#narrator chara theory

[littlebittykittycommittee]

Y'know, one aspect of the new Chara lore that just dropped that strikes me (besides uhhh, all of it lol) is that what we know about Chara for sure just really reinforces over and over again, how they really were a little kid. I know people headcanon them different ages because it makes sense to them or it seems to match their behavior or w/e, but really, 9 is their favorite number?? .... they even have a favorite number that they've discussed (apparently at length)???

Like, look at their sprite (and Frisk's) and then look at Kris'. Literal babies. And so much stuff little idiosyncrasies about them doubles down on them having these very childish likes and habits, like them overfilling their glass ("for efficiency!!!") and proudly toting it around, spilling it everywhere. (And the narrator theory, how excited they get over the toy chest in Home: "Look at all these cool toys!" Honestly, how much they talk/narrate in general?? Kiddo's here to A) chatter about everything they see and B) make fun of you. They're doing the Simpsons' HA HA point and laugh, you just can't hear it.)

Seriously, imagine them standing at the front of a classroom and introducing themself with the little things we know about them: "My name is Chara. I really like reading and drawing and golden flowers, my favorite food is chocolate, and my favorite number is 9."

I think that gets lost sometimes, with how Asriel is very clearly a little kid because of how he acts in the VHS tapes and how serious and eloquent Chara is when we see them at the end of the Murder Fun Times route, it seems like sometimes people think of Chara as much older and more serious than Asriel. I know their in-game lore is dark as shit, but there's so many little things that keep underlining that they're really a little kid who got in way over their head. Like, I seriously doubt they're even in middle school.

[instaquarius]

So, about the new Chara/Asriel lore...

kind of yelled about this on my twitter already but-

WHAT IF Chara was keeping track in their mind cuz they know they'll only live to 100 or even just- maybe they started counting after accidentally poisoning Asgore and they felt bad so they spent a few days with Asriel "collecting" happy memories until Chara got to like- 99 or something or 999 and THEN decided to off themselves and come up with the plan to eat the buttercups and have their SOULs fuse to free everyone cuz they already had it in their mind after the incident that they're going to die, but wanted to give Asriel some happy memories before telling their plan for it-

and cuz chara's fave number is 9 and its the "highest number" thats why they kept count so it was kinda like, for them too- to die happy and with their BFF

because

and thats why Chara wnted to gather as many happy memories as possible to share with asriel before telling him the news about their plan to off themselves

so it wouldn't hurt him (or atl thats what Chara convinced themselves of)

and it wouldn't hurt Chara either cuz they are now holding "99 good memories" so they can't hold anymore cuz 9 is the highest number QWQ

I don't know- just some thoughts I wanted to share about this, and maybe spark up some conversations about this?

Also kind of off topic but now I can't stop thinking about just- Asriel maybe writing that for Chara to cheer them up cuz they were so sad

(maybe even post- the whole accidental poisoning the pie meant for Asgore??? since i headcanon that was the turning point for chara and why they considered offing themselves cuz of their guilt mixed with the self-hate and stuff)

But then Chara never saw the letter Asriel made for Chara telling them he still loved Chara and didn't blame them at all for what happened. And it was just an accident (since Chara obviously dies anyways)

I also can;t stop thinking of the implications that Asriel really did just innocently think because of DETERMINATION that Chara would be able to live for 999 years along with him (cuz Boss Monster)

Not realizing even IF Chara hadn't offed themselves early, that humans can only live up to 100 years or whatever-

[under-lore]

First impressions on the new Asriel letter

So...

It seems we finally have some new Chara content in 2024 !

At the end of the latest newsletter, Toby shared one more letter with us, which contained some very interesting things.

Let's try and dissect it a bit.

First, to start with the obvious, this is a letter written by Asriel about Chara. We can see this from such as things as :

Using the term "best friend"

But also because 9 is already a number associated with Chara.

Of course, it is present with them rather strongly during the genocide route. Such as during its ending, but also through things like the statistics given to some items associated with them in the route.

The same can also be said for Narrator Chara too. Such as how new special dialogue appears from the narrator if one were to attempt to talk to Asgore precisely 9 times.

The idea that it would be their favorite number thus comes fairly naturally.

Next, the few following lines rationalise this association, all the while phrasing it in a way that reminds of their speech at the end of the genocide route.

Finally, we have a few more minor implications.

Asriel & Chara with flowers together may call back to this image :

But it was also a very old concept, that could be found way sooner in Toby's concept arts for the game.

While Chara's "creepy faces" are openly mentioned in-game.

The friend is also refered to as "they", which may be noteworthy.

As for laughs...

The letter ends with

...But alright, what can we learn from it ?

Quite a few things, actually.

First, obviously, Chara's favorite number being 9 feels more like confirming some trivia or association that had been noticed by fans a long time ago than actual true new information.

But it isn't the only noteworthy thing in this letter.

Here are some lines that i had cut earlier on :

The last few lines feel somewhat unprompted from that initial context. But they may have secondary meanings.

First, they may be used to indirectly refer to a type of numbness brought upon by killing mentioned by Sans in his neutral judgments.

However, while that hint may have been intentional on Toby's part, it surely wasn't the main thing that the "in-world" Asriel who wrote this letter was trying to suggest.

The main "in-world" intended meaning of this section was far more likely refering to this :

While Chara did not ever tell Asriel exactly what happened in their past, Asriel seems to believe that the humans they had known did not make a good impression on Chara. Suggesting that they may have been abused or even have come to the mountain to disappear because of them. Regardless, this was all something that had worried Asriel regarding his best friend.

Of course, in the original game, those things remained mostly implicit or speculative. Asriel did not know these things for certain. And neither did we.

But bringing it back up today after so many years certainly feels like a very interesting choice on Toby's part...

Of course, this is all still from Asriel's point of view, which is limited. But metatextually, this is saying more than it looks.

Asriel associating Chara's favorite number the idea that with it, "Nothing can hurt you anymore" is a much more direct way of saying that he believes Chara was hurt by humans in their past than we'd seen before.

Again. This content comes from Undertale's 9th anniversary. It was pretty much Toby's one special occasion to show us content about Chara again. Which he actually did with this letter.

He only disposed of a limited number of characters or lines to either tell us something new about them, or give more precision/information about something which he believed was important for us to see.

From the metatextual context of asking "What was Toby trying to do by showing us this letter ?", him choosing to give more detail on Asriel's belief that Chara may have been abused of all things would serve no other purpose than to volontarily insist on pushing forward his line of reasoning to the fandom.

This suggests that Toby is very likely trying to tell us that Asriel is at least largely correct, and thus that the idea of Chara having been hurt in some form by the humans in their village is now significantly more likely.

Indeed, this had been an issue in some parts of the fandom. While that interpretation had been largely popular amongst most of it for a long time, there had been some voices calling out to the lack of clean proper evidence pointing to that which weren't somewhat speculative. So this seems a lot like Toby attempting to point us in the right direction. Seems like the simplest answer may be the right one, Occam's razor strikes again.

A new questions also now asks itself : Is this meant to suggest that this was Chara's motivation for power ?

Having power, so you are no longer weak ?

Not being weak, so you can no longer be hurt ?

A way of feeling "in control" ?

There were already some implication of Chara disliking to show weakness to others in the past. This would be coherent with those.

In such case, the genocide route may be a macabre recontextualisation of this original motive on Chara's part.

It might also be made relevant in the context of Chara's plan, though that deserves its own future post.

Besides, Asriel saying this highlights how much he cares about Chara. Which is always nice to see.

As a side note :

Between the demo and the final version of the game, the flavor text for the faded ribbon was changed from a regular one to one which raised a few eyebrows :

While some people had tried to use this line as evidence of Chara having been abused, many other voices had (fairly rightfully) pointed out that this piece of "evidence" was quite fragile, due to things like other interpretations of it being just as plausible, the fact that it specifies " 'monsters' won't hit you as hard" which wouldn't fit Chara all that much, or simply the lack of other similar implications elsewhere in the game.

Now that we do have such implications, this argument, whilst still a bit of a long shot, is at least not quite as far fetched as it used to be anymore. The item is a thing which gives you DEF (increases your numbers), and prevents you from being hurt.

We are not quite done yet, though :

These lines feel like they also have meaning.

Once again, there is an indirect reference to the genocide route, with 99 being the maximum value for things like HP, or the next required EXP to gain LOVE. When you have them, you cannot get any more. It is the absolute.

However, there seems to be another strange connection to make here.

What is the opposite of a so called "good memory" ?

The bad memory is an item obtained from the memory head amalgamate.

It feels noteworthy as it, along with the "Last dream", are the two items in the game who's effects are theorised to have something to do with NarraChara in the way they are presented/work. (Suggesting that the memory/dream may come at least partially from Chara.)

For a reminder, the bad memory is a item that actually decreases HP by 1. Unless it is eaten on the brink of death, in which cases it restores all HP instead. Bringing it to the "highest number".

On top of that, this item also had a strange specificity to it :

It is impossible to drop it.

With this additional context, one may draw parallels between the Bad memory item's effects and what Asriel is saying, only in a reversed way, and applied to Chara.

In the same manner as previously. The previously existing theories trying to tie the bad memory to Chara now find themselves being rendered more plausible. In fact, given that these lines directly follow the previous ones, you may even associate them to make the argument that the memories could be of Chara's past on the surface hypothetically. Though that would likely be stretching it.

Also :

39 left.

Pretty impressive, the way every last line in this letter can be read as a genocide route reference one way or another.

And... the code of the page describe the contents of the page as "Here's a letter".

This is also the wording used in the lines with which Toby introduces us the letter.

This wording of this feels very significant considering who the letter is talking about...

So i suppose that makes for even more NarraChara fuel to have Toby writing down such things.

For one last thought, those couple lines.

If one were to follow a certain interpretation of things such as "Mr Dad Guy", the "future of humans and monsters", and Chara's relationship with the concept of "efficiency" & "usefullness", then they might be readable as an allegory for pre-death Chara's view on their role within monsterkind & one of their motivations regarding their plan. (along with their hate of humanity).

And this odd insistance on the term "happy" throughought the message..Is there a chance it could be refering to those secret lines, stored within the game's code in the echo flower room number #9999 ?

Some of the things mentioned in this post are somewhat stretchy admittedly. I am not yet certain of which ones of these would i actually argue for and which are only a product of first impression brainstorming.

Nevertheless. There are many many new ideas to explore regarding Chara now.

Thanks, Toby !

[stardecahedron]

* Greetings. I am Chara.

* Still just you, Frisk.

I've been wanting to finally make full refs of my interpretations of Frisk and Chara from Undertale! This is a continuation of the the refs I made two months ago of my human soul designs right here!

I have spent nearly nine years at this point drawing these two kids haha, and I think I have finally nailed down how I want to draw them. But who knows I might always end up changing them again lmao.

And yes, I even made custom sprites of my designs of my designs, here they are below! vv

* Chara and Frisk both use they/them in canon!

[runesofthedelta]

CHARA AND THE NATURE OF BEING A FALLEN CHILD

I know that folks like to ref Asriel's "Chara hated humanity" quote...

... But bruh, Chara was like 10. Most 10 year olds, and well into their teens, are gonna claim they hate humanity. You've done it, I've done it, its not new.

That isn't to say that Chara didn't have some severe trauma attached... But more realistically, there was probably only a few people that they were absolutely furious and hurt about. Probably those who hurt them pretty badly, but can't quite articulate the specifics.

Mix that, with the history of Monsters' and suddenly, this 10 year old has an easy, if poor choiced, coping mechanism--its easier to say that all Humans Is Bad when you can back it up with a war that happened centuries ago, and you're very young and small and aren't quite capable of understanding that, sometimes, individuals are often real pieces of shit and in life, one can run into them or land with them at the roll of chance.

But individuals don't inform the whole. That doesn't change the fact that individuals can do greater damage over a long period of time... but it doesn't inform the whole.

... However, a 10 year old isn't going to understand that.

Its easier to generalize. Children do it all the time, they're young, they don't have the experience or the growth, to have the capability of full realization and all the little things attached.

I know that quite a few folk will reference the tapes in the True Lab. How Asriel was hesitant and definitely disliked their plan...

With the addition of "Chara wasn't the Greatest Person"

... But it wasn't a bullied hesitance as others might think.

Asriel literally went out of their way, to grab (presumably Toriel's) camera, in order to record their sibling performing antics. You don't do that when you're bullied and subjugated.

You don't ask for creepy faces to record, you don't trick them into smiling for a camera that isn't even recording--because tricking a bully makes you a target for a bully.

You do that for a sibling who does silly things.

No character in Undertale is perfect, or omniscient. Each one has their on misconceptions about one another, and evidence is laid plain.

Asriel has this bad habit, as Flowey, about projecting. Putting someone they like on a pedestal. What they did for Chara, they repeated for Frisk (even though it was primarily Chara's influence and memories that saved Asriel).

Its less of a trait he's always had, and more of one he's developed as Flowey. He was soulless when he said it--he's still projecting, its simply, not to a malicious extent anymore.

The Frisk Asriel want them to be, doesn't actually exist. Most of Frisk' behavior is minimally implied, mostly overshadowed by Chara's influence as narrator and choice giver, and our choices as the Player. Frisk does little that can be discerned.

Asriel was being insensitive, but for good reason. He was trying to handle things, and was losing the feeling of having a soul-- insensitivity, and not being aware of all the facts, is the minimum of what's going on.

Plus he's like, 10 too.

Chara is the ultimate challenge of Undertale.

Undertale, as a game, promotes the idea of understanding and forgiveness, and the fact that even with one problem laid out, we don't know everything.

Any time you can tell someone that you're not going to fight, and they stop fighting too, simultaneous showing each other mercy? That's a victory here.

Chara's Challenge to the player, not to Frisk, but the Player, on how to forgive and understand someone, when you only have their mistakes on the board. You only see the "worst" they've done or are capable of doing.

Asriel says that Chara wasn't the greatest... but he, at no point, ever compared Chara to himself, as Flowey, unless its the No Mercy Route (Which Flowey cheers for).

UT tells us how, it merely does not have the mechanics on display, because Chara's Challenge is not a fight. Chara is far too willing to let you think the worst of them, neither confirming (outright) or denying (at all).

The challenge is simple, like any other monster.

WILL YOU SHOW MERCY (TO THE FALLEN CHILD)?

[testedcatdraws]

This is the last poll today, sorry for the poll spam :P

[lilundertale-asatreat]

So I'm making this post because I saw a YouTube video the other day where the YouTuber made an offhand comment poking fun at people who don't think Chara is evil, and that was enough to annoy me, but also, it inadvertently brought up a good point for me personally.

I was originally firmly in the camp that Chara was maybe not the best person, but they weren't evil, and the Genocide route is an outlier, and I was upset because I didn't feel like they were considering any of the other routes at all (which they weren't), but it made me realize I was also completely discounting the Genocide route, and I can't just do that for the sake of an easier analysis because it's there for a reason. And I certainly can't get mad at this person for doing the exact same thing I was doing. So here is a hopefully as objective of an analysis of Chara as whole as I can get.

At first I tried marrying the two versions of Chara that we see in the game: the traumatized and suicidal child who wanted to sacrifice themself for the sake of freeing monsterkind and getting revenge on humanity which left them hurt on a fundamental level and wasn't really the best to Asriel, probably because they still hadn't unlearned mimicking the way they were treated and then never got the chance to, with the kid who actively encouraged the slaughter of all of the monsters in the Underground and then destroyed the world after killing Frisk themself and seeing what the connection was. And to be honest, I didn't really find anything.

Then I started thinking about Frisk instead because it was late and I couldn't keep my focus, but that turned out to be really helpful because, while Frisk is a player stand in most of the time despite being revealed to be their own person, there are things that they do by themself, either implicitly or explicitly, and if you try to analyze them to figure out what kind of person they are, you also get two wildly contradicting versions of them. And which version you get is entirely dependent on how you choose to play the game.

Because your choices have a lot of weight to determining what happens in the game, not only does it affect which ending you get, but it also effects how you get there and how you choose to tell the story. You get to choose what kind of story you want, and with that choice comes whatever characterization of Frisk would fit the most for whatever you are doing.

If you play pacifist or neutral without starting off with a genocide, when you first encounter Sans, it's implied Frisk laughs or at least has some sort of reaction, no matter how many neutral runs you have done without true resetting beforehand. Frisk sits through and humors Papyrus in all of his puzzles and japes even if they've heard the same joke or solved the same puzzle a thousand times beforehand. Mettaton comments on them looking bored at the beginning of the musical if it's not your first playthrough after true resetting, and he gives you the option to skip it, but he doesn't say Frisk looks hostile or anything, and in the fight against him, you have the option of just calmly flipping his switch to just get the fight over with. Sans implies either Frisk looks like they're really thinking about what they did on a first neutral run or they look bored and not particularly bothered in subsequent runs after that unless you do pacifist which he then comments on the fact that they were exceptionally kind to everyone and even when they ran away, they were smiling the whole time.

But if you do a genocide run or start off with a genocide run, Frisk doesn't react at all to Sans' handshake joke, they don't sit through any of the puzzles Papyrus has and they don't acknowledge him at all, they give you the option to just keep taking and taking snowman pieces until the snowman is dead, and they move on their own to walk toward whichever area boss you're up to at the time in a threatening manner and even move toward Monster Kid on their own to intimidate them. They're really into the killing people thing in these routes while in the other routes, they're a lot more into engaging with people or at least giving you a better prompt of being willing to spare them.

So if it's true that Frisk has wildly different personalities and goals depending on how you play the game, it must be true with Chara too. For the majority of the time, Chara was just a kid who loved monsters and loved their family and felt extremely guilty for accidentally poisoning their dad and didn't know how to handle it and probably guilty and unworthy of their love because they were human and weren't used to receiving that kind of care in the first place. But if you choose to play the game where another human who falls down and decides to kill as many monsters as possible, Chara will be another human who hates monsters, or at least, grew to hate monsters and was only concerned with getting more and more power as they woke up because that's the thematically appropriate characterization of them for that route and way of playing.

So they're both not evil and evil, but which one you get is entirely dependent on you.

[darkmarxsoul]

Narrachara Theory is False: An Attempted Debunk of As Much Evidence As I Could

~CONTENTS~

Disclaimers

Genocide Route Narration Issues | My Narrator/Chara Interpretation

Systemic Issues with Narrachara

Responding to Weak Evidence for Narrachara: References to Chara | Similarities to Chara | In-Story Flashbacks

Responding to Strong Evidence for Narrachara: Snowdrake's Mom | Game Over Flashbacks | Flowey in True Pacifist Ending

Chara's Speech in the Genocide Ending

Conclusion

1) DISCLAIMERS

This post is only an attempt at debunking the popular "Narrachara Theory". It is not meant to make any statements on whether Chara is good or evil, or morally responsible for any aspects of the Genocide Route.

It's my intention to tackle this issue in a respectful, inoffensive, and kind way towards any Narrachara supporters. I believe you are wrong, and will say so, but want to be nice about it. Feel free to engage in the comments, but please also be considerate of my feelings. I have had a number of discussions about this that were not great, so I don't want to repeat those mistakes or to argue my stance poorly.

2) GENOCIDE ROUTE NARRATION ISSUES | MY NARRATOR/CHARA INTERPRETATION

It is common for Narrachara supporters to point to the Genocide Route as evidence of Chara being the narrator "overall", particularly instances where the narrator speaks in the first person and tells you they are Chara/whatever you named them. The issue with this is that there is an obvious  difference between the way the narrator sometimes speaks in the Genocide Route (in the first person and bluntly), and how they speak at all other times (in the second person and with some whimsy/dry humour). This contrast is intentional, to create a feeling of shock, suspense, or dread in the Genocide Route only. While people have tried to interpret this as evidence for Chara being the only narrator, I have my own interpretation:

I believe that Chara is in Frisk's soul as soon as Frisk falls into the Underground, but is asleep from the start of the game. In normal routes, Chara remains asleep and the narrator is a non-person/generic entity. In the Genocide Route, emptying the Ruins wakes up Chara. The narrator, after that point, is still the generic narrator, but Chara can "speak over" the narrator at points of their choosing. Meaning, the Genocide Route has two narrators: the generic narrator, and Chara.

Looking at the Genocide Route's narrator alone, my interpretation is possible, meaning Chara's lines in the Genocide narration cannot automatically support Narrachara. I will expand on why I think my interpretation is likely.

3) SYSTEMIC ISSUES WITH NARRACHARA

Narrachara Theory holds that Chara is the narrator for all of Undertale, in every route. Since Chara is an actual character in the game, this would mean that the narrator is:

a single, defined character,

with a concrete personality,

who has coherent emotions and psychological states,

who sees the world through a particular point of view (through "their own eyes"),

who knows what they know, and doesn't know what they don't know, and

who would undergo consistent character development in response to events they experience.

I believe the narrator is a generic non-person. This means, by contrast, the narrator would be:

not a defined character, but a "language-based tool" for the game to use to describe itself,

who has a flexible or arbitrary personality that is tailored to every individual context,

who has no emotions and psyche, and can act however it wants for greatest effect,

who can see everything in the game and portray it selectively,

who knows everything, and can feign ignorance if it suits it, and

will never undergo character development regardless of events in the game.

It's obviously a lot easier to be a generic narrator than a defined narrator, so in order to argue the narrator is defined, the narrator has to behave in a defined, non-random way. If the narrator does not behave like a consistent person, then they either aren't a consistent person or the author is a bad writer. As such, there are three major issues with Narrachara Theory:

i) The narrator's knowledge and POV is random.

Sometimes the narrator doesn't know things and has to learn them by player investigation (with the water sausages in Home); sometimes they don't know things and learn them through automatic investigation (Alphys's cameras, and the snow dodecahedron in Snowdin Forest); and sometimes they know information automatically with no investigation (that Alphys's box is a bed). Additionally, the narrator is able to literally read minds (it knows that Papyrus is thinking about your date, that Undyne thinks about her friends, that Woshua feels disgust at its wounds, etc.) without investigation or inference.

It isn't impossible that Chara, as the narrator, has special knowledge or powers. But if the narrator were supposed to be a single character, the most basic way to communicate this is to treat them like a person with a consistent knowledge set and point of view. Since this isn't the case, Chara being the narrator would require us to treat Chara's traits as very loose and ill-defined, which is not great for people who want to take Chara seriously as a character. It would also require us to assume Toby simply did not care about representing Chara with much effort to consistency of POV, which isn't a good view of Toby as a writer. A generic narrator lacks this problem.

ii) The narrator is actually pretty consistent between the normal and Genocide Routes, which implies they don't undergo character development.

A major idea behind Narrachara is the idea that Chara is a neutral or misguided kid at the start of the game, and you "corrupt" them through your killing to make them violent. As such, the instances of blunt, aggressive, or violent language from the narrator in Genocide would constitute negative character development—Chara becoming more evil.

However, something I didn't notice until I recently replayed Undertale like two weeks ago is, the narration between normal and Genocide routes is actually very consistent. A lot of it is exactly the same between routes, including a lot of the normal humour. One that stuck out to me was, the narration for Alphys's bed box is exactly the same, which strikes me as a particularly humorous or ironic line. The narration also describes you as "stopping to smell the flowers" when you interact with the cactus in Hotland, which is a deliberately lighthearted or silly line in the context.

If the narrator were intended to be a single character who becomes "corrupted" over the course of the route, I would expect EVERY line in the Genocide Route to be altered to be humorless, blunt, or sinister—bonus points if early lines seemed uncertain or noncommittal. This is not the case, however; only certain lines are altered to be that way, and it's done that way to create a feeling of dread through contrast with normal lines. As well, Chara is immediately committed to the Genocide Route as soon as they exhibit changes, with no sense of escalation.

If Narrachara were true, we would have to either accept that Chara does not fundamentally change between normal and Genocide routes and just chooses to act sinister on purpose for no reason (which is bad for people who want to argue Chara gets corrupted); or, that Chara's personality is just fundamentally random and inconsistent, which is bad for people who want to take them seriously or view Toby as a good writer.

The more likely option in this case is my "generic-narrator-that-Chara-talks-over" interpretation, which allows the normal narrator to remain unchanged between routes. It also makes the Genocide Route's tension more "earned", because it shows that there is a second, more malevolent force that is exerting control over a more approachable first narrator.

iii) The game as a whole treats Chara's possession as uniquely significant in the Genocide Route.

In the Genocide Route, Chara's possessing Frisk and being the narrator sometimes is obvious. They speak in first person, announce themselves to be Chara, claim ownership over things in New Home, express personal interests, and refuse to look at things they don't care about. This route is also the only route wherein anybody (Flowey and Chara) discusses the particulars of how Chara is able to possess Frisk, and is the only route wherein Chara physically manifests as their own individual. Chara is also able to overpower the player in this route, if we choose to not erase the world.

In normal routes, the narrator never breaks second person, and Chara doesn't get anywhere close to this level of focus or control. If Chara were meant to be the narrator for every route, I wouldn't anticipate the attention on Chara to be this skewed to only the Genocide Route. This is also bad for Narrachara believers, typically, because it implies Chara has a special level of "development" in Genocide that they don't get in True Pacifist. This makes Chara's development uneven and inconsistent between the routes, implying they may be naturally inclined to killing. Alternatively, it may imply that killing is a better route to power and independence than mercy, which is...a VERY strange moral for Undertale to imply, to say the least.

Overall, these are massive problems with Narrachara Theory. On their own, I feel they defeat the theory, and random incidental evidence cannot just be piled on to fix these problems. If Narrachara is supposed to be true, it's pretty poorly written. But I will address common evidence I see for Narrachara below.

4) RESPONDING TO WEAK EVIDENCE FOR NARRACHARA

"Weak" evidence is evidence that can either be easily clarified, or which doesn't on its own suggest Chara is the narrator.

Narrator References to Chara

The narrator makes several references to Chara throughout the story, including making a reference at Chara's bed, referencing two kids playing in a muddy flower garden or eating pie when joking with Woshua, and others. People argue that the narrator making references to Chara implies the narrator is Chara. If the above big issues didn't exist, I would agree, but they do, so …

A generic narrator is plenty able to make references to characters, including Chara. Doing this creates a sense of unity for the player, acts as references to the lore the player can appreciate, and ultimately makes the narrative experience richer and more interesting. Because a generic narrator can do whatever it wants to make the player's experience the best it can be, a generic narrator has tons of reason to make these references. They are cool. Additionally, since Frisk fell into a flower pile at the start of the game, and was gifted a pie, many of these examples are relevant for Frisk. Chara does not to be involved at all for these references to be made.

Ultimately, this type of evidence is weak. They'd be interesting details if the narrator seemed to be Chara, but as-is they seem to be funny nods to the lore and little else.

Narrator Similarities to Chara

Some have argued the narrator has similarities to Chara's personality or interests. In particular, the narrator (or Frisk) gives water sausages and cacti particular notice, and Chara is argued to be interested in botany due to their connection with golden flowers.

Aside from the fact that Chara is shown to only be interested in golden flowers, and not plants in general, this also has a problem of consistency. The narrator displays no interest in other plants, such as refusing to refer to Mettaton's ficuses as ficuses even after you learn what they are from an NPC. It also doesn't remark how novel it is that Alphys is turning some kind of plant into ice cream. If Chara were meant to concretely be into botany, I would expect more effort on one of Chara's only supposed character interests.

The narrator also displays interest in things like snow poffs and snowballs, literal garbage, and dogs and dog food, none of which Chara is associated with. It's much more likely that the narrator focuses on whatever it needs to in order to make jokes in-context, and any similarities you can draw to Chara are coincidences. Ultimately nothing that a generic narrator wouldn't do. Chara doesn't need to be involved for these references to be made.

In-Story Flashbacks

Specifically, the flashbacks to Asriel when Frisk falls into the dump, during the Asriel fight in True Pacifist, and the optional one in the bed in Home. These are (understandably) argued to be Chara's memories, and used as evidence that Chara and Frisk are always connected. This is a misunderstanding, though.

For the dump flashback, this occurs when Frisk falls onto a bed of golden flowers. Based on True Lab entries 8, 10, and 21, we can surmise that the flowers grew here after Alphys dumped the flowers and seeds from her failed experiments. Since the flashback occurred in a situation connected to Flowey, and therefore Asriel, we can surmise this flashback is of Asriel, not Chara. You could argue that this would be a vaguely-defined connection to Flowey, and it is, but it's not like this game doesn't have other instances where magic and game mechanics are treated very loosely.

Similarly, the flashback in the True Pacifist finale occurs after Frisk reaches out to Asriel's soul to "save" him, while Asriel is God and trying to erase Frisk's memories. We can even more safely read the memories as from Asriel, not Chara. I have heard interpretations that Frisk is trying to "save" Chara here, or that Chara is trying to help Frisk save Asriel, but no matter how much I think about this scene I can find literally nothing whatsoever to indicate such a thing. It seems like a baseless presumption from nothing and totally unnecessary.

Finally, you can also experience an optional flashback in Home when you sleep in the bed Toriel left for you. Given this is the only bed in the room, and it's also on the same side of the room as Asriel's bed in New Home, we can surmise this was Asriel's bed before Chara fell into the Underground and they moved to New Home. Since we know Flowey stayed with Toriel for a time before the game's events, we can even predict that he slept in his old bed and left traces of himself there. This is potentially the weakest response of the three in this section, but 1) I don't think it's insignificant that every flashback except for the Game Over ones (which I talk about below) has something to do with Asriel and not Chara, and 2) this single missable scene doesn't do very much to ground Narrachara.

5) RESPONDING TO STRONG EVIDENCE FOR NARRACHARA

"Strong" evidence is either evidence that requires more effort to clarify, or which has significant ambiguity that doesn't allow for easy in-universe analysis by either Narrachara supporters or myself.

Snowdrake's Mom

You can choose to Laugh or Heckle at Snowdrake's mom in the True Lab, which is a reference to being able to do both of these things at Snowdrake in Snowdin Forest. If you do either of these things, the narrator will describe Frisk as laughing at her misery or mocking how pathetic she is, before saying "… what? You didn't say/do that?" Narrachara supporters take this instance as evidence that the narrator is personally reacting to Snowdrake's mom, in a way distinct from Frisk, which implies the narrator is their own character with their own feelings.

However, we should pay more close attention to how the narrator actually behaves and what Frisk can do. In Undertale, Frisk doesn't ever exhibit the ability to disobey the narrator—if we command Frisk to do something, Frisk does what they're told. With Deltarune this is even more apparent, since it makes a huge character deal out of Kris needing to abuse loopholes to work around our commands, or rip out their soul in dramatic fashion to make their own choices.

As well, the narrator is still speaking in second person, which (if we assume Frisk disobeys the narrator) would imply they're trying to get Frisk to react in a particular way rather than describing their own feelings. In the Genocide Route, Chara either speaks in the first person, or completely avoids using pronouns at all, because they speak about themselves rather than Frisk. So, they are worded very differently.

As such, since Frisk cannot normally disobey the narrator, it seems to me that if the narrator truly described Frisk as mocking or laughing at Snowdrake's mom, they just would. So if the narration says "… what? You didn't do/say that?", this would indicate to me that the narrator made the intentional decision to backpedal on their first command.

Why would they do this? Well, if the narrator is a generic narrator, it has the ability to do literally whatever it wants to create whatever effect is intended by the game in the circumstance. It doesn't have to obey any specific kind of dialogue or character actions, because it doesn't have feelings or a personality. By writing the "ACT" description in this way, it creates the feeling of chaos, uncertainty, franticness, and distress. This would imply that Frisk doesn't know how to handle the situation, and this is how the narrator is choosing to portray that. This also falls in line with the chaotic, random style of narration to be found across all of the amalgamate battles, so it gives the True Lab a consistent tone.

If Narrachara Theory were true, we would need to accept that Chara made the conscious decision to give Frisk contradictory commands for some reason. Not only does this completely run against "their" style for the rest of True Pacifist, it also is the exact opposite of their shown personality in the Genocide Route, which is blunt and minimalistic. The Undertale alarm clock app also implies Chara, before they died, filled their water glass to the brim because it was "the most efficient way" to do it, further implying they are no-nonsense and direct. It also does not seem to me that, given Chara's experiences, they would have a unique emotional or psychological response to Snowdrake's mom that they have to nothing else in the game.

Again, this scene doesn't "fit in" with the vision of the narrator as a consistent and predictable character, because it is so different than anything else in the game.

Game Over Flashbacks

When you die, the game displays the "Game Over" notice and gives you a flashback of Asgore speaking to a dying Chara.

This is one of the few instances of evidence that isn't very easily discountable and actually does imply at first blush that Chara is somehow involved in all Game Overs. I'll detail the main issue with this, though:

This occurs in the Game Over screen, so at this point the game has broken its fourth wall and is treating itself very clearly as a video game. So, there is room to interpret this scene in a "meta" fashion which isn't held to the same logic as in-universe "soul mechanics" or "possession mechanics". Because the game is "being a video game", this scene could easily be read as the game deciding to show us, the player, information intentionally to deceive us (regarding Frisk's identity), and not because anything particular is happening "in the world". I'll explain this a bit more in the next section.

This might not be satisfying to people, who want to keep away from "meta" discussions. But there are problems with not accepting this "meta" logic. Let's assume this is happening "in the world". How does that work? When we die, Frisk's soul shatters and is destroyed, and then the Game Over sequence happens. If Frisk no longer has a soul, they don't exist, meaning they can't be experiencing the flashback. Chara says they need Frisk's soul to exist, so if Frisk's soul is gone, Chara is also gone, meaning Chara can't be seeing the flashback either. Flowey didn't have a soul, but he had Determination directly injected into his body, which Frisk didn't have, so we can't use Flowey as an analogue here. So who is seeing the flashback? How is it happening? There's no way to explain this literally.

You may then say, "Well Frisk's soul doesn't literally explode, we know human souls persist after death. This is just a video game representation to show the player they lost." And you are probably right. But if we can use "meta" logic for that, we can also use "meta" logic for the scene as I describe.

For firmer in-universe justification, we also know that the golden flower seeds cling to whatever they touch, and Frisk falls into a pile of golden flowers at the very start of the game, so it is arguable that Frisk always has a bit of Flowey’s essence on them at all times. This could establish that all “Game Over” flashbacks originate from Flowey/Asriel the same way as the three more specific flashbacks do that I discussed above.

Overall, it's not an air-tight response, but this scene introduces so much confusion and ambiguity that we can't feasibly take it as hard proof for Narrachara. It breaks the logic of the game world and can't be read according to consistent in-universe rules. It's very "loose".

Flowey in the True Pacifist Ending

After the True Pacifist credits, when you boot the game back up, Flowey appears and talks to "Chara" about how they are a threat to the characters' happiness and asks them to not reset the game, to allow Frisk to live their life. Narrachara supporters take this as hard proof that Chara is present in the True Pacifist Route. But let's examine the issues with that as we did the Game Over screen.

Firstly, this scene is inconsistent with Flowey's understanding of events in the True Pacifist Route. Flowey realizing that Frisk is not Chara was a pretty major character development for him. Additionally, Flowey also had the ability to reset even though he wasn't controlled by a player and connected by narration; so, according to in-universe logic, Flowey should have thought that Frisk had the power to reset, not "Chara", meaning they should be urging Frisk to not reset and live their life. Taking this scene literally would actually be an instance of inconsistent writing.

In fact, I would even go so far as to say interpreting Flowey as talking to Chara invalidates his character development from the True Pacifist ending. It would mean he was essentially wrong to conclude that Frisk is not Chara, since Chara would have been there the whole time, so him talking to Chara through Frisk would have been valid. Flowey letting go of Chara and accepting his flawed perceptions of them is the culmination of his character arc.

So...why is this scene happening?

Where does this scene take place? It occurs in a black void. Other black voids are in the game, such as the battle screen, but remember that this scene occurs after you first boot up the game, before you are brought to the select screen to load your save (which is an in-universe power). So at this point, you aren't "in the world" of Undertale, you are clearly looking at a "meta" space even beyond other "meta" representations like the combat screen, or Flowey's conversations with Chara in the Genocide Route. So, Flowey's actions and words here are not necessarily representative of Flowey "in the game", and aren't bound by the rules of the story.

So, why does this scene happen? It is obvious we are meant to name Chara our own name. Undertale riffs on a lot of RPG tropes, one of which being the player-named self-insert character you're supposed to project onto. Undertale subverts that by revealing your player character is their own character and you were "wrong" to assume they were a representation of you. Naming Chara after yourself also adds a ton of weight and tension to scenes where people refer to the Fallen Human by your name. It also makes your menu screen and stats feel more like they belong to you, which ties into the Genocide Route's message of raising your stats just because you like the feeling—something Chara attributes to the player.

Sure, "Chara" is referred as the "true name" of the Fallen Human, but it is obvious that Chara is short for "character", which is a generic moniker given to a character who isn't meant to have their own name. If Chara were meant to be named Chara, they would be named Chara and we wouldn't have the ability to make it not so. It's an Easter egg.

So, in this scene, Flowey is clearly intended to be talking to the player, to tell us as the player to not reset the game and "ruin" the "lives" of these characters. It is a full-circle completion of the themes of responsibility, and of bonding with the experiences of fictional characters. It also ties into Flowey's character backstory of growing existentially bored with life and treating everybody as just lines of dialogue. He is meant to parallel us, the players of the game, and it's meant to make us feel unique and heavy things about Undertale. The game is simply most impactful and meaningful when viewed through this lens. The game does use the same name that you give Chara, but this strikes me as out of necessity, to keep these themes hidden until the very end, rather than for any literal in-universe meaning.

This also factors into the previous point about the Game Over screen. Naming Chara after ourselves gives us the illusion Asgore is talking to us, which makes us more likely to imprint upon Frisk and feel they aren't their own person. This makes the plot twist in the end of True Pacifist more impactful.

Either way, this scene with Flowey has the same issues of being confusing and ambiguous. It is clearly written in a "loose" fashion that doesn't hold itself to the strict logic of what Flowey should know and believe at this point given his experiences. So it is not very conclusive evidence that Chara is present in this scene, or that Flowey is even talking to Chara instead of literally to us, the player.

And, crucially, two isolated incidents don't strike me as strong enough to outweigh the fact that the narrator simply is not written in a way that suggests they are a concrete character. It would be bad writing to have a poorly written narrator support its entire "concrete character" status with only two events. Particularly when those incidents have their own interpretation issues.

6) CHARA'S SPEECH IN THE GENOCIDE ENDING

With all the above in mind, let's look at the final big thing people look at as evidence for Narrachara Theory. Chara's speech is below, in full, written in normal sentence structure:

"Greetings. I am <Name>. Thank you. Your power awakened me from death. My "human soul" … my "determination"—they were not mine, but YOURS. At first, I was so confused—our plan had failed, hadn't it? Why was I brought back to life? … you. With your guidance, I realized the purpose of my reincarnation: power. Together, we eradicated the enemy and became strong. HP; ATK; DEF; GOLD; EXP; LV. Every time a number increases—that feeling—that's me: "<Name>". Now—now, we have reached the absolute. There is nothing left for us here. Let us erase this world, and move on to the next."

Narrachara believers draw the conclusion from this speech that "our" Determination is what brings Chara back to life, and since "we" possess Determination from the very start of the game in all routes, Chara is present from moment one in all routes. But let's pick apart this dialogue into sentences:

"Greetings. (end) I am <Name>. (end) Thank you. (end) Your power awakened me from death. (end) My 'human soul' … my 'determination'—they were not mine, but YOURS. (end) At first, I was so confused—our plan had failed, hadn't it? (end) Why was I brought back to life? (end) … you. (end) With your guidance, I realized the purpose of my reincarnation: power. (end) Together, we eradicated the enemy and became strong. (end) HP; ATK; DEF; GOLD; EXP; LV. (end) Every time a number increases—that feeling—that's me: '<Name>'. (end) Now—now, we have reached the absolute. (end) There is nothing left for us here. (end) Let us erase this world, and move on to the next. (end)"

Importantly, the sentence "Your power awakened me from death" is separate from "My 'human soul' … my 'determination'—they were not mine, but YOURS." There is room to interpret Chara as making two separate claims here:

That our "power" awakened them from death, with "power" being undefined in this sentence.

That their soul and Determination are ours, not theirs.

There are four main reasons why I think we should interpret Chara as referring to "power" as separate from Determination:

Chara defines "power" later on in their speech: "Together, we eradicated the enemy and became strong. HP; ATK; DEF; GOLD; EXP; LV. Every time a number increases—that feeling—that's me: '<Name>'." It seems clear Chara meant something entirely different from Determination when they said "power", since Determination has nothing to do with killing, even if Chara thinks so.

Chara also isn't aware of how Determination works, seemingly, because Determination is derived from souls, and the soul they have is actually Frisk's, not ours. We are the player, interacting with the Undertale video game through a computer. We control Frisk's soul, and we use Frisk's Determination (which exists in-universe) to reset the universe. (Chara also spells "determination" with a lowercase "d" which implies they're using the generic term and not talking about the soul power but this is a dumb argument so I'm not gonna take it seriously).

Chara only manifests physically in the Genocide Route, meaning there needs to be something unique to the Genocide Route that explains this. Given the Genocide Route is defined by the pursuit of power (or high stats), the clear interpretation of this speech is to communicate that we invoked Chara by murdering everything. It is consistent with the events of the whole Genocide Route.

Given all the above issues with Narrachara, to interpret Chara's speech structurally in the way that specifically supports Narrachara Theory seems dishonest and self-serving.

Overall, interpreting this speech to "prove" that Chara was brought back with our Determination seems like faulty reading to me. If anything, an honest reading in-context seems to support my interpretation—that Chara relies on Frisk's soul and Determination to exist, but was woken up by our killing.

7) CONCLUSION

In conclusion, a comprehensive review of the narrator's behaviours, the poor quality and weight of much of the evidence, and the contradictory and "loose" writing of the strong evidence, seems to suggest that Narrachara Theory is false. My interpretation of the narrator—that they are a generic narrator that Chara "talks over" at points in the Genocide Route only—seems like the strongest interpretation.

To be clear, it seems as though Chara "went into" Frisk's soul at the start of the game, when they landed in the Underground, but that Chara was asleep originally and remains inactive in Neutral and True Pacifist Routes. Only in the Genocide Route does it seem that Chara wakes up to make their presence felt. This has a lot of implications, but the most obvious one is it means we cannot use the Neutral and True Pacifist Routes as examples of Chara's personality, values, behaviour, or moral standing.

And, if you happen to still be committed to the idea that Narrachara is true, at the very least the amount of evidence and rationale for Narrachara being false should make you feel less comfortable with just assuming everybody should believe Narrachara, or that anybody you speak to in the fandom will automatically be a Narrachara believer. The evidence is far from uncontroversial, and there is a lot of reason to believe Narrachara Theory is false. It is not a slam-dunk theory by any stretch.

Also, I hope I didn't come off as offensive in writing this. The last thing I want is to make people feel like I am being rude. This is all just the result of me replaying Undertale recently, and having many thoughts on this very fascinating character.

Have a nice day.

[vaugarde]

ik last post said the chara spirit comment as a joke but have i ever gone into my theory/headcanon that chara isn't actually present in the photoshop flowey fight because they're connected to the player's save file and that's gone when flowey takes over

[dedicatedfollower467]

so the thing about chara is that they're not really a whole like. separate character.

they're YOU.

explicitly, they are guided by YOUR decisions, YOUR choices, you theoretically give them YOUR NAME when you begin the game. if you consider them responsible for frisk's actions in the game, you have to acknowledge that YOU are the one who is ACTUALLY responsible for frisk's actions, as the player who. y'know. makes the actual fucking choices.

and chara reacts to what YOU DO to them. more specifically, chara reacts to what YOU DO to YOURSELF.

THIS IS WHY A GENOCIDE RUN FEELS BAD.

you are torturing yourself! you are forcing yourself to kill cute puppies and murder a wonderful skeleton who has never done anything to hurt you in COLD FUCKING BLOOD! usually AFTER you have completed at least one run where he becomes your best fucking friend!

this shit HURTS! every lets player i've ever watched do a genocide run has talked about how BAD it feels, how it's a combination of supremely boring to farm all possible kills AND absolutely gut-wrenching to murder these sweet innocent monsters who loved and cared about you in another lifetime!

and chara's response to this is YOUR response to this. they make it so that you can never again play this game without feeling the guilt of killing everyone you knew and loved and who loved you in return in this game.

whereas in a true pacifist run, you get some real catharsis. you save the world, you fix the mistakes you might have made the first time around, you save the sad broken abandoned child in the center of this story, and in so doing, you save YOURSELF. you get to a point where you straight up CAN'T DIE because you love this world so goddamn much.

anyway. chara is you and you are chara, and i understand why people don't always explore that in fanfic (hell, I sure as hell didn't explore it in my fancomic) but like. chara is you talking to yourself and at the end of a genocide run, chara is just telling you what you already know - that you can't fucking take back what you have done. even if nobody else remembers, you always will.

[worldend]

if deltarune came out before 2018 i wouldve kinned kris instead of chara but i also think that kris is just an version of chara from another universe or whateverbut if like chara was 'normal' so theyre technically the same character to me. kinda. theyre related. or at least just very similar for whatever reason

[littlebittykittycommittee]

Not real evidence, but another thing that I think strengthens the narrator theory for me anyway is this.

Image description: Four screenshots from Undertale, from the Undertale Text Project (link here).

The first two are from the boss fight against Asriel when he's transformed into the Angel of Death, his goat head with long horns atop a floating, legless, triangular body with long clawed hands in gloves and giant, rainbow-colored wings spread out that are shifting colors. Face scrunched up, he's wailing and shouting, "So, please… Stop doing this… And just let me win!!!"

The next two screenshots are from much earlier in the game: the first is in the tutorial fight against the Dummy in the Ruins, which the player has spared. The narration reads, "You won! You earned 0 XP and 0 gold." The final screenshot is from killing an enemy. The player is LV 4 and the narration reads, "You won! You earned 100 XP and 140 gold. Your LOVE has increased."

End description.

The whole game, the narrator has cheered us on most any time we win an encounter with a monster, whether we fought or spared. The only exception is when we beat the boss at the end of the area, again whether that is sparing or killing (eg Toriel, Papyrus) - there is no narration when a boss encounter has been won. The only exception ironically is if you spare the injured Flowey after the Photoshop Flowey fight: the narration simply says, "Flowey ran away." (If you kill him however, the narrator says nothing, as with the result of every other boss fight.)

(Tangent: The Doylist explanation for this is probably that these are the main characters and their words to us when defeated is supposed to be what sticks, so having the narration say "Yay, good job! You got this from that!" might break up the mood in a way Toby didn't want. The narration for "Flowey ran away" is used instead to drive home how pitiful he's become with his tearful reaction to the Mercy spam.)

It just feels like something Toby would do, ya know? Asriel, the antagonist, pleading with Chara, the narrator who's been letting us win the whole game, to let him win. And then, even though they were jabbering excitedly earlier in the fight, they stay silent and say nothing back to his pleas, perhaps because they know he's talking to the wrong person and won't be able to hear them anyway (Frisk is the one he's fighting, not them), or perhaps because they can't bring themself to say anything else after the flashbacks (the narrator does fall silent suddenly after the flashbacks; the reality of it all hitting home for Chara and choking them up?). And of course, with the narrator saying nothing back, Asriel then ends up "losing" as he cries and has his change of heart.

Thematically, it's just too cool that, along with everything else, it makes it really hard for me to believe that Toby didn't intend NarraChara.

It would also make sense as a game the two used to play and perhaps the reason Chara is so quick to start narrating everything for us. Asriel has his Absolute God of Hyperdeath character the narrator is quick to recognize and describe, after all, so it wouldn't surprise me if this was a game they played: Chara the DM describing the world and enemies around Asriel as he, the hero of the story, ventures forth and battles enemies. Drawing their stories, recording their games with the camera. Flowey, the one-time hero of the story, turned villain, wants to keep playing but can never hear their voice again. And Chara, now reduced to just their voice, never able to speak to their friend again and now fated to narrate the real-life, life-or-death adventures of strangers in different worlds (with the silver lining that they at least seem to enjoy Frisk's and Kris' company).

It's also interesting to consider in light of this from Chara themself.

Image description:

Six screenshots from Undertale, again courtesy of the Undertale Text Project, all from the scene at the end of the Kill All run where Chara speaks directly to the player. The first image is a choice the player has to "Erase" or "Do Not." After the player chooses Do Not, Chara says, "No...? Hmm... How curious. You must have misunderstood." And then, in all-caps with their smile still unchanged but their eyes turned hollow and black, they say, "Since when were you the one in control?"

End description.

The only time Chara, our otherwise plucky faithful narrator, won't let you win. They deny you winning in a much more brutal way than the sad silence they give Asriel on Pacifist, and should you do Pacifist again after this, they make sure to snatch that victory from you too.

[instaquarius]

Collab with @raidendefender for doing the lineart and flatcolors I did the sketch and shading of Poketale Ascendance Chara playing with the Celebis while Raiden watched

ALSO I should mention:

the cuts on Chara's arms arent caused by her hurting herself

but rather from (in my Pokemon/Undertale AU: Poketale Ascendance) her human parents actually did that during her life while living on the Surface before meeting the Creation trio and Arceus adopting her/taking to the pokemon world (also p much all of Chara's body is scarred up which is why she stays mostly covered up, mostly cuz she hates being asked about them and all soo yeah.)

if you're curious about the AU you can read here: https://tapas.io/series/PokeTale-Ascendance/info

//I have the parents written that way cuz i REALLY strongly believe in the narrator chara theory + all the implications from the game about chara potentially being abused or mistreated while living with the humans before falling to the underground in canon sooooooo yeah//

if you got a different interpretation then cool, but thats just my silly little headcanons soooo yeah. thats why//

just a lil disclaimer or whatever i guess

[under-lore]

The effects of LOVE are quite overstated.

It has been quite frequent to see the concept of LOVE mentioned by Sans in his judgments being interpreted as a force progressively depriving the person possessing it of all empathy or judgement until they are rendered into practical killing machines whilst approaching the cap of 20.

Whilst there are some truths to part of these concepts, interestingly, extrapolating implicit data from the game suggests that the effects LOVE have on a character's personality, whilst existing, are not as significant as they are generally believed to be.

Let's do a proper analysis of what we can say of LOVE's effects based only on the in-game content :

First, aside from Sans' words about it, do we dispose of any clear cut examples of changes relating to LV to analyse ?

That might seem like a silly question, but some of the lines that are often attributed to LV-induced personality changes turn out to not actually be LV-dependent once you check the game's code.

For instance, the narration of the bag of dog food is decided through kill count, not LV, meaning that it possible for instance to get the 'pessimistic line' despite not gaining any LOVE, and thus, this line cannot be attributed to changes related strictly to LV gain and isn't very useful to us here.

Actually, the amount of direct evidence we see of it having any effect at all which we can be certain off is quite small. But such a thing does exist via interactions relating to this dummy :

LV1 :

LV2+ :

LV5+ :

LV 8+ :

The only factor involved in deciding which of these lines will appear after deciding to punch the dummy is LOVE, it is notably distinct from other similar interactions like those mentioned above which tend to be governed by some variation of a kill count or a check regarding wether particular characters were killed.

As similar LV can be reached through killing various amount of monsters or varieties of monsters, unique or not, no equivalence can be built between the required LV for each of those interactions and particular character(s) or amount of monsters required to be killed to reach said LV.

We can thus only take the code of the game at face value and conclude that those changes are strictly caused by changes dependent on the influence of the LV we've gathered in our route so far.

The first pattern that can be established is that the narration in the left column reports Frisk punching the dummy with increasing levels of strength following our command as LV increases.

In the right column, there is a split between the four lines in the middle regarding the way the narration reports it.

The first two lines are narrated in the more common style, notably, explicitly reminding us that the actions or thoughts presented are Frisk's by refering to them as "you" as the subject of the sentence.

Those first two lines describe Frisk going from regret to a form of hesitant apathy regarding the fact that they've just punched a dummy as LV grows.

The latter two lines, however, mark a change in the narration type.

The "you" is dropped, and the thoughts presented are instead presented in a declarative form. This form is often used for first person affirmations, but can also be used outside of it in order to showcase a strong emotionally-driven reaction.

This ambiguity is particularly relevant here, as it blurs the line between wether those thoughts are Frisk's, the narrator's, or both. A detail that gains much importance under the NarraChara theory.

That being said, this nuance leads to a similar conclusion regarding LOVE in either case :

If the thoughts are fully Frisk's, then the last lines have Frisk moving from a hesitant apathy to a confident one before ultimately "feeling good". This would stay in line with the previous pattern.

(Although it is worth nothing that the "feel good" part may be at least partially due to a kind of natural endorphin release in Frisk's body from the physical exercise of "punching at full force", and thus could be only indirectly due to LV.)

If NarraChara is taken into account, then this would mean that this transformation in the tone of the narration in the last lines is due to LV related changes on Chara. And that this ambiguity in the phrasing of who those feelings belong to may indicate that the same observations we've just made on Frisk previously would apply to them similarly.

(Note : Given that the game code and files suggests that Chara and Frisk share their statistics, them both being affected by this same LV count would be coherent.)

In the official japanese version of the game, those lines for the dummy are mostly similar. However, the first two lines of the left column are a bit less distinct from each other, and the narration phrasing ambiguity seems to begin on the 2nd line of the right column rather than the 3rd.

Okay, so, what's wrong about the common perception, then ?

So far, it seems that LV does have some kind of trend that leads to growing apathy regarding the suffering of others and more aggressive actions being taken as a result of identical stimuli as it increases. That doesn't sound too far off ?

Well, sort of, but careless extrapolation made from those basic ideas have led to the emergence of theories and interpretations that treat those effects as being more consistent, generalised, and effective than can hold up to the scrutiny of our known cases through aggressive neutral routes.

Here is what i mean :

In some of the more aggressive variants of the neutral route, it is possible to attain a really high LOVE that comes close to what we see in the genocide route. Comparison between those routes and the genocide one, or sometimes content from these neutral routes themselves, can help show us incoherencies in some of those popular interpretations regarding how much difference LV really makes.

The first one that comes to mind is a popular one among 'Chara Defenders', suggesting that Chara's openly aggressive actions & narration which are specific to the genocide route in particular would really be a result of "corruption" induced by the LV-related changes which we would have forced onto them.

How well does this theory hold up through the aggressive neutral routes ?

Well...

Not very well.

To make a 'short' list :

Chara's "corruption" in genocide would generally begin to show as soon as LV3 at the end of the Ruins, however, they show no particular signs of this "corruption" in any neutral routes despite being able to reach much higher LV's of say, 14 near the end of the game.

It is possible to arrive at the end of the Ruins (or other areas) whilst having the same LV as in genocide during a neutral route, yet Chara shows none of those "corruption" lines in those cases either.

It is possible to finish many areas in the genocide route whilst having a lower/higher LV than usual by only fighting particular monsters who give you more/less EXP than average, yet none of Chara's genocide lines are changed to account for this lower of higher LV.

It is possible to abort the genocide route at many points by sparing a particular monster or failing to reach a kill count. When this happens, Chara's "corruption" lines suddenly disappear although the LV doesn't.

This still happens even if Chara's LV would have remained the same wether the monster was killed or not. Thus the lack of extra LV from the spared monter cannot explain this difference.

The aggressiveness shown by Chara does not seem to correlate with their growth in LV. For instance, they treat Toriel more harshly than Papyrus despite a past connection between Chara and Toriel and a lower LV at the time of that encounter.

Regarding some interpretations of the final genocide scene : Why would Chara oppose us for what we did at this point in time ? Shouldn't they still be "corrupted" ? The files at this stage still continue to list our LV as 20 indicating that they should.

Similarly, regarding some interpretations of the soulless pacifist route : If their previous behavior came from corruption, why would Chara kill at this stage or follow up on their previous plan ? By now our LV has long been reset to 1 and said corruption should no longer be in effect.

For all these reasons, it would not be coherent for the peculiarly aggressive behavior shown by Chara during the genocide route to be strictly caused by LV-induced changes.

To be fair, this time some minimum amount of LV is required to progress through the route and access many of those lines, meaning that a minor impact of said required LV cannot be ruled out, but this does mean nevertheless that the primary reason as to why Chara behaves this way in genocide is not related to their LV.

Actually, once you remove from consideration all those things, what you are left with in the rest of the genocide route is a Chara that hardly seems all that impacted by LV at all despite having a very high one.

In New Home, they still display some hints of emotional reactions in spite of a LV of 19.

And throughout the whole genocide route, NarraChara continues going through the regular encounters with the same jokes or sarcasm-filled comments as they would in any other route (If you take the time to ACT a bit or read the narration before killing that monster.) Once again, even with a LV of say, 15.

That doesn't make the very high LV's seem like they turn one into that much of a mind-numbed killing machine does it ?

Okay... Well, what about Frisk, then ? Our other example ?

There are some more narrations out there who can bring us a bit more information about Frisk :

The Sans fight can only be triggered if all previous checks of the genocide route have all been properly met up to this point. This means that it is not possible to start this fight at any other LV than 19, as the NEO fight is scripted to send you to that LV if the criteria for Sans are met.

Therefore, the narration of the Sans fight talks about a Frisk that necessarily has a very high LV of 19.

And yet...

Even at this point, Frisk does not seem to be immune to thoughts regarding the morality of the actions their body has undertaken. It quite literally appears to weigh on them.

This isn't a one-off case either :

If the genocide route is aborted in Hotland, Mettaton NEO has some special dialogue that goes in the same direction :

he says it quite clearly :

And, the same thing also applies regarding the regular encounters too. The ACTs Frisk can take and their behavior whilst executing them remain unchanged compared to a pacifist route, even during the end-stages of genocide in Hotland.

Of course, it isn't like we could have expected Toby to adapt the ACTs and narration of all encounters to vary depending on LV either, that would have been very tedious to code, but such a pronounced absense of any change is definitely noteworthy.

This all leads us to a few conclusions.

It is correct that LV can affect one's personality to some extent, but :

The effects of LV are not consistent through time & situations, they show up quite sporadically. Most of the time, you could hardly tell the difference between someone with high LV or merely LV1 during an average interaction.

Even having an extremely high LV does not dehumanise you. One can still feel emotions and conserve proper judgment or capacity for self-reflection.

The growth in LV magnifies the impact of its effects when they do manifest, but it does not seem to alter the frequency of such events.

It is not possible for LV to be the determining factor in Chara's behavior during the genocide route.

As Sans originally said : LV is above all a capacity to hurt, not a permanent necessary degradation of perception.

[juneboat]

the fact that save files in deltarune are quite possibly even more diagetic than they were in undertale fills me with fear and dread like no other

[runesofthedelta]

There's some real funny character stuff that occurs post-no-mercy and into a true pacifist.

Chara seemingly returns to their old self, as the narrator, on that post-geno-pascifist. Frisk still gives their name as Frisk at the end.

The game is actually pretty forgiving about both geno and pascifist. Because there's nothing in either or that suggests that the world has fundamentally changed.

... But Chara, isn't forgiving.

Undertale falls with the idea that the characters are people. It asks "if a protagonist can actually Save their Game in real life, how would that affect the world and its people?", It follows every trope when it comes to RPG monsters, asking "If our hero is so heroic, what about all those monsters they slaughtered by the hundreds to get to the end?"

Its a deconstruction on the ideas of RPG. Most of the time, it reconstructs just as well, letting you explore what you'd like and still making it just in time for a happy ending...

... Until you decide to go on a killing spree.

In a reset post-geno, you have only one LV. By the end, the kid we've been playing identifies themselves as Frisk. Chara is still the Fallen Child we name, and is still the fairly amicable narrator.

Until the end.

If we choose for Frisk to leave Toriel (to... gods knows where), the picture we receive has all our "friends" crossed out, and the character of Frisk replaced with Chara.

( This might imply that they went after our friends... but truth is, at 1 LV, shared between Frisk and Chara, they have no killing intent at all. )

Crossing out this picture is a "Fuck You" to Chara. Frisk and Chara finally get a happy ending... but you, the Player? Absolutely Not. Chara won't allow it.

If we choose for Frisk to go with Toriel, Frisk lives with her and can be found sleeping in a bedroom as we watch. Once Toriel leaves a pie slice, Chara turns over and stares at our "camera".

( Still LV1, you can't get the true pacifist run without LV1 )

All this shows...

That Chara and Frisk share the LV. And about after Ruins, in Geno, is where Chara just takes center stage. Only in aborted runs or resets, does the stage return to Frisk and Chara chills out.

That Souls transcend Time and Space. Its the only way Chara would know enough or be around enough, to know what we the player did in a post-geno-pascifist world and ending.

Neither Frisk nor Chara control the Red Heart. We do, the Player. Even though the Red Heart is Frisk's soul, and that Chara is attached to it because Chara is a post-mortem consciouss that should have a Human soul, and persumably, their soul was Red too. ( I would've said that we don't know, because there were other humans... but Chara's speech in Geno specify Frisk. )

Frisk, cannot do a genocide route. At the start of it, Chara takes over right away, and stops talking to Frisk, and starts talking to Us. in every Neutral and Pacifist Route, Chara talks to Frisk. In Geno, Chara takes over, and Frisk isn't a factor. But once Chara gets the Red Soul, from us the Player, Chara will willfully just go back to talking to Frisk. Until we, the player, try to get involved in the ending scene--in which case, Chara takes right back over.

Chara encourages mercy and mischief, when someone is playing the game to be merciful. Very rarely do they interfere with the choice (one known exception is refusing to allow crying), and only in the true lab does Frisk interfere with Chara's set choices... of which Chara will staunchly back up Frisk's reactions from then on.

Even post Geno, Chara encourages mercy and mischief, but this is more specifically pointed to Frisk.

( Because if Chara just wanted to screw everyone, why wait for a geno-play? Why not just do it in a regular True Pacifist... Its because they don't actually want a Genocide. Who does? )

Chara wants to help, and protect, Frisk, as the "narrator".

They read to Frisk, they understand Froggits for Frisk, they give options, give descriptions. (I've got my own personal HC about who exactly is reading the HP, EXP, LV, ATK and DEF, because I'm pretty certain Chara isn't that indepth about monsters they couldn't have possibly met.. but they're definitely the flavor Texts and Descrptions). They kinda translate Frisk for Us the Players, so they do semi-know that there's a third (HC: Or fourth) party here.

( I believe the reason why ties into how the Red Soul operates as a human soul. Free Movement? Prime power to escape nearly any situation? Red Monster Magic about alarms and warnings? Red Text meaning Danger? The Red soul pays attention to Danger, and its first instinict is to Flee--thusly, Frisk is actually a pretty scarred kid. )

Chara's first instinict upon waking up to Frisk, inspite of how much others have claimed that Chara hated humanity... was to help by any means necessary with what little they can do. Especially since Frisk is a scared kid who doesn't know what to do at all.

So when that allpowerful third-forth party comes in, and decides that death by any means necessary is the goal...

What's Chara to do, except, take the brunt of it instead? Let Frisk take the backseat, and Chara does the dirty work so that Frisk doesn't get hurt.

Then Chara performs their ultimatum. They sever our connection to the world, and it stays dead, or we give them the Red Soul.

And upon taking the red Soul, Chara seemingly returns to just the merciful-mischievous narrator, at LV1, with Frisk.

... Only now, they stay with Frisk. And when it looks like that we, the player, are looking at them outside of the underground--Chara looks Back.

They took the red soul to ensure this little kid, Never Gets Bothered or Hurt by Us again.

ADDENDUM:

This ain't the first time in anime fiction where a dead semi-psychotic seemingly soulless spirit, fond of mercy and mischief but also fond of giving those with ill-intent their just rewards, who possesses a younger soul and bolsters and protect them.

Who woke up confused about where they were and what was going on.

Who definitely got themselves killed pulling something that didn't work, and they still had to fix it after they was dead.

Who's actions did result in a friend of theirs becoming a total asshole in his next life.

Who has played both psycho and savior.

And was a royal child.

... And y'know, they just happen to like children's card games.