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under-lore · 3 months ago

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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 !

#undertale #undertale theory #chara #undertale chara #chara undertale #narrator chara #asriel #undertale asriel #asriel undertale

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gingergofastboatsmojito · 1 month ago

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Toxicity

We only see toxicity in others but not in ourselves.

I was thinking about Sydney today and how everyone seems to think wanting "the best" for her means overruling her feelings, her choices, and her free will. And how toxic that behavior is.

And ultimately, how much it belittles her.

Since S1, she's been giving us clear signs of always, no matter what, choosing and trusting Carmy, even when she knows for a fact he’s not perfect, even if their relationship is not perfect either, as no relationship is btw, even if he has a lot of work to do and even if he doesn’t deserve her, she has always chosen him. Now, her fanbase thinks that because they are "protective of her ", or because they love her and because they say they want the best for her, that gives them some kind of greenlight to completely ignore her will and her choices. Her autonomy as a person. I know she's a fictional character, but symbolically speaking, that is.

If someone did that to us we could clearly see how that would be wrong, even if they had their best interests at heart. Right?

There's a difference between respecting someone and enabling their toxic behavior and those who do this are making it pass for "protectiveness" when it's actually infantilizing her in a sense. It's a protectiveness based on the assumption that Syd doesn't know what's best for her, she can't make her own choices, she just doesn't know better, and she's not smart enough to know what/who is best for her. In other words, it's another way of invalidating her choices that may or may not be right, like anybody else's but are only hers to make, independently. Showing her real respect would be supporting her and hoping for the best, wishing her the best even when we might fear that may not be the final outcome for her if she takes that course of action we'd advise her against "for her own good", but the truth is we don't know... What we do know is that there's love in the meantime and that her heart is still in it. So that should be enough for us if we really trusted her.

I think the worst dichotomy and what I have a problem with the most is not all I just mentioned because I can see the heart of those who are soooooooooo wrong being in the right place despite being absolutely off the mark, BUT what really sends me is the double standard of say 60% of the fandom (?) who are great and really quick to spot the toxic behaviors in Donna, the C person, even Richie or the Faks but when it comes to themselves, they perceive themselves just as "Team Syd/ Protectors of Syd", as if she needed bodyguards to guard her against Carmy, and against her own inability to wisely choose what's in her best interest. They just don't even think about any of the other factors I pointed out. Not to mention the sanctimoniousness of the implicit oxymoron: "If they did that to me I would fucking hate it but since I’m the one who’s doing it to a fictional character, that I’m projecting onto, that makes it OK". I mean...

At the end of the day, the writer is the one who decides what to do or not with that character, we can have our opinions and preferences, of course, but what I’m saying is if you’re coming from a place of judging a character, projecting onto it your belief system and your own frustrations, preferences, fears, etc, then at the very least admit it.

And once you do, please note that:

You are not being protective of Sydney, you are making it all about you.

Don't get me wrong, we all do it. I do it all the time with the C person, for instance, I totally project onto her my absolute intolerance for people like her IRL. I hate them, I fear them, I do not respect them, I get the fuck away from them, I protect myself from people like her, I expect the very worst from them and act accordingly. That character reminds me of those who are that way and thus I feel this instant rejection for her. That being said, I gotta keep it fair, if she does something right, I will give her that. If she fucks up, like she did on the show, I will 100% call her out on that too because since I know I project, I keep myself in check enough at all times to make sure that my projection and personal bias against her do not prevent me from actually watching the show so when I analyze her scenes I make the conscious effort of separating my projections from my judgment and then dissect her scenes and come to XY and Z conclusions. I do not let myself get in my own way and that's how I know her character was and always will be unnecessary for the plot. I THINK it was a wrong creative choice from the very get-go, but since I gotta go by what the writer says and shows me and implies on screen, I do not let all that interfere with my watching experience and subsequent interpretations. Meaning: it's not about me, or about the kind of people I like or not IRL, it's about the C person, the character, and the writer that is writing her into existence, and from that standpoint I can say that I do not want her on the show, that I hate the relationship she had with Carmy. I don't think she adds anything really valuable to the plot, especially considering there is a character like Sydney in the equation who could add sooooo much more and so much better storytelling material if given the chance, but none of that would ever stop me from really seeing what Storer delivered - a character who enabled Carmy to see all those things about himself and his past that no longer serve him, and who therefore will be one of the catalysts of change for him - whether I like her or not.

I hope I made myself clear. This is not throwing shade, it's more like a manifesto against the patronizing ways of "supporting" Syd's character that I have been seeing all over since June 27.

But if I didn't make myself clear enough, here's the bottom line in a nutshell:

I get the genuine concern about Syd, I get how relatable her character is, especially for WOC, and I get the protectiveness, I just simply do not think any of those things are more important than trusting her judgment and if he's the one for her, then he's the one for her. I wish we could all agree on that and unite in the Sydcarmy wing of this awesome fandom, for the cause of not only wanting the best for the characters, both, but also for the respect they deserve, understanding by respect the opposite of condensing bias for or against a character, or at the very least the equivalent of support and trust in her process.

In Sydney Adamu I trust. She knows better, not me. (Yes, I am taking a leap of faith here, I am aware).

#the bear #sydcarmy #sydney adamu #chris storer #gingerpovs #double standards #carmy is the one #carmen berzatto #carmy berzatto #the bear fx #the bear hulu #the bear season 3 #the bear season 4

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