So, about Chara

[Aegis270]

Spoilers, obviously. If you're reading this I'm assuming you've finished parts 1 and 2 by now.






Also, until we actually get a name for the entity that takes control of Kris periodically, I'm still going to keep calling them Chara.

Obviously, Chara's back and here to stay, but he's definitely acting weird. He has multiple opportunities to kill characters, but instead does some really odd actions. Remember, Chara in the original game just wanted to kill everything. Straight psychopath. No talking, no friends, no nothing, just death. But not this Chara.

My theory is that this Chara is effectively acting as Kris's ID. As in the Freudian concept. Fulfilling Kris's desires without worry about anything else. His actions do make sense when you think of it like this. First night, Kris wants the pie, but knows they can't have all of it. So, Chara takes control, eats the entire pie, but does nothing else. They didn't damage the house. They didn't attack Toriel. They just ate the pie. Kris's wish is fulfilled, they got what they wanted, so Chara is satisfied.

Skip to the second manifestation, Kris wants Susie to stay over for a sleepover. Chara takes control, slashes Toriel's tires to force her to invite Susie to stay the night. Again, doesn't attack anyone, only slashes the tires, then puts us back in control. Kris gets their wish again.

Finally, the last one. Chara knows that Kris is becoming better friends with Susie from their adventures together in the dark worlds. They also know that anyone can create a dark world if they really try (I don't think he made the others, it doesn't really make sense). So again, they just fulfill Kris's wish for more adventures with Susie in the dark world. He had a perfect opportunity to shank one or both of the sleeping people in the room, but they just made a fountain.

Chara's actions make sense if you view them as attempts to give Kris what they want. So this might be a version of Chara that's not strictly antagonistic. Hell, Chara actively hands back control to us when they believes their work is done. In their own, twisted, warped way, I do think Chara is trying to help Kris, albeit at cost to everyone around them.

I look forward to this being explored further in the next chapters.

[Crazy Nick]

As stated before, Kris' bizarre behavior predates the Soul's/Player's interference, so their current actions cannot be in response to the player's choices. There was already two Dark Fountains created prior to the Player getting control at the beginning the game, so something has to be going on outside of the player's control.

Chara has 3 main characteristics:
1. Red Eyes
2. The Knife
3. Enjoys Chocolate

And as far as I can tell, Kris seems to share all three of these characteristics. Does that mean Kris is Chara? Not necessarily. Could it mean Chara is occasionally possessing Kris? Could be. Instead of going in for the kill immediately, if Chara doesn't have 100% control of Kris, they could be going for the slow burn to have the "Titans" destroy everything instead of risking exposing themselves to the public.

[Bansheebutt]

I believe Chara is thematically relevant, but is otherwise unconnected to Kris/Deltarune. The shirt and other similarities between the two are just part of the Majora's Mask-esque parallels that Deltarune shares with Undertale.

Chara was a representation of a Player, obsessed with growing in power and becoming a Pro Gamer at the expense of Undertale's inhabitants.

Kris(?) is a representation of a Creator. They're evidently creating these "Dark Worlds", where people from the Light World get a taste of wish-fullfillment and power that they wish they had in the light world. This was a running theme in CH 2 when Susie fantasizes about going to school with Lancer and Noelle wishing she had healing magic "in real life." We as the player similarly "appreciate" Kris(?)'s efforts because it gives us more game to play and quirky characters to fawn over.

These fantasies of course, would come at the price of the Light World, as Ralsei explains after Berdly and Susie express contentment with remaining in and creating more of the fantastical Dark Worlds.

It's really reminding me of a similar story beat from The Binding of Isaac, wherein Isaac takes shelter in his "box", the fantastical world of his adventures through the basement, that ultimate leads to him suffocating in a literal box, so content to reject reality and take comfort in his fictional world.

On a meta-level, Kris(?) taking control away from us, the player/soul, is like the relationship between a game designer and player: When Kris(?) takes our control away, it's so that they can advance their plot/The Plot. The way they're actively clandestine about it is like how a game manipulates variables and conditions behind the scenes to create the illusion of a reactive world. Only in this case it's so that we can keep being "Kris" without all the other characters being all "wtf, mate."

[MLJesus]

Since Toby said all player experiences across both games are cannon, Chara is more than likely to still be a persistent force, this is because we know in some of these 'experiences' (timelines) we sell our soul to play again and we know this leaves a lasting impact as she is seen and the end of a Pacifst after a Genocide. So to think Chara still remains relevant (esspeicaly to the players and our actions) is a petty tame and supported notion. To further reinforce this, the name itself is a play on "Character" and If I'm not wrong she pretty much acts as a kind of refection and amplification of the players own actions in UT, so the connection to US is pretty essential to the crux of the character down to the name. So with that said, WE are still the players and therefore it makes a level of sense that we remain *'connected'* in a way, (Go look at the first few lines of this game for theory-fodder on that).
And if anyone doubts this theory/idea, maybe just wait and see before judging: Theres always the fall-back argument that the game isn't finished yet and why would we be seeing signs of this very endgame-y character in what is basically the ruins and snowdin of deltarune?
Non-meanspirited feedback is encouraged :)

[zachh]

I don't think this has to do with Chara

[pepe]

Originally posted by fwordhhhh:

I don't think this has to do with Chara

People are thinking this way because of the similarities between Chara (with the light world having the same tshirt chara has in UT and the knife, chocolate and the crazy stuff).

[MartensoftWorld]

Originally posted by lowercase letters:

Originally posted by fwordhhhh:

I don't think this has to do with Chara

People are thinking this way because of the similarities between Chara (with the light world having the same tshirt chara has in UT and the knife, chocolate and the crazy stuff).

I'd say most likely nothing more than references. Sans is here, too, and nothing has been shown yet to imply he's going to be anything other than a background character to chat with.

[pepe]

Originally posted by Microsoft has terminated file:

Originally posted by lowercase letters:

People are thinking this way because of the similarities between Chara (with the light world having the same tshirt chara has in UT and the knife, chocolate and the crazy stuff).

I'd say most likely nothing more than references. Sans is here, too, and nothing has been shown yet to imply he's going to be anything other than a background character to chat with.

b-b-but sans is blue!!!! and lancer is!1!1!1!1 queen is blue too!11!1 wtf sans confirm??

[Deathfest007]

Okay... Here's my theory.
UNDERTALE: Chara is not just a murderous, bloodthirsty kid. They simply hate humanity, and they want monsters to thrive. They think humanity should be punished for what they did to monsterkind. So when they died, first they killed theirself, and asked Asriel to absorb their SOUL, in hopes that he would collect 6 more SOULs to break the barrier, and after that, it's uncertain what their intentions were. Either 1: Chara would let the humans and monsters live in peace, or 2: Chara would want to rage war on the humans for their crimes. This has been proven almost canon multiple times.
"But Chara is the cause of the Genocide run!"
I disagree. YOU are the cause of the Genocide run. (Note: In this case, You are Frisk. Some people say the Player is a separate entity, but I think that the Frisk was meant to represent the Player. It's not really useful info in this case lol but whatever)

Anyways, you purposefully did the Genocide run out of curiosity, not because Chara controlled you. Like, seriously, when you played the game, did you have someone in your room begging you to do it (Besides an annoying friend lol)? Or rather, controlling you to do it? No.


DELTARUNE: This is kind of self-explanatory in my opinion. In this game, it's almost been confirmed canon multiple times that the Player and Kris are separate entities.
Basically, if Kris is moving around by theirself without your command, that's KRIS. We don't know why they decided to eat the pie- Maybe just to tease you, or maybe because they can't do powerful actions without your help. Or maybe because they like pie. Knowing Toby Fox, probably the 3rd option.

Now there IS a theory where there is an inexplicable 3rd entity. I won't go into details about that, because I forgot most of it... (I forgor 💀💀) and there is a SLIGHT chance that is it Chara, but why would Toby Fox re-use a character? He said he wanted a new story, with new characters.
I don't feel like typing anymore lol.

[(Edgy) Asriel Dreemurr]

Originally posted by Deathfest007:

Now there IS a theory where there is an inexplicable 3rd entity. I won't go into details about that, because I forgot most of it... (I forgor 💀💀) and there is a SLIGHT chance that is it Chara, but why would Toby Fox re-use a character? He said he wanted a new story, with new characters.
I don't feel like typing anymore lol.

The idea behind the third entity theory and why it exists is pretty simple. If Kris were the one acting on their own at night, this would mean that ultimately Kris is the one in control and is simply choosing points when to take over. This doesn’t make sense at all with how Kris reacts to certain situations, especially after the fight with Spamton Neo and the Snowgrave Route. Why would Kris be afraid of removing their metaphorical “strings” when we literally see them do it twice. Not to mention the fact that according to both Undertale and Deltarune, humans ARE their SOULs, so Kris would no longer be Kris if they removed themselves from their body.

The third entity I deduce is the second voice we see in the intro, the one that discards our vessel and forces us into Kris. Admittedly, this entity is very very similar to Chara/the Fallen Human from Undertale having matching speech/text patterns and likely acting as the game’s narrator. However, it is unlikely that this is the same character from Undertale. I simply think that when Toby made Genocide Chara in Undertale, he did not know that he would go back and make Deltarune at the time, and so used a pre-existing idea he had for a demon character that possessed your MC (this entity in his original game idea) as a reference.

My theory is that when you select text options for Kris, one is Kris speaking and the other is the demon. In Snowgrave you are simply going all in on the demon’s choices. The voice Noelle hears is the demon’s voice, not the player’s.

[Geek]

no

[TheCraftNCreator]

I hate it when people always portray Chara as some kind of Undertale Patrick Bateman. No, they did not murder everyone in the genocide route. You did that. Neither did they coerce you into doing it.

Chara is more a representation of the player's hunger for power, or rather their curiosity. As you might have noticed, you retain roughly the same hits till death regardless of whether you're doing pacifist or neutral. There isn't much incentive to kill more since it doesn't make much more of a difference, and you still gain gold if you spare them.

The genocide route is about the player's curiosity to see each possible "result". Most players wouldn't do genocide on their first run, but will likely do it eventually. Again, the player here wants to see the result of going for as many kills as possible, just to see if the game reacts to that or anything.

Here's where Chara comes in. Chara here has kinda of followed frisk around like a stand (this is seen in one of the unused rooms where a NPC mentions someone ghost-like following frisk), and understand the player's goal to see all "results". Chara knows sooner or later, the player will try the genocide route where Chara has enough power to control things.

Now, why would they 'destroy' the world here? It has to do with the scrapped Gaster ARG, which is likely the worst "result". If they destroy the game, the player cannot see out any more results. However, if they simply leave it at that, the player will eventually find a way around it, so instead they find a way to permanently prevent certain results (taking the players SOUL). I imagine that the reason the ending of the pacifist route changes is that they have something to do with the scrapped ARG.

Then there's deltarune. While Kris (at the start, at least) does resist the player's control, certain events (like going into the dark-worlds) are fated to happen and nothing can change that. However, some small things, which vary from the snowgrave route to picking up some eggs, aren't set in stone. This partly explains why Kris opens the dark fountain at the end of chapter 2, since they figure it'd be best if they went with their friends.

Finally we have the ending to deltarune. I speculate Toby has learned from the gaster ARG, and will do the reverse here. The true and final ending to deltarune requires you to fight all the secret bosses, one or two likely requiring multiple runs/save files. This final ending will bring the rumbling, destroying the world and it's *balances*. This results in UNDERTALE, which tries to 'repair' the damage, but can't recreate it completely (or even, much).

The player and kris split, forming Chara and Frisk. Frisk is the new vessel for the player, and doesn't show much control at all. Chara though, has seen at least a few routes of deltarune and recognizes the similar desire for frisk to see everything through. And uh, gaster? He was probably hinting at the fractured dark world, but who knows.

[Aegis270]

Originally posted by thecraftncreator:

I hate it when people always portray Chara as some kind of Undertale Patrick Bateman. No, they did not murder everyone in the genocide route. You did that. Neither did they coerce you into doing it.

Chara is more a representation of the player's hunger for power, or rather their curiosity. As you might have noticed, you retain roughly the same hits till death regardless of whether you're doing pacifist or neutral. There isn't much incentive to kill more since it doesn't make much more of a difference, and you still gain gold if you spare them.

The genocide route is about the player's curiosity to see each possible "result". Most players wouldn't do genocide on their first run, but will likely do it eventually. Again, the player here wants to see the result of going for as many kills as possible, just to see if the game reacts to that or anything.

Here's where Chara comes in. Chara here has kinda of followed frisk around like a stand (this is seen in one of the unused rooms where a NPC mentions someone ghost-like following frisk), and understand the player's goal to see all "results". Chara knows sooner or later, the player will try the genocide route where Chara has enough power to control things.

Now, why would they 'destroy' the world here? It has to do with the scrapped Gaster ARG, which is likely the worst "result". If they destroy the game, the player cannot see out any more results. However, if they simply leave it at that, the player will eventually find a way around it, so instead they find a way to permanently prevent certain results (taking the players SOUL). I imagine that the reason the ending of the pacifist route changes is that they have something to do with the scrapped ARG.

Then there's deltarune. While Kris (at the start, at least) does resist the player's control, certain events (like going into the dark-worlds) are fated to happen and nothing can change that. However, some small things, which vary from the snowgrave route to picking up some eggs, aren't set in stone. This partly explains why Kris opens the dark fountain at the end of chapter 2, since they figure it'd be best if they went with their friends.

Finally we have the ending to deltarune. I speculate Toby has learned from the gaster ARG, and will do the reverse here. The true and final ending to deltarune requires you to fight all the secret bosses, one or two likely requiring multiple runs/save files. This final ending will bring the rumbling, destroying the world and it's *balances*. This results in UNDERTALE, which tries to 'repair' the damage, but can't recreate it completely (or even, much).

The player and kris split, forming Chara and Frisk. Frisk is the new vessel for the player, and doesn't show much control at all. Chara though, has seen at least a few routes of deltarune and recognizes the similar desire for frisk to see everything through. And uh, gaster? He was probably hinting at the fractured dark world, but who knows.

Surprised people are still replying to this, but hey, engaging with people is more or less why I wrote it in the first place, so working as intended I guess.

I'm not sure your argument carries much weight due to relying on unused rooms and a scrapped ARG. Especially since it contradicts what Chara actually says. He's the only version of the main character that actually talks to the player, and takes actions regardless of the player's input. No matter what we choose, he kills Flowey. No matter what we choose, he destroys the world. He explicitly asks the player to do that so that they can "move on to a new world".

He says that he learned from our actions in the Genocide run and was taught the "reason for their return", being power, and our actions are what enabled them to achieve that goal. It's heavily implied that he is a resurrection of the original human, whose stated goal was to murder all humans, so he clearly wasn't some innocent force that was just interested in what the player was doing.

I'm also not sure why you think Deltarune is a prequel rather than a disjointed sequel. It makes sense as following directly on from a Souless run, where Chara is inhabiting our character as he does in those runs. Especially given his stated goal of partnering with the player and move on to a new world. If it were a prequel, why would Chara give a long, expository dialogue to the player about who they are when they are the one person in that world who should know?

And I categorically disagree about how the game will conclude. The Pacifist ending of Undertale is widely regarded as not just the best ending in the game, but also one of the best endings in video game history (At least recent history). That feeling of fulfillment, of saving an entire world of character's we've come to love, of righting a tragic wrong, paying off an entire game's worth of struggle with a positive ending for everyone, that just can't be topped.

I just can't see Toby Fox looking at the overwhelming praise that received and deciding that the ending you have to fight for, the one that requires you to seek out and pacify very challenging fights, will be a depressing one where everything you fought for was destroyed. A world that by all rights is just as worthy of saving as the one in Undertale.

All we can do is speculate on the ending, but I highly doubt that the true, satisfying ending to Deltarune would have such a dark, depressing note.

[TheCraftNCreator]

Yeah I get it doesn't carry alot of weight, but few theories do anyways since theres so little information in undertale. The main point of the theory is the kind of patch up alot of the missing plot points, like why does chara consider taking the player's soul or destroy the world in the first place. They may have hated humans, but they still had friends in the underground.

Either way, undertale is a game about how players (typically) want to see every possible outcome of the game. It's what make the genocide route interesting. The Players never viewed the monsters as friends in the pacifist route, and see them as little more as NPCs that react to things. Genocide was just another outcome to see, like the pacifist route. You never 'save' the world in the pacifist route, since you're most likely going to do a genocide route later.

This is what flowey was going on about when he was able to use SAVEs (if that was canon?). Like the player, he was messing around to see every possible reaction of each person or the outcome of any action he did. He eventually got bored though, and let things play themselves out.

Chara also never really "inhabits" frisk, and I don't know who suggested this. Yes, sometimes they comment on the environment, like at the end of the genocide route, But they also could have been also always commenting on the game and simply turn the text red once they gain enough power to do so. Keep in mind when frisk does an insta-kill, that's their raw determination, not chara. The Real Knife and the Locket are also likely the same items as the Worn Dagger and Broken Locket(?), they are likely just powered-up along with the player.

It is also possible that there was a fractured dark world like how undertale (according to my theory) is the fractured light world. This is how it kinda ties into gaster, as this could be what was refered to in the darkness speech. I imagine that while attempting to travel to the dark world, something went wrong, fracturing him between both worlds. Anyways, this is what chara would be referring to as the "next world" since deltarune is stated to not be a sequel.

For the ending of deltarune, the idea is that your choices don't matter because all your choices all will lead to the same, true ending. I bet an intended "whole" play-through of deltarune would be doing each route (Deltian Psycho, Pacifist, Neutral) to access all the bosses. The game let's you skip some segments like with the bed at the start of each chapter, so this is likely intended.

This also explains why chara (former kris) wants to destroy the world(s) since they will have already seen how players view the game as a set of outcomes. Ultimately, they know the player will do a genocide route (if they left the game at pacifist, they likely wouldn't do the 4th), so they can seize power to prevent the player from bringing whatever calamity the fractured dark world holds.

[Aegis270]

Chara makes his intentions clear in the ending monologue to the player. He wants power. After killing everyone in the game, you have no-one left to gain power from killing, so he wants to destroy the world and move on to the next one. There's no power left to be gained here, all he can do is reset himself and hope the player does another genocide ending.

But that's also why he offers the soul trade deal. By doing so, he gets to permanently bind themselves to the player, which is why from then on he shows up in true pacifist endings despite never being invoked by killing anyone. He does this because us killing people is the best way for him to gain power, and he's willing to bide his time and wait until we're both bored of the world and ready to move on to the new one. He will gain his power eventually.

I think you're over-analyzing the meta commentary on the genocide ending. You are right, it is more or less caused not by any legitimate malice by the player, but by an incessant curiosity. All of that death and destruction, all those lives ended, just because the player wanted to see what would happen. This judgement never bled over into the other endings really, apart from Flowey/Chara's occasional comments that confirm that you can't undo what you did so easily.

The player in the pacifist ending is shown as a strictly benevolent force, and no matter how many times you do that ending, all you get is slight judgement from Asriel that you're effectively undoing the good you did. It's clear that the player can either be an avatar for good or for evil, and the reason why can be flippant.

But I don't think too much of that same commentary is coming back in Deltarune. It was shocking to have the game effectively call it's players out for doing monstrous acts for no other reason that just wanting to see what would happen. Repeating that again in the followup game wouldn't have the same impact. Not to mention it rings hollow for players like myself who never actually did the genocide ending.

Ultimately, we don't have nearly enough evidence to confirm or deny any endings at the moment, so it's ultimately pointless to speculate about them. What I will say is that I highly doubt that Deltarune won't have a similarly positive ending akin to the pacifist ending from Undertale, because that was one of the best parts of that amazing game. It might be slightly darker in tone, Deltarune is clearly a darker place than Undertale was (Cancer subplots, etc). But I think a "everything you did was pointless" ending ala Spec Ops: The Line would be a mistake for a game series that's built on your actions actually having consequences.

And before you say it, I know that "Your choices don't matter" is the current meme in game, but despite that message, we still do. The player chooses to be pacifist or genocide. They choose to fight the secret bosses or not. They can choose to do the Snowgrave route, which can result in killing Berdly. Or they can not, and Berdly lives. Fundamentally, a "choices don't matter" is an unfulfilling experience, and so while it might be the fakeout neutral ending, I don't think it'll have much effect on the true pacifist or genocide endings.

[Dabeest]

I think bringing chara back would be kind of a weird cop out. Also chara worked better in undertale's narrative than he probably could in deltarune