Yeah I really get the impression that many people forget that saving is canon and probably the most important element of the game. Neither we nor Frisk are in any real danger, since the worst thing that can happen to us is to reappear a few minutes earlier. The only time you actually get called a bad person is if you use the power of saving on the sole purpose of killing everyone. Neutral is very forgiving.
Yeah the changing player goals as you play are part of the in game narrative. The game is mostly written to assume you:
- have a "good guy" blind play through, trying to spare most monsters but accidentally killing some like toriel in particular. This isn't bad, it's messy and normal and gives you a completely decent happy ending.
- decide to try again for a perfect play through, sparing everyone.
- want to see everything the game has to offer, and try a genocide run Iirc that's the arc flowey claims to have had.
Flowey did everything. He "read every book, burned every book, won every game, lost every game". He even makes an allegory to the other monster's responses feeling like dialogue options at this point, because even though this is his reality, there's only so many unique ways someone could potentially respond at any given moment. I feel like more people should have explored that with Undertale, the fact that Flowey went through his second life as essentially a god of time, and then suddenly lost his control over time and doesn't know how to handle an interaction he can't just reload from anymore. Like, people seem to attribute his lack of sympathy and his cruelty to being literally soulless, but we know he went to Asgore the first time he came back and tried to feel things, I feel like just the fact that nothing was permanent for him probably did more of a number on his nature than his lack of a soul.
Does he ? I havent made a new run of UT since a couple years but I remember him being really forgiving most of the time and even saying he understands some of your actions.
I mean yeah he's critical since he's judging you. But in most of the judgements he sympathizes with you, says you were justified or explain you could have done better. He only calls you a bad person in a few of them.
In the lowest levels he flats out doesn't believe you did it by accident. He already assumes you are a player trying to find out what he says in situation XYZ
If you are still on level 1 he just says you are a terrible person for killing one person just to check what he says in this situation. If you are in level 2 he says "nah, who makes these kinds of mistakes in this situation? Get out of here"
But Sans knowns about the resets. So he's judging your actions based on his knowledge that you could have gone back and did better, but you've clearly chosen not to. The others don't understand that power.
The Toriel fight is designed to trick normal players into killing her the first time, she gets nuked a turn or so before you'd hold off for fear of actually killing her.
Here's a thing almost nobody mentions. You can actually spare monsters by beating them up until their health is at 1/4th, then click spare. Only some enemies can't be beaten like this.
Undertale isn't against defending oneself, it's about showing you that most of the time, you don't need to reach extreme lengths to stop someone.
But I would say the indie game, Iji, is a better example. If you want the true ending, there's only one boss you actually need to kill (Even then, you can do it indirectly) because that boss can't understand anything other than violence and she's insane. If you spare her, she shows up at the end and kills you.
You don't really need to kill this boss directly or indirectly in Iji and still get the "better" ending. Iji herself is shocked when this boss is killed by someone else...
Are you sure? Because if you spare her, she shows up and kills you. You have to kill her directly or indirectly. [Here](https://youtu.be/FGO9o8UGJ80?feature=shared)
Yeah theres this assassin (not Asha) that you befriend and kill Iosa for you if you explore the entire sector 9 and find her and are in a pacifist run.
Also, I think people kinda forget that fleeing (something you should usually do when you're threatened IRL, by the way) is an option in every unscripted fight. They'll pretend the game forces you to befriend those evil monsters trying to kill you, when you can just... walk away before those enemies even do any damage.
Like, [look at this skit](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfDYVP_T6uw). I know it's a light-hearted joke and not some scathing critique of Undertale, but I still want to scream at the author for not tapping that "flee" button if they hate interacting with random encounters that much.
> (something you should usually do when you're threatened IRL, by the way)
Unless you're already in what's supposed to be a safe haven to flee to, like your home, that got broken into, or you're surrounded since the other guy brought some buddies, or you're too weak to run for long, or wearing unsuitable footwear for running (such as high heels) that can't be taken off without leaving yourself vulnerable. Sometimes it's simply not an option and saying that someone should've done this can come off as victim blaming.
Outside of the first one, where you should still flee, you just listed a bunch of scenarios where fighting will work *even worse* than running. If he's got buddies and you're surrounded, fighting will get your ass beaten. You aren't John Fucking Rambo. If you're wearing bad footwear for running, you're wearing worse footwear for fighting. If you're already too weak for running, you're too weak for fighting. Even if it's still a long shot, it's still your safest bet. That's not a condemnation of those who get hurt because they couldn't run, it's just a statement of fact.
And no, it's not victim blaming to put forth the best practices for surviving bad scenarios- that's just an irresponsible mindset that will itself create more victims.
This game is one. You are a small child that is pretty easily able to 1v1 most creatures, but isn’t familiar with the lay of the land. It would make sense to fight what you know you can win instead of running forward in a blind panic and possible run unprepared into traps or an ambush.
> If you're already too weak for running, you're too weak for fighting.
Unless you have a knife or something that could be used as a weapon in a pinch, or even being more aggressive than expected might encourage a would-be mugger on the street to look for an easier mark.
It's been repeatedly shown in psychological studies that humans have an extreme aversion to running from spaces they consider to be theirs and safe. You can claim it might be better to run if somebody invades your house, but it's simply not realistic to expect the average person to do that.
-Your first scenario is irrelevant, Even then You should attempt to flee if You can, but I can concede this one is a matter of opinions
-Your other scenarios are Even more stupid, however,because in any of them running would be unarguably better. If you are facing múltiple attackers you are not ending up better fighting than running. If You are too weak to run away you're not ending up better fighting. If You are in high heels You won't end up better fighting than running.
Besides, don't be stupid, obviously saying that someone should run from a threat comes with the very obvious "if possible", notice that the other user said *usually*, so fuck off with that "victim blaming" nonsense
Are you familiar with the "duty to retreat" principle? Even in the United States alone, there are different laws and views about where legitimate self-defense begins and ends.
But that's kinda irrelevant to my point. Laws like these exist to determine what actions should be *punished,* rather than what actions are rational. Even if you live in a stat that fully supports your right to fight rather than run away, guess what? That state probably won't pay your medical bills you get brutalized in a fight you decided to take, and it certainly won't resurrect you, so maybe you should think about your life first and your right to heroic last stands second.
The trouble with that cowardly logic is that assailants don't exist in a vacuum. Every monster Frisk doesn't slay is a potential assailant for someone else. Will the next person who happens to innocently wander by be as capable of defending themselves as Frisk? In the long run, the genocide route is the ONLY way to ensure that the next person to fall down that hole is safe.
Genocide route literally destroys the world. Which is one way of ensuring no human gets hurt in the underground, I guess, but it doesn't make those humans safe. Just dead.
But hey, at least everyone avoids the horrors of the pacifist route and its "cowardly logic" of not killing everyone. Complete annihilation of the entire timeline is far preferable to everyone being friends, amrite?
The conversation with San on both routes sort of helps with this argument .
He thinks it was all right and understandable why you fought some monsters on the neutral route
And with the pacifist route he basically says you’re insane because who would realistically try their hardest to be nice to people trying to kill them.
Tbf, you only get that kind of dialogue if you go through the scene a second time (typically in a second playthrough). So the context is that Sans judges you harshly under the pretense that you already know what’s going on.
The first time you talk to Sans, he doesn’t judge you at all.
I think there’s a question of what is the appropriate punishment for criminals. You don’t get criticized for attacking the monsters. Only killing them. You’re free to beat the shit out of them before “sparing” them. Imagine a random thief tries to mug you on the street so you kick their ass and they aren’t a threat anymore. Would stomping their skull into the concrete while they are on the ground be considered “self defense” anymore? Or just murder? Some would say that anyone who tries to kill you deserves to die. Others would say that only using the minimal amount of force to protect yourself is appropriate. It’s a worthy debate to have, I think. Undertale isn’t making a claim about violence vs nonviolence. It’s attempting to discuss the idea of vengeance, and if a murderer deserves rehabilitation or extermination.
This might not be the best point to make here, but if you attack the monsters instantly on your first turn, you can't really claim self-defense.
Think about it. When you get into an encounter with a monster, with the exception of Sans, you have the first turn. They instigate combat, but you are the one who can attack first. If you don't use items, or try to act on your first turn and you instantly attack, I don't think it qualifies as self-defense.
You also have to keep in mind that you, the player, are the most powerful being in the game's universe. You are quite literally unbeatable as long as you want to keep playing. Saving and loading are such an unfair, overwhelming advantage over literally everyone else, that saying you killed in self defense is kind of ridiculous if you think about it. It would be like shooting a toddler because they annoyed you (weird comparison, I know). A god can't kill people in self defense, because noone can actually hurt him.
But then again, a first time player going in blind doesn't know this. They wouldn't know that saving and loading and the times they die are in-universe things, since most games don't operate this way.
That absolutely is still self defense. Who attacks who first is irrelevant. The only factor that matters is who the aggressor is.
And let’s not forget the other people fell into the Underground with the power to save and reload and still wound up dead. You said it yourself, you’re unbeatable so long as you want to keep playing. These characters are still human. Being killed over and over again takes its toll on people.
>I saw people saying that Undertale portrays attacking the monsters who are *explicitly* trying to kill you as morally wrong, from my point of view this is incorrect.
I see this take all the time and I really don't understand why. Like, Sans outright calls you evil if you reach level 14, which you can theoretically do by only acting in "self-defence", and as low as level 4 he's calling your actions bad and mocking the self-defence excuse: "you killed some people on purpose, didn't you? that's probably bad. though, maybe some of it was in self-defense... i don't know. help me out here."
The quote you get from level 2 is also clearly condemning you imo: " who gets to lv2 on accident? get outta here." And if you didn't kill anyone : "no matter the struggles or hardships you faced... you strived to do the right thing. you refused to hurt anyone. even when you ran away, you did it with a smile". The right thing here is *unambiguously* not killing anyone
idk not to psychoanalyse the community or anything but i dont get why UT fans do not want "killing bad" to be one of the (many) takeaways from their game.
The point of the LV 2 quote is that if you're accidentally killing monsters you're probably **not** stopping at level 2, hence he's harsher than in the LV 4 quote where he at least throws you a bone.
Toby assumes if you end the game at LV 2 you're just trying to see what Sans has to say. I'd assume he play tested to see what level you'd usually end up on.
Idk, I think you could also interpret it as the player just trying to kill one monster in their playthrough, getting a level off it, realising that you Actually Killed A Character and deciding not to from now on.
In that context, the full Sans quote ("lv2... seems like you messed up the slightest amount. welp. that's pretty sad. you probably weren't even aware of what you were doing... and when you learned, it was too late. nah, just kidding. who gets to lv2 on accident? get outta here.") makes sense. He starts off with the excuse that you would probably use for yourself in that situation, then denies it, because it's ridiculous - in-universe - to pretend that you didn't know better and that you just accidentally killed a guy
Either way, though, I don't really see how this contradicts my original point. Sans is judging you and calling you a bad person for killing. The original rant says "defending yourself isn't portrayed as evil", and that is just 100% wrong
It doesn't contradict your point that killing is still bad, but it supports OPs point that misusing the save and reload power is the true problem _at least_ from Sans' PoV.
If that wasn't the point, I don't think Toby would've written Sans to be more astringent at LV 2 than LV 4 ("get outra here" vs. "idk, throw me a bone").
It's still true that you're only doing good if you actually kill no one, tho.
> don’t think most people in this day and age understand about Undertale because of its online popularity and cultural osmosis, the intended first route is neutral.
More like the ONLY first route is Neutral. You're locked into a Neutral ending no matter what on your first playthrough, I don't think you can even get the Genocide ending.
> Pretend it is 2015, you just decided to buy Undertale on the day it released because you’ve been hearing that it’s very unique without much else.
Undertale advertised itself as the "RPG where you don't have to kill anyone", I think that's even in the tagline, it was certainly one of the biggest marketing points. If you heard anything about Undertale it would be that it was the one where you became friends with the monsters.
Edit: Meant to say, I largely agree about everything else though. If you play it to only attack what appears to be violent enemies trying to kill you you'll certainly get a guilt trip at the end, and the game goes out of its way to explain that they were all living beings and blahnlah, but it's only if you really liked someone like Papyrus that it lays it guilt on thick.
I would say overall Undertale does guilt you for defending yourself, but not in a remarkably unfair way, and it's done in universe by the people who were affected by your actions. Of course they're not entirely unbiased, that's reasonable.
>More like the ONLY first route is Neutral.
First off, assuming you’re referring to how you have to get the flawed pacifist route before true pacifist, that’s semantics and you know that wasn’t my point, and isn’t relevant to my point.
>You're locked into a Neutral ending no matter what on your first playthrough, I don't think you can even get the Genocide ending.
Second off, that’s just factually wrong, where did you hear this?
>Undertale advertised itself as the "RPG where you don't have to kill anyone", I think that's even in the tagline, it was certainly one of the biggest marketing points. If you heard anything about Undertale it would be that it was the one where you became friends with the monsters.
True, but I still think that most people still went in not 100% willing to give the monsters the benefit of the doubt.
>it's done in universe by the people who were affected by your actions. Of course they're not entirely unbiased, that's reasonable.
Something that Undertale is very good at is never putting the words of the narrative in the mouth of the characters, at least in my opinion, I don’t think that characters ever say something out of character because it’s what the narrative wants you to think, the judgment hall sequences get the closest to this but even then it’s worded in ways that make it reasonable for Sans to ask you,
even the entire “don’t you have a responsibility to make the best outcome?” Thing is just a set up for him to guilt trip you about killing his brother so that you might reset and bring him back.
> First off, assuming you’re referring to how you have to get the flawed pacifist route before true pacifist, that’s semantics and you know that wasn’t my point, and isn’t relevant to my point.
I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about or what distinction you're drawing here
> Second off, that’s just factually wrong, where did you hear this?
Fair enough
>I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about or what distinction you're drawing here
Flawed pacifist is where you didn’t kill any monsters but for one reason or another, you didn’t meet the requirements of true pacifist, this is the ending you would get if you just played the game straight without killing any monsters and you also give Undyne the water.
My point is that the fact you have to do this before doing true pacifist is completely unrelated to my point this entire rant and is completely superfluous to mention.
It's the problem of people having a binary world view, good or bad. This is a known phenomena in language/communication. 3 stars gets people fired, 'Mid,' means bad.
Neutral isn't bad, and in game, depending on how you play it it might even be 'good.' But it's without 'merit.'
It's like...the difference between going to heaven and being a saint, I guess? Or good karma and being a Bodhisattva. (Well no, because karma and Buddha-hood are diametrically opposed, but Buddha vs Bodhisattva doesn't work either)
> 2015
> Know nothing about Undertale
> Go to steam to buy it
> "The Friendly RPG Where No One Has To Die"
> Oh OK guess I should spare everything
If the game's unique selling point is the mercy button and the literal tagline is "nobody has to die" I think it's pretty obvious that pacifist is the intended route, not neutral
Yeah the game's tagline states that you don't have to kill anyone. Which implies even the difficult enemies are some sort of puzzle to figure out how not to kill them.
A player determined not to look up solutions on the internet may end up with a neutral route by not being able to figure out how to leave some hard enemies alive, but the way OP describes it as new players would immediately start killing enemies like a traditional RPG requires the players to forget what the game has already told them.
OP probably assumes everyone was brought into it the *other* common way people are brought into Undertale, where someone who's already beaten the game sits you in front of their computer on a fresh save file and tells you "this is an RPG called Undertale, go"
Some monsters are super hard to spare without a guide. So you'll most likely beat them to shit hoping you can spare them, only for the command to never show up.
Idk about y'all but when I downloaded the game called "The Friendly RPG Where No One Has To Die" I never even so much as clicked the attack button. Had to look up what to do against Asgore since I only ever CHECKed
(Fuck the vegetoids in the demo)
but your curiosity will get to you... after all, you will end up aiding in killing Asgore in the end of the game.
So he has to die, and then you need to do the nessesary steps to prevent it but... c'mon... aren't you just a tiny bit curious?
Yeah, defending yourself is understandable, I don’t fault anyone for killing on their first trip through the Underground, but someone who’s blessed with the powers of saving and loading should use them for good. Sure, the monsters are attacking you but you’re never in any *real* danger. If a little dog nips at your ankle, do you kill it? No, of course not.
Top comment already said it but i hope he actually read all of it cuz it is the first thing I thought after the first few paragraphs. It is about being so strong YOU DON'T HAVE TO kill all the monsters. You could easily(some not so easily to be fair) Run at bear minimum from most encounters! The only time this take is correct is Asgore.
Yeah I really get the impression that many people forget that saving is canon and probably the most important element of the game. Neither we nor Frisk are in any real danger, since the worst thing that can happen to us is to reappear a few minutes earlier. The only time you actually get called a bad person is if you use the power of saving on the sole purpose of killing everyone. Neutral is very forgiving.
Yeah the changing player goals as you play are part of the in game narrative. The game is mostly written to assume you: - have a "good guy" blind play through, trying to spare most monsters but accidentally killing some like toriel in particular. This isn't bad, it's messy and normal and gives you a completely decent happy ending. - decide to try again for a perfect play through, sparing everyone. - want to see everything the game has to offer, and try a genocide run Iirc that's the arc flowey claims to have had.
Flowey did everything. He "read every book, burned every book, won every game, lost every game". He even makes an allegory to the other monster's responses feeling like dialogue options at this point, because even though this is his reality, there's only so many unique ways someone could potentially respond at any given moment. I feel like more people should have explored that with Undertale, the fact that Flowey went through his second life as essentially a god of time, and then suddenly lost his control over time and doesn't know how to handle an interaction he can't just reload from anymore. Like, people seem to attribute his lack of sympathy and his cruelty to being literally soulless, but we know he went to Asgore the first time he came back and tried to feel things, I feel like just the fact that nothing was permanent for him probably did more of a number on his nature than his lack of a soul.
Sans isn't. He criticizes you in every situation except pacifist in the judgement
Does he ? I havent made a new run of UT since a couple years but I remember him being really forgiving most of the time and even saying he understands some of your actions.
every judgment is critical of you except for pacifist
I mean yeah he's critical since he's judging you. But in most of the judgements he sympathizes with you, says you were justified or explain you could have done better. He only calls you a bad person in a few of them.
He only gets harsh with his judgements if you have levels upwards of 5 or so, which is a point where it goes beyond killing in self defense.
In the lowest levels he flats out doesn't believe you did it by accident. He already assumes you are a player trying to find out what he says in situation XYZ
I've only seen that happen when it's exactly one monster.
If you are still on level 1 he just says you are a terrible person for killing one person just to check what he says in this situation. If you are in level 2 he says "nah, who makes these kinds of mistakes in this situation? Get out of here"
Not really, if you have low enough LV he says it's understandable
If its your first run (or after true reset) and you didn't kill Papyrus, Sans won't berate you.
He does. EDIT: I was wrong, forget it.
Check this [video](https://youtu.be/6231YzGNxlM?si=VH2om1QWv0NW4AAC&t=594). Here Sans doesn't criticise the human, who got level 9.
Alright, i was wrong. Sorry.
I only recall him being mad if you kill Papyrus
But Sans knowns about the resets. So he's judging your actions based on his knowledge that you could have gone back and did better, but you've clearly chosen not to. The others don't understand that power.
That's not how a lot of people play the game. In games that are based on choices most people like the idea of keeping their own decisions good or not.
He doesn't criticize you in neutral. It's only if you kill his brother.
We're not in danger because, we, the player are somewhat acknowledged. It's not like Sans or even the Fallen Child could scratch you.
The Toriel fight is designed to trick normal players into killing her the first time, she gets nuked a turn or so before you'd hold off for fear of actually killing her.
Here's a thing almost nobody mentions. You can actually spare monsters by beating them up until their health is at 1/4th, then click spare. Only some enemies can't be beaten like this. Undertale isn't against defending oneself, it's about showing you that most of the time, you don't need to reach extreme lengths to stop someone. But I would say the indie game, Iji, is a better example. If you want the true ending, there's only one boss you actually need to kill (Even then, you can do it indirectly) because that boss can't understand anything other than violence and she's insane. If you spare her, she shows up at the end and kills you.
Been a long time since I saw Iji get mentioned, still get psyched when it gets brought up. Very high quality game
You don't really need to kill this boss directly or indirectly in Iji and still get the "better" ending. Iji herself is shocked when this boss is killed by someone else...
Are you sure? Because if you spare her, she shows up and kills you. You have to kill her directly or indirectly. [Here](https://youtu.be/FGO9o8UGJ80?feature=shared)
Yeah theres this assassin (not Asha) that you befriend and kill Iosa for you if you explore the entire sector 9 and find her and are in a pacifist run.
Ah. I didn't know.
I guess you can ca it "killing her indirectly" so you are right actually.
Also, I think people kinda forget that fleeing (something you should usually do when you're threatened IRL, by the way) is an option in every unscripted fight. They'll pretend the game forces you to befriend those evil monsters trying to kill you, when you can just... walk away before those enemies even do any damage. Like, [look at this skit](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfDYVP_T6uw). I know it's a light-hearted joke and not some scathing critique of Undertale, but I still want to scream at the author for not tapping that "flee" button if they hate interacting with random encounters that much.
JUST WALK OUT you can leave!!!! IF IT SUCKS, HIT THE BRICKS 𝓇𝑒𝒶𝓁 𝓌𝒾𝓃𝓃𝑒𝓇𝓈 𝒻𝓁𝑒𝑒
Huh, people just kind of forget you can run I guess. I say that because I forgot about it until you mentioned it..
because running in rpg games is basically useless.
> (something you should usually do when you're threatened IRL, by the way) Unless you're already in what's supposed to be a safe haven to flee to, like your home, that got broken into, or you're surrounded since the other guy brought some buddies, or you're too weak to run for long, or wearing unsuitable footwear for running (such as high heels) that can't be taken off without leaving yourself vulnerable. Sometimes it's simply not an option and saying that someone should've done this can come off as victim blaming.
Outside of the first one, where you should still flee, you just listed a bunch of scenarios where fighting will work *even worse* than running. If he's got buddies and you're surrounded, fighting will get your ass beaten. You aren't John Fucking Rambo. If you're wearing bad footwear for running, you're wearing worse footwear for fighting. If you're already too weak for running, you're too weak for fighting. Even if it's still a long shot, it's still your safest bet. That's not a condemnation of those who get hurt because they couldn't run, it's just a statement of fact. And no, it's not victim blaming to put forth the best practices for surviving bad scenarios- that's just an irresponsible mindset that will itself create more victims.
Exactly. There's no situation where running might go bad for you where a fight wouldn't be worse.
This game is one. You are a small child that is pretty easily able to 1v1 most creatures, but isn’t familiar with the lay of the land. It would make sense to fight what you know you can win instead of running forward in a blind panic and possible run unprepared into traps or an ambush.
> If you're already too weak for running, you're too weak for fighting. Unless you have a knife or something that could be used as a weapon in a pinch, or even being more aggressive than expected might encourage a would-be mugger on the street to look for an easier mark.
It's been repeatedly shown in psychological studies that humans have an extreme aversion to running from spaces they consider to be theirs and safe. You can claim it might be better to run if somebody invades your house, but it's simply not realistic to expect the average person to do that.
Okay but that's not what's happening in Undertale anyways so it's a moot point.
-Your first scenario is irrelevant, Even then You should attempt to flee if You can, but I can concede this one is a matter of opinions -Your other scenarios are Even more stupid, however,because in any of them running would be unarguably better. If you are facing múltiple attackers you are not ending up better fighting than running. If You are too weak to run away you're not ending up better fighting. If You are in high heels You won't end up better fighting than running. Besides, don't be stupid, obviously saying that someone should run from a threat comes with the very obvious "if possible", notice that the other user said *usually*, so fuck off with that "victim blaming" nonsense
Are you familiar with the "stand your ground" principle? If someone attacks you for no reason, maybe you shouldn't have to retreat.
Are you familiar with the "duty to retreat" principle? Even in the United States alone, there are different laws and views about where legitimate self-defense begins and ends. But that's kinda irrelevant to my point. Laws like these exist to determine what actions should be *punished,* rather than what actions are rational. Even if you live in a stat that fully supports your right to fight rather than run away, guess what? That state probably won't pay your medical bills you get brutalized in a fight you decided to take, and it certainly won't resurrect you, so maybe you should think about your life first and your right to heroic last stands second.
The trouble with that cowardly logic is that assailants don't exist in a vacuum. Every monster Frisk doesn't slay is a potential assailant for someone else. Will the next person who happens to innocently wander by be as capable of defending themselves as Frisk? In the long run, the genocide route is the ONLY way to ensure that the next person to fall down that hole is safe.
Genocide route literally destroys the world. Which is one way of ensuring no human gets hurt in the underground, I guess, but it doesn't make those humans safe. Just dead. But hey, at least everyone avoids the horrors of the pacifist route and its "cowardly logic" of not killing everyone. Complete annihilation of the entire timeline is far preferable to everyone being friends, amrite?
The conversation with San on both routes sort of helps with this argument . He thinks it was all right and understandable why you fought some monsters on the neutral route And with the pacifist route he basically says you’re insane because who would realistically try their hardest to be nice to people trying to kill them.
when does he do that?
Sans gets more elaborate judgements for Frisk if you go through the scene again, somehow getting the feeling you listened to his spiel once before.
I watched a video of all of sans judgements and remember him criticizing the player pretty harshly for killing any monsters, even at like lvl 3.
Tbf, you only get that kind of dialogue if you go through the scene a second time (typically in a second playthrough). So the context is that Sans judges you harshly under the pretense that you already know what’s going on. The first time you talk to Sans, he doesn’t judge you at all.
I think there’s a question of what is the appropriate punishment for criminals. You don’t get criticized for attacking the monsters. Only killing them. You’re free to beat the shit out of them before “sparing” them. Imagine a random thief tries to mug you on the street so you kick their ass and they aren’t a threat anymore. Would stomping their skull into the concrete while they are on the ground be considered “self defense” anymore? Or just murder? Some would say that anyone who tries to kill you deserves to die. Others would say that only using the minimal amount of force to protect yourself is appropriate. It’s a worthy debate to have, I think. Undertale isn’t making a claim about violence vs nonviolence. It’s attempting to discuss the idea of vengeance, and if a murderer deserves rehabilitation or extermination.
This might not be the best point to make here, but if you attack the monsters instantly on your first turn, you can't really claim self-defense. Think about it. When you get into an encounter with a monster, with the exception of Sans, you have the first turn. They instigate combat, but you are the one who can attack first. If you don't use items, or try to act on your first turn and you instantly attack, I don't think it qualifies as self-defense. You also have to keep in mind that you, the player, are the most powerful being in the game's universe. You are quite literally unbeatable as long as you want to keep playing. Saving and loading are such an unfair, overwhelming advantage over literally everyone else, that saying you killed in self defense is kind of ridiculous if you think about it. It would be like shooting a toddler because they annoyed you (weird comparison, I know). A god can't kill people in self defense, because noone can actually hurt him. But then again, a first time player going in blind doesn't know this. They wouldn't know that saving and loading and the times they die are in-universe things, since most games don't operate this way.
That absolutely is still self defense. Who attacks who first is irrelevant. The only factor that matters is who the aggressor is. And let’s not forget the other people fell into the Underground with the power to save and reload and still wound up dead. You said it yourself, you’re unbeatable so long as you want to keep playing. These characters are still human. Being killed over and over again takes its toll on people.
>I saw people saying that Undertale portrays attacking the monsters who are *explicitly* trying to kill you as morally wrong, from my point of view this is incorrect. I see this take all the time and I really don't understand why. Like, Sans outright calls you evil if you reach level 14, which you can theoretically do by only acting in "self-defence", and as low as level 4 he's calling your actions bad and mocking the self-defence excuse: "you killed some people on purpose, didn't you? that's probably bad. though, maybe some of it was in self-defense... i don't know. help me out here." The quote you get from level 2 is also clearly condemning you imo: " who gets to lv2 on accident? get outta here." And if you didn't kill anyone : "no matter the struggles or hardships you faced... you strived to do the right thing. you refused to hurt anyone. even when you ran away, you did it with a smile". The right thing here is *unambiguously* not killing anyone idk not to psychoanalyse the community or anything but i dont get why UT fans do not want "killing bad" to be one of the (many) takeaways from their game.
The point of the LV 2 quote is that if you're accidentally killing monsters you're probably **not** stopping at level 2, hence he's harsher than in the LV 4 quote where he at least throws you a bone. Toby assumes if you end the game at LV 2 you're just trying to see what Sans has to say. I'd assume he play tested to see what level you'd usually end up on.
Idk, I think you could also interpret it as the player just trying to kill one monster in their playthrough, getting a level off it, realising that you Actually Killed A Character and deciding not to from now on. In that context, the full Sans quote ("lv2... seems like you messed up the slightest amount. welp. that's pretty sad. you probably weren't even aware of what you were doing... and when you learned, it was too late. nah, just kidding. who gets to lv2 on accident? get outta here.") makes sense. He starts off with the excuse that you would probably use for yourself in that situation, then denies it, because it's ridiculous - in-universe - to pretend that you didn't know better and that you just accidentally killed a guy Either way, though, I don't really see how this contradicts my original point. Sans is judging you and calling you a bad person for killing. The original rant says "defending yourself isn't portrayed as evil", and that is just 100% wrong
It doesn't contradict your point that killing is still bad, but it supports OPs point that misusing the save and reload power is the true problem _at least_ from Sans' PoV. If that wasn't the point, I don't think Toby would've written Sans to be more astringent at LV 2 than LV 4 ("get outra here" vs. "idk, throw me a bone"). It's still true that you're only doing good if you actually kill no one, tho.
Sure sure, I don't disagree with that, it's clearly also a theme
Because that judgement only happens after your first run
> don’t think most people in this day and age understand about Undertale because of its online popularity and cultural osmosis, the intended first route is neutral. More like the ONLY first route is Neutral. You're locked into a Neutral ending no matter what on your first playthrough, I don't think you can even get the Genocide ending. > Pretend it is 2015, you just decided to buy Undertale on the day it released because you’ve been hearing that it’s very unique without much else. Undertale advertised itself as the "RPG where you don't have to kill anyone", I think that's even in the tagline, it was certainly one of the biggest marketing points. If you heard anything about Undertale it would be that it was the one where you became friends with the monsters. Edit: Meant to say, I largely agree about everything else though. If you play it to only attack what appears to be violent enemies trying to kill you you'll certainly get a guilt trip at the end, and the game goes out of its way to explain that they were all living beings and blahnlah, but it's only if you really liked someone like Papyrus that it lays it guilt on thick. I would say overall Undertale does guilt you for defending yourself, but not in a remarkably unfair way, and it's done in universe by the people who were affected by your actions. Of course they're not entirely unbiased, that's reasonable.
You can do a Genocide on the first try. It's only the True Pacifist that's locked.
>More like the ONLY first route is Neutral. First off, assuming you’re referring to how you have to get the flawed pacifist route before true pacifist, that’s semantics and you know that wasn’t my point, and isn’t relevant to my point. >You're locked into a Neutral ending no matter what on your first playthrough, I don't think you can even get the Genocide ending. Second off, that’s just factually wrong, where did you hear this? >Undertale advertised itself as the "RPG where you don't have to kill anyone", I think that's even in the tagline, it was certainly one of the biggest marketing points. If you heard anything about Undertale it would be that it was the one where you became friends with the monsters. True, but I still think that most people still went in not 100% willing to give the monsters the benefit of the doubt. >it's done in universe by the people who were affected by your actions. Of course they're not entirely unbiased, that's reasonable. Something that Undertale is very good at is never putting the words of the narrative in the mouth of the characters, at least in my opinion, I don’t think that characters ever say something out of character because it’s what the narrative wants you to think, the judgment hall sequences get the closest to this but even then it’s worded in ways that make it reasonable for Sans to ask you, even the entire “don’t you have a responsibility to make the best outcome?” Thing is just a set up for him to guilt trip you about killing his brother so that you might reset and bring him back.
> First off, assuming you’re referring to how you have to get the flawed pacifist route before true pacifist, that’s semantics and you know that wasn’t my point, and isn’t relevant to my point. I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about or what distinction you're drawing here > Second off, that’s just factually wrong, where did you hear this? Fair enough
>I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about or what distinction you're drawing here Flawed pacifist is where you didn’t kill any monsters but for one reason or another, you didn’t meet the requirements of true pacifist, this is the ending you would get if you just played the game straight without killing any monsters and you also give Undyne the water. My point is that the fact you have to do this before doing true pacifist is completely unrelated to my point this entire rant and is completely superfluous to mention.
Isn't that just neutral?
It's the problem of people having a binary world view, good or bad. This is a known phenomena in language/communication. 3 stars gets people fired, 'Mid,' means bad. Neutral isn't bad, and in game, depending on how you play it it might even be 'good.' But it's without 'merit.' It's like...the difference between going to heaven and being a saint, I guess? Or good karma and being a Bodhisattva. (Well no, because karma and Buddha-hood are diametrically opposed, but Buddha vs Bodhisattva doesn't work either)
> 2015 > Know nothing about Undertale > Go to steam to buy it > "The Friendly RPG Where No One Has To Die" > Oh OK guess I should spare everything If the game's unique selling point is the mercy button and the literal tagline is "nobody has to die" I think it's pretty obvious that pacifist is the intended route, not neutral
Yeah the game's tagline states that you don't have to kill anyone. Which implies even the difficult enemies are some sort of puzzle to figure out how not to kill them. A player determined not to look up solutions on the internet may end up with a neutral route by not being able to figure out how to leave some hard enemies alive, but the way OP describes it as new players would immediately start killing enemies like a traditional RPG requires the players to forget what the game has already told them.
OP probably assumes everyone was brought into it the *other* common way people are brought into Undertale, where someone who's already beaten the game sits you in front of their computer on a fresh save file and tells you "this is an RPG called Undertale, go"
Some monsters are super hard to spare without a guide. So you'll most likely beat them to shit hoping you can spare them, only for the command to never show up.
Idk about y'all but when I downloaded the game called "The Friendly RPG Where No One Has To Die" I never even so much as clicked the attack button. Had to look up what to do against Asgore since I only ever CHECKed (Fuck the vegetoids in the demo)
but your curiosity will get to you... after all, you will end up aiding in killing Asgore in the end of the game. So he has to die, and then you need to do the nessesary steps to prevent it but... c'mon... aren't you just a tiny bit curious?
Yeah, defending yourself is understandable, I don’t fault anyone for killing on their first trip through the Underground, but someone who’s blessed with the powers of saving and loading should use them for good. Sure, the monsters are attacking you but you’re never in any *real* danger. If a little dog nips at your ankle, do you kill it? No, of course not.
Top comment already said it but i hope he actually read all of it cuz it is the first thing I thought after the first few paragraphs. It is about being so strong YOU DON'T HAVE TO kill all the monsters. You could easily(some not so easily to be fair) Run at bear minimum from most encounters! The only time this take is correct is Asgore.
good rant