Inconsistencies: This will be a [spoiler] thread

[Giga]

After learning about the geno ending, the 'true' ending corruption, and generally Chara's involvement, me and a couple friends were...Taken aback to say the least, but we also started talking it over and spitballing. Each one of us had a kind of epiphany but couldn't really reconsile anything. Well, other than there's something not right.

To that end, we came up with a list of inconsistencies in the world, and some points that haven't been fully realized. I'l list some of them here, and ask....Either could you guys explain away the inconsistencies, or add on ones we missed?

1: 'no enterences, no exits': One of the bits in Waterfall said that the underground has not enterences or exits other than the barrier corridor. But apperently humans and trash fall down from the mountain.
Further, because of this it would make sense that the monsters could just build up to one of these enterences or just dig through the mountain. Unless the barrier was around the whole of the mountain, but then why would they need to break it at the corridor?

2: 'humans are strong, monsters are weak': more than once it's stated that it would take many, many monsters just to kill one human, let alone 6. How did they get the hearts then? You can explain away some of it as 'accidents' or the humans being weak or young....but it's obvious from Frisk that even a little kid can wipe out even the strongest champions the monsters have if they defend themselves. How then?

3: Delta Rune: We see this pop up EVERYWHERE, which makes sense since it fills the role of a religious symbol of hope for the monsters. But there's one thing that bugs me personally. Gerson, and Asgore, who predate the war, don't know it's meaning. It's the symbol of the kingdom, but beyond that they don't know what it means. That it predates written history-- which he himself is writing. But Asgore is the one that named the kingdom, and would create that symbol, no? It can be explained away as the royal crest, Asriel's form, and a symbol of hope....But something doesn't add up in it appearing as much as it does in odd places, or that the meaning is lost. but that seems to be me.

4: Determination extration and blueprints: In the true lab, you run across the DT Extractor, powered down and empty. Only two things in the game look like that thing. Boss Flow's lower 'head', and Gyftrot's head. It's assumed that there's some connection to it and Flowy, but there's a problem there. Flowy was created with extracted Determination. So at best, his form is mimicing that thing, not being used by it.
On top of that, there's the 'fallen down' monsters, and the blue prints. It expressly says she used the blue prints, not the machine, which at best is an odd turn of phrase. It also gives no real indication of where the blue prints came from...Who figured out how to extract DT? It's not like they have living humans to infinately test on, nor a clear place to start. Add in the 'fallen down' part and something seems off. If they were simply dying, there wouldn't be need to explain it to monsters in such a way; clearly they know about death and what happens. So what is 'falling down' in reference to?

5: True lab and Flowy: in entry 10, it's mentioned that the 'experiments on the vessel are a failure.' and it's not 'different from the control cases.' This would imply she injected more flowers with DT, which are assumed to be from the garden where Asriel died. So why aren't there more Flowys? Plus she mentioned that she sent the flower back to Asgore, but somehow knows he went missing without leaving her lab. How?

6: Chara's soul: When you fight Asgore, 7 containers raise up, only 6 are filled. Yet there's a coffin for Chara that's empty, which is explained off as Tori taking Chara's body to bury in the Ruins, assumptively in the flower patch you start in. So where's their soul? With Asriel, right? That would mean Flowy has Chara's human soul; Flowy has Asriel's soul when injected with DT, and Asriel had Chara's when he died. Except Flowy doesn't have Chara's soul. He has Asriel's, but can't cross the barrier to go slaughter and absorb human souls. This implies Chara's soul is missing.
However, at the start of a Geno run, Flowy calls you out as Chara, claiming you 'stole' a soul. Whether this is implied to be the player's soul or not is up for debate, but it does highlight an interesting point. Flowy assumes Chara has no soul. Why? If they didn't have a soul, Asriel couldn't have crossed the barrier, but Flowy more than anyone would know that, so why say such a thing?

7: Frisk and dying: This is something we all kinda agree is off: Frisk seems to have Chara's memories somehow. In the true lab, you find videos with Chara dying from their suicide. Durin g that, Asgore is saying the same lines you hear when you die and have to load. This could be passed off as just flavor text and meaningless, but it is fairly odd and on the nose that THOSE lines, the words Chara hear's as they're dying, are what YOU hear when you're knocked out.

8: Chara's suicide: It's heavily implied in the True Lab that Chara commits suicide to give Asriel their soul. Why? By all accounts, Chara is malivelant, eager to see others hurt and die. Yet two points came up. One, why would someone like that kill themselves to give their lifeforce to another? What is there for them to gain? And two, if Chara is so eager to see EVERYONE die, and was in such a position when they were alive...Why isn't the underground empty? Think about it; Chara could kill Toriel, Asgore, Asriel, and probably anyone who was alive at the time, and end up like Frisk does at the end of a Geno run: an unkillable reaper that can oneshot everyone. Something there doesn't add up, right?

Anyway, that's only a part of what we came up with....Our white board looks like a mess with linking inconsistences and theories, so I won't try and put them all here. I'd love to hear what you g uys think have have to add.

[Michelozzo]

1) Pragmatism doesn't work where magic is concerned - the barrier likely coats the whole mountain from inside-out travel, and the corridor is just a focal point of it. Potentially a weakness in it the monsters discovered but need the souls to exploit.

2) None of the other humans were likely willing to grind LV and EXP enough to overpower the monsters - I imagine the fact that Humans can become so powerful is the ability to distance themselves and become effectively 'Soulless' feeling nothing for those they hurt. Monsters always have Love and Compassion in their souls. They can never entirely distance themselves enough to kill someone, at least not without the fanfare and strangeness you encounter in your own journey. So the kids are likely trying to get out as safely as possible, not fighting unless they absolutely had to, screwed up one too many times and then ded.

3) This is a good point. I have no counter arguement, other than Gerson might just be forgetting.

4) The DT Extractor was likely something built by Dr Gaster, notice how the shape is very similar to the Gaster Blasters - The Bad Time's infamous laser spewing skulls - which have the ability to really test the Player's Determination with their ludicrous damage that ignores armor and iFrames. The journals mention that the Souls were tested on, not humans. Since the souls can exist without humans because of said Determination, they'd be testable for extracting it.

5) Only the flower that was saturated with Asriel's dust got enough of it and Determination at the same time to become Flowey. The control cases were likely normal buttercups that are probably now really determined to live, but have no intelligence to do much about it. Flowey likely fled the lab the moment he could, trying to find his parents and recieve some comfort for what was happening. We unfortunately know how that ended up.

6) Chara HAD a soul, he was absorbed into Asriel as part of their plan, and at that point the exact nature of a Human + Monster soul fusion - most people call them 'Angel' souls but I prefer 'Chimera' souls myself - is unknown. Do they follow the rule of monster souls? Human souls? neither? We're not sure. All we do know as Chara tells us at the end of a Genocide run is that the Soul and Determination he's using is not his. Its ours. He likely passed on to the afterlife, only to be brought back by us.

7) This isn't canon, just how I see it. The Player Character is Chara's body, reanimated by our Determination as a Player. When we take the True Pacifist path, Chara becomes Frisk, quite literally being reborn as a new person. When we take the Genocide path however, Chara not only comes back as themselves, but way worse as they learn the nature of LV and EXP and how powerful one can be by gathering lots of them.

8) This is again, personal head canon but it makes sense. Human!Chara and End of Genocide !Chara are not the exact same entity. Sure, Human!Chara was a knob, but he likely was not a genocidial maniac. He wanted to abuse Asriel's power to get a 2 for 1 on revenge and human soul harvesting, but he wanted to do the latter as much as the former. The goat boss monster family loved their adoptive child, and he likely loved them back. He was willing to die for them to see monsters go free, even if he had his own motives alongside it.

Can we get a pic of the whiteboard? I'm curious now :3

[JodiYF]

1: That's a good point.
2: I believe Undyne was strong enough to have collected the SOULs.
3: I'm not sure. Perhaps it was underground before the monsters?
4: I can't quite remember, but I believe that Alphys figured out how to exract it, and that Monsters do have determination, just not as much as the player. In fact, if you've done a Genocide run, There are already two examples of Monsters having determination: Undyne the Undying and Flowey. I'm not sure what falling down is reffering to, though; maybe it's just a nicer way of saying death?
5: If I remember correctly, it was stated that the flower that worked was the first that sprouted, which (Big spoilers for Neutral and Pacifist) I assume could be where Asriel collapsed. I know that the flower couldn't have a SOUL, but perhaps Asriel still somehow became a part of the flower?. I'm not sure about everything else, though.
6: I'm not sure about the first part, and my apologies if I'm misinterprating this at all, but I believe Flowey meant that Chara stole a SOUL after they died, and that's how they were alive again.
7: I'm not certain, but perhaps Frisk only has some memories, or they're nearly forgotten? Genocide spoilers: Near the end of a Genocide run, Flowey talks to you, and at some point basically tells you that, when he was about to die, he felt "something primal", which I assume is determination, and that kept him alive; perhaps Frisk remembers those words when they need determination?
8: I'm not certain, and I can't remember it very well, but(Neutral spoilers)[spoilers] Near the end of a neutral run, monsters appear and, among other things, say that the first human fell ill, and died from it. Perhaps it wasn't suicide?[/spoiler] As for why they didn't kill everyone while they were alive, I'm not sure. Perhaps they were friends with Asriel and Asgore, etc.? If not, perhaps they just thought that the living monster could be useful to them, and changed their mind after they died. Or, perhaps(Neutral spoilers), if they did die from an illness, they felt upset that they died to early? I'm not really certain.
I'm sorry for not being able to remember much very well, or if I seemed at all rude or sarcastic in this comment. Also, my apologies if anyone has already replied before me.

[brickey.8]

1. It probably has entrances but no exits. From the humans' perspective that's all it needed.

2. I think Frisk is just a much more determined human soul than average. The others probably only held on through one, or maybe a handful of, deaths. Also, general fanon is that they were all children; certainly a few of them must have been given the items they left behind.

4. I'm pretty sure in context, "fallen down" is just a monster euphemism for "dying". Maybe dying from injury or from a specific disease? Everyone talks about fallen down monsters as though they're dead.

5. Control cases would be ordinary flowers; saying he doesn't differ from the control means he's not acting alive. He probably fled as soon as he was revived.

6. Souls that aren't absorbed shatter shortly after death, even human ones. My guess is, when Asriel died everyone was too distraught to capture the brief window of opportunity and Chara's soul shattered, lost forever. As did Asriel's. Flowey is very adamant that he does not have ANY soul as a flower.

7. Yeah, this part's weird. It's a fandom speculation magnet. I say it gives a lot of credence to the "revived Chara's body" theory.

8. Chara and Asriel shared control of Asriel's body. Clearly Chara knew that would happen, and expected that at worst they'd be along for the ride as Asriel did those things--and at best, they expected to be able to have most of the control through their much stronger will. In any case, I agree that pre-death Chara was probably a lot less evil than post-geno Chara (still a bad person, but human).

Originally posted by TheAvengingGamer:

8: I'm not certain, and I can't remember it very well, but(Neutral spoilers)[spoilers] Near the end of a neutral run, monsters appear and, among other things, say that the first human fell ill, and died from it. Perhaps it wasn't suicide?[/spoiler] As for why they didn't kill everyone while they were alive, I'm not sure. Perhaps they were friends with Asriel and Asgore, etc.? If not, perhaps they just thought that the living monster could be useful to them, and changed their mind after they died. Or, perhaps(Neutral spoilers), if they did die from an illness, they felt upset that they died to early? I'm not really certain.

It's strongly implied that Chara poisoned themself using the buttercups, to allow Asriel to absorb their soul and cross the barrier.

[Giga]

Oh boy....First, does anyone know how to do tabs on this forum, if those are possible?

Now...uhh...hmm. Going to pick out a couple things...

@Michelozzo: I know there's no direct evidence linking it, but I honestly believe Frisk is actually Chara's body revived. Most of the people working this out deny this, saying that you're told repeatedly that Frisk isn't Chara, however I'm operating under the theory that A the opening cutscenes aren't of Frisk falling down, but Chara, B that the 'Chara: Trun Name' is canon and not just a tease, and C that Chara is alive but unable to directly act. It makes sense to a degree when you think Tori buried Chara in the flower bed, and why Flowy thinks Frisk is Chara so much, even fully identifing them as such in geno runs. But that's me it seems.

I also kinda follow that theory after one of my mates brought it up, but in a slightly different manner. That either Chara was corrupted before death somehow, or that the being claiming to be Chara at a geno end is just using the name. Still, no way to prove or disprove yet.

And sadly I don't think so. We don't have a good camera here....and we wrote pretty small compared to how big the board is. There's no way you'd be able to make out anything but a gaint mess. Also, there's ♥♥♥♥♥ on the board. >_>
I am however making a digital edit of it, cleaned up [mostly] and with the most relevent stuff organized. It'll take awhile :o

@TheAvengingGamer: First, no need to use the spoiler tags; if anyone is reading this and upset by spoilers, there's a spoiler warning in the title.....braceted even. You knew what youwere getting into.

Honestly, we all kinda came to the idea that the Delta Rune might have been in the underground before the monsters, and they just picked it up ast he royal crest. but, it doesn't explain what it is sadly.

@brickey.8:

Well, there's good reason to believe they were childeren, there is evidence to suggest it in that Tori has a lot of kids shoes in a sealed off area. Though that seems a bit odd in itself, no? Afterall, Toriel left soon after Asriel died, then went to the Ruins, sealed it off, and from all accounts was never seen from again. Then Asgore and Co. killed them...How'd she get the shoes? Can't be from monsters!
Either way, even if they were childeren, Frisk is proof to the fact that even kids have enough power and determination to endure everything. Think about it. In a pacifist run, even if we assume they don't have much in the way of defence, totally avoid killing monsters, who they're raised to believe would kill them and take their souls, and get hit a lot, it'd take a while before they'd die. They could chug food to stay alive, or run from most battles. At worst, they'd run into Undyne, and at best the royal guard. And that's assuming they were kids....
More of the game assumes, suggests, and states as fact that it would be VERY hard for monsters to kill even normal humans. To off 6 of them seems out of place.

And there's mention of monsters dying before that point, but nothing claiming they 'fell down'. Unless it means something else, why go to the trouble of using flower terms to soften the blow, in a scientific log about, for lack of a better word, human experimentation. Just...with monsters/non-humans.

But we know for a fact he didn't flee. The flower, while it wasn't Flowy, was sent back to Asgore. Then he became Flowy, and engaged with his father, trying to be happy and make those around happy...But found no joy in it. THEN he left. In all this time, Alphys is in her lab, avoiding phone calls, injecting things with determination, and taking care of the Amalgamtes before they fused....So how did she know he was gone?

Well, there's two ways to look at the dying text from Asgore as far as I can see. You either treat it as non-canon flavor text with absolutely no meaning, or as canon text related to the exact words Asgore said to the dying Chara in the videos. In which case, it doesn't make much sense why Frisk would hear this, or why you the player would hear these things.
I tend to air on the sideo f it being canon in the meta-world of Undertale. Flowy leads me to believe this; if you die in fighting him, he mimics Asgore's voice and taunts you with it, meaning he's fully aware you've heard this before.

How is it clearly? What makes you say 'he clearly knew'? What evidence is there?

[brickey.8]

Originally posted by Giga:

Oh boy....First, does anyone know how to do tabs on this forum, if those are possible?

You can't do tabs in the steam browser, but you can also access these forums through your internet browser. If you do it that way you can use tabs.

About the children, Toriel says before fighting you that there were previously children who came to her, stayed briefly, left the ruins and then died.

As for how they died, here's something to consider: Look at where each one's stuff ended up, and how it relates to the color mechanics. The light blue soul had the weakest items and made it the least far. The orange soul (orange=keep moving) died in the Snowdin forest, where all the dogs have blue attacks. The dark blue soul (dark blue heart is affected by gravity) died in Waterfall, where several enemies (Moldbyg, Aaron, Temmie) have an attack that is virtually impossible to dodge if you're stuck on the bottom of the screen. Purple heart could have been killed by Gerson, the previous generation's Undyne, which is why he has their stuff. Or alternately that's the methodical note-taking heart and their stuff is right before two pitch-black rooms. The green heart died in Hotland, where orange attacks are introduced, and when your heart is green you defend against attacks without moving. And the yellow heart had the best combat gear and made it farthest, but their gun was out of bullets when you find it. Or maybe he died to Mettaton, who is immune to physical attacks.

As for fallen down monsters, there's a reference in Mettaton's old journals to Shyren's sister having "fallen down", and I think if you backtrack after fighting Papyrus and talk to the monsters Chilldrake talks about Snowdrake's mom having "fallen down". (Or that there was at least some place where that is referred to). So it's not just Alphys that says it.

As for Flowey leaving, ehh. We never see a journal entry where Alphys is aware he's alive, just one where the test appears unsuccessful and another where he's gone. I believe he says he returned to his parents to spend time of his own volition.

I guess there's no real evidence of what Chara did and didn't know, but everything in both the videos and the final conversations with Asriel sound to me like Chara knew exactly what they were doing.

[dat_potatoe]

2. Making "Puzzles" is a mentioned a few times as being a tradition the monsters have. I assume many of the humans may have simply died to those, a case of monsters using brain over brawn. We don't really see any ourselves since it's presumably been a LONG time since any humans have actually died underground. The ones we actually do see either Toriel guides us through them, or they're harmless because Papyrus made them. Just my theory.

[Michelozzo]

Originally posted by Giga:

Oh boy....First, does anyone know how to do tabs on this forum, if those are possible?

Now...uhh...hmm. Going to pick out a couple things...

@Michelozzo: I know there's no direct evidence linking it, but I honestly believe Frisk is actually Chara's body revived. Most of the people working this out deny this, saying that you're told repeatedly that Frisk isn't Chara, however I'm operating under the theory that A the opening cutscenes aren't of Frisk falling down, but Chara, B that the 'Chara: Trun Name' is canon and not just a tease, and C that Chara is alive but unable to directly act. It makes sense to a degree when you think Tori buried Chara in the flower bed, and why Flowy thinks Frisk is Chara so much, even fully identifing them as such in geno runs. But that's me it seems.

I also kinda follow that theory after one of my mates brought it up, but in a slightly different manner. That either Chara was corrupted before death somehow, or that the being claiming to be Chara at a geno end is just using the name. Still, no way to prove or disprove yet.

And sadly I don't think so. We don't have a good camera here....and we wrote pretty small compared to how big the board is. There's no way you'd be able to make out anything but a gaint mess. Also, there's ♥♥♥♥♥ on the board. >_>
I am however making a digital edit of it, cleaned up [mostly] and with the most relevent stuff organized. It'll take awhile :o

I stick with the 'The Player's Avatar is Chara's body' theory personally because there's loads of little points of evidence that seem to aid in it as well. The most prominent one is when you're using 'Joke' on Woshuas in Waterfall.

"You tell a joke about two kids who played in a muddy flower garden" - Likely Asriel and Chara playing in fields of buttercups that came down on Chara as sticky seeds.

"You tell a Joke about a kid who ate a pie with their bare hands" - Not the hardest evidence, but there isn't a lot of mention of pie in this game when it isn't Toriel's Butterscotch Pie.

"You tell a joke about a kid who slept in the soul" This is definitely the hardest evidence - who would think of telling a joke like that other than one who had died and who is on record as laughing off accidentally poisoning their adoptive father with buttercups?

Another one is one of Madjick's ACTs 'Clear Mind' mentions concentrating about 'pollen and sunshine'. Admitidly thinking about Sunshine is likely expected of a kid trying to reach the surface, but pollen? Seems very unusual to call that out specifically. Unless someone has had a very deeply affecting experience like I dunno, death, with flowers.

Take your time, I am curious to see the scribbles of a fellow Undertale madman all the same :D. Or mad men, as the case may be.

[Niflthaena]

re: "falling down": I don't think this is simply a euphemism either. It hasn't been mentioned here, but Monsters turn to dust as they die; the fallen are said to be close to death, and expected to die, but they are not yet dead. They seem analogous to being comatose.
Perhaps it's literal? Frisk falls down into the trash dump, and appears to nearly die from the fall. Alphys, the one who ends up with all the Fallen, spends lots of time in said trash dump. But Frisk lands on flowers, and survives... perhaps most monsters become too injured to sustain life?

re: death messages from Asgore: I don't think it could be coincidence. The player/Anomaly experiences everything from the standpoint of Frisk (whatever Frisk is). IIRC, after the game begins there's no such thing as a cutscene from another perspective, save at the end of a genocide run where Chara bypasses Frisk and addresses the Anomaly directly. (Which stands to reason, as Chara's been co-controlling Frisk for some time at that point.)
If the player experiences everything from Frisk's standpoint, Frisk has to have some reason to have those memories.

----

The thing that's been most bothering me is: of all characters, why does the player/Anomaly control Frisk?
The basic answer is 'because there has to be an avatar character'. I don't buy that, though; every trope in the game is deconstructed to the point of having canon justification. The save mechanic comes from Determination, XP/LV comes from emotional detachment (which is known to increase the combat power of humans). Even the combat system exists in-world, since it is physically observed and interacted with by various characters.

So what's the in-world justification for an avatar character? What links Frisk to the Anomaly?

And why does Chara have the same ability as the Anomaly, the ability to use Frisk as an avatar?

[Michelozzo]

Originally posted by Tesseract:

The thing that's been most bothering me is: of all characters, why does the player/Anomaly control Frisk?
The basic answer is 'because there has to be an avatar character'. I don't buy that, though; every trope in the game is deconstructed to the point of having canon justification. The save mechanic comes from Determination, XP/LV comes from emotional detachment (which is known to increase the combat power of humans). Even the combat system exists in-world, since it is physically observed and interacted with by various characters.

So what's the in-world justification for an avatar character? What links Frisk to the Anomaly?

And why does Chara have the same ability as the Anomaly, the ability to use Frisk as an avatar?

This is definitely a couple of thoughts that get resolved by 'The Avatar is Chara's former body' theory/head canon.

"So what's the in-world justification for an avatar character? What links Frisk to the Anomaly?" -

The in world justification as to why we as the Player (Or Anomaly as you put it) can control the child who would be Frisk is because it is an empty vessel, intact but without any Soul or Determination to drive it. Path of least resistance in attempting to find a suitable host wouldn't you think? The idea that we're 'linked' to Frisk in some way and its the reason we're using them as an avatar is a big foggier I will admit - I don't think there is any real link between them and us, again simply path of least resistance.

"Why does Chara have the same ability as The Anomaly, the ability to use Frisk as an Avatar?"

In the Genocide ending, Chara stats that the Soul and Determination that brought them back from death was not their own, but ours. One can assume than that because he has the ability to take the Anomaly's Soul if the Anomaly wishes to restore the world after destroying it, that while he has been gaining EXP than LV, he's been leeching/co-opting our Determination/Soul and gaining 'Player-hood' over the Avatar.

[Niflthaena]

Path of Least Resistance seems plausible, but Frisk isn't the only empty host... there's the flowers, the dummies, and it's possible some of the Fallen qualify as well. Does something make Frisk different?

[Michelozzo]

Originally posted by Tesseract:

Path of Least Resistance seems plausible, but Frisk isn't the only empty host... there's the flowers, the dummies, and it's possible some of the Fallen qualify as well. Does something make Frisk different?

I'm going to assume because like in most games, our Avatar is a humanoid of some description, that we'd gravitate towards an avatar that matches that same set of properties. We can't move and interact with the game world as a Flower, or a Dummy. But a human body? It has all the 'controls' we're familiar with in our own meaty shells. We slip into it like a well worn glove :)

The other fallen humans were likely not suitable because they were 'stuck' in the coffins, but Chara's old body was just buried under some dirt and buttercups. Again, path of least resistance. Much easier to get out of.

[(Edgy) Asriel Dreemurr]

1. The barrier covers the entire mountain, not just that one room. They probably just didn't know about the cave opening humans could fall down when the text was written.

2. The humans that fought them in the war would have high LV and EXP since they intended to kill the monsters. As for those that came into the Underground... each one lands on the golden flower patch at the beginning of the game, at which point Chara's essence trapped in the flower seeds stick to them and begins taking control (I'll explain this later). Chara's own determination combines with each human's thus giving them the power to SAVE, however at some point Chara abandoned the 6 humans before Frisk to die in order for Asgore to collect the souls Chara would need to destroy the world themself. So essentially each human became cocky with saving, then Chara left them to die...

3. The Delta Rune itself was probably around before they were trapped in the underground (and the prophecy just didn't make much sense to them until they ended up underground), and Asgore simply decided to use it as the symbol for his kingdom as the prophecy surrounding it would give the monsters hope.

4. W.D. Gaster... you should read up on that.

5. I assume the fallen down monsters were the control cases, since they weren't supposed to become what they did. She is remarking that Flowey left Asgore, which Flowey confirms himself in the Genocide Run.

6. Chara's "SOUL" was destroyed when Asriel died. However, somehow Chara's determination continues to exist as it's own entity. The golden flowers were not in Asgore's garden when Asriel died there, the seeds (which Alphys mentions are sticky and hard to remove) attached to Asriel and Chara's bodies. Asgore's garden sprouted from the seeds attached to Asriel, and the golden flower bed at the start of the game grew when Chara was buried (planting the seeds). Asriel and Chara's essence became attached to their respective gardens. Alphys's Determination experiments ressurect Asriel as Flowey, and the determination of each human that falls onto that bed of golden flowers resurrects Chara.

7. Without Chara's determination, Frisk would not be able to go back to the last save point. This is kind of explained in my previous point. Basically in this game YOU the player are taking on the role of Chara. Whether you get the good or bad ending proves who comes out on top. However YOU (Chara) will end up true reseting everything regardless. This is why you name the fallen child in the first place. So because YOU are essentially Chara, whenever you get a game over you get a memory of Asgore encouraging Chara (you) on their deathbed.

8. When Chara was alive according to Asriel they only wanted to hurt humanity, it's only later after Asriel betrayed them that Chara decides to go after everyone else, including monsters.

[brickey.8]

I think the reason that the player controls Frisk in particular is as simple as it is meta: Because he/she is "the human", and you are "the human". The fact that being a human means being controlled by a player is why being a human means being invincible.

[(Edgy) Asriel Dreemurr]

This goes with my 6th point. My combined determination theory would also explain why neither Chara nor Frisk can reload from a Save earlier than the moment Frisk lands on Chara's grave. If it takes their combined determination to be able to SAVE than the golden flower bed becomes the earliest point that the duo had the possibility to SAVE so it becomes the furthest possible RESET point for them.

This would also explain how your determination is able to outmatch Flowey's.

[Zaltys]

1. The barrier is spherical. There are multiple ways to enter, but most monsters (and humans) don't know about those.

2. Traps. You find a ribbon in one of the pits, so I think one of the humans died there. And when Toriel moved in, she made sure that it doesn't happen again. For instance, all the pits are filled with leaves from the tree that grows outside of Toriel's home.

There's also that one echo flower saying that someone got lost in the dark and died (starved?) there alone. Might've been one of the humans.

3. The symbol is probably far older than Asgore. Something like ancient history for monsters. Humans have plenty of such symbols, too.

4. Those must've been Gaster's blueprints, since it was his lab before Alphys was appointed as the new royal scientist.

5. Alphys sent the souls back, not the flower. As for why there aren't more Floweys: that was the oldest flower, and must've still had Asriel's dust on it. Other flowers might've had some trace amounts, but not enough. I'm not sure what Alphys was actually hoping to achieve by injecting nonsapient things with determination. She clearly didn't understand the process as well as Gaster would've.

6. Asriel absorbed Chara's soul, and I don't think they ever got separated. And nobody absorbed it when Asriel died. We can assume that it's long gone.

7. Like the above poster says, Frisk is only able to save after landing on Chara's grave. I have no idea how, but from that point onwards, it was both Chara and Frisk sharing one body. So obviously Frisk had some of Chara's memories.

8. Chara was just a kid with a lot of mental baggage, and probably had hard time showing positive emotions. He might've even been bit of a bully. But he clearly cared about monsters far more than he cared about humans, otherwise he would've simply taken Asriel's soul and became powerful enough to directly take revenge on his tormentors.

But then the plan went awry when Asriel stopped Chara from getting revenge, which must've had an impact on him: betrayed by his closest friend, after he gave his soul for the plan. Even then, Chara only becomes absolute evil in genocide, after the player shows him that his new purpose is to kill and gain power. And there's no going back from that, even if you do a pacfist run afterwards: he's too far gone, beyond saving no matter how much love you shower at him.

In other routes, Chara is still there but more mellow. Since the player doesn't kills anyone, Chara never learns how 'good' it feels to gain power. Too bad that we don't ever get to directly talk to him, so all that's left is headcanon. Mine is that in full pacifist Chara decides that the purpose of his resurrection is to finish what he started: to break the barrier. And therefore he has no reason to oppose the player at any point.