I was so ready to jump in and scream, “Of course both of those songs have those motifs!!!!!” But, after a listen, I remembered that Memory isn’t really present in Hopes and Dreams/Save the World. The main melody sounds… Similar-ish but not quite enough to constitute it being the same motif as Memory in my opinion. Here’s a rough transcription (Memory is transposed into Bb Major for ease of analysis).
I would consider the melody in Hopes and Dreams/Save the World to be an alternate motif for Asriel, as it’s also in Last Goodbye, Reunited, and the Full Menu theme. All of these are songs we don’t hear until after the final battle with Asriel.
As for the Your Best Friend portion, I think most can pick up on the motif in Hopes and Dreams at around the 1:19 mark. I’m sure you already knew that one, though c:
Thanks, notes!
Me and notes talked a little more in chat after he made this reply and…the only place in the game that that melody appears that isn’t True Pacifist exclusive, it seems, is during the last bit of “Once Upon a Time.”
So, it’s technically part of the “Once Upon a Time” melody, but…the first two segments of “Once Upon a Time” are quoted much more liberally, throughout the entire game. The third section, as Notes noted, appears only during and after the fight with Asriel.
My first thought was, “Wait, what about the other menu themes? There’s a bunch of them, right?” So, as I’m a crappy skeptic that needs to fact-check everything, I checked on that.
There are seven mus_menu, labelled 0-6. One of them is unused (shame, it sounded quite nice with the glockenspiel). Now, instrumentation is added whenever you befriend someone new, hence the various menu themes. However, even after the Alphys date, a True Pacifist exclusive, you still don’t get the C part of OUAT. It’s only after the Asriel fight that it appears in mus_menu6.
This is certainly strong evidence for the motif being strongly related to Asriel. I’m certainly willing to consider it. Nice observations, guys!
honestly just really like undertale 