“Chara is awake and present in neutral/pacifist as well as NM“ is, from what I can tell at this point, 99% likely to be canon, judging from all the hints and clues people have dug up thus far. It’s hard to think of an alternate explanation for the combined factors of Flowey’s message at the end of True Pacifist about resetting being addressed to the first fallen human (and explicitly NOT to Frisk, who Flowey now recognizes as a separate individual – “Let Frisk live their life”), the SAVE file being in the name of the first fallen human, the “but nobody came“ music on the load/reset screen for a True Reset, and the flashbacks to the first fallen child’s fall and death (sneakily introduced long before the player has the context to know what they’re actually seeing and reading) littered throughout the game.
The remaining 1% in that guesstimate represents “the creator has not explicitly confirmed this, in what TVTropes would call ‘Word of God,’ in totally unambiguous language.” And, welI… I don’t think Toby will ever explicitly confirm it, since it’s clear he was really intent on obfuscating the full extent of the first fallen child’s presence in the game.
“Chara is the narrator“ is more technically arguable, I admit, but it makes sense in light of “Chara is awake and present in all routes“ as an explanation for odd aspects of the narration that can’t just be brushed off as “It’s a quirky rpg with a quirky sense of humor.“
i always see either soft chara who likes knitting and gardening and loves their family or hardcore chara with violent outbursts and manipulation and death. it’s always EITHER OR like why can’t you get both
chara who finds solace in caring for a garden that thrives under their touch, who uses it as proof that they can nurture and not just kill, who has awful compulsive issues and violent meltdowns that often end in broken furniture and tears, who struggles with empathy and cheating and lying but would do anything for the people close to them. that’s the chara i wanna see
There’s an interesting clue to the narrator and their state of mind when you check the bag of dog food in the lab.
You see, unlike the dummy and tree, it’s affected by kill count, not LOVE.
If you kill no one…
The narrator becomes optimistic. They don’t want you to kill. The bag is “half-full”.
If you kill even one person (even a tiny whimsun, who won’t increase your love to even two)
…the narrator becomes pessimistic. The bag is now “half empty”. Their state of mind is directly changed by you killing even one person.
But if you kill Doggo, and your kill count is 21+….
The dog bag becomes funny. This is directly affected by killing Doggo and killing more than 20 people. The narrator doesn’t find his death funny before 20 kills. Something has changed in them.
Now, why is that? What kind of narrator becomes affected by you killing things, to the point where they become pessimistic if you even kill once? What kind of narrator becomes sadistic if you kill so many people?
One that is with you. One that shares your EXP and LOVE. One who becomes distanced as you distance yourself, and violent as you become violent yourself.
One who is looking to you for guidance.
One who only ever refers to themselves as Chara. One who only ever refers to “you” as Frisk.
Chara is the narrator, and their view on the world is directly changed by how much you kill.
If you kill no one, they’re optimistic. They don’t want you to kill.
If you kill even once, they become pessimistic.
If you kill over 20 people then they can be sadistic, even on a non-genocide route.
But they do not find Doggo’s death funny unless you kill more than 20 people (which is more than the equivalent of an entire area’s worth of monsters). They did not find it funny before the kills corrupted them, or they would always find his death funny, even without the kills.
Chara’s Level of Violence and Execution Points start at 1 and 0.
I hope it doesn’t seem like I’m blaming GoatDad for this, because I’m certainly not but seriously stop appointing emotionally troubled eight year olds to critical diplomatic positions Asgore
honestly just really like undertale 