#chara's the one with the martyr complex. not frisk

[stainedglassthreads]

As I spend more time in the Undertale fandom, there are some characterizations of characters that grow to bother me-- one of them being, that Frisk suffering from Chosen One syndrome, believing they can only shoulder their heavy responsibilities entirely on their own, especially bothersome in a Post-Pacifist setting. Because Undertale seems to say quite a lot, and among the things it says, it subtly but viciously deconstructs the idea of a singular hero bringing hope to a kingdom and saving it. 

Because here’s the thing: three ‘hopebringers’ existed long before Frisk ever ran away to Mt Ebott. All three of them seemed to bring hope in the short-term and the extremely long-term, but they also all contributed to making the Underground’s situation worse and messier. Each gave the next hopebringer a heavier and heavier burden to carry, wreaking progressively more havoc on their mental health and making them suicidal as a result. And all three are not saints, but rather flawed and complicated individuals, who can be controversial among some parts of the fandom. 

1) Chara

The first hopebringer was Chara, and to a lesser extent Asriel. But right now, I’m going to focus on just Chara. Almost everything about Chara has been hotly debated in the past, but there are a few things that set them up as the Underground’s first hopebringer, and ultimately caused them to martyr themself. 

Chara was the very first human to fall to the Underground. Many younger monsters, such as Asriel, had never met a human before, and for those older monsters who had, their last interaction with humanity would have been the one-sided massacre of the War, and being sealed Underground to rot indefinitely. Anyone would have expected monsters to fear and shun this representative of their oppressor’s race. And yet, Chara came to be so loved by the whole Underground, that they were even accepted as a member of the royal family. 

Of course, being viewed as an honorary Dreemurr came with a heavy burden, especially from Chara’s new adoptive parents. Whenever Frisk dies, we hear an echo of words told to Chara by Asriel. 

‘You are the future of humans and monsters.’ 

With how eagerly Asgore was to make a child like Frisk the Ambassador of Monsters, many fanworks extrapolate he may have had similar expectations for Chara, and it is my belief that these responsibilities, mixed with Chara’s pre-existing traumas, beliefs, and mental issues, led to a very unstable and unhealthy mindset. 

Not much is agreed on by the whole fandom about Chara’s personality, and even less is known for certain about their past. Asriel confirms that Chara came to Mt Ebott for an unhappy reason, and hated humanity. From their No Mercy speech, and the implication they may have been trying to destroy the Reset power in life, it can be further extrapolated Chara had a strong sense of actions having consequences, and taking responsibility. 

It is well-known that Chara and Asriel concocted a plan, to obtain seven human souls to break the Barrier and let monsters go free. A plan which they kept secret from their parents, and which involved Chara’s death. Personally, I think it quite telling that Chara chose themself to die, when the No Mercy Route shows how easily humans can kill monsters, and that they chose to kill themself in the same way they accidentally poisoned their adoptive father. I think Chara was driven by a combination of responsibility, self-loathing, and guilt, that manifested in their suicide attempt. 

They are a human, they are the real demon. Even when they find a loving family, all they do is hurt them. It is their responsibility to atone for humanity’s and their own sins, they are the future of humans and monsters. They are the only human soul in the Underground, therefore they can be the only one to make this sacrifice. Why would their family possibly mourn for them, they should be happy, they should be smiling. They’re going to be free-- of the Underground and their tormentors. 

Of course, we know that things didn’t play out as Chara thought. Asriel failed to carry out their plan and died too, and the Underground was ultimately deprived of hope. Leading us to our next broken hopebringer... 

2) Asgore Dreemurr

Toriel was always described as the brains behind the throne. She was the one who dreamed of educating children, and in an ending where she becomes Queen, will elect to judge humans on a case-by-case basis. She loves children, but is stoic and rational. 

Asgore, emotional crybaby Asgore, was the one who could always connect with his people, capable of both demanding their respect, and earning their love. What other ruler could earn such nicknames as ‘King Fluffybuns’ and ‘big fuzzy pushover’, while never seeming hated in the slightest by his subjects? 

So what is Asgore meant to do when his children both die in a single night, and his people go completely bereft of hope? Remember, this isn’t simply an issue of demoralization. A hopeless monster is in danger of falling down-- falling asleep, never to awaken again. If nothing is done, it’s possible a large percentage of his kingdom could die, or even create a ripple effect. And he is the one who the people adore, not Toriel, who intimidates the Ruins monsters, whose pacifistic policies are overthrown should too many monsters die. 

If his people are on the brink of dying, Asgore Dreemurr will simply give them something to live for. He declares war on humankind, he promises the fallen dead and the Barrier broken. He swears vengeance. 

In the immediate short-term, this does give hope back to monsters. Just as how Chara’s friendship with Asriel gave monsters something to look forward to, so does this. But just as Chara’s sense of responsibility led to their death, so does Asgore’s sense of responsibility torment him, pushing him to the point where, if Flowey does not interrupt him, he kills himself. 

Toriel leaves Asgore, disgusted with his actions. In a Pacifist run, she says that if he had wanted to go through with his plan, he would have recreated Chara’s plan. Many seem to believe this is Toriel saying, this is what Asgore SHOULD have done. I have a slightly different takeaway-- I think this is Toriel saying, this is what Asgore would have done-- if he had ever really wanted vengeance on humanity in the first place. 

He absolutely could have crossed the Barrier with one soul. He knows what Chara and Asriel did. But he chose to wait Underground for the next fallen human, for an indefinite period of time. And he chose to keep his people waiting with him. And while he waited, even if his people are fond of him, and he occasionally does public appearances for them (giving a talk at Monster Kid’s school, playing Santa for Snowdin)... he seems incredibly isolated. No matter the route, he seems surprised to see a human in his garden, if he even recognizes Frisk as human. It takes Frisk’s friends physically gathering for him to realize, they don’t want Frisk dead, and he is released from his promises of killing the Fallen Humans, and carrying out a war. 

When Asgore declared war, Toriel exiled herself to the Ruins, abandoning monsterkind. A selfish choice, and one that also wreaked havoc on her own mental health, if the Winter Alarm Clock Dialogue and some of Sans’ dialogue is to be taken into account, but her selfish choice allowed her to be more true to herself and her morals. Asgore found himself in conflict with his sense of morality and his sense of duty. Perhaps he, too, isolated himself from close connections, unable to listen to his people’s excitement over getting a seventh soul and destroying humanity, when in his soul, he was so tired of killing, and hated the promise he had made in haste and anger, which had driven away his wife. So tired... that if Frisk refuses to kill him, then he can no longer carry on. 

Although he saved his kingdom from a lack of hope, it’s clear to see the toll his promise took on him and his personal life, and his declaration also creates most of Frisk’s direct obstacles throughout their journey Underground. But should Frisk remain a pacifist and remain determined despite it all, there is one final broken hopebringer to come to... 

3) Alphys

Alphys is a robotics genius. She created all of Mettaton’s forms with extremely limited supplies. She manages to run the behemoth that is the Core. She turned a cell phone into a fucking jetpack. But I think we can all agree... she is an engineer and roboticist, not a biologist, magic expert, or soul expert. And she was way out of her depth when Asgore asked her to break the Barrier. 

Her theory made some amount of sense, and she worked with what limited supplies she possessed. But I don’t think she really knew what she was doing, when she injected Fallen-Down monsters with Determination. She had no idea Determination was so so dangerous to monsters, nor exactly how it was dangerous. She was grasping at straws, feeling everyone relying on her. At first when she messed up, it wasn’t so bad. A cure for falling down is a miracle, even if it was an accident. But then it all went horribly, terribly wrong. And Alphys’ own anxious disposition rapidly made things even worse. 

In a True Pacifist ending, the Amalgamates are reunited with their families, and said families are simply relieved and happy to have them back, even with their new forms, celebrating the occasion. But Alphys isolates herself alone in her lab, convinced she is the worst of the worst, incapable of telling the truth about what happened to the Fallen Down monsters. This eventually reaches a low point, and if not for Undyne’s fortunate intervention... perhaps the amalgamates would have remained in the lab forevermore, forgotten by all... 

So... why is Frisk different? 

Frisk is not the first would-be savior of the Underground. So why are they the only one to succeed in truly saving it? Are they some superhuman incapable of ever being discouraged, capable of doing what even an Angel, a King, and a Scientist couldn’t? 

While their determination is not to be discounted, I don’t believe it’s what allowed Frisk to save the Underground. Rather, they are willing to call for help, and they have the efforts of the three previous hopebringers to make things easier for them. 

Asgore does the most visible work. By already possessing six souls, and having just enough monster souls to function as one human soul, Frisk narrowly avoids being made the seventh. But Chara does the most work in making sure Frisk is never alone via the NarraChara theory, providing Check information on all the monsters and allowing Frisk vital help in Sparing monsterkind and navigating the Underground. Perhaps even through keeping their morale and determination high, via the jokes and encouragement found in narration. 

The truth is, while Frisk is very determined, their determination did not carry them through the most difficult parts of their journey. They are mostly alone and facing great adversary throughout the majority of a True Pacifist route, only Papyrus seeming to support and encourage them in their pacifistic ideals, and everyone else needing to be convinced that humans and monsters can coexist, and mercy is an option, some through quite unconventional means. But eventually, this effort is always repaid in full, exactly when Frisk least expects it. 

In the fight against Photoshop Flowey, Frisk’s determination is nowhere near enough to rival Flowey’s with six souls. They are left incapable of doing anything but calling for help-- and the six souls do help them and revolt against Flowey. If the souls had chosen not to help Frisk, for whatever reason, they would have been trapped at Flowey’s whims for perhaps an eternity. 

It’s much the same in the True Pacifist ending. It’s only possible to spare Asgore because Frisk convinced the whole Underground some humans were good, which in turn let Asgore know he no longer needed to keep his promise. It’s also through this turn of events that a substitute seventh soul was created, meaning Frisk didn’t need to die, and through Frisk’s friends’ love for them that the Lost Souls were saved, and Asriel regained his compassion. 

Frisk doesn’t even break the Barrier on their own. One could argue that, every other character in the game BESIDES Frisk(and, arguably, Napstablook) works together to break the Barrier, instead of just them. 

In truth, Frisk and Asriel are the fourth and fifth hopebrings. And while Asriel, too, was very much still broken at the end of it all, Frisk never gave up hope. Never gave up determination. And only in the route where everyone comes to save them do they, in turn, grant the monsters freedom, alongside Asriel. Flowey can’t free the monsters on his own, only with Frisk’s help can he attain godlike power. 

Undertale is a game where you can’t get the happiest ending by being selfish OR selfless. No one has to die, but you do need to make an effort to be their friends. Only by putting effort into a relationship can you make a friendship, and if you try to be everyone’s savior, you may make those around you happier, but you may not truly fix their problems, and you WILL suffer for it. 

Chara, Asgore, Alphys, Asriel, and Frisk’s efforts did eventually result in ‘the best possible ending’, but Asriel concedes at the end that it still wasn’t a perfect decision. A single playthrough of Undertale can still result in Frisk dying, repeatedly, which would almost certainly leave some lasting trauma on the kid. But... maybe, had Chara and Asriel been more open about their burdens all those years ago, with the help and support of others, they could have made a more perfect decision, and avoided locking their followers into a series of messy, imperfect ones. 

But hindsight is 20/20, and maybe there’s a lesson to be learned, too, from creating the best possible ending with what imperfect choices you still have. 

[askfallenroyalty]

Not really liking how evil Chara's been made out to be. Faults are one thing but they're down right horrid. Also great that Frisk is oh so much better and even Asriel's not nearly as flawed. You know, not at all a stereotype of their most accepted characterizations

oh my god??? did you even read the story askfdjalsdjf

yeah because i write chara to be evil right???? i totally don’t consider their tragic martyr complex to be built from being held as the deltarune angel/hero of the underground and dying from that. oh no, we don’t consider the implied abuse and how growing up with all these factors would make you lash out and not be able to behave perfectly. no sir no sir. no mental illness or trauma at fault, no its just black and white here on askfallenroyalty. this child is 100% evil thats for sure.

oh yes and i always portrayal asriel as a perfect happy kid who’s done no wrong

oh and frisk is perfect too

never-mind that frisk struggles with violent urges and self control. how their overly-kind act is to make up for the failed no-mercy run they’ve done. how frisk has trouble handling chara’s outbursts and while they’re fed up with them at times, still has to make an effort to remember chara doesn’t ever mean to hurt anyone.

sorry to get sassy but i’m just like???? hewwo?? theres like 100 pages of comics and i very clearly write with the fandom’s interpretations in mind and actively avoid and subvert those expectations. anon. pls.

[knifehecker]

/post/618973762472280064/ the idea that frisk is a helpless puppet in every run is kind of bleak... is that really what undertale is "going for"?

undertale’s most iconic plot twist involves frisk naming themself to asriel and consequently revealing themself to have been their own person the entire time. the extent of their control over their own actions is debatable because, while it can be argued that the player is talked to directly by several characters, it’s never actually made explicit, and the extent of frisk’s autonomy vs our influence is never fully addressed. like, even the degree to which frisk is a “helpless” puppet is also up for debate even if you do believe in player theory; they move on their own several times, the most notable of which being at the end of the no mercy run where we completely lose control of them after they enter the throne room, and whether its frisk or chara in control at this point is also a point of contention

 toby’s stated in an article he wrote after the survey program release that undertale was a sort of prototype version of the story he wanted to tell in deltarune, which seems to be referencing player control over characters (kris) much more directly. of course dr isnt ut and using one to fill in plot points of the other isnt exactly bulletproof (toby states in the same article that these games take place in separate universes, which a lot of people are reading as them not influencing each other plot-wise, so). creator intent can only take you so far if that intent isn’t manifest in the work itself, but i find the idea that this was on toby’s mind when he wrote undertale to be pretty interesting at the least

if you want to talk about “kind of bleak”, i should remind you that this is the game where one of the core plot points is a child committing assisted suicide via buttercup poisoning to martyr themself for their family... which is subsequently torn apart by the fallout. it also features a character who commits child murder several times over out of rage and grief; children whose things you find scattered around the underground like garbage. another child is so torn apart by surviving past the sibling he helped kill that he attempts suicide only to discover his ability to reset time and ends up just retraumatizing himself over and over. and it can be surprisingly easy to forget that frisk is fighting for their life throughout the entire game when the true pacifist mechanics involve cute antics like wiggling with slimes :’)

not to turn my response to this ask into an essay (woops) but one of the reasons undertale is my favorite game and has continued to be so for nearly five years now is that it offers a range of complexity depending on how deeply You Choose to read into it. it’s a very uplifting game, but all those themes of kindness and love are held up by the tragedies that serve as the backbone of those messages.  if these aren’t questions you want to ask yourself or things you want to consider, That’s Fine! the idea that we as players are antagonists from the perspective of the characters in the world we interact with simply due to the nature of the way we’re interacting with it is... i mean. it’s really heavy, and uncomfortable, and...yeah pretty bleak. in that same vein, this is an idea that hasn’t reached its conclusion yet, and arguably at this point is supposed to be inspiring that sort of discomfort. all those other bleak things i mentioned are built upon as the story progresses to give the positive messages undertale puts forward weight. if nothing had been done with them, well. that would’ve sucked? but instead they contribute to ideas about putting an end to those cycles of tragedy, of reaching out to the people you love and healing, of not only forgiving others for their mistakes but of forgiving yourself, and of taking responsibility for the things you’ve done wrong

all that said, yes, i guess could say player theory is pretty bleak as it stands now! and i can’t really speak for toby on what he was “going for” in his game, but this is interesting stuff to me. you’re welcome to speculate or ignore it however you like (:

[squatlord-draws]

Oh dude I'd love to hear you talk about vulcan chara! I don't really know much about star trek but I still dig this au

i debated on them being cardassian b/c the smile and duplicitous nature, plus i fucking love garak, and i could just rip off garak w/ chara to be totally honest, because FUCK that’d be so fucking good

but that meant drawing a cardassian a lot so fuck that lmao

a lot of it has to do with considering how i write chara, how chara appears in game, and elements of chara i’ve skipped over to not be constantly mired in their more hateful traits. as it is now, i almost always write a chara who has gone through an entire reconciliation process off screen, which involves them being happier, and helps them to be far more familiar with the people around them. 

it’s self indulgent, but it’s fun. 

however, it is more within the game canon for them to have a more subdued personality. they can be goofy and make bad jokes, but they also have a kind of dry, deprecating wit about them. that mostly goes out the window when they are in the middle of a murder run. they become far more withdrawn.

so that’s where we start with vulcan chara.

i wanted them to be subdued. highly motivated toward a rather perverse goal in a way they perceive to be ‘logical’. a person who can make biting remarks, who is emotionally detached from any action they take (or are made to take). i could have made them human, but i like the idea of chara always being an alien within their adopted home. in this instance, they are quite literally alien, having only been partially raised on vulcan before being adopted by the dreemurr family. 

they weren’t taken from vulcan for a particularly happy reason.

i especially like the idea of chara being put into a situation where they can take a cultural idea like ‘logic’ to its most ideological extremes, like they did in the game, to some horrifying results. i’ve always felt this was a flaw that chara shared with toriel, an almost inherited trait of “eschews ideas so far that there are no other alternatives” . it’s one of my favorite aspects of these characters -- a loathing they can have for certain ideas, but the unwillingness to actually change or confront these issues.

within the vein of ‘subdued chara traits’, i think one of the less appreciated aspect of chara is the fact they quote obscure japanese novels in game canon. it’s all spooky and for aesthetic, but ive never been able to get past this idea of a kid who read, like, old books translated from a foreign language. it’s so WEIRD. they like reading obscure things enough for it to be what they go to quote when killing two people. that, paired with the genuine excitement they get over realizing what a water sausage is, it dont think it goes against their nature to cast chara as a species that has almost exclusively been portrayed as inquisitive and well read. chara is in game a huge fucking nerd so ofc vulcan chara is too. their room is probably littered w/ books about martyrs throughout history, the iconography of demons across intergalactic species, and, dare i say it, naruto?

i like them being vulcan since vulcans harbor a great deal of shame about their emotions, and their relationships… i have always approached chara as having deep shame for feeling things, so they already had that in common with vulcans in general. i like them being vulcan for the fact you’d think it would help assuage their god complex, yet instead reinforces their megalomaniacal tendencies for some very specific story reasons im gonna keep to myself for now.

i like them being vulcan because it gets rid of their smile, which is a shitty place for chara to be.

in general, i dont really write them all that different than how i write possessed frisk. the circumstances surrounding them is a lot different than the ones in game, but i try to have elements run parallel, and i dont really want to make them an entirely differently personality. i like how chara acts in game. i like how i try to emulate that in my own comics. i like them being smug, and a genuinely dangerous person, because i like them trying to be just a little less shitty (if at all possible).

also if they’re vulcan everyone they’ve ever loved is going to die and leave them behind because they live so much longe so lmao

[saveloadreset]

The ask that turned into an essay: People seem to come to some funny conclusions about Chara based of some selective quotes

SLR INSERTION

Rather than putting it at the end, I’m going to be inserting my commentary all over this submission like this, in little ‘pockets.’ Now … 

Trigger warning: suicide mention, self-harm mention

… on to our regularly scheduled submission

The ribbon description is not a hint at previous violence in Chara’s life. “If you’re cuter, monsters won’t hit you as hard.” = “Chara was subject to beatings before running away, long enough to be familiar with the experience” Is the ribbon description not plain and simple advice on how battles with monsters work? We later find out in the librarby that monsters really do hit less hard if they don’t want to fight. Putting the ribbon on and becoming cuter works against even Undyne the Undying,* so it seems that this really is a nature that monsters can’t help.** Narra-Chara uses descriptions to hint at their tragic backstory elsewhere, so the ribbon could be part of that pattern, but there are also examples of Narra-Chara giving us plain and simple advice.** So I see the ribbon description as honest advice, not a hint at abuse or whatever

*  (at least, I’m fairly sure it does) **  (and isn’t sans clever for finding a way around it?) *** Some of the advice is snarky or condescending, but not all of it is.

SLR INSERTION

That’s a valid reading. I’m not going to tell you that you’re wrong. But it’s really not any stronger than the readings of people who read it as a sign of abuse. And there’s a piece of info that I think you might find interesting … Did you know, this narration changed?

Here’s what it said in the demo.

Tells you most of what you need to know, really. But Toby looked at this, and decided … Nah, this has gotta change. And I would argue that what he changed it too was much less objective, and much more ominous.

Do with that knowledge what you will.

Chara didn’t necessarily develop their deep hatred for the humans whilst in the village; that could’ve grow in the underground, or at least been a lot more complex than simple revenge for a violent childhood. “Frisk, I’ll be honest with you. Chara hated humanity. Why they did, they never talked about it. But they felt very strongly about that.” = “Chara was treated badly by the humans and hated them for it” Is it not possible that Chara’s hatred developed AFTER falling into the underground? If tween-age me had ran away from home, found what Chara found, and learnt the history and plaight of the monsters, then I can imagine me falling disillusioned with humanity (and maybe even growing a martyr complex). “I hate humanity” sounds like a very angsty and tweenish thing to say. It could be so easy for a child to grow a very negative view of humanity, if first they lost a little innocence (maybe they learnt about war, or maybe they read a sad book (like Kitchen)), found a tragic race like the monsters, then learnt their story and their view of humans, at a time when they were still making sense of the world. Especially with the librarby comment about humans not needing compassion, monsters could very easily teach a child the wrong things about their kind. Maybe things would’ve been different if there was another human in the underground, who could be a good example to Chara, and show that humans can still have compassion, even if they don’t strictly need it. What’s more, Asriel says “humanity”, not “humans” or “the people of the village”. That feels very significant to me, as though there were some quality that “humanity” comes with that had that had Chara’s attention, not a personal hatred for the people of the surface. We know humans in Undertale differ in at least a few important ways from monsters, from their persistent souls and their physical bodies, to their lack of needing compassion and …. whatever’s going on with determination and time rewinding (if Chara knew about this). Could one of these qualities, unique to humans, be what Chara dislikes about humanity? I sometimes wonder (inspired by Underline), whether Chara could reset, and something about this, or something that happened because of this, sparked Chara’s strong hatred? Though, personally, I believe Gaster’s experiment caused the reset ability, somehow.  If Chara’s/Chasriel’s soul survived death (both humans and boss monster’s souls persist at least briefly after death), perhaps Gaster took it and mucked about about with DT and gave himself the ability to play about with time and resetting. Perhaps playing about with that is what scattered him across time. Perhaps he used to soul to build the core (a machine that converts heat into magic?). Perhaps once he had used his ability, maybe something “broke”, and resets became possible for the most DT-filled creature behind the barrier, and only behind the barrier. All of this would have happened after Chara’s death, and Toriel’s comment about knowing previous children somehow makes me think she’s not including Chara when she says that.     Or maybe Underline hit the nail on the head? Maybe Chara’s hatred for humanity happened after some bad timeline that Chara had to reset from. After all, something about Chara, even just “the look in their eyes”, inspires the monsters to not be afraid of humans anymore, and gives them hope. Yet this does not rub off on Chara? Or maybe Chara has a change of heart? …. Though, hope for what? Peace with humans? That not all humans are evil? Or maybe just hope of breaking the barrier? Maybe Chara made a scheming promise to break the barrier and the buttercup plan was what they had in mind, but I somehow doubt that. Maybe the hope was just the feeling of having found a happy place to live. Either way, there’s so many different things to say and think here, that I can’t think it’s as simple as Chara having a personal vendetta against the village for violence they used to receive.

SLR INSERTION

Let’s talk about why people think this about Chara, because that’s worth analyzing in greater depth. The first significant point–it didn’t happen while Asriel was around. This isn’t explicitly said, but if it had, Asriel would know about it. 

Second, Chara is reluctant to actually talk about it. If they hated humanity as a result of schooling in monster schools and learning monster history … Why wouldn’t they tell Asriel at all? Even if they learned it in a reset, it’s hardly a surprise that they look at all these murals and go ‘golly gee, humans are horrible!’ That implies that there’s a specific incident that sparked this hatred in Chara. One big inciting incident. And one that they’re reluctant to share with Asriel, their best friend. 

SO, it had to happen both while Asriel wasn’t there, and it had to be something Chara would be reluctant to talk about. Abuse on the surface is one of the very few things that would qualify for that.

And like, I love underline and everyone should read it (Hi dusty!!!) but they take a couple liberties in order to tell their story. For instance, their Chara needs to meet humans and encounter them, seeing their reaction to monsters, before they go ‘to hell with these guys I hate humans.’ In canon, that cannot happen. The barrier is impenetrable. If Chara had a personal encounter with humans that soured their feelings on the matter it happened before they fell. No question.

That’s not to say that there might be other things that might spark a deeper loathing of humanity. If, for instance, someone in particular groomed Chara into hating humans more, and seeing them as the enemy, to the point that they weren’t really eager to tell anyone about it …  That could do it, too.

But at that point, we’re just dealing in wild speculation. People lean into ‘Chara hates humans because they had  bad encounter with humans’ because it’s the Occam’s razor solution. It’s pretty strong. Personally, I imagine it might have had more to do with Gaster’s meddling, but speaking objectively, from what we know now, it’s more likely the humans Chara knew were garbage to them.

Dying was not on the table until the buttercup plan “Travellers who climb the mountain are said to disappear.” + earlier context = “Chara deliberately climbed Mt Ebbot to commit suicide” We know falling into the hole in the cave in Mt Ebbot was an accident, not deliberate. I also feel that it’s much common for children to run away from an unhappy situation, rather than think of suicide. Committing suicide and commiting self-harm, as some seem to think is implied, sounds like the actions of a teenager, not a child. Also climbing a mountain, one that people don’t return from, doesn’t sound very suicide-y. My intuition and experience with children is they get quiet and they run away. Well, Chara ran away from home. In the family photo, Chara is hiding their face shyly. Chara revealed private and important things to only their best friend, who kept them secret. Chara strikes me as a reserved, but bright child, who had a bit of sadness inside them. Falling into the hole in the cave was an a ccident, after apparently exploring said cave out of curiosity. That sounds more like a child who has run away from home with hopes of finding a better place and never having to return, than one who intends to end their life.

SLR INSERTION

Okay, let me get this out of the way right now before it riles me up too much. You’re entitled to your headcannons and nothing says explicitly that Chara wanted to kill themselves, but if you think someone is too young to self-harm and want to kill themselves, you’re dangerously wrong. 

At risk of getting too personal, I was chewing on my arms so much they were more or less one big bruise by the time I was elven or twelve, and already chasing off thoughts of … You know. That’s a false assumption and a pretty dangerously wrong one. Whatever else you take away from this post, please at least revise your understanding of that. It’s important.

Secondly, we don’t really know how old Frisk/Chara are. If I had to guess, I’d throw it somewhere around thirteen years old, because that’s Ness’ age in earthbound. But ‘kid’ can mean a lot of things. Preteen? Prepubescent? Teenager? All kids. You can’t really narrow that down.

And like, we know that Chara’s fall was an accident, but … You don’t climb a mountain it’s said nobody returns from if you really think your life is precious. There’s more, but I’ll get into that next insertion.

The buttercup plan was not about a long standing wish to die buttercup plan + “I know why Chara climbed the mountain. It wasn’t for a happy reason.” + earlier context = “Chara was suicidal, even before falling into the underground” Surely, the buttercup plan was not about a desire to end their life, but about sacreficing themselves? I know self-sacrefice and suicide kind of functionally have the same end, but we all know the differing contexts makes all the difference. In suicide, your own death is the goal, in and of itself. In self-sacrefice, there is some end that your own death helps achieve (even if that end could be achieved through other means). I don’t think Chara was lying to Asriel about the buttercup plan being, at least partly, a plan to break the barrier. I can certainly imagine adult me, with all my fully functioning coping mechanisms, stable mental state and confidence in life, getting tempted (and tempted is the important word) to stand in front of a monster I trusted and offer my life to them, if I was in either Chara or Frisk’s shoes, stuck underground with these tragic people that deserves better. Not out of any self-hatred or suffering on my part, but out of sympathy for their plight. Who wouldn’t want to help these people if they could? I won’t ask who else would be tempted, but I think a child with less life experience and weaker coping mechanisms would quite possibly be more than tempted

SLR INSERTION

Why not both?

I think you may be ignoring some of the actual context of that conversation with Asriel. Like, let’s chart the followup to what he says. It begins with Asriel asking Frisk why THEY climbed the mountain. Was it curiousity? Was it fate? Or … ? And he trails off here. He had something to say, but then suddenly elected not to say it.

Let’s not kid ourselves, he was about to ask Frisk if they came to kill themselves, and then thought better of it.

And from that conversation he follows immediately into Chara’s mysterious, sad ‘reason’ to climb the mountain. Immediately after electing not to ask Frisk if they came here to die. It’s not proof. But. It’s kind of hard to shake that off.

I mean you’re right. CLEARLY Chara wanted to save monsters, and that’s why they came up with this plan. But this plan is stupid painful. Buttercup poisoning is awful. And a child who comes up with a plan to kill themselves like this never thought too highly of their life in the first place. 

I think you’re right about why they did it. But I don’t think you’re correct about cutting Chara’s self-loathing out of the equation completely. It might not be why came up with the plan. But I think it’s definitely a factor in whether they thought it was worth it.

For instance, when Asgore sometimes kills himself at the end of the neutral routes, he’s killing himself because he wants to give Frisk the chance to find a way to free his people. But if he really believed that was the biggest hope they had, he would have killed himself when he came to trust Chara and given his SOUL to them. What changed? 

He hates himself, he thinks he’s a horrible person, he doesn’t think he deserves to live. He wants to die, and that makes the decision to give up his SOUL easy. Sound familiar?

And it’s not like suicide isn’t rare here. It’s all over the place.  Undyne meets Alphys as she’s staring contemplatively into a dark pit and if Mettaton or Undyne die, in the ending, Alphys mysteriously disappears. Toriel tries to trap you in a situation where if you DO get past her, she won’t be lonely and afraid anymore because she’ll be dead. As Flowey, when Asriel gives into despair he destroys himself and, in his own words, ‘decided to follow in your (Chara’s) footsteps.’

I don’t think Chara took Asriel for granted. That just doesn’t make sense to me. *the lab tapes* = “Chara took advantage of Asriel, and was mean and manipulative to him” Chara and Asriel really were best friends. Every source of information about their relationship, besides the tapes, makes that clear to us. The “walk of feels” tells us so. Geno-Flowey tells they played together in New Home. They shared clothes and a room. Asriel had all the toys on his side of the room, while Chara had just a photo, pointed at the head of their bed. Gerson tells us the Dreemurrs’ behaviour embarrassed Asriel and Chara. Chara had secrets about themselves that they privately revealed to Asriel, and only Asriel, given that none of the other monsters know what Asriel tells us. The kinds of things Asriel reveals to us about Chara are things that sad children keep secret, revealing only to those they trust. And I think Chara does trust Asriel. After all, he proves himself trustworthy, keeping the secrets, only ever revealing them privately to Frisk after some very significant events. Asriel even has an air of privacy in the last conversation, like he’s revealing private things that aren’t meant to be shared (to the person he says he would replace Chara with, I might add, which is gut wrenching to hear because I think Asriel was the best thing to ever happen to Chara). Asriel also comments repeatedly about how Chara being the only one who ever understood him. I think there were things Asriel told Chara that, either he didn’t tell anyone else, or the he felt only Chara truly listened to. I’m not saying there were no secrets between them (after all, Chara doesn’t talk about why they hate humanity). And what’s more it seems Chara’s (implied) interest in flowers failed them and, despite their knowledge of them, fed them to their new dad and got him really sick. Maybe Chara’s botany didn’t fail them and it was deliberate, but maybe it was a joke, the consequences of which Chara didn’t process and laughed away. Maybe it was when Toriel got upset at the two children, that Chara was forced to realize what they’d done. Maybe that sparked the martyr complex. Chara sounds like a fan of poetic justice, so I can easily see the way they chose to die, and the idea of becoming a martyr in the first place, being related to the poisoning incident. I can imagine a stubborn kid like Chara, and Chara apparently takes after Toriel, who is very stubborn, you don’t listen to your crybaby brother’s fears when you came up with a plan like the buttercup plan. I’m not saying Chara was or wasn’t the greatest person, but at worst, I imagine Chara as like one of the kids from The Story of Tracy Beaker by Jacqueline Wilson. It’s a story about a girl who lives in a care-home (think orphanage). The kids in the book are sometimes horrible to each other, but despite the kids literally having nothing in common with each other except that they live in the same care-home, there is clearly a shared sense of family between them. You might say some of them are trouble makers, but you wouldn’t (if you had any sense of empathy) call them bad kids.

SLR INSERTION

I have nothing to say here. I think Chara loved Asriel deeply.

[askfallenroyalty]

Chara, I really don’t get it... People clearly love you, and that’s great & all. I just don’t understand why you care? You’re old enough to know there’s more to life than love right? So, why does it hurt you so much that the white fluffy politician that was once your brother seems to care about his goals more than you. I mean don’t you have goals of your own? Move on, or give a logical reason not 2 :P

//we’re moving the scene from chara to someone else today so i’ll answer this ooc O:

//chara is a kid who escaped an abusive home on the surface and was given a “perfect” home underground. (as they just remembered, asriel isn’t “perfect,” he’s always been flawed. he was just a kid too) and they felt through the pressure of the Delta Rune prophecy and the huge expectations to live up to, and had to be their savior.

//except, sacrifice, martyrism, killing, revenge… none of that works. through the pacifist run, chara learns mercy full heartedly and believes in people to be both good and bad, but capable of being so so much better. frisk is stuck with the hero complex now, still unable to save asriel (and by extension, chara and the other fallen humans)

//my point is, they felt like they were born bad -from abuse to the prophecy, the idea that humans are inherently evil. and only through being a martyrcan they be redeemed. they never planned on having a future, they only planned for monsters to be free. in the pacifist route, chara is given the chance to give frisk a happy life, but as you see when you talk with flowey post true ending, you have the option not to. they work together, but neither can be satisfied. chara doesn’t want a life, never expected to have one, they were just stuck being dead and bored until life actually came to them.

//chara just feels no drive, which as a determined soul, is kinda a bad thing. they have no goals, no hope or dreams. the past feels so much more appealing because they’ve forgotten the weight they had on their shoulders then, they can only remember the good things (up until now obviously).

//they need to find a new path, and being a depressed teenager, feeling like no one can understand you for what you did or how you feel, it can feel very alone. Frisk understands, but Chara doesn’t feel like they’re worthy of love still, and doesn’t want to accept any love from them. this is something that can only be combated with therapy and repetition of showing you’re there for them. Chara needs time and tlc to properly move on.

//the idea that you don’t need love is a stupid one, no offense. teenagers, children, adults, we all need love. its acceptance, it’s community, its feeling like you belong in a world that is hostile and unforgiving. of course they’re going to care when the brother they’ve literally died for doesn’t call back. they’re going to assume THEY’RE the problem, they’re going to feel like all the wrong things they believe in their head are true.

//and i just revealed this so its easy to miss, but Asriel’s Big Movie is coming out in 2 days in universe. of course they’re stuck thinking about him so much.