Mastodawn

Mx. Chara Aznable (they/them) of Pnictogen 14h ago

#Undertale hits some of the notes of tragedy, and that's how I took the story at first, because...I had known so much tragedy already. Tragedy was the lens through which I tended to interpret fiction, and so I took Undertale very seriously.

But plainly the overall work isn't meant to be tragic and, if we take Undertale as a sort of loosely connected prologue to Deltarune (rather the way Beethoven's Leonore Overture is always dancing rather near to the opera Fidelio) and apprise both works as a whole...it seems to be heading towards picaresque romance, romance in the older-fashioned sense like you'd get from a top-notch mediaeval bard perhaps: a rollicking story of heroes who get into some really nasty scrapes but always wiggle their way loose somehow, leavened with a lot of broad comedy (cf. the honorable and admirable Chevalier Astolfo, whose bravery I still esteem.)

Maybe Fox has some bombshell waiting but I rather feel as if he's delivering more interesting surprises than oh...some of the bad guesses I've made about what might have happened to Dess and whether Police-Captain Asgore Dreemurr was somehow implicated.

(cont'd)

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Mx. Chara Aznable (they/them) of Pnictogen 14h ago

Surely from their Homestuck experience, Fox would have known just how people pour their hearts and souls into sketchy but tantalizing narratives, narratives that may only use broad strokes but such striking and compelling strokes they are! They seem in fact to hint at unseen elaborations and possibilities. Infinite possibilities,— ~Chara

Do NOT cackle. Just don't. glares ~Serenity

Er, sorry, Serenity-sensei. So...it's that sort of story, or a fable perhaps which is a word that tends to be applied to such stripped down narratives that while short and lacking in details nevertheless seem to convey a sturdy message, a moral point perhaps, or only an enigma like The Lady and the Tiger. Perhaps #Undertale is simply a mystery.

But I like mysteries, in multiple senses of that word. For mysteries (as in detective fiction) hint at greater mysteries (religious): the best tales of crime are those which make us question our gods and the nature of justice. Sometimes we just need a good scare like that from a story, a tale about what happens when justice is denied, and (roughly) the Greeks called that sort of thing tragedy.

(cont'd)

Mx. Chara Aznable (they/them) of Pnictogen 14h ago

May I just say, #Undertale really hit some kind of sweet spot with us, mythopoeically speaking. I guess that's rather obvious, but of course at some point I was going to have to give the matter closer attention.

And here's also where I'm forced to investigate my own peculiar fixation on trying to deviate as little from canon as possible, leaving all options open more or less. I can't say that we're completely settled on this score, but I feel that the Pnictogen Wing has generally managed to find wiggle room in almost all of the many holes and gaps in the deliberately elliptical tale which Mx. Toby Fox had to tell us.

I am willing to bet on my interpretation, I think. I am rather sure that Fox has always been presenting us with just this sort of a puzzle, one that's full of gaps—which is the way that traumatized people remember things. We remember only...certain events, key moments, life lessons you could say. Other moments are shrouded in mist or darkness or...curses, perhaps.

(cont'd)