throughout neutral and pacifist routes doesn't necessitate that it's the same entity causing those things which manifests at Chara in genocide, that's just one possible explanation.
There are plenty of people who still think Chara is representative of completionism, as evidenced by the 200+ page document on the "Oblivion theory" which another commentor brought to my attention. It seems to have been written a year or two ago at most. As far as I could tell from skimming through most of it, the essence of the theory I outlined here (certainly the symbolic part) aligns very well, although it's much less intricate and somewhat simplified using terms like "evil". In any case, I'm not entirely sure you've substantiated your criticism as more than an opinion.
Lore of UNDERTALE: The Symbolism of Chara momentum 100
Love it! Subbed for more Undertale / Deltarune!
0:53 ah yes, Toby Fox's mom Andrew Hussie
10:47 Not just that, but why do we get upstaged as the main villain by them so instantly?
10:58 Then why claim to have “realized the purpose of my reincarnation”? Why lie about that? Doesn’t it have to be a lie if this is true?
Hey mar I liked the analysis and I wanted to say you should definitely do an analysis on deltarune snow grave
Good suggestion!
So the fandom was right all along. XD
What still pains me is that the only true appearance of Chara in Undertale is through genocide, but I wish to see more of who Chara is outside evil. Who is Chara as a person? I wish for this to be expanded on hopefully by Toby soon.
I know i already commented but i do have a question. Could it be possible that when we give chara our soul. Chara regains the more positive side of their personality. Basically, im asking do you think the soulless pacifist ending isnt actually a bad ending. But simply one where chara is pulling a sick prank on the player to make them think everyone is dead?
Interesting idea, but personally I find it quite unlikely unless you see some evidence for it I don't know about. I've thought about the possibility of Chara regaining their compassion when getting your soul, but it just doesn't seem to happen. Most likely it would only work that way if it were your own soul.
I think Chara continues to exist as a kind of amalgamation of your own completionism and what's left of the original Chara after losing their soul, like I say in the video, even if you give them your own soul.
If that's true then there are no true consequences to doing Genocide, especially if you aren't spiritual.
Besides we already got pranked with Asriel so it'd be pretty redundant.
@@MrGamernova yeah undertale is actually a very spiritual game low key. With that said, What’s your point of view regarding Chara, the vagueness of who they are and where they stand morally? There seems to be a huge split in the community regarding this question which is why I ask.
@@Musical_parks my view is that Chara before falling was a child that was pretty smart for their age. Though they did some silly and mischievous things I don't think they did anything too cruel till they fell. And if they never did reach the mountain they'd probably grow out of their Phase before they'd go too far.
However in the underground they decide to take advantage of the monsters to kill humanity by fuseing their soul with Asriel's soul. Chara even lied to the monsters saying they just wanted to see the flowers where they live. Instead Chara attempted basically a snow grave route with Asriel, wanting him to kill humanity against his will.
So while Genocide is all the players fault, it forces Chara to kill like it or not, but now Chara has finally found their straw man for humanity, at the cost of all the monsters.
But then Sans comes and puts a wrench in the plan. Having dodged our final attack, Sans had managed to rest enough to keep fighting and make the fight unwinnable, the player will eventually give up and the war on humans will never happen.
And to top it all off Chara will now have to deal the blow to Sans every Genocide you do in order to keep proofing their point.
@@MrGamernova I see what you’re saying. The game leaves a lot more up to interpretation regarding chara than I initially thought when I played years ago. Originally, after finishing all three routes, I just figured chara was outright a terrible person because, well, I thought it was kind of obvious but as I look back to this game and explore its community, I see that a lot of people beg to differ, and with a ton of great points and solid evidence at that. You said chara manipulated the monsters including their adoptive family when they fell down, and for the longest time I saw it that way, but I had a back and forth with this one guy under a reply section about this topic and he actually had some really sound points and lots of proof that pointed towards chara not hating monsters the same way they hated humans, and the whole plan with asrial was their attempt to free the monsters by gathering more souls, now my thought process is basically, okay but… that just makes it even more confusing and just raises even more question for me.
If there are so many subtle clues throughout undertales lore that point to chara actually having quite a bit of redeeming qualities, especially in their past life, then why does the game itself try so hard to paint them as evil, especially the way it kinda beats you over the head with it in regards to how they’re presence is so much more associated and intertwined with the genocide route.
I have no clue lol. I really don’t know and maybe I don’t want to know because every single person seems to have a completely different interpretation of this character and it’s honestly really cool to me. Perhaps Toby did this intentionally. Wouldn’t surprise me as he’s a very clever writer.
i was viewing thos video looking at it as if it had thousands of views holy shit ONLY under 300?? god damn
@@DeliriousPersona Thanks, but you’re pretty early to the party too though ;)
In UNDERTALE's files, Frisk is referred to in code as "mainchara", and Chara is referred to as "truechara".
In DELTARUNE, Kris is referred to in code as "obj_mainchara". While there is no corresponding "truechara", we *do* create a GONER.
Chara was never evil. The player is the only one that's evil
there is one problem with this theory tho.flowey being soulless did not make him heartless as even after he turned back into flowey he still kept his emotions and in the genocide route he felt fear which he had not felt in a long time.
It did make him unable to feel compassion, other emotions worked fine, as Flowey could still feel amusement, anger, fear, and such. But due to monster souls being made of love, hope, and compassion, without one, they lack it. However, it seems the events of True Pacifist has cured Flowey’s ailment, which, considering how many souls and memories he absorbed, makes sense that he has enough to reawaken his compassion.
@@JacksonVoet but if that were true flowey compassion would slowly fade since he gave away all the souls and the alarm clock hints that it take places atleast a few day after true pacifist
@@JacksonVoet also he knows everyone in the underground pretty well.better than they know themself but that did change him at all.
What’s your take on the theory of Chara being the narrator?
Based video
Asgore when?
*9 years ago
@@OdysseyCoder It does actually say so in the video, in text ;)
What do you PERSONALLY think about Chara and Frisk's gender? I know that they are nonbinary but i wonder your thoughts
I mean they're not really non-binary unless you say so, their gender is just unspecified. To answer your question though, I always thought Chara seemed more like a girl and Frisk a boy, but that's probably just because of the difference in facial design.
They have no Gender, so I just go by whatever the person I'm talking to goes by with Frisk & Chara.
I really hate that they were made Genderless JUST to make sure people wouldn't police their Genders & it's failed horrible to do that, if anything it probably made the policing worse.
@MrGamernova I mean, if you think about it...
If a character is only exclusively referred to as 'he' or 'she', we never question whether they're really just male or female.
As far as I'm aware stating that the intention behind using they was meant to 'prevent arguments' is unsubstantiated outside your personal opinion.
I feel there's a certain hypocrisy in the idea that stating all pronouns are correct is somehow above the idea that the pronouns used consistently in-game are the correct ones.
If someone corrected someone using 'he' for Undyne, would you see them the same way, as engaging in frivolous discourse?
@@chinchbug6934 But in practice it's accomplished nothing & thus the arguments happen anyways.
& I personally find a certain hypocrisy in the policing of pronouns for Frisk & Chara when their canonical preferred pronouns are genderless for the sake of avoiding this, & by correcting someone using anything we are canonically miss gendering them for the sake of trying to respect their genders.
& Undine is a different kind of character compared to Frisk, while we may get tad bits of flavor he/she/they are like the ship in an early shooter. Maybe we might have some lore about the pilot in some comic or whatever but for the most part Idk why a pilot/ai gets a way with it while Chara or at the very least Frisk can't.
@@MrGamernova So you're saying the game was misgendering the characters by using pronouns for them? From what I recall the game neither says anything explicitly about the characters being genderless (though agender people often still do have correct pronouns), nor does it use only the name and never pronouns. It simply uses 'they' as a pronoun.
I would urge you to perhaps ponder why a game calling a character 'he' or 'she' is seen as enough to establish an identity and correct terms for a character even for silent protagonists (in other games), but a game using 'they' for one is seen as insufficient to establish correct pronouns. And especially why people may have found that stance potentially offensive or damaging, particularly in a climate where people choosing to use those pronouns even for themselves was contentious.
(for the record, I am leaving this at that, but I do just want you to hopefully consider that the people you're lax about blowing off perhaps have both precedent and solid reasoning behind considering the correct pronoun to be 'they')
(I only watched the first 2 minutes, so if the creator tells some super evidence to Chara actually being evil, don't judge me please)
Chara isn't evil by themselfs
WE MAKE THEM EVIL
Remember, THE PLAYER DID THE GENOCIDE ROUTE, NOT CHARA
CHARA IS JUST A LOST SOUL WE CORRUPT DURING A GENOCIDE RUN
THEY AREN'T INNOCENT AS SAID BY ASRIEL, BUT THEY WEREN'T EVIL BACK WHEN THEY WERE ALIVE
THE CHARA THAT'S STUCK TO US DURING THE GAME IS SOULESS JUST LIKE FLOWEY, SO THEY DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO
WE DETERMINE THEIR FATE
are they gonna find happiness and be a hero?
(At the end of Pacifist, Chara is the one that shows us the flashback that leads to Asriel's loss and without it, ASRIEL WOULD HAVE WON)
Or are they gonna be a souless murderer that still doesn't know what they wanna be
(If you do a 2. Genocide run, Chara suggests a Pacifist run or at least a Neutral and if you do a Pacifist, they are there to remind you about what you did in the Genocide run, THEY ARE JUDT REMINDING YOU OF HOW BAD YOU ARE, and we don't see them kill neither, cause the foto of everyone's face blanked out is only a foto that they may have altered to remind you of what you did, it doesn't mean that they killed them)
Omori font
13:10 nope, red souls aren’t determination, red has never been linked to determination in all the entire game, it says all humans have determination. Either then that this is a really interesting analysis over Chara. I like how you interpret them as not literally satan or a misunderstood angel.
There are hints in the game in this direction, just not unambiguous. There's no issue with some humans having a special relationship with determination whilst all of them having some. In any case, it's not really an important point in my video as I replied to another commentor.
Thanks for the compliment!
Many things are wrong here.
Red isn't the color of determination, that's fanon. Chara is all but confirmed to be the narrator throughout all routes and yet only exhibits evil tendencies on the genocide route. Chara is the one that provides the flashback during the Asriel fight that allows you to save him. Chara urges you not to do genocide if you do genocide repeatedly and criticizes your insistence on destroying by everything over and over again because they can't understand this desire you have, this "perverted sentimentality". Lacking a soul doesn't make you evil or take away your positive traits, lacking a soul is just a symbolic representation of emotional detachment, seeing the world as a game rather than a real world with people, hence why we lose control over Frisk and eventually sell our soul during and after genocide respectively, we've stopped taking the world seriously.
Chara is a reflection of us the same way Flowey is imo, it's just that Flowey's already completed his villain arc by the time we meet him, Chara mainly follows our arc
I'd also argue Undertale is more about letting go of the past and moving onto better things than it is about empathy
Those were a lot of points, so I'll tackle them in turn:
1) I'm aware the association with souls is fanon, and I only mention it in passing because it is an easy way to illustrate the evident connection between Frisk and Chara (both souls are indeed red, and both characters are unusually determined as evidenced by Frisk making it all the way through the underground while other humans didn't).
2) I never say in the video that Chara is evil. I argue from a symbolic point of view first, and then I analyse Chara's very obviously antagonistic and "evil" role in the genocide route from a concrete POV. The genocide route is, like you say, a specific context, and that is the context I am using in the video as I believe I made clear.
3) Not sure what your point is with the flashback, please clarify.
4) I know Chara urges you not to repeat genocide, and indeed I discuss this at some length towards the end of the video when I talk about how genocide Chara is identified with a specific type of evil, namely evil + completionism, roughly speaking. Chara's dialogue here hints at an aversion to sentimentality and mindless repetition, which is in line with their character and the overall message of the video.
5) It's quite clear from Flowey that lacking a soul prevents you from feeling love and real positive emotion, at least when rooted in altruism or empathy. This implies the negation of one's positive traits, which leaves only the negative ones, hence "evil". I agree it's also symbolic, but all such things can be considered both symbolically and diegetically.
6) I very much agree Undertale is about letting go of the past, and that may actually be more central than the empathy component, but it really depends on your POV.
Hope that clears things up!
@@DetectiveMar Rereading my comment, I feel I came off a bit pretentious which was not my intention, idk if this comment will come across that way but I genuinely don't mean to
1) The determination aspect wasn't really a big deal, just something that bugged me a bit and so I just kind of threw it in there, incredibly nitpicky of me
2) I haven't watched the video in a significant amount of time now, maybe I'm misremembering, but I could've sworn you said that you didn't buy the idea that weren't influenced into the evil they became by the player and that they were a representation of this RPG mindset while Frisk was pacifism or something along those lines, thus meaning Chara would exhibit the same goal-oriented completionism on all routes which I'd imagine you agree isn't the case. The narration in the pacifist and neutral route makes up most of the game's charm while the genocide route narration is to-the-point and disinterested in goofy shenanigans because you've told them their only purpose is to follow this completionist attitude, they're very clearly following you as the player
3) My point with the flashback was building on the previous point, they help you save Asriel on pacifist, not someone who's had their good traits taken by lacking a soul or whatever I vaguely remember you saying would do. I'd say they're not necessarily a symbolic representation of completionism but a reflection of you just as Flowey is, and so as you detach from the world and become like Flowey, Chara does as well as the representation of your will, your determination. They follow your arc, they become goal-oriented because you become goal-oriented, they're willing to engage in goofy shenanigans on other routes because you're willing to, that's primarily why most would be playing them even after detaching emotionally from the game. Chara follows where you lead yet judges you for where you choose to bring them because they can't understand why you'd still want more
4) I actually don't recall you discussing this so I'll have to rewatch at some point later today ig, not really getting much to agree or disagree with from just this that I haven't already said
5) Flowey lacking a soul doesn't make him evil. He can feel real positive emotions, but he has to suspend his disbelief to care about anyone or anything, it feels like a game and not a world and, to care about the people in it, he has to pretend it's real. Before he became the monster he is when we meet him, he didn't want to hurt anyone, he befriended everyone countless times and solved everyone's problems, he genuinely enjoyed the relationships he shared with others, but he got bored after countless resets, he knew every line of dialogue, he had exhausted all possible non-violent options, and so he gradually began to detach himself because he had no soul keeping him tethered, he was able to stop caring not because his positive emotions had been taken but because he had to suspend his disbelief to feel them. Idk how canon the alarm clock dialogue is but Flowey is shown in that to be able to act altruistically despite everything, but he hides it behind an uncaring facade. Most of Flowey's true evil is performative, a way for him to emotionally distance himself further due to his immense guilt and self-hatred, he thinks of himself as a monster for lack of a better term due to his ability to not care about others and so he makes sure to play the part, but lacking a soul doesn't take away his positive traits, it just, alongside determination, gives him the perspective of a player, the symbolism here is kind of the whole point. Iirc, you said Chara was soulless and thus had all of their positive traits taken which was what I disagreed with, maybe I'm misremembering though, my memory is generally terrible and I didn't rewatch the video for this comment. As you can probably tell, I find Flowey much more interesting and accidentally started rambling about him and had to throw in Chara at the end lmao
6) Fair enough, can't really argue against that
@@crypt5129 No worries! I think I see where the discrepancy is coming from better now. You're looking at things from the POV of the Narrachara theory.. Hence Chara accompanies the player throughout the entire game regardless of route and hence Chara is present and aiding the player during the pacifist route. This would indeed contradict much of the diegetic part of my video. But to the best of my knowledge, that theory isn't a no-brainer, and I'm not sure where you get the definitive idea that Chara helps you save Asriel at the end of genocide. It could easily be interpreted that way under Narrachara, but as far as concrete evidence I'm not aware of any, though that could easily be my ignorance.
@@DetectiveMar I feel like the narrachara theory (this name hurts me, there was an incredibly obvious pun like right there) is basically canon though, it's a theory in the same way Alphys creating Flowey is. It's heavily-implied to the point where it's basically just canon, but it's never technically said the flower Alphys injected with determination was Flowey as far as I can recall. All of the narration is spoken in second person except the bits where we know Chara is the narrator speaking of themselves, Chara repeatedly provides their memories throughout the game showing they're at least following us (the game over dialogue, the memory after falling in Waterfall, the memories provided to save Asriel since he's the only one that we save through reminiscing about the past yet have no positive memories of to work off of, etc etc) and much of the flavor text alludes to experiences Chara had that neither Frisk nor any other viable narrator candidate would know of. Evidence has been compiled in countless places, it's basically all but explicitly said to be canon. It is admittedly easier to miss than the example I compared it to hence why it's called a theory, but I'd say it has much more evidence going for it than the idea that Flowey was made by Alphys, which I imagine we'd both agree he was. Just feels undeniable idk, but I haven't heard any arguments against it either tbf, mainly because it's generally accepted but that's not really an indication of truth given what else is commonly accepted by the fandom
@@crypt5129 Hmm, well much of that can be explained in alternative ways and from what I gather people don't really seem to agree on this at all. I can't see it being more likely than Flowey being made by Alphys, since it's directly stated in no uncertain terms that Alphys injected a flower, which then disappeared, with determination. Such a statement is not open to interpretation at all unless you want to give up your right to use deduction. I suppose we have to accept a difference in points of view.
this video is basicly you saying that you are chronicaly online withouth saying you are chronicaly online
becuase they are a video game villain! that's how chara was made. that's what chara was made for (i'm just gonna start calling chara a she from now on) chara was made to be the bad guy of undetale (and deltarune from what the game is showing) flowey is a bad guy but not the main bady. she is. "player" isn't even a character,, blaming some made up player isn't even a good joke theory. it is lazy and unoriginal and basically hostile to people who want to play undertale since you would be calling them evil. the player didn't kill anyone. but chara killed everyone. in the video game lore. who was it that was killing? chara, "player" does not exist. chara is not some defenseless kid who can't save themselves. she literally calls herself a demon. she kills the game she is in at the end and is very powerful. she does not need protecting. you need protecting from chara. if by this logic of "the player did it" the player should be blamed for video game stories and not the video game characters. then i guess all of you are serial killers becuase some of you played twisted metal. i am an animal abuser. human genocider and space tyrant because i played games that kill humans in them. i played pokemon and i played universe sandbox 2
point is. chara defense morons.. no .. there is no "player" the person who plays the game and the character(s) in it are two different people... chara is the killer. not the player
Meanwhile that doesn't make CHARA only one responsible for genocide.
After all at start they didn't understand why they even woke up and it was frisk or us who shower her why she was woken up and why she exists.
Frisk or we made her evil to the point where she destroys the whole world. She wasn't controlling frisk even if player doesn't exist than frisk exists who could do genocide because they wanted to see what happens