About Determination, Magic, and Resets (Spoilers Ahoy!)

[Michelozzo]

Been thinking about Undertale as I am want to do lately, and I got to thinking about the nature of resets, and how the entity with the most Determination gets to control them.

It mostly got me thinking however, of why hasn't the surface world of Undertale experienced these kinds of timeline altering shinanegans like the Underground does when we show up?

The answer is actually fairly simple. Its because the surface isn't absolutely SATURATED in magic like the Underground is - being the little biosphere for the monsters that it is. Even when Frisk gets to the surface and is presumably the most determined smol child in existence, they're likely not able to tank getting shot by a gun as well as they took The God of Hyperdeath's giant rainbow beam that not only blew away most of the UI, but reduced Frisk's HP to less than 1, but still more than 0. Let alone having the ability to reset everything and wind up back in the underground again.

Humans might be stronger than monsters because of determination in our water based bodies, but magic lets you break the laws of physics. Greater Dog filling a suit of armor far larger than he is, Lesser Dog's neck shinanegans, Alphys's outright 'mad science' levels of technology among other things I'm not intimately recalling but I'm sure you can think of. Magic lets you do the impossible, Determination gives you the guts to go through with it.

So what of the True Reset then? At the end of a True Pacifist run where everyone is happy on the surface, or at the end of a Genocide run where everyone is dead by your hands, You can rewind everything and get back to square one. How does that work, if Resets don't work outside of the Underground because the Surface is lighter on Magic?

That's also fairly easy to explain. True Resets are impossible for beings within the Undertale universe. But The Player, the 'Anomaly', is not within the Undertale universe are we? The fact that we see this universe from the outside as a game is what gives us the ability to True Reset, to return everything to zero. Even if we don't do so within the constraints of the game itself, such as by tinkering with files and such. The one in universe being who can True Reset - Chara at the end of a genocide run - can only do so because they have co-opted OUR power. With this thought in mind, you can almost think of the 'taint' as Chara not being willing to let themselves be completely reset, and remaining as they were even as everything else is rewound to its beginnings.

I might not be breaking any sort of amazing ground with these lines of thought, but I'm still curious as to how you all see it, if you think I'm right or full of bull manure.

[>//The_FALCON]

Remember how flowey said that he was the god of this world?
Well, he would've been, if he lifted my invincebility.

But guess what? He didn't even knew.
That's why we still have control over our games. We are the true gods.

(I know that's cheating. I've never done this actually because there's no need. But I could have, and that counts, too. I was just saying this so I could prove a point.)

[Daimoknight]

I'm pretty sure Frisk is messing with time across the entire world when they save, reload, and reset. Their actions would ripple across the entire time stream. Sans says it himself when you fight him in the geno run. Whether or not they would still have the save and load power post true pacifist is up for debate.

[Michelozzo]

Originally posted by Daimoknight:

I'm pretty sure Frisk is messing with time across the entire world when they save, reload, and reset. Their actions would ripple across the entire time stream. Sans says it himself when you fight him in the geno run. Whether or not they would still have the save and load power post true pacifist is up for debate.

Oh I'm not doubting they affect all of the Undertale reality from within the Underground from the super high concentrations of magic mixed with their (and our) Determination. But without one third of that formula of Abnormally high determination + 'player' determination + absurdly high magic gone when they go to the surface, I don't think resetting is possible for Frisk anymore. Not that they'd want to of course, but still.

Originally posted by >//The_FALCONTnY:

Remember how flowey said that he was the god of this world?
Well, he would've been, if he lifted my invincebility.

But guess what? He didn't even knew.
That's why we still have control over our games. We are the true gods.

(I know that's cheating. I've never done this actually because there's no need. But I could have, and that counts, too. I was just saying this so I could prove a point.)

Point well proven. Even the 'godly' beings of Omega Flowey and Asriel 'Hyperdeath' Dreemur aren't Aware enough to do anything beyond what they were designed to do. Chara comes close, even though they do so in a preprogrammed way. They have an impact in the 'real world', being able to create (edit? Not sure how that works) the files that act as the signature on the 'sell your soul' contract.

[(Edgy) Asriel Dreemurr]

When you RESET you are setting back everything on the surface and in the underground.

Humans don't actually have enough Determination to SAVE on their own. What's actually happening is similar to how Flowey came from Asriel's essence within a golden flower in Asgore's garden, Chara's essence is in the golden flowers in the flower bed at the start of the game which marks Chara's grave.

The flowers that held Chara's essence were never injected with a large amount of determination (more than that of a single human), which was how Asriel came back as Flowey, instead Chara uses the souls and determination of humans that fall into the underground when they land on their grave, and the flower seeds (Chara essentially) stick to their body allowing Chara to add their own determination to the human's.

It takes their combined determination to be able to outmatch Flowey's and SAVE. This is why you can't reset any further back than the flower bed at the beginning of the game, where you first gain the ability to SAVE.

[Michelozzo]

Originally posted by DarkLordWiggles:

When you RESET you are setting back everything on the surface and in the underground.

Humans don't actually have enough Determination to SAVE on their own. What's actually happening is similar to how Flowey came from Asriel's essence within a golden flower in Asgore's garden, Chara's essence is in the golden flowers in the flower bed at the start of the game which marks Chara's grave.

The flowers that held Chara's essence were never injected with a large amount of determination (more than that of a single human), which was how Asriel came back as Flowey, instead Chara uses the souls and determination of humans that fall into the underground when they land on their grave, and the flower seeds (Chara essentially) stick to their body allowing Chara to add their own determination to the human's.

It takes their combined determination to be able to outmatch Flowey's and SAVE. This is why you can't reset any further back than the flower bed at the beginning of the game, where you first gain the ability to SAVE.

Thing is, that's also when the anomaly becomes a factor timing wise. Because that's where we start the game after naming Chara whatever we can fit into the text box.