On September 15th, 2015, the world was changed forever.

One musician and rom-hacker’s indie passion project was released onto this mortal plane, and the impact of this little project cannot be understated. But you already know this story. There’s no way you don’t, or at least a fragment of it. I can guarantee you have heard “Megalovania” or seen fanart of the strange cast of characters or run into some kind of discussion about the game. And that game, of course, is UNDERTALE. A video game about video games.

As of this shrine being published on my website, it’s been ten years, and I have only ever played UNDERTALE once. It felt strange, perverse even, to reset the ending I had worked for, to experience it all over again, trying to recapture that magic. Despite its over 90 ending variations, UNDERTALE is a game that begs you not to replay it once you reach its best ending. And I have respected that, even ten years younger and stupider, I understood the weight of that idea: that I had power over these characters, these monsters, these people, and it would be a sort of soft violence to exert that power and tear them away from their happy ending, even just to grant it to them again.

Because I can’t really play the game for the first time ever again.

A lot has changed since then. Most obviously, Toby Fox is developing another game, an episodic parallel story called DELTARUNE, which might be even better than UNDERTALE! And on the more personal side of things, I... grew up. I was a preteen when UNDERTALE came out, and now I’m an adult. I’ve grown up with these characters, this world. DELTARUNE’s exciting new chapters (3 and 4) have drawn me to want to have one last adventure in the world of UNDERTALE, in celebration of its ten year anniversary. I will be doing a true-ending playthrough, and analyzing the game with my current-day, adult perspective, and perhaps even using it to analyze myself a bit.

After that, never again. Probably.

If you haven't played UNDERTALE before, I recommend you do so before you read this page. It's not a very long game at all, clocking in at about 5 or 6 hours. And play how you see fit. Kill when you feel it is necessary. Play it like any other game, and let the journey unfold before you. Then, come back when you are satisfied with your ending.

Whenever you start up the UNDERTALE application, you are treated to a little sepia-toned cutscene explaining the history of the war between humans and monsters, wherein humans forced the monsters underground with a magical barrier. Then, you are shown a scene of a small child falling down a great chasm on top of a mountain in the year “201X”, and as you begin the game, you are prompted to name the fallen child.

You do not play as this fallen child, who is the most important character in UNDERTALE. But in a way you kind of do. While when I played UNDERTALE as a kid, I gave them their canon name, Toby Fox has mentioned that you’re meant to name this character your own name. The fallen child’s relationship to the player is a key theme I will be exploring in this analysis, so I opted to give this character the nickname I used in real life, at the time I first played the game (as opposed to my current name). I figured that it would make some scenes in the endgame more poignant, and would suit the mysterious nature of this absent character. In fact, I agree with Fox here. You would be doing a disservice not to use your own name.

That's right. The human’s name... It's (YOU), isn't it?

And with that, you begin, the game hard-cutting to a small child on a bed of yellow flowers. After progressing further, you encounter the second most important character in UNDERTALE.

His name is Flowey, and he immediately tries to kill you by goading you into running into his bullets (a stealth-tutorial for the dodging-based combat). However, before he can, you are rescued by Toriel, my favorite character and a sort of loving parody of video game tutorials. She’s the self-appointed caretaker of the Ruins, and she takes in any fallen human children in order to protect you from the rest of the Underground. And with that, the story of UNDERTALE begins.

Toriel hand-holds you through the first few rooms of the first area, the Ruins and introduces the core concepts of combat- sparing and fighting, which is the dichotomy that the game uses to determine its endings. Sparing does not grant you any EXP, so you seemingly have more to gain by fighting. However, depending on which characters you kill and which you spare, different results will happen, and no two neutral playthroughs are totally alike. Famously, though, there are special endings achieved by sparing or killing every monster. (The fanon names being “Pacifist” and “Genocide”, though I’ll be using “No Mercy” instead as it feels a little gauche to throw the word genocide around about a video game given current events at the time of writing. If you have some extra cash on hand I encourage you to donate to a fundraiser on gazafunds.org to support a Palestinian family! ...And I’ll be calling the Pacifist path the “Mercy” path mostly for the sake of symmetry.)

By default your cursor will start on the FIGHT button. Choosing to go out of your way to play differently is a conscious choice. You must make the choice to be kind. You must choose MERCY.

Soon, though, Toriel leaves you to wait for her (so she can, rather sweetly, surprise you with a pie), which gives you the opportunity to explore the ruins for yourself and even fight your first miniboss-esque character, Napstablook, a shy ghost. I’ll take this opportunity to highlight something else groundbreaking about this game, at the time: its representation. UNDERTALE’s casual representation of identities were the first brushes a lot of people my age had with concepts like nonbinary gender. Here, ten minutes into the game, we have been introduced to two (or three, if you count the fallen child as having been introduced) nonbinary characters- the player character and Napstablook both use they/them. When I first got into UNDERTALE as a preteen, this was my first proper introduction to concepts like they/them pronouns. The cast also features a few gay couples, an explicitly bisexual character (Alphys) and a few trans-coded characters (killer robot Mettaton and the Switch port’s bonus boss Mad Mew Mew being transmasculine and transfeminine respectively) and I admire how casually these identities are depicted and normalized in UNDERTALE’s world. I’m sure it gave a lot of young players comfort, and the words to understand themselves.

You can also find the first shop in the game, the spider bake sale, near where you first encounter Napstablook. The spiders, ghosts, creepy-crawly monsters, fall leaves and bowl of monster-candy in the Ruins give them a sort of Halloweeny feel, which might be why they’re my favorite area in the game even still. And once you progress through the Ruins, you’ll find Toriel again, outside her house. She’ll react differently based on how much health you have (from being impressed, to worried. She’ll even heal you!) and quickly welcome you inside. (Take note of the bare tree that is described as incapable of keeping its leaves from falling off, a heartbreaking little detail).

Toriel’s house is pleasant and cozy. As a kid I would download the demo version of the game just to hang out there with her. You get your own room (filled with toys that “don’t interest you at all”, a hint that you will be leaving rather quickly) and can explore the house (where you can find your first hint that the child you named is NOT the child you are playing as, an “old calender from 201X”, the year that the named child fell down). While Toriel can entertain you with snail facts for a little bit, it’s clear that the player character wants to go home and would not be happy there (even if perhaps you would). And so, Toriel goes to destroy the Ruins’ exit, as all the previous children who came and left were killed by a monster called Asgore, the king of the underground.

Of course, the player is expected to press on. And so, a fight begins. The boss battle against Toriel is purpose-built to trap the player into fighting. Perhaps you’ve discovered while playing that getting an enemy to low health makes them able to be spared, or simply assume it’s a scripted fight. These are not the case. If you fight Toriel, you will kill her (and unless you go out of your way, she will not kill you). Talking and Sparing seemingly do nothing. The game is built around having you inadvertently kill your kind and loving guide. However, you can reload your save. The action is undone. Eventually you may find that repeatedly sparing her will eventually end the fight nonviolently, and she will agree to let you go.

Something that strikes me is how quickly Toriel realizes that you will be unhappy, resignedly so- as well as all the little hints that she is desperately sad and lonely. The tiny shelf of books that she has worn out through rereading, the constant calling on her cellphone and the way she’s just so happy to have someone there with her... It’s sad. Obviously she doesn’t want you to be in danger outside of the tiny ruins, but there’s something more miserable than even that. It’s later revealed that her best friend is a voice she hears knocking on the Ruins’ door whose name she doesn’t even know (and it’s possible her initial plan to destroy the exit would have effectively cut her off from her only adult friend, which speaks to her protective desperation). I didn’t realize this as a kid, but Toriel is deeply unhappy, frozen in time. I mean, she openly calls herself pathetic. She realizes she cannot fundamentally provide what you need, because she can't do it for herself.

After the battle if you backtrack to the first room in the game, you can find her tending to the flowerbed. She tells you not to worry about her. She’s going to stay here, in self-imposed banishment.

And so. You leave. But not before you encounter Flowey. No matter the actions you took, he will have something to say about it. If you, say, killed Toriel but reloaded to spare her, he will taunt you about it. If you killed lots of monsters but spared her, he will call you out on your hypocrisy. If you go out of your way to grind encounters until no monsters are left alive, he will be thrilled.

Remembering things that were reset is one of Undertale’s best little gimmicks. Savescumming is a common practice with games like these, but hardly ever do games remember and comment on it. Subtle things on a replay, like Flowey being annoyed that he has to introduce himself, or Toriel correctly guessing your flavor preference, or the game remembering how many times you’ve died to certain enemies, are effectively used to enrich the game experience. I got some of these bits of altered text as I played around a bit in the short Hard Mode before resetting and beginning my playthrough. As I didn’t kill anyone in the Ruins, Flowey taunts me that some day, I’ll encounter an enemy that can never be spared, and will kill me over and over. Will I perservere, or will I finally take a life?

On that note... let’s talk about determination. At this point in the game you’ll probably have long since noticed that all the save points in the game have flavor text about something “filling you with determination”. Determination is the in-universe source of your power to save and reload, to quite literally continue playing the game. Essentially, the thing that keeps us battling against difficult bosses in real life. The will to keep trying, again and again. The will to keep playing, and what gives humans (players) so much more power than monsters (in-game constructs). I can essentially time travel. They can’t. I have “determination”, which “de-terminates” me. We’ll learn a little later that human souls are unique in that they linger on after death, unlike the monsters who can be permanently killed, we can always try again.

Anyway. Now we’re in Snowdin. The “real” underground. No more handholding. We know how things work, now. Monsters want to capture us, and as soon as we leave, we're approached by a figure in the woods asking to shake your hand. This, of course, is the harmless prankster Sans the skeleton, who warns you about his brother Papyrus, aspiring member of the king’s royal guard. His lifelong dream is to capture you, but you find quickly that he's rather ineffectual and just likes constructing puzzles. Sans encourages you to humor him.

These two are by far the most popular members of the cast. Back in 2016 you couldn't walk two steps on the ‘net without running into fan content of Sans and Papyrus (Sans especially!), so at the time I developed a severe dislike of the characters and would proclaim that they were overrated and cringe whenever I could. This behavior was, of course, embarrassing and childish of me, and despite enjoying their antics on my first playthrough I had effectively distanced myself from sincerely enjoying the experience in retrospect. Because Sans was “cringe”. I spread this toxicity openly and wielded it against those more sincere than I.

On a replay, however, I actually quite liked both of them, especially Papyrus. You get the impression that behind his arrogant facade that he is a deeply lonely character, who's main motivation for becoming a big shot royal guardsman is so he can be “POPULAR! POPULAR! POPULAR!” and know how it feels to have friends. While he's close with Undyne, he mentions that he somehow has a negative follower count online and seems to struggle with socialization (and Undyne later reveals that she doesn't really want to let him achieve his dream of being part of the royal guard, due to his softhearted nature). You're given a lot of opportunities to insult him or play along, and I found myself playing along every time. I couldn't bring myself to insult him, because I get it.

As for Sans... He’s is a consistently friendly and playful presence, running his hot dog stands and giving advice and telling jokes, though the most compelling parts of his character are revealed later on. Generally, the monsters of Snowdin are just as friendly as likeable as the monsters of the Ruins, making you wonder if Toriel was perhaps mistaken in her fears...

Papyrus, of course, struggles to commit to capturing you. As you progress through Snowdin (as an aside: I fought and spared the secret boss Glyde along the way, which was a fun time) he will gradually begin to think of you as a friend. When he decides to confront you at the exit, the boss fight is much more silly than climactic, as he can never kill you. Even Toriel can kill you! But Papyrus will simply relocate you to a flimsy cage in his garage. There is, also, no way to kill Papyrus that isn't in cold blood. Fighting him will progress the fight towards the spare-conditions more quickly than you can deplete his HP, and even on the no mercy route he begins the battle by sparing you. If he is killed, the repercussions are felt the most heavily compared even to other main characters. Papyrus’s death can never be justified. At the end of the battle, Papyrus excitedly encourages you to go talk to Asgore, the “fuzzy pushover”, sure that he’ll allow you to cross the barrier. But will things really be that easy...?

Compared to the lighthearted and funny Snowdin, the dark and beautiful Waterfall is contemplative and solemn. It's here where you can learn more about the great and terrible war, and how much power a human soul has compared to that of monsters. While I accepted this as simply a part of the lore in Undertale back then, now I believe strongly that “human” is the fiction’s stand-in for player, those living on the metafictional level of “the real”. You are a real person; the monsters are bound by the limitation of their medium. You have immense power over them, to kill them permanently, to recant any action you’ve taken, to persist after death, because it is a game to you. The humans mobilized against the monsters out of fear, and because they simply could. Because games are about killing monsters. UNDERTALE simply gives you choice.

While you explore Waterfall, you will find plants called “echo flowers”, which repeat any speech or sounds they’ve heard. This is used to great effect to keep the area feeling lonely and isolated, while also painting a more effective picture at how miserable things are in wider underground society. This started being touched on back in Snowdin town, with mentions of overcrowding, gentrification, and resignation. But in Waterfall, you directly hear all the wishes of the monsters, hopes hung on fake stars glimmering in the dark. All the while, the captain of the royal guard, Undyne, hunts you down. Unlike Papyrus, she is a legitimate threat to your safety, and fully intends on murdering you. You may have noticed a trend of escalation: the boss of the Ruins is a character who shows you immense kindness; the boss of Snowdin is a lovable goof, even if he does want to capture you and gets in your way; once you get to Waterfall you’re contending with an attempted child murderer who can’t be talked down in battle (though her reasoning is justified, and motivated by her love of monsterkind). She’s humanized by the moments she spends allowing Monster Kid (your companion for the Waterfall segment) to trail behind her, as well as her close friendship with Papyrus. Simply put, she is the hero of a story, but not yours.

You’ll also find the comic relief area, Temmie Village. Here you can purchase the best armor in the game (Temmie Armor, which must first be unlocked by paying for the Tem’s college fund and then can be purchased for a lot of money in the shop). On my original playthrough I spent the better part of a day selling off Dog Residue and dying repeatedly to lower the price so I could get Temmie Armor as soon as possible, but I decided to forgo it this time around. I did, however, pay for Temmie’s college fund.

Eventually, Undyne will corner you and challenge you to a fight. All you can do is run from her. I remember struggling a lot with this fight as a kid since I didn’t realize you could run from bosses at all. Flowey’s taunt at the end of the Ruins- that you might some day find an enemy that never gives up, and kills you over and over again- feels like direct foreshadowing for Undyne. However, if you run far enough to wind up in Hotland, she will collapse from the heat. If you get a cup of water from the nearby water cooler to cool her off, she’ll give up, and walk away. If you’ve befriended Papyrus at his date/hangout, he’ll have offered an invitation to hang out with Undyne, which she awkwardly goes along with purely due to Papyrus’s reverse psychology. (As a side note, Papyrus’s friendly personality pretty much enables the mercy route to happen! He’s the glue that sticks everyone together, which comes back into play near the end. The worst neutral endings tend to be the ones where he dies!) It’s one of my favorite comedy segments in the game and it makes you understand perfectly why they’re both such good friends. They’re just turned up to 11 all of the time and match each other’s energy. It’s great, and it also offers more insight on Asgore, and Undyne’s time training with him. The king is always mentioned briefly and in passing, but the picture the monsters paint of him is in stark contrast towards the way Toriel describes him. They call him fluffybuns and a fuzzy pushover. A sweet guy who loves to garden and frequently goes out to spend time with his subjects! Undyne seemed scary at first, but she’s just kind of a goofball once you get to know her. Maybe things really will go well when you meet with Asgore. Maybe you’ll go home. All in all, the get-together goes pretty well, considering the house gets burnt down and all.

In Hotland, you’re immediately greeted with a massive laboratory looming over the volcanic environment. Inside, you realize that you're being filmed- and have been your whole journey (in some specific previous areas you can even find the hidden cameras!)- by the nervous, dorky royal scientist, Alphys. She explains that she created a killer robot named Mettaton but is so taken with your quest that she has decided to aid you. As you explore Hotland, Mettaton will rope you into various dangerous TV show sets (like a cooking show where the key ingredient is a human soul, or a newscast based around you diffusing various bombs, and so on) where somehow, just in the nick of time, Alphys is able to save you from his deadly stunts.

Alphys has always been kind of a divisive character. We learn gradually that she set this whole thing up so she can be a hero in your story, and she does quite a bit of lying to get everything in place. You were never in any real danger, but it also means that your initial friendship is based entirely on a lie (and it’s not the only thing she’s lying about, as we learn later). Couple that with her “annoying” weeaboo personality, and her very human, very grounded flaws tend to hit a bit close to home for a lot of players. I personally love her and always thought she was well written, but it is interesting to see that the characters people hate tend to be the ones that are their mirrors. The characters we hate- not just disagree with, but HATE- say a lot about us. I, a socially awkward autistic preteen, disliked the naive and passionate Papyrus, and I hated Sans because I wanted to distance myself from being the archetypical “cringe Undertale fan”, when the call was absolutely coming from inside the house, there. I still sort of feel like I need to “atone” for making my enjoyment of the game- a game that encourages the player to have a certain level of vulnerability- all about petty fandom squabbles and forcing myself to have contrarian opinions to make myself look cooler than people who were simply passionate about a character they liked. I guess that’s Alphys-like of me, too. Maybe Mew Mew Kissie Cutie 2 was a better sequel in the end.

The entrance to the CORE, which stands between Hotland and Asgore’s castle, lays at the end of your journey, marked by the MTT Resort, which is your last little rest stop to purchase items and prepare for your journey’s end. Sans is waiting there for you and offers to take you to the restaurant to have a little chat, where he reveals that he and Toriel frequently spoke to each other through the door to the Ruins, and had him promise to never harm a human who came through that very same door. He openly admits that if he hadn’t made this promise, you would already be dead- a chilling moment, but it also explains why he never takes action against you as he watches your journey no matter who you kill (including his own brother), unless you reach the absolute pinnacle of cruelty. It’s one of his most interesting moments, and ties interesting to his later role as your final moral judge before you reach Asgore. As a side note, I didn't appreciate the ambiguity in his line “take care of yourself, kid. 'cause someone really cares about you.” enough until now. Is he talking about Toriel, himself, or both?

You have a final confrontation with Mettaton, who has flipped the script on Alphys and makes a genuine attempt on your life. She is actually able to genuinely help you, here, helping you to flip the switch on his back to switch him from his impenetrable defensive form to the humanoid EX form so you can win the fight. As a side note, Mettaton is a neat character. You wouldn’t know if you just experienced the story cutscenes, but if you purchase the “Mystery Key” item from Bratty and Catty you can actually enter his house in Waterfall, revealing that he used to be a ghost, and Napstablook’s cousin, and as much of a fan of human culture as Alphys is. Alphys built him an ideal body that reflects his identity (as in Undertale, ghosts can bond with objects to become corporeal), which is why his EX form resembles a human man. When he tries to take your soul, it’s because he wants to cross the barrier and perform for all the people on the surface. You can spare him by gradually building up the ratings by out-performing him and gaining viewership for the grand finale. His viewers will call in and remind him that he’s beloved in the underground, too, and as his battery life dies, the episode concludes, and you’re free to go.

And only Asgore remains.

And so, Alphys admits what everyone’s been dancing around this whole time- a human soul cannot cross the barrier alone. A human soul and a monster can combine to pass through, and only seven human souls can break it. No matter what happens, either you or Asgore must die for one of you to cross the barrier. One last lie, because the monsters know that either their beloved king or their new friend must be killed violently. In other words... It’s kill or be killed.

And so you leave, leaving things awkward and sad with your last moment with Alphys, and you head off to NEW HOME, a pale, colorless reflection of the Ruins. And as you enter Asgore’s house, various monsters appear to you and narrate the story of the first fallen human, and Asriel, the king’s son. The child was adopted into the family, and they and Asriel were the closest and dearest of friends. However, one day, the child fell ill, and died, with their last wish being to see the golden flowers of the surface one last time. And so, Asriel absorbed their soul, and crossed the barrier holding the child’s body. However, when the humans saw the monster and the dead child, they reacted with violence. Asriel refused to fight back, and returned to the underground, and perished, turning to dust. The king’s garden of golden flowers grew where he fell, a massive, living grave. From then on, Asgore swore revenge against humanity, that he would wage war and break the barrier. Toriel, the queen, was disgusted, and disappeared.

“Aren’t you excited? Aren’t you happy? You’re going to be free,” the monsters tell you, as you march towards your death, with the knowledge that if you succeed in your quest, if you are not slain, you condemn them all to waiting, waiting for another. Waiting forever, maybe.

There are a lot of things you can glean about Asgore based on his house- crumpled up recipes for replicas of Toriel’s pies, old sweaters presumably made by his kids, unopened gift boxes, a little note telling you to come visit him in the garden... Asgore’s house is also a recolor of Toriel’s. In both versions of the house, there is a mirror you can interact with. In Toriel’s house, it simply tells you: “It’s you!” Asgore’s, however...

“Despite everything, it’s still you.”

This is the phrase that brought the first tears to my eyes in this playthrough. Despite myself, I started sobbing. It had been ten years since 2015, my “201X”, and when I first played Undertale, I was a middle schooler. I had gone through so much trauma, had the kindness in me shattered and lashed out at the people I loved; had been suffocated by irony and apathy and only recently began to pick up the pieces. It’s not an exaggeration to say that in high school... I was exactly the sort of person who would have climbed Mt. Ebott in hopes of disappearing. While I’m a much happier person now, the weight of the time that had passed only served to enrich the game’s text. I’m still here, UNDERTALE is still here, and I am still capable of the cathartic vulnerability and joy that art like this can create. I hadn’t cried during a work of fiction like this in years. It was like a soft, comforting hug from an old, forgiving friend I hadn’t seen in years. It still makes me a little weepy. I’m so happy I can still cry, that I’m still capable of being stripped down to something so raw after these years of painful metamorphosis. It’s still me! Despite everything! Despite everything, it’s still me. Of course.

And so, laid bare, I progressed to the hall of judgment, where Sans, the judge who has been watching you since almost the beginning, weighs every bit of EXP, or rather “EXecution Points”, and LV, or rather “Level Of ViolencE”. The acronyms are a little forced but the point remains: the more numbers, the more stats you increase, the more you distance yourself from the fantasy the game presents. You cannot increase your EXP or LV without killing.

I didn’t take a single life on this playthrough, so Sans gave me a favorable judgment, proud of how far I had come. But regardless of how many you kill, as long as you aren’t on the warpath of the no mercy route, he will allow you to pass, and seek counsel with Asgore, who is watering his flowers. He’s shocked when you appear to him, and assures you that your visit will be just like a trip to the dentist. He’s hesitant, as he leads you to the barrier. It’s as hard for him as it is for you, reliving the death of his child for the eighth time over.

And with one blow from his trident, the MERCY button, that constant part of your UI, is gone, because he knows that if you refuse to fight, he’ll break. It’s one of the only fights in the game where mercy just isn’t an option. You must fight on. (One detail I love is that he won’t finish you off unless you’re already reduced to 1 HP, showing his utter hesitation at this grim task!) All of his attacks parallel Toriel’s, and if you saved the pie she baked for you, then eating it here will reduce his defense and attack. The track that plays here (ASGORE) is my absolute favorite in the game, with the slight microtonality, references to the game over theme (Determination) and Toriel’s battle (Heartache), it’s just so perfectly climactic and heartwrenching at once. It’s a devastating parallel.

Asgore and Toriel have their differences, but at their hearts they are the same character: self-isolating, trapped by grief, waiting and waiting, passively, for fallen children- defined by their inaction. Knowing that the places they found themselves in are suffocating and claustrophobic with each passing day, but that the choice to leave or take action is that much harder. That is why Asgore didn’t cross the border when he collected the first soul, but rather waited for years and years while his people languished, and why Toriel wanted to trap you there in the Ruins with her. They share the same vice but yearn for family, for that sunlit past, just the same, broken by what happened to Asriel and the fallen child. Asgore hesitates to fight you for exactly the same reasons. I think that’s why the Heartache leitmotif works so well here, and not just because of their shared past!

You have probably spent the whole game trying not to kill anybody. Presented with this battle, you are forced to fight, feeling the same sadness, grief and reluctance that Asgore must feel about having to fight you.

Eventually, you will reduce Asgore to his last bit of health, and he will offer up his soul to you so that you may cross the barrier. You are given the option to kill or spare him here, and if you choose to use mercy he will fantasize about a world where you could remain here with him and Toriel, a fantasy as sweet and foolish as the idea of staying with Toriel in the Ruins. (And on a second neutral route playthrough, he’ll realize this, too, and will commit suicide and give you his soul, and encourage you to do what he could not and find a way to free the monsters.) Regardless of what choice you make, though, Flowey will appear to finish him off and destroy his soul so you can’t absorb it and finish the game, and reveals that while the battle raged on, he stole the six human souls, which has allowed him to steal back his power over the game and the SAVE system. Then, the game crashes.

When you open up the game again, it begins to glitch out and you realize that your file is gone, replaced with a maxed-out Flowey save file. The only way to escape is to defeat him, despite his impossible power and his ability to save and reload to ensure you take as much damage as possible. But with so many souls inside him, his form is unstable, and one by one, each reaches out from within him, gradually revealing that all the armors and weapons you find on your quest belonged originally to the fallen children. You must survive long enough to find the ACT button among all the bullets and attacks, to call out for help, turning murder weapons into instruments of love and positivity, healing you for the next barrage of Flowey’s attacks. Eventually, all six souls rebel against Flowey, and the game is won. He has to stop playing.

Afterwards, Sans calls the player to inform them of how things have changed in the underground since their departure: who takes up leadership, how everyone is doing, and so on. Sometimes Alphys might take her own life, sometimes Undyne leads a rebellion against Toriel, sometimes the Annoying Dog might even take over. There are many variations on how this ending call can go depending on who you killed and how many, but with the human souls gone, the monsters are now trapped for even longer.

The human child never picks up. I think they might actually be dead in these neutral endings, honestly. You need a monster soul to cross the barrier and Asgore’s was destroyed. Flowey and the 6 souls don’t have enough power to break it or pass through. How would you fare any better? Obviously there’s a counterpoint, in that your character is shown alive and passing through the final doorway, but the neutral ending calls are always so somber, with a sad piano track (An Ending) playing. There is always some element of tragedy to these endings, even if you did everything just right. (I’m very glad UNDERTALE requires you get a neutral ending before you progress onwards in the mercy route, as some of the game’s best bosses and coolest moments are found in this ending stretch.)

Neutral runs are very interesting to me, since they’re meant to represent games as you’re “supposed to” play them. Your average player, aware of RPG genre conventions but not aware of UNDERTALE’s central conceit (a vanishing demographic given the game’s popularity) will kill on instinct, as that’s what you’re meant to do in games. They might even grind random encounters to get some extra HP, and will assume Toriel is meant to be fought or killed, or end up slaying Undyne, or all manner of typical RPG gameplay. What UNDERTALE does is pull back the curtain and show you a tangible consequence to this normalized killing, and question why so much of our pop culture has such a cavalier attitude about the ending of lives. You have an effect on the world you inhabit, after all. UNDERTALE simply adds that extra layer of realism.

Regardless, afterwards, Flowey will appear to you and tell you what you should try in order to get a better ending. In my case, that’s to go patch things up with Alphys. Now that I have achieved an ending, this flags me to get a call from Undyne when I return from New Home, telling me to deliver a love letter to Alphys (I didn’t touch on it much but throughout the game there’s been mentions of their close friendship and Alphys’s crush on her). Perfect. Maybe this will help her to regain her confidence and make sure we can achieve an ending where everyone’s happy.

Alphys misunderstands the letter and assumes that your character wrote it and goes on a sort of pity date with you, which quickly devolves into a sort of impromptu roleplay when she admits that she has feelings for Undyne. Undyne finds you both, which prompts her to come clean about lying about herself and her knowledge of human history to sound cooler. It just devolves into chaos from there, with Papyrus becoming Alphys’s confidence coach. However, after the “date” is finished, you receive a suspicious call from Papyrus (who sounds like he’s being put up to it...?) encouraging you to go investigate her lab.

And then, the game’s horror segment begins: the “True Lab”. Here, we find Alphys’s greatest failure, what she’s been hiding all this time.

When she was appointed as the royal scientist, Asgore gave her the mission to somehow make monster souls persist past death, to perhaps be able to substitute for the final human soul (which is a neat bit of characterization for Asgore, that he’s so desperate to find a way around his vow of vengeance behind the scenes...). Alphys finds a sort of spiritual substance called “Determination”, the human soul’s ability to persist after death, and injects it into several monsters on the brink of death, with the consent of their families, and she also attempts injecting it into an object, the precious first golden flower that bloomed in Asgore’s garden. (Which, as you recall, came from the surface and bloomed where Asriel perished.)

At first, it seems to have had a happy albeit unintended ending- all the comatose monsters wake up, alive, and seemingly all is well. Alphys tells their families that they'll be able to go home soon.

It doesn't last.

The monsters are unable to handle the high amounts of DT in their system. It just isn't meant for their bodies to process. And so, they begin to... melt. Melding together into indistinct creatures called the “amalgamates”. And Alphys has been hiding them all this time, terrified of what happens when their families find out. Around the same time, the flower disappears (you get one guess as to who that is!). The guilt inside is crushing (in some neutral endings she's even implied to take her own life) and it is by venturing into this den of pure medical horror that you are able to save her from it.

This whole area of the game terrified me as a kid. It was one of my first intimate brushes with body horror and the idea of melting into a suffering, mindless creature was like my own personal nightmare. The way they mess with the UI, like the Memoryheads’ ACT commands being from the main overworld menu, Lemon Bread disguising itself as a save point, and Reaper Bird extending its body over the text box were especially frightening to me. In any other game you'd be expected to put them out of their misery, but fighting doesn't work here.

Because the perfect little twist here is that they're just people. People in a bad situation that struggle to communicate with you, but their wants, needs and desires still shine through. One of them is partially Snowdrake’s disappeared mother, and she still calls out for her son and is calmed by hearing his jokes. Endogeny is just a playful doggy (er, doggies...) who wants to be petted. Lemon Bread just wants some personal space. They're spared like any other monster, and it's hard for me to be so frightened by them now that I understand who they are. Why should they die just because they've changed? They're just like us.

Along the way, you’ll find a TV and a collection of tapes that Alphys ominously says that Asgore probably shouldn't see. They're from before Asriel and the first fallen child died, and you get the most intimate possible look at what led up to that event. After the two siblings accidentally make Asgore sick by substituting poisonous buttercups for cups of butter, the fallen child has a horrible, painful idea- a sacrifice that would free all of monsterkind. All they have to do is ingest the flowers, die a long and suffering death, allow Asriel to take their soul, and to collect six more souls in order to shatter the barrier. Asriel has reservations about the plan, and is horrified by how sick the child becomes. But there's no backing out. And so, he ventures to the surface, with the body of the child...

The fallen child, who committed suicide.

The fallen child, who bears your name.

(YOU).

When you finally turn the power back on in the lab, the amalgamates swarm you, but Alphys comes to your rescue in the nick of time, explaining that they're not scary at all- they're just hungry for the potato chips you probably picked up along the way. Seeing you there, she explains all the guilt and shame she felt for her awful failure, and resolves to finally send everyone home to their families and finally own up to the truth. And with that, everyone is appeased. You take the elevator, which mysteriously takes you straight to New Home... And a mysterious voice on your phone tells you that you've done well, and that he’ll see you soon.

The showdown with Asgore ends anticlimactically- Toriel returns to stop the battle, knowing that one of you will die if it continues. All of the various friends you made along the way follow as well to reassure you that maybe things could be okay, living here with them. They were seemingly all called there by Papyrus... who shares that he knew to do so because of a little, golden flower...

Of course, Flowey has returned. Pushing you into the mercy route was a plot to gain all of the souls in the underground, as the power of every monster soul is just enough to equate to the seventh and final soul he needs. And so, he absorbs them all, achieving apotheosis. Finally, he regains his true form...!

Your best friend...

Asriel wants only one thing: to fight you forever, with your ultimate powers in an unending stalemate. He, the ABSOLUTE GOD OF HYPERDEATH, and you, (YOU), the undying player.

Because he’s been living in this world for so long, that you’re the only unpredictable part of it. You’re the only thing that he cares about anymore. You’re his best friend. You’re the fallen child. You’re (YOU). You’re the only one who’s any fun to play with. If you get a happy ending, a real and true one, you’ll stop playing. He’ll be alone again.

And he can’t abide by that. It doesn’t matter if he has to kill everyone to keep you there with him. He has to keep playing, even if some part of him knows that he’ll never be that happy again, after all that happened to him- slain, experimented on, and forced into an eternal undeath- but even still, he’s just a kid. All of his attacks have dramatic and silly names like “CHAOS SABER” and “SHOCKER BREAKER”. You really get the impression that he’s a little kid playing pretend with “I dodged it and instant killed you no takebacks” logic. You respond in kind- your soul literally “refuses”/re-fuses when killed (see the double meaning of “determination”/de-termination), and the battle continues. Eventually, Asriel enters a much more powerful form, and all you can do is struggle, until you’re given the option to call out to your friends’ souls inside of Asriel, lost souls without memory or joy. To SAVE them, you must remind them of the time you spent together. Toriel, Sans, Papyrus, Undyne, Alphys, Asgore. With their power, you can finally reach out to SAVE... someone else.

Asriel.

And so, you cut to the core of his grief, the friendship he cherished so much with you. Of course it’s you. He pleads to you by name not to leave him again. And god, this moment hits just as hard as the aforementioned mirror scene. Tears just flowed out of me. It’s you. Asriel was so hurt by what you (I) did, lashing out in despair and hatred at the world, self-destructing for some desperate attempt to make things right. He was left alone so long, because he lost you (me), someone so dear and special to him. He says, “I’m not ready to say goodbye to someone like you again.” But to SAVE him is to aid him in accepting his grief.

And it has been a long time, and this was our second goodbye. I think that’s why it hurt so much.

Finally realizing that the child standing in front of him isn't you (unaware of the other side of the screen, of course) and realizing that he’ll never win and have you back, he finally relents, reverting back into a child and expressing guilt for everything he did. You are given the option to comfort and forgive him, which I find to be understatedly poignant. Without saying too much on the no mercy route just yet, one of the questions poised is, “do you think even the worst person can change?”. The path of mercy posits an optimistic answer.

Asriel, as Flowey, killed so many people across many different timelines. The intro to his boss fight calculates his LV as 9999. He took the souls of everyone you care about. He’s tormented and tortured you over and over. But you've forgiven Undyne, and Alphys, and even Asgore. Most players forgive Asriel without hesitation. UNDERTALE just... makes you into a forgiving person, over time. By the time you’ve crossed this precipice, you have the compassion to understand and alleviate that hurt.

Asriel, too, feels the compassion you shared with the monsters, saying “I wish I could tell you how everybody feels about you,” telling you how much you are loved. He asks for the child’s name- not yours, but the main character’s. It's Frisk.

He can't stay “himself” forever, without the souls, at least. And so, he lets them go, aware that he’s bound to become Flowey again, in the final moment, shattering the barrier. The monsters will go free.

The “canon” name for the first fallen child is Chara (as the game will give you the message “The true name.” upon entering it, as a nod to how the sprites for the two human characters are denoted in the game’s files, truechara and mainchara) and on my first playthrough I used that name, wishing to be “canon-compliant”. However... However... I think this does the game a disservice. Recall how I mentioned that Toby Fox suggested giving them your own name. This creates a neat little trick where the game will address you directly, but it also means that any mention of (YOU) is one that you will inevitably end up reflecting back on.

For years, the fandom has been treating “Chara”, the main character, and the player as three separate entities, with varying explanations as to how it all works and interpretations of who “Chara” is. However, I believe that “Chara” is the player, and the player is “possessing” the main character. They’re you. (Why else would they be from 201X, the era that the game came out?) That’s why Asriel so badly wants you to stay with him. You’re the only “real person” he knows.

The characters throughout the game are haunted by the tragedy of the two children, both directly and indirectly. How fitting is it that the ghost haunting that narrative is you, the supernatural creature with power that expands beyond the boundaries of the game- the power to persist after death?

Asriel’s rampage kind of reminds me of Pokémon creepypastas, of all things. Within them, particularly ones written in the deviantart era, the games are treated as “alive”, with abandoned Pokémon- game constructs YOU grew bored of over time, or tried to hack with a GameShark, and so on- react with genuine hurt, and lash out at the fiction that contains them, a trail of blood in their wake. These pastas were mostly written by preteen aged authors, just on the precipice of growing out of their interests, and often carry the subtext of that grief. Asriel is that abandoned creature (and this will make even more sense with some information revealed near the end of the no mercy route), but I think this idea of the game existing and feeling in your absence is also enriched with the subtext of suicide.

(YOU) left this world- this world full of loving people, who were so changed by your presence- behind before, because you killed yourself, after all. Your journey is colored by the shadow you left behind.

Before credits roll, you're given the option to traverse the underground, sharing the news and checking on all the monsters you've met on your journey, seeing the ways your presence and actions have changed their lives. Families reunite, hopes are restored, and the surface promises a bright and shining tomorrow. This full-game walkaround was one I was especially attached to as a kid, for weeks I would just boot up the game just to go talk to everyone, and talk, and talk. The credits rolled many times.

If you walk all the way back to the start of the ruins, where you fell down, you can speak to Asriel, in a parallel to Toriel before you leave the Ruins at the beginning of the game. Here, he'll share more about his past with you, the player. I’ll just paste it here:

“Frisk... Hey. Let me ask you a question. Frisk... Why did you come here? Everyone knows the legend, right...? ‘Travellers who climb Mt. Ebott are said to disappear.’ Frisk. Why would you ever climb a mountain like that? Was it foolishness? Was it fate? Or was it... Because you...? Well. Only you know the answer, don't you...?

I know why (YOU) climbed the mountain. It wasn't for a very happy reason. Frisk. I'll be honest with you. (YOU) hated humanity. Why they did, they never talked about it. But they felt very strongly about that. Frisk... You really ARE different from (YOU). In fact, though you have similar, uh, fashion choices... I don't know why I ever acted like you were the same person. Maybe... The truth is... (YOU) wasn't really the greatest person. While, Frisk... You're the type of friend I wish I always had. So maybe I was kind of projecting a little bit. Let's be honest. I did some weird stuff as a flower.

There's one last thing I feel like I should tell you. Frisk, when (YOU) and I combined our SOULs together... The control over our body was actually split between us. They were the one that picked up their own empty body. And then, when we got to the village... They were the one that wanted to... to use our full power. I was the one that resisted. And then, because of me, we... Well, that's why I ended up a flower. This whole time, I've blamed myself for that decision. That's why I adopted that horrible view of the world. ‘Kill or be killed.’ But now... After meeting you... Frisk, I don't regret that decision anymore. I did the right thing. If I killed those humans... We would have had to wage war against all of humanity. And in the end, everyone went free, right? I still feel kind of sad knowing how long it took... so maybe it wasn't a perfect decision. But you can't regret hard choices your whole life, right? Well, not that I have much of a life left. But that's besides the point.

Frisk, thank you for listening to me. You should really go be with your friends now, OK? Oh, and, please... In the future, if you, uh, see me... Don't think of it as me, OK? I just want you to remember me like this. Someone that was your friend for a little while. Oh, and Frisk... Be careful in the outside world, OK? Despite what everyone thinks, it's not as nice as it is here. There are a lot of Floweys out there. And not everything can be resolved by just being nice. Don't kill, and don't be killed, alright? That's the best you can strive for.”

I find this dialogue so moving. It is outright confirmation that (YOU) was suicidal, who found an escape for a little while. It shows the way that hurt causes us to hurt others. It’s an invitation to self-reflect. But it also shows how far you have come since then- to reach this ending, you must learn to wield the mercy that Asriel once showed. You become the sort of person, through inhabiting Frisk, that Asriel wishes (YOU) could have been.

Because, despite everything... Well, I’m sure you know.

I just think about it a lot, I guess, that the assumed audience surrogate of UNDERTALE is an abused, suicidal, misanthropic child (and let’s not ignore the implications that Frisk may have been suicidal and abused, as well. I mean, their starting armor is a bandage that is noted as heavily used...). It’s a game that takes it seriously, and treats the subject with kindness and care by speaking directly to the child psyche. By being an escape, a purpose-built catharsis machine. I didn’t realize it then, but now... I understand. UNDERTALE was made for me. It was made for you. It was made for all of us, to give us the will to keep on living.

That “determination”.

I find Asriel’s discussion of the cruelty of the outside world to be a sort of acknowledgement of our real world. In real life, you can’t heal cruelty by selecting the right thing on an RPG menu. Not everyone can be talked down from cruelty. Some people really are as sadistic as Flowey, and (YOU) wasn’t wrong to feel so hurt by what humanity did. UNDERTALE challenges you to keep on living and being kind anyway. When you “leave the underground”, you should take these lessons, these ideals with you. Don’t kill, and don’t be killed.

For the third time in the playthrough, I cried. I’m not ashamed to admit it. I sobbed! I still find myself ashamed of how mean and detached and cruel I was during my adolescence as a direct result of being hurt by others, and here was a game telling me I had to forgive myself, and keep on living. My old friend, my UNDERTALE.

And I think that’s why the game is so special to so many people, because it invites you to read yourself into it. UNDERTALE trains you to forgive, so that you can forgive yourself.

Having spoken to everyone, with all my loose ends tied up, I changed my name in my save-file to the one I currently go by, Noa. Then, I watched the credits, let the monsters go free, and with that, I said goodbye. It just felt right.

Flowey can never become Asriel again, so changed is he by his trauma. Some part of him will always be different. Changed. Empty. The inability to “save Asriel” is one that people have brought up about this ending many times, complete with many AUs and fancomics wherein Frisk grants him their soul, or some other solution to make him “innocent” again. But I think I like what the game presents better.

Because in a way, we really did change him for the better. He can never be what he was before, but perhaps there is a sparkle of compassion in him yet. Despite everything, and despite his words... it's still him.

Once you’ve watched the credits, Flowey appears to you. But not to threaten or manipulate, this time. He makes a plea, a plea to you, a plea to the being on the other side of the screen.

“Hi. Seems as if everyone is perfectly happy. Monsters have returned to the surface. Peace and prosperity will rule across the land. Take a deep breath. There's nothing left to worry about. ...Well. There is one thing. One last threat. One being with the power to erase EVERYTHING... Everything everyone's worked so hard for. You know who I'm talking about, don't you?

That's right. I'm talking about YOU. YOU still have the power to reset everything. Toriel, Sans, Asgore, Alphys, Papyrus, Undyne... If you so choose... Everyone will be ripped from this timeline... and sent back before all of this ever happened. Nobody will remember anything. You'll be able to do whatever you want.

That power. I know that power. That's the power you were fighting to stop, wasn't it? The power that I wanted to use. But now, the idea of resetting everything... I... I don't think I could do it all again. Not after that. So, please. Just let them go. Let Frisk be happy. Let Frisk live their life.

But. If I can't change your mind. If you DO end up erasing everything... You have to erase my memories, too. I'm sorry. You've probably heard this a hundred times already, haven't you...? Well, that's all. See you later...

(YOU).”

He pleads for compassion, for you to accept the closure the game provides.

This also further affirms that the fallen child is none other than the player’s fictionalized reflection. And it poses a certain moral weight to deciding to reset the game: the only way you can let your “ghost” rest is to allow yourself to be finished, and go on to “play” in real life. This is a satisfying ending, and most players will be happy knowing that they’ve solved every problem, saved everyone, and achieved the “true ending”. However...

There is one more ending, right? Even I haven't played it. One with secret super-hard bosses and unique story content, tucked out of the way. All you have to do is kill everyone, until no random encounters remain. You love these characters, but it’s not like they’re real. Flowey isn’t real. None of this is real. All you have to do is just reset the game, after all. It’s not like there are any REAL consequences. You love this game; don’t you want to experience everything? Complete it all, absolutely? The temptation tickles at the back of your neck, and the moment you decide, you have made your first great act of violence. You have distanced yourself.

They’re all just a way to become stronger, after all. Right, (YOU)? Thus begins the no mercy route. You can do this at any point in the story, but given how you have to be actively trying to put yourself on this path, it is likely to be the last of the three main endings that the player will discover. It is the temptation, the corruption of love, of determination, the will to keep going and going and going until you see everything.

Each area has a “kill count”, an amount of monsters you can kill before no more appear. So if you grind out encounters before progressing to the next area, you’ll stay on the path. The world of the underground will respond to you, of course. Townsfolk will flee, leaving once-friendly settlements as empty ghost towns. Bosses will go down in a single hit. The music slows to an industrial crawl. All challenge and fun is sucked out of the game, and none of the funny jokes remain. All that lies before you is hours and hours of grinding to become strong... No, the strongest.

There are only a few carrots on sticks to keep you playing despite the slog of it all: two unique bosses (Undyne the Undying and the infamous Sans) and new story content, a smattering of changed flavor text, and the experience seeing what happens when these characters you love are pushed into the cauldron of hell. Other than that, it's just... silent.

Undyne, who throws herself in front of Monster Kid in order to protect them, resurrects from the dead, with the same determination that empowers you to do such cruel acts, making for an intensely difficult fight. But in the end you overpower her, and move on to the next area, even more barren as Alphys leads the evacuation. The grinding becomes even more of a slog, as 40 kills are required for Hotland and the CORE. At the very end of the CORE, Mettaton appears in his new, human-eliminating NEO form, but even he is cleaved with but one blow, his heroism meaning nothing.

And thus, the point of no return.

As you make the final trek through New Home to kill Asgore, Flowey, who has acted as your friend and confidant, tells you more about why he became the way he did.

“Howdy, (YOU)! You finally made it home. Remember when we used to play here? Hee hee hee... Boy! Today's gonna be just as fun. I remember when I first woke up here, in the garden. I was so scared. I couldn't feel my arms or my legs... My entire body had turned into a flower! ‘Mom! Dad! Somebody help me!’ I called out. But nobody came.

Eventually, the king found me, crying in the garden. I explained what had happened to him. Then he held me, (YOU). He held me with tears in his eyes, saying... ‘There, there. Everything is going to be alright.’ He was so... Emotional. But... For some reason... I didn't feel anything at all. I soon realized I didn't feel ANYTHING about ANYONE. My compassion had disappeared! And believe me, it's not like I wasn't trying. I wasted weeks with that stupid king, vainly hoping I would feel something. But it became too much for me. I ran away from home. Eventually, I reached the RUINS. Inside I found HER, (YOU). I thought of all people, SHE could make me feel whole again.

... She failed. Ha ha... I realized those two were useless. I became despondent. I just wanted to love someone. I just wanted to care about someone. (YOU), you might not believe this... But I decided... It wasn't worth living anymore. Not in a world without love. Not in a world without you. So... I decided to follow in your footsteps. I would erase myself from existence. And you know what? I succeeded. But as I left this mortal coil... I started to feel apprehensive. If you don't have a SOUL, what happens when you...? Something primal started to burn inside me. ‘No,’ I thought. ‘I don't want to die!’

...Then I woke up. Like it was all just a bad dream. I was back at the garden. Back at my ‘save point.’ Interested, I decided to experiment. Again and again, I brought myself to the edge of death. At any point, I could have let this world continue on without me. But as long as I was determined to live... I could go back. Amazing, isn't it, (YOU)? I was amazed, too. At first, I used my powers for good. I became "friends" with everyone. I solved all their problems flawlessly. Their companionship was amusing... For a while.

As time repeated, people proved themselves predictable. What would this person say if I gave them this? What would they do if I said this to them? Once you know the answer, that's it. That's all they are. It all started because I was curious. Curious what would happen if I killed them. ‘I don't like this,’ I told myself. ‘I'm just doing this because I HAVE to know what happens.’ Ha ha ha... What an excuse! You of all people must know how liberating it is to act this way. At least we're better than those sickos that stand around and WATCH it happen... Those pathetic people that want to see it, but are too weak to do it themselves. I bet someone like that's watching right now, aren't they...?

Nowadays, even that's grown tiring. You understand, (YOU). I've done everything this world has to offer. I've read every book. I've burned every book. I've won every game. I've lost every game. I've appeased everyone. I've killed everyone. Sets of numbers... Lines of dialogue... I've seen them all. But you... YOU'RE different. I never could predict YOU, (YOU). When I saw you in the RUINS, I didn't recognize you. I thought I could frighten you, then steal your SOUL. I failed. And when I tried to load my save file... It didn't work.v (YOU)... Your DETERMINATION! Somehow, it's even greater than mine! I just have one question for you, (YOU). How did you get back to the RUINS from here...? ...wait, I know. She must have taken you when she left. And decided to give you a proper burial, rather than... Hanging out in the basement forever... but, why then...? What made you wake up? Did you hear me calling you...? It doesn't matter now.

I'm so tired of this, (YOU). I'm tired of all these people. I'm tired of all these places. I'm tired of being a flower. (YOU). There's just one thing left I want to do. Let's finish what we started. Let's free everyone. Then... let's let them see what humanity is REALLY like! That despite it all... This world is still ‘kill or be killed!!’”

In other words, he was just like you, with the determination to keep on living. Curious. Playing the game. Thirsting for more and more, and eager to use his newfound power. He was above consequence. But now... His best friend is back. (YOU)! And he's terrified. At the last second, he pleads you to turn back, as he's reminded of the original plan.

And so, you arrive in the hall of judgment, where Sans waits. And so, you fail his judgment. What ensues is a brain-meltingly frustrating battle, with lasers, bones, no invincibility frames, a fakeout win condition, and attacks that spread across the UI between terms. It is a battle that is designed to frustrate you, to literally sap away at your (real-life) determination until you stop playing. This fight is perhaps the most famous part of the game, and what made Sans the character that spawned a thousand different AUs (funny, if you take Flowey’s speech about exhausting all possibilities from the world’s ‘characters’ into account). It’s here that we’re given the most concrete evidence of one of Sans’s more interesting traits: he’s aware that resets can occur. He doesn't remember them, but he can use the sense of deja vu that he and the other characters experience between reloads to deduce things like how many times you’ve died, and things like that. The reasoning for his lazy, nihilistic attitude comes from his awareness that his life can be reset to nothing at the whims of a greater being.

The only way to defeat him is to outlast him, until exhaustion sets in and he falls asleep. Then, you can maneuver to the fight button and instantly kill him.

Now nothing stands in your way. Asgore doesn’t even recognize you as a monster, and he’s killed quickly. Flowey appears to destroy his soul like on the neutral routes, pleading to you that he never betrayed you and that he was just helping. There’s a lot of ways you can read this- a genuine attempt to regain your favor? A desperate bid to keep you from progressing outside of the underground so he can keep you with him, by destroying your ticket out? A last minute attempted sabotage of the route?

As he begs for mercy, his face contorts, back to one resembling Asriel’s. Your best friend. Your brother. The central, traumatized figure of the other two routes.

You slaughter him wordlessly like all the others.

Once he is dead, (YOU) appears to you. The fallen child.

Greetings.
I am (YOU).
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.
"(YOU)."
Now.
Now, we have reached the absolute.
There is nothing left for us here.
Let us erase this pointless world, and move on to the next.

Astute observers may have noticed a flaw in my idea that this child is meant to be the same as the player. Here, the character refers to you as separate, a partner of sorts, the key to their power. However, the way I read this is that the ‘narrative distancing’ necessary to justify this killing seperates the avatar of your actions, (YOU), from who you really are.

In other words, (YOU) is “your character”.

Your immersion has been shattered, severing the two. The distance between what you’d do in real life and what you feel like you can get away with in the game grows and grows. You are not experiencing the tale, but “role-playing”. (YOU), in the pursuit of the absolute, regards this game as finished. It’s time to play the next one. And so, you’re given a choice, to destroy the world of UNDERTALE... or not.

(YOU) will destroy it either way. You were never really in control, after all. After this, the game boots up to a black screen, seemingly gone. But if you wait there long enough, (YOU) will let you bargain your soul in return for the game. And seemingly, everything is back to normal. Surely this doesn’t effect anything. It’s just a game.

...Of course not. Any future mercy ending will be tainted, with (YOU) appearing on the ending screen, either having scribbled out the faces of your friends, or ominously laughing at you depending on whether you choose to stay with Toriel. No matter how many times you reset, you must face the consequence of your actions. You have played the game, reduced everything to abstractions, numbers, lines of dialogue, just like Flowey. And now, you can never regain that sense of immersion. You have separated from yourself. Even if you delete the file that makes these consequences occur from your game-folder, this is still a solution that necessitates separating yourself from the narrative and trifling with the souls of others as game-constructs, a firm acknowledgement that the game is all code and “not real”. In that way, you are still tainted. (One has to wonder if having this so easily changed was an intentional aspect of the game’s metanarrative, the file is literally just there in %appdata%!)

The “loop” of UNDERTALE is by design: you cannot get a mercy ending until you’ve completed at least one neutral ending. Once you do both, curiosity leads you to the more obscure no mercy route, and by the end, your very soul will be forfeit, leaving you bored and empty like Flowey. The only way to prevent this loop, to let (YOU) move on as Asriel does, and to prevent this world from being doomed, is to let yourself be satisfied, to let go of the “perverted sentimentality”, and to let them be. The truest compliment to the game is that the characters mean so much to you that you value the time you spent over finding every secret or route.

Listen to Flowey’s plea, and let the mercy ending be your last. Don’t become apathetic.

Lest you LOVE the game to death.

I think it’s easy to get lost in the sauce when analyzing UNDERTALE and take it as a very literal morality parable- which has led some to criticize it for “hating people for playing video games” and other similar nonsense. But when diving back into the game, ten years later, I found a rich mine of themes to dig up- suicide, responsibility, loneliness, forgiveness, and the conflict between vulnerability and ironic detachment. The game fully understands that you have to “buy in” to let it touch you, and makes the conflict of whether or not you “buy in” its central thematic clash. If you have ever expressed the sentiment that “UNDERTALE’s fandom ruined it for you”, you have already “lost” UNDERTALE.

But it’s okay. Even Flowey could change.

I, too, felt that detachment, that apathy. I was cruel to others, I contributed to toxicity online and in real life. And I was cruel to UNDERTALE: I didn’t regard the game as a world, a work of art, but rather just another fandom to enjoy, suck my enjoyment out of, and then move on to the next. But my enjoyment of UNDERTALE had a curious way of sticking around in my head (certainly helped by the dripfed release of DELTARUNE’s chapters periodically reminding me of how important it really is to me).

I still never replayed the game, though. I honored that wish. But I did grow up with it, with these characters. Through all the horror of the past ten years, UNDERTALE was always there, that underground fantasy where everything can end well if you’re just kind enough.

And despite everything...

I’m still capable of that vulnerability and compassion, the things I thought I had lost.

So don’t kill, and don’t be killed. Keep that determination to go on living, and cherish your hopes and dreams.

Thank you, UNDERTALE.

And thank you for reading, (YOU).