rpanons | Tush smooshed

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ahhhhh maybe i'm misremembering some things with the sweater! they did still make the macaroni art and they do have attachment to the bff heart locket ("Right where it belongs.") but the sweater thing might have been my mistake

it is asriel that likes to record things, i was more using that as an example that they hung out and played around together

and you're right about chara taking actions earlier than i thought! i've only watched a genocide run once so i forgot about those earlier parts with papyrus. but it does still remain that this chara is soulless and the same as flowey in a lot of ways, so that's more to do with the divide between the player and chara, and how quickly chara picks up on your intentions of violence, rather than chara when they were still alive.

ultimately i think there's evidence for either interpretation of chara tbh. i'm not going to shit on someone who wants to see them as just plain bad and irredeemable, but you can still pull together an interpretation of them being something with more depth than that. personally it just doesn't add anything to the game for me to see them that way, whereas i find it a lot more interesting to think about how they reflect on the text and its themes as a whole. for me, undertale was a game about kindness and recovery, and a game like that doesn't really need a clear-cut "villain".

i'd be careful about the locket, tbh. chara's version lacks the "best friends forever" comment, instead it's got "You can feel it beating." as the description (which makes me wonder but i doubt we'll get an explanation of that).

i don't think chara is just "plain bad and irredeemable" either, but i don't think they were all that nice either. i don't doubt that they acted nice to stay on the royal family's good side, but i'm not sure how much of that was genuine and how much was just a means to an end for them. if we assume they had determination and the ability to save/load/reset like frisk, it just gets even more questionable, and that's a fairly likely possibility.

on the soulless thing, keep in mind the exact wording chara uses. "My "human soul." My "determination." They were not mine, but yours." they had a soul in that run, it just wasn't theirs, but yours. if flowey is any indication, that should've been enough to allow them to feel, and they show that a bit (like in the check text for RG01 and RG02, or if you get to the midpoint against sans again after getting dunked on).

even if we assume that isn't enough, though, even flowey took several resets to start killing. chara, once they get to surface at the start of a genocide run, doesn't. that's probably notable.

i wouldn't call them a villain though. most of the plot wouldn't have happened if it weren't for them (asriel wouldn't have died, meaning asgore wouldn't have declared that all humans who fall into the underground must die due to grief, alphys wouldn't have had a reason to look into determination, flowey wouldn't have been created, etc), but we don't really know enough definite information about them to consider them a villain, imo.

It's also worth pointing out that Chara may have liked only Asriel specifically. Where there is evidence with an emotional connection to Asgore as well with the sweater, but then you have to consider Chara laughing off the accidental pie poisoning.

But Chara's relationship with the goatfamily turns really fucking creepy when you think about how Chara lacked any kind of emotional bond with Toriel. Remember those tools near Toriel's fireplace that are filed down to make them safer? Juxtipose that with the "Where are the knives" remark when exploring Toriel's house on genocide. Also the "Not worth talking to" bit.

It seems like Chara only really cared about Asriel, really, maybe because Asriel by his own admission was "a crybaby" so Chara maybe thought Asriel was the only person who "understood them". Since that's how Asriel felt about Chara. Maybe Chara's plan and getting Asriel involved was more than simple bullying and manipulation to get what they wanted, i.e. revenge against their village, but from Chara's point of view, they considered Asriel a "great partner" and wanted to be "together forever" after having their soul absorbed if Asriel had actually killed the humans and broke the barrier rather than let them mortally wound him. (Similar to what Chara says to the player at the end of Genocide if they agree to erase the world)

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