I’m gonna do a little Undertale musical symbolism analysis for no reason.
So you know how pretty much every character in Undertale has their own musical theme/song? Papyrus has Bonetrousle, Flowey has Your Best Friend, Napstablook has Ghost Fight etc. And their musical themes come up when you fight them or just when they’re around sometimes. The melodies also reoccur and change in lots of cool ways when combined with other characters’ themes or in different situations. There’s a lot to be said about the use of music in Undertale.
But I want to talk about probably the most prevalent melody. You hear it a lot throughout the game and soundtrack in many different songs and forms. It’s the melody at the beginning of the first track, Once Upon a Time, if you want to go listen to it, and it looks like this:
I’m going to call this Frisk’s theme because 1. Frisk is the main character and this is probably the most used theme; you hear it everywhere because you are Frisk. 2. Frisk doesn’t have any other musical theme and this melody isn’t specific to any other character.
And 3. This is the main thing I wanted to talk about. I think it’s really cool if it was done on purpose. So this melody is really simple and consists of only the notes C, D, F, and G. Now, it probably doesn’t always appear in music which is in the key of C, but if you look at the melody on its own, C seems to be the central note. What is really cool is that if you consider this melody to be in C, you can’t tell if it’s C major or C minor, since it only has those four notes. If you look at the C major scale:
and the C minor scale:
you see that the four notes of this melody (C, D, F, G) are exactly the four notes shared by both scales. Therefore, the melody is not specifically major or minor. It could be either, or it’s just neither. (I’m still taking it out of context of any actual song, since the context changes and the key and mode could be different for different occurrences of the melody)
So, given this melody on its own, you can’t say that it’s specifically major or minor. You need more notes to determine that.
I think that this idea of undefined mode (major/minor) goes really well with Frisk. Since the entire game is about the choices you (Frisk) make and how good/evil you decide to be. Frisk on their own has no morality until you start playing as them and giving them their character. Frisk is a blank slate who becomes what the player decides. Just like Frisk’s melody, they have no specific leaning to good (major, if you will) or evil (minor). (Of course major doesn’t equal good and minor doesn’t equal evil – Papyrus’s theme is minor but he’s one of the nicest characters. But it’s a metaphor, and I think it’s pretty cool.)
Maybe someone has already said this or it might make no sense but if anyone cares or has ideas, add your thoughts or something. I’m interested to hear other opinions. Thanks.
First off, let me just say it’s so refreshing to see a post addressing Undertale and music theory! It’s a topic I don’t see explored very often, and one that I’ve tried to dig into lately myself.
The ambiguity of the mode (major or minor) is a really good point. The lack of modal commitment this motif has is what allows Toby to insert it into any song, regardless of whether that song is major or minor. However, I will have to disagree on this motif being Frisk’s theme, and here is why.
We first hear this motif in Once Upon a Time. In the opening cutscene as this song is playing, we are shown Chara, not Frisk, and how they ended up in the Underground. What I always thought was cool about the song accompanying the cutscene was the downwards chromatic movement in the bassline. This is what many composers will use to create a sinking, or falling sensation in their music. And that’s exactly what happens to Chara, isn’t it? They fall.
Another point I will bring up is the presence of this motif in the song Undertale, which to me is Asriel and Chara’s song. It plays as we learn of the history of these two siblings. This feels so heartfelt to me as it combines the two motifs of Asriel with His Theme/Memory, and Chara’s motif from Once Upon a Time. It would be odd to hear Frisk’s theme as we learn about these two, wouldn’t it?
But all this begs the question, DOES Frisk have a theme? Could it be in a hidden soundtrack among the game files, such as Star? Did Toby not make a motif for Frisk at all? It would be strange not to have a theme dedicated to the character we play as…
Anyways, I’m just throwing my thoughts around. I enjoyed reading this post and I appreciate you taking the time to write up and transcribe everything! Stay determined.
I’m not a music mayor or anything however i personally always thought of the song undertale as Frisk’s theme since it only plays after we learn Frisk’s name in a true pacifist run.
Hmm…the song that plays after SAVING Asriel and learning Frisk’s name in True Pacifist is Track 92, “Reunited.“
honestly just really like undertale 