The REAL meaning of Determination

[Cutting_Edgy]

(Reposting this from my Reddit account, just to spread it more.)

K. I'm just into the community, and, yeah. I kinda feel guilty for not getting into this game before. Here goes a long ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ theory.

One of the most recurring question I have about this is: "Why are humans so powerful?". The answer quickly strikes me: "They have Determination!". But... wtf is even that?

We do know Determination can distort and alter space and time (aka Save, Load and Reset), but how? I know this game is pure fiction but how can a human soul have enough determination to contradict physics? Although it would be very hard, it is possible to accelerate or slow down time using something called "Gravitational Time Dilatation", but not rewind it.

I have two answers for this. The most simple. Culture. Yes, culture. Let's wind all the way back to prehistory. By definition, prehistory is the time before history, when the humans hadn't yet developed writing. Of course, that is a very dumb definition, as many civilizations, like the Incas, NEVER developed an alphabet, but were higly advanced otherwise. Ok, sorry, I'm just nerding out a little. Let's proceed.

In case you didn't know, prehistory was VERY long. It is believed that humans originated in Africa, 200.000 years ago. HISTORY, on the other hand, has been around for nearly 6.000 years.

Where am I going with this? Oh, boy. You see, the wheel was invented a long time ago. At around 3.500 before Christ. It took humanity MILLENIA to invent a circular object for easier "moving around". The cars, however, were already being idealized in the 17th century; around JUST 5.000 years later. Not even ONE millenium. And then? We reached the Moon, only 3 centuries later.

In the Genocide route, as you kill monsters, you get stronger and stronger. You're able to kill all bosses but Undyne The Undying in one hit. That is determination. That's what humans have always had. As humanity grows up, so does this special feature; every time scientists create a miracle, they aim to create another one in even less time. The save point is a metaphore to how, when humans want, they can do anything; eventually, we'll be resetting timelines, and probably damaging the fabric of reality, but meh, that's future. We evolved from some apes, to the most advanced species this galaxy could ever had, using one thing. DETERMINATION.

Now, that was a beautiful cultural lesson, wasn't it? Are you satisfied? Well, I'm definitely not. Let's go for science. In the game, Determination seems to be an actual substance, that ONLY humans can use. Monsters, for example, melt when they are dosed with some of it. After thinking more and more, I have concluded Determination is a type of psychic aura, that, as I said in the "cultural" theory above, is exclusive to humans, and is the motive they even exist in the first place. Psychic powers? Yes. Chronokinesis.

Humans are absolutely determined to win, and they'd do anything for it. That's when the Load File ability is activated. It brings you back to a save point, so you can win. You are determined to beat your enemy.

Of course, that doesn't make any sense. Why would humans be able to distort time? If they were, the monsters wouldn't even be alive in the first place. The war would've been won so easily they wouldn't even need the Barrier. Welp, only one person to blame. Doctor WingDings Gaster (or whatever you wanna call him).

A rather short time ago, I found this post, which has links to very good theories about Gaster, all made by the same person. Basically, the general concept is that Gaster, during his experiments with Sans, ended up like Flowey (he went genocidal just to see what would happen), and when Sans tried to stop him, the whole timeline was broken appart, shattered into pieces. That's why only mysterious characters like Sans, the boat man and the followers remember Gaster; he was completely erased from time. He destroyed the main timeline, and created several others. THAT is your scientifical answer.

The Underground is not a different place, but a different REALITY. Remember when you fought Asgore in the Barrier? It looked NOTHING like a Barrier. It was more like an endless tunnel. More like a wormhole. According to Einstein, theorically, a wormhole is a shortcut. A cosmic concept of a "door" that could take you from Earth to the core of a Red Giant star in a couple of seconds. Something that defies space and time.

Okay, so, what do we know? The monsters aren't trapped in the Underground by a barrier, but they're stuck in another universe; they were thrown there by human wizards, using a wormhole. Gaster ended up destroying the original timeline with his experiments, resulting in time being shattered in several pieces, and he was erased from time and space. But wait. Didn't I just say the monsters were trapped in another reality?

When Gaster destroyed time and space, he didn't wreck all of it. Human timeline is still intact. What he did alter, was the monster timeline, the events that happened ONLY in the Underground, a dimension totally different from ours. When you fall in Mt. Ebott, you aren't just entering a parellel universe, but also a parallel timeline; a timeline, which, different from yours, is broken into pieces, destroyed by a skeleton that just wanted to know a little more.

Humans DO NOT have the power to unwind time. That is impossible, under any circumstances. What happens in the Underground is that you are hoping through time. As I have said multiple times now, time and space is completely distorted there. There isn't one line of events, but multiple; when you reload your save file, you are simply jumping in one more of the Underground's timeline pieces; you are choosing another timeline.

If we are actually capable of doing this "time hop", we will never know. Thanks for reading these two theories, anyways. They were really hard to come up with.

[Hatsune Miku]

Uhhh, that's a pretty long paragraph.

I thought that it was just a clever pun with De-termination, as in Un-dying, since it allows you to basically cheat death.

[Cutting_Edgy]

Originally posted by The Flower-ish Toaster:

Uhhh, that's a pretty long paragraph.

I thought that it was just a clever pun with De-termination, as in Un-dying, since it allows you to basically cheat death.

Hmmm. Nope.

[(Edgy) Asriel Dreemurr]

I should point out that not all humans have Determination in the way that Chara/Frisk do, otherwise none of the other 6 humans could have been killed.

The 7 human souls seen in the game all have different colors, and according to the golf minigame each color represents a different personality trait:
Light Blue = Patience
Orange = Bravery
Blue = Integrity
Green = Kindness
Purple = Perserverance
Yellow = Justice
Red = Determination

So humans possibly have different abilities based on their soul traits, and we get glimpses of these through the boss battles.

Going even further, Chara's ability to reset time also appears to not have been an ability they always had, otherwise they could have prevented Asriel's death very easily. Frisk could have also used this ability to simply reset to a point before falling down the mountain.

This leads me to believe that a normal person would never have enough determination in order to reset time, Undyne is the only one that even came close to doing this. Flowey was already injected with enough determination in order to bring him back, meaning he probably has more pure determination inside of him than one human. I hypothesize that Chara's reset ability comes from the combination of Frisk and Charas' Determination.

There is evidence in the game that suggests Chara is buried beneath the golden flowers at the start of the game. If this spot was where their determination first combined and the reset ability is a result of this combination, then it would be the furthest save point they could ever go back to, and that's exactly how that spot works in the game.

[DanEgbert]

Originally posted by lucasgpsonic12:

Originally posted by The Flower-ish Toaster:

Uhhh, that's a pretty long paragraph.

I thought that it was just a clever pun with De-termination, as in Un-dying, since it allows you to basically cheat death.

Hmmm. Nope.

There are magicians . It could just be another form of magic. Like Frisk and the other humans could just be from a magician's decent. I think you are completely over thinking a world that has magic and monsters .

[Blikk]

Uh, I'm pretty sure the answer is - it's just fiction. It's not supposed to make sense. Monsters don't exist either.

[Cutting_Edgy]

Originally posted by danman3210:

Originally posted by lucasgpsonic12:

Hmmm. Nope.

There are magicians . It could just be another form of magic. Like Frisk and the other humans could just be from a magician's decent. I think you are completely over thinking a world that has magic and monsters .

We don't know how much humanity has advanced in Undertale's current year. Since the game specifies the year 201X (X being a variable), it is likely that it takes place in modern times. The most likely explanation is that humans, after sealing the monsters in the Underground, completely forgot about it with time. To them, magic is just fiction. If Frisk really was a magician, she would probably have more powers.

[Cutting_Edgy]

Originally posted by Bad₩olf:

Uh, I'm pretty sure the answer is - it's just fiction. It's not supposed to make sense. Monsters don't exist either.

"It's just fiction" is not an acceptable explanation for me. ♥♥♥♥ that. If we just said "It's just fiction" every time, we'd know nothing about the world. I'm assuming that (according to my headcanon) humans do not know about monsters, and, in fact, forgot about magic. Like us. If you don't understand the importance of theories, you better just get outta here. I incentivate overthinking; if humanity didn't overthink all the time, we'd still say rain is God's tears.

[Blikk]

Originally posted by lucasgpsonic12:

Originally posted by Bad₩olf:

Uh, I'm pretty sure the answer is - it's just fiction. It's not supposed to make sense. Monsters don't exist either.

"It's just fiction" is not an acceptable explanation for me. ♥♥♥♥ that. If we just said "It's just fiction" every time, we'd know nothing about the world. I'm assuming that (according to my headcanon) humans do not know about monsters, and, in fact, forgot about magic. Like us. If you don't understand the importance of theories, you better just get outta here. I incentivate overthinking; if humanity didn't overthink all the time, we'd still say rain is God's tears.

Easy there, buddy. I just gave my own two cents, is all.
Fair enough that you wanna overthink things.

[Cutting_Edgy]

Originally posted by (Edgy) Asriel Dreemurr:

I should point out that not all humans have Determination in the way that Chara/Frisk do, otherwise none of the other 6 humans could have been killed.

The 7 human souls seen in the game all have different colors, and according to the golf minigame each color represents a different personality trait:
Light Blue = Patience
Orange = Bravery
Blue = Integrity
Green = Kindness
Purple = Perserverance
Yellow = Justice
Red = Determination

So humans possibly have different abilities based on their soul traits, and we get glimpses of these through the boss battles.

Going even further, Chara's ability to reset time also appears to not have been an ability they always had, otherwise they could have prevented Asriel's death very easily. Frisk could have also used this ability to simply reset to a point before falling down the mountain.

This leads me to believe that a normal person would never have enough determination in order to reset time, Undyne is the only one that even came close to doing this. Flowey was already injected with enough determination in order to bring him back, meaning he probably has more pure determination inside of him than one human. I hypothesize that Chara's reset ability comes from the combination of Frisk and Charas' Determination.

There is evidence in the game that suggests Chara is buried beneath the golden flowers at the start of the game. If this spot was where their determination first combined and the reset ability is a result of this combination, then it would be the furthest save point they could ever go back to, and that's exactly how that spot works in the game.

I DID think about the "Chosen One" theory, thank you, but no. I just couldn't say "Frisk is a superhero" to myself. And about Chara having reset powers; she doesn't. If Gaster only shattered time AFTER Chara was dead, then she wouldn't have been able to use her powers in the original timeline. Maybe she didn't even have enougth determination; as you pointed out, the other six SOULs have different traits. I think that just depends on personality. Even if the other humans COULD NOT save, there's still the multiple timelines theory. There are multiple results calculated by the universe, and Frisk just happens to live in the one were the other humans somehow died. Idk.

[Cutting_Edgy]

Originally posted by Bad₩olf:

Originally posted by lucasgpsonic12:

"It's just fiction" is not an acceptable explanation for me. ♥♥♥♥ that. If we just said "It's just fiction" every time, we'd know nothing about the world. I'm assuming that (according to my headcanon) humans do not know about monsters, and, in fact, forgot about magic. Like us. If you don't understand the importance of theories, you better just get outta here. I incentivate overthinking; if humanity didn't overthink all the time, we'd still say rain is God's tears.

Easy there, buddy. I just gave my own two cents, is all.
Fair enough that you wanna overthink things.

I didn't mean to offend you. Plot is just a really important thing to me.

[Goblin]

I just think of it as a drug.
Didn't really pay attention in the labs because I sp00ked

[Cocyx The Gay Skeleton]

Originally posted by Pie:

I just think of it as a drug.
Didn't really pay attention in the labs because I sp00ked

You should pay attention, this game has a really neat story beyond cute characters

[Goblin]

Originally posted by Cocyx The Gay Skeleton:

Originally posted by Pie:

I just think of it as a drug.
Didn't really pay attention in the labs because I sp00ked

You should pay attention, this game has a really neat story beyond cute characters

I do like the story, just haven't payed hardcore attention to true labs.

[DanEgbert]

Originally posted by lucasgpsonic12:

Originally posted by (Edgy) Asriel Dreemurr:

I should point out that not all humans have Determination in the way that Chara/Frisk do, otherwise none of the other 6 humans could have been killed.

The 7 human souls seen in the game all have different colors, and according to the golf minigame each color represents a different personality trait:
Light Blue = Patience
Orange = Bravery
Blue = Integrity
Green = Kindness
Purple = Perserverance
Yellow = Justice
Red = Determination

So humans possibly have different abilities based on their soul traits, and we get glimpses of these through the boss battles.

Going even further, Chara's ability to reset time also appears to not have been an ability they always had, otherwise they could have prevented Asriel's death very easily. Frisk could have also used this ability to simply reset to a point before falling down the mountain.

This leads me to believe that a normal person would never have enough determination in order to reset time, Undyne is the only one that even came close to doing this. Flowey was already injected with enough determination in order to bring him back, meaning he probably has more pure determination inside of him than one human. I hypothesize that Chara's reset ability comes from the combination of Frisk and Charas' Determination.

There is evidence in the game that suggests Chara is buried beneath the golden flowers at the start of the game. If this spot was where their determination first combined and the reset ability is a result of this combination, then it would be the furthest save point they could ever go back to, and that's exactly how that spot works in the game.

I DID think about the "Chosen One" theory, thank you, but no. I just couldn't say "Frisk is a superhero" to myself. And about Chara having reset powers; she doesn't. If Gaster only shattered time AFTER Chara was dead, then she wouldn't have been able to use her powers in the original timeline. Maybe she didn't even have enougth determination; as you pointed out, the other six SOULs have different traits. I think that just depends on personality. Even if the other humans COULD NOT save, there's still the multiple timelines theory. There are multiple results calculated by the universe, and Frisk just happens to live in the one were the other humans somehow died. Idk.

This is what you shouldn't do. You perceived your headcanon as canon. You took "(Edgy) Asriel Dreemur" 's debunk of your headcanon and said why it couldn't work using guesses from your headcanon . I call a headcanon instead of a theory because it holds absolutely no ground. It holds just as much ground as Gaster is Sans' dad theory. And the only evidence for that is 'Gaster Blasters' and the fact the Gaster's face is white.

[Cutting_Edgy]

Originally posted by danman3210:

Originally posted by lucasgpsonic12:

I DID think about the "Chosen One" theory, thank you, but no. I just couldn't say "Frisk is a superhero" to myself. And about Chara having reset powers; she doesn't. If Gaster only shattered time AFTER Chara was dead, then she wouldn't have been able to use her powers in the original timeline. Maybe she didn't even have enougth determination; as you pointed out, the other six SOULs have different traits. I think that just depends on personality. Even if the other humans COULD NOT save, there's still the multiple timelines theory. There are multiple results calculated by the universe, and Frisk just happens to live in the one were the other humans somehow died. Idk.

This is what you shouldn't do. You perceived your headcanon as canon. You took "(Edgy) Asriel Dreemur" 's debunk of your headcanon and said why it couldn't work using guesses from your headcanon . I call a headcanon instead of a theory because it holds absolutely no ground. It holds just as much ground as Gaster is Sans' dad theory. And the only evidence for that is 'Gaster Blasters' and the fact the Gaster's face is white.

Hmmm... I said nothing about headcanons in that answer. I may have expressed myself wrong. I don't think there's ANYTHING that debunks my theory in that comment. Unless you're talking about the "Frisk was chosen by the universe" thing, but, let's agree, that sounds very idiotic. Did you read my answer correctly? Gosh, you guys are making this more complicated than it should be.