#Obviously I am talking about Spamton in my own case.

[reginalusus]

"Ewwwww, why do you simp for [insert character], he literally looks like [insert nonsensical, cliché reasons]."

Does everything have to be about physical attraction to you people.

[kooki914]

you should make a spamton rant. rip him apart and tell the world every intimate reason he is a disreputable and immoral individual who got exactly what he deserved. we need more spamton hate in this community. people obviously dont understand just how bad he can be

Seeing as the blog that sent this is empty, and the phrasing of this ask is downright comical, I'm willing to bet this is rage bait.

If not, I'm genuinely sorry you think like this, random person, because my dislike of Spamton is, you guessed it, subjective! Just like every opinion about a fictional character, it's entirely up to the reader to form their own thoughts and decide if they like them or not, if they'd put up with their actions or not, and if the context we're provided makes their actions justified or unforgivable to you. Opinions are flexible and valid, and even change over time!

Now excuse me as I write an essay in response to this general concept because you HAVE baited me, just not in the way you wanted.

I'd like to take a moment to comment on the absolute state of discussing "character good/character bad" in fandoms, especially nowadays. Because of the increased politicization of fandom culture, it almost feels like people treat fandom discourse as inherently political and just as serious. And, while I'd love to talk about the rampant misogyny in fandom or how homophobia still permeates even in progressive spaces, I'm specifically referring to the moralization of media engagement.

The "you can't watch this" or "you have to watch this", the people in the old undertale fandom who'd tell you you're a bad person if you decided to play through the no mercy route, the people in current deltarune fandom talking about how Kris' race ambiguity makes Toby Fox racist, and, in this case, someone trying to bait ME into moralizing my opinion of Spamton for the sake of a "gotcha" or fodder for their hatred of me. Sorry to disappoint, I don't think Spamton is reprehensible in our, practical, human terms.

He's just some fictional guy who did shitty stuff to a bunch of kids and kind of got his comeuppance in the end. That exact description applies to him, Spade King, and undertale Asgore even though they're entirely different characters. And, also, I fucking ADORE Spade and Asgore, but my subjective opinion, the Vibe Check if you will, is that Spamton is worse than them. I think we can all agree that In Real Life murder of 6 children is obviously worse than being a con artist. However, this is also fiction, and those deaths shouldn't be treated with the SAME severity as actual, real crimes against humanity should be. They are severe, yes, and breaches of morality, but not REAL morality. Actual children weren't harmed in the making of undertale, believe it or not. These reprehensible actions from the cast are narrative vessels meant to show us the state of mind a character is and how far they're willing to go.

I think Spamton's desperation for reaching his "heaven" is disturbing because he was willing to extort and kill a child for it. In the same vain, I think Asgore is a coward for choosing to go through with his plan when the human that walked into his throne room was a literal child and not someone deserving of the death penalty, which happened 7 separate times. The difference is, I like Asgore and dislike Spamton. Not for moral reasons. Just Vibes.

This ask was 100% spurred on by the video I made about shadow crystals and secret bosses. It's kind of telling of their lack of media literacy, how this (practically) anon took nothing away from that video except "this guy thinks Spamton sucks", because that was decidedly not the point. Even during my rant about him in the video, when I call him a bad person I am simply stating in-universe facts. Things that most people who like Spamton as a character rather than a poor little meow meow can agree DID happen, and DOES make him morally grey. And this is where the politicization of fandom comes in again, because I only felt the need to add that rant into that section because there's SO many people who feel the need to justify liking immoral characters by making them super not bad at all - talking about the grey as if it's white, and if you point out the darker shades, they think you're trying to paint over all of it with black.

The people who over-exaggerate how tragic Spamton's or Spade King's lives were, the ones who justify reprehensible actions through "but he's mentally ill!" (even though a sentiment like that just further stigmatizes mental illness but that's a different topic), the people that say "X character did nothing wrong" without a twinge of irony in their tone.

Spamton is not Satan. He's also not a flawless angel.

The complete loss of being able to view a character as both Bad and Likable at the same time is tragic to me, because 90% of the characters I adore are bad, reckless, stupid, selfish, downright EVIL sometimes, and even if they may be lonely or misunderstood underneath it all, that is NOT something that erases their flaws! The whole POINT of moral grayness and complexity in characters is that we learn to take the good AND the bad in stride. Where do you draw a line in the sand? Does their charisma make them lovable enough to you that you want to keep watching them do The Bad Thing as long as they're having fun with it? Or does their grappling with and regret of The Bad Thing make them so emotionally compelling to you that you want to see where they'll go next, no matter the morality of their future actions?

If you like Spamton, more power to you. If you're in love with the weird funny little puppet man, even better, live your best life. But, for the love of god, engage with him as the character he actually is, without scrubbing away the awkward and the morally dubious for the sake of a cleaner character to play with. I genuinely believe most of the cult surrounding Spamton understands this, most of what I've seen from his most avid fans still paint him as his greedy conniving canon self, it's just that there's a loud minority (and the filthy casuals who don't read any deeper into him and just flatten every character they talk about) who deliberately try to convince you that Spamton is OBJECTIVELY a good person, or OBJECTIVELY someone you have to like, otherwise you're weird and, like, hate mentally ill people or something. I've gotten a Lot of weird comments on that video you guys wouldn't even believe.

All in all I consider that Spadesgore must be canonized.

[maskeraith]

can you explain what crumbs you've gathered what's Kris like to you

I am full on rambling in this post so watch out

at the end of chapter 1 you gather a lot of info on what people think of Kris and the kind of things they did before we took control, stuff like bath bombs in the toilet, pranking Noelle pretending they were bleeding when it was just ketchup, and so on. So we know they're a pretty naughty kid all round. Monster Kid does seem to consider them a friend, and Noelle still likes Kris and would be happy to have them on her group project. Berdly also says stuff like he's always seen potential in Kris in Ch2, and Alphys talks to them a lot. So I don't think they're really disliked, exactly, just that they have a bit of a reputation if that makes sense? As a bit of a weird troublemaker but not like a Bad Kid, like people think of Suzie. But though I do think they have friends, I don't think they have close friends, if that makes sense, that's the impression all the clues give to me.

Another place we can get lots of info on Kris is Queen's room for them, where she takes the character's searchs and give them cool stuff based on them. So Kris searched how to make a bath bomb (for pranks), something we already knew about. Kris searched for jello knives which I think is just a funny reference to those make a knife out of anything vids, but it kind of shows they spend a lot of time online watching vids and stuff. They have searched for piano tutorials (I'll come back to that), and they have searched for the date of college summer holiday, which clearly shows they love their brother Asriel and miss him to me.

We can gain a lot more from how Kris reacts to our decisions. Just in case you didn't know, the most popular and imo almost certainly correct theory is that we The Player are Literally controlling Kris' actions, and they have no control over what we are making them do. However, Kris reacts a lot to what we make them do! One of the first decisions we can make in Ch2 is to steal 5 bucks from Asriel, and if you do it specifically describes Kris feeling reluctant to do so. Kris definitely loves and misses Asriel a lot, and though they're a naughty kid they don't want to really upset their loved ones at all.

The most prominant moment of Kris being their own character is right after Spamton Neo, where Suzie asks if Kris is ok. If you choose no, Kris actually screams the answer, they're super shaken by the whole event. If you say yes, though, we get a different moment where I guess we've forced them to play it cool when really they want to scream that they're not okay, but Suzie still catches onto this. She can tell they're not okay, and being Suzie she is rude and insulting, but in an effort to cheer them up, and it works, and Kris smiles! Even though I don't like forcing Kris to bottle up their emotions I love this moment, to me it shows how much they actually truly like Suzie for who she is.

We see other moments of Kris demonstrating how much they care about Suzie, too - whenever Monster Kid and that snowflake kid are rude about her in front of them, they comment on how angry and upset they look. We know from all this that the real Kris really does consider Suzie a best friend! And the You Teas are a very interesting source of info too - when Kris drinks Suzie Tea, they recover 120hp, which shows they REALLY like the tea. Interestingly, Noelle Tea heals 70hp, and Ralsei tea only heals 60hp, so they don't like those two as much as Suzie, and actually like Ralsei the LEAST, which I don't actually have any clue why that might be - they made friends and bonded with Suzie and Ralsei at pretty much the same rate in Ch1, so ??

Maybe it's something to do with what Ralsei is telling them when we switch to Suzie's perspective. Another popular theory is that Ralsei is aware of the player watching them, so when he makes the perspective shift he's making time to talk to Kris without us watching. Maybe Kris does NOT like what Ralsei is telling them, or they trust Ralsei less because of that behaviour? I can't think of another reason they wouldn't like Ralsei that much, unless his personality is just something Kris naturally doesn't get along with, i guess?

Back to the piano thing - Kris knows how to play the piano, and gets uspet when we try to make them play the paino because they can't actually do it properly under our control. The lack of piano in Toriel's house, and Kris' internet searches for piano tutorials, makes me think they're entirely self-taught, so I think they can really dedicate themself to things they care about.

So the picture I have of Kris is that of a weird kid, bit of a loner, no one really gets them. But as soon as Suzie came along, someone who DOES get them, they've become a fiercely loyal friend to her. Based on the frequency of Kris trying to put their own spin against whatever option you choose, I think they're a super independant person, and they do NOT like being under our control.

One particular moment that I always think about it when you try to look into Asriel's room in Queen's castle, Kris closes their eyes and so you see nothing. We know how much they love Asriel, so why would they do this? My theory is there's something in there that Kris does not want you the player to see, I think they're very specifically working against your control, subtly when they can.

And finally we get to the moments Kris rips their (your) soul out and regains control. Obviously they do some Bad Stuff during these times, as in they open up another dark world, which could lead to the destruction of the whole world, and probably slash Toriel's tyres which is like quite a bit worse than just Naughty Kid. But based on everything else in the game, every other piece of evidence we have, Kris isn't an Evil person right? So I definitely think they know a lot more than we do, and have their own goals that we can't understand just yet.

Oops long post