The Moment That Made Undertale Famous

I feel a very underrated scene is if you do multiple genocide routes in a row, even Chara, the very character who guides you through the genocide route, will call you out, telling you to do something else

another thing to add, in the asgore encounter, the mercy button's gone, but he never broke it.

Fun fact: that final attack at the very end that crashes the game was originally supposed to completely delete the game from your device, but Toby couldn't figure out how to do it

"do you think even the worst person can change? that everyone can be a good person, if they just try?" Sans is more reminding you about his brother. Because that's exactly what Papyrus said you could do. That's why Sans humorlessly laughs after. He's probably feeling defeated by how niave his brother truly was for thinking the best of you. But he isn't going to let you forget him either.

the 'you'd be dead where you stand' quote can also be taken in another way, as without sans's promise to PROTECT over you, the other monsters wouldn't have been so nice in snowdin, or you may not have made it through other areas without him helping, such as when he stalks you in in waterfall during the genocide route (check the unique shyren concert text in genocide), implying that he could have helped us during pacifist and neutral through practically all areas.

The player cheats against sans. We attack twice.

“Is Glitchtale very good? No not really.” I have never laughed so hard at 6 am

Most animations only give sans the famous blue eye when he also has a yellow eye Blue = patience Yellow = justice

15:34 I don't think saying "you're beyond forgiveness" and "he has to play dirty like this" is the right interpretation here. Afterall, tricks only work once, and since he knows we always come back after dying, dirty tricks won't do much. The only way sans can make player give up is by being so hard you just quit, not by pulling dirty tricks like Sparing him. The next line is the most important one, "if we're really friends, you won't come back". He does the opposite of making you quit out of frustration, he wants you to quit out of any feelings that may be left inside you. The same way how Papyrus wants you to "quit", albeit in a different way. He doesn't know if you won't just lie to him and continue on your murderous spree. But if you're truly sorry, you're gonna quit, and if you're truly His Friend(™), you won't come back. I believe saying he just has to "play dirty like this" is a vast oversimplification of a moment that is genuinely heartfelt.

Some notes that Hayze didn't touch upon: Sans does 1 damage per frame and dodges every hit despite having 1 hp. The player likely has equipped the Real Knife and HeartLocket, each of which are the best armor and weapon in the game in terms of STATS, but no benefits like the BurntPan or TornNotebook. ATK and DEF don't matter anymore, because you can't HIT him and he doesn't do more than the minimum possible damage. Sans goes first because in most fights, you engage the opponent. Your turn is always first because either they cede their turn to you or you fight them before they know you're there. Note most enemies having the "[Enemy] stumbled in!" or some variety of that, implying they didn't see you coming until you were there- most don't even know you're a human. Undyne turns you green with her first attack. Sans doesn't cede his turn or waste it. The reason sans goes first is because you don't fight sans. Sans fights you. This also might be why Megalovania is used instead of TSTMPWYFS, as you don't fight sans. Megalovania is a portmanteau of Transylvania and Megalomania, which could imply it's your theme attempting to overtake his. Red is (almost) the only color in the game that appears on monster models directly. (Flowey doesn't count.) Sans' blood is red, your SOUL is red, ASGORE's trident is red. Each of these characters have a reason to be determined to kill you- (UNDYNE's Determination is inside her- dunno what to think about that.) Sans performs a betrayal kill, which is a nice touch since that's how you killed Papyrus, and the act of SPAREing one turn and attacking the next is also how you can pass Toriel quickly in the RUINs on neutral. Sans is tied to JUSTICE and PATIENCE via his eye colors, the only non-red colors on enemy monsters in the entire game.

19:27 Interestingly enough, he seems to also be friends with Alphys, he hints to it ALL throughout the game(even sending dog food and JOKING about it, we know what that means), his, as he says THEIR research (with likely Alphys) is seemingly what led him to become aware that his choices don't matter(along maybe with Gaster but that's an even more theory zone), Alphys even jinxed his joke once lol.

2:16 the joke of Sans and Papyrus being parodies of Helvetica has fully eclipsed knowledge of Helvetica or what the joke was referencing

Sans' mercy trick is another thematically appropriate part of the fight in its own right. I don't know about the regular enemies, but the bosses at least, have different death scenes if you play the fights through as if in pacifist until you're able to spare them, and then kill them.

What I genuinely love in this fight is that technically all of these rules in the battle are totally legal because of other examples of the game it also references many other characters for example, (oh boy this going to be long) papyrus is one of the few fights where the box moves when you move, on the last attack when you jump so high the box itself has to expand just to keep you visible. Asriel is the only character that does damage without really any i frames, they are much shorter in his final attack, Asgore upgrades his attacks as the fight goes on, which is what Sans does overtime. Sans is able to kill you with the spare mechanic because betrayal kills are a hidden game mechanic where if an enemy is spare able, you kill them in one hit. Flowey attacks you even when you’re healing or fighting him in the omega fight. Even with the new rules, the original rules still apply somewhat. Sans cancel attacks and chain them together because he stuns you slightly with the teleport, if you want to be serious, you do this too later when you kill Flowey as you stun him on the first hit as he’s not entirely dead. Then you keep killing him afterwards as he can’t act. The fact that Sans can do all of this and it all feels somewhat familiar makes it go even further.

Great video! I also believe that one of the reasons the fight is so popular is because of its buildup. In the pacifist route, Sans initially appears as a comic relief character, but he has moments that make you think, 'there's more to this guy.' The more you play the game, the more you begin to notice these things. Even Flowey, in one of the neutral endings, warns you about Sans lol And the best part is that the fight makes you wonder about Sans, 'why does he know about resets?' 'How is he able to do all of that?' 'Why is he somewhat different?' There's a lot that you can dive into with this guy

Honestly when I beat sans I didn’t feel accomplished, I felt empty, just a husk and it didn’t help that I had also done the True pacifist beforehand. But when I beat it again, I felt accomplished.

I did kind of wonder what all of the hype was about. I've seen this guy all over the place, thanks for finally explaining it to me.

I think MTTNEO is also very smart. If you notice, he has no death animation, no death sound, no dust noise, no little LOVE jingle.

23:50 Yes, I fully agree with you. Having the colour of red being the colour of importance in Sans’ fight once it’s over is a really clever symbolism in my opinion. Along with his sprite sweating when he goes all-out on the player on his last attempt to kill us. I say this because, making a skeleton bleed, (which would be near impossible without him having weak bones, due to a lack of calcium in the marrow), is a clever metaphor to show us the player, how we’ve lost all humanity within ourselves as people in their world. And how Sans, a literal skeleton is more human then we are. And compared to how we were in the other endings, Eg: The True Pacifist ending. Furthermore, I personally see this as a clever homage to remind us of all of the opportunities that we could’ve ended our genocide, Eg: Papyrus, and his “Hug of acceptance” to stop our massacre of the underground. To further my points, The game has subtly warned us multiple times that we were losing what humanity we had left at those points of the story. More ‘homages’ being quotes like Eg: “Human, No. Whatever you are. I Undyne, WILL Strike you Down.” “Oh, you Ugly Creature*.”-Mettaton, in the genocide ending. And also, “Y-You have a sick sense of humour.” And, “Stop making that Creepy face!” Those last two quotes coming from Flowey, a soulless; emotionless, Apathetic, miserable creature. Now Shaking in his fear of our lack of humanity. And inhuman behaviour. As I said before, *Flowey. Of all people. Said those lines of dialogue In our encounter with him, trying to reason with us, not just for his life, but for the future of Every timeline in the future. We have that “encounter” with him, just before we poetically meet Sans in the Final Corridoor. The Final warning, in the final corridor, before everything ends in mutually assured destruction. As a final point to my essay, I personally believe that the section of the game, from when we first enter Asgore’s house in new home, to the point where Sans leaves, and dies is meant to be the final warning to get us, the player to stop with our genocide. This section of the story is meant to be a bone shattering experience for us to suffer through. To try and get us to stop before We All lose it all. It’s poetic writing, We get warned about the consequences, unforeseen at the time we’re given them. But through it all. Through Our Determination. We go through and “Proceed”. To quote Chara, “It was Not My determination, But *Yours*.” -Chara I do apologise if I got off topic when writing this essay for you. And, I Thank you for having the patience to read my essay.

20:54 sans frantically frustratingly resorting to throwing around in a desperate attempt to kill you really sells how hes tried everything to stop you