วีดีโอ

If we also put it's kind of sequel into the mix, Deltarune, we will see that the message was never 100% pacifism. Deltarune is even more overt with the message that sometimes we need to use violence. Yeah, Susie gets called out for been too violent, but also Ralsei is mistaken: for acting too pacifist, they almost get killed by the King. Although the Darkners don't have the explicit oppressed and oppressor relationship to the lightners that we have in Undertale, they do get oppressed, but by their own rulers. And which enemies we don't have an option to spare? The King and Queen. In fact we defeat and fight them with the support of the darkners who enact violence on them when restraining the king and putting in him in a cell, or by supporting us so we inflict violence like with Queen and her robot. Also the theme of your choices don't matter as you think would maybe would go in par with you can't expect everyone to be convinced not to fight, and you will be forced to fight for something good

One thing that I just thought of is that regardless of what path you take you are always an oppressor. Genocide is the most committing a massacre against an entire population removing anyone who could potentially be their ruler dooming the underground to an uncertain but more than likely hopeless fate. In neutral your only aim is to escape, regardless of whether or not you get the best neutral ending where you can befriend everyone, Toriel Sans Papyrus Undyne Mettaton Alphys. Despite the fact they all like you you've still killed their king and thrown any all hope of freedom, although even if you do spare Asgore he still dies be it to himself or flowey. Ultimately even if you do spare him you still take the souls and leave after the fight with photoshop Flowey. And even in true pacifist you aren't even the one to save monster kind, the reason Asriel was doing any of it was because they didn't want to let go of Chara who they saw as being you, Frisk and the player. While the player actions mean a lot in terms of freeing them it's still Asriel who actually breaks the barrier, what would be actually having it be the player Frisk giving their soul to Asriel who then uses it to break the barrier, you could definitely fathom a reason why humanity would build the barrier to only be destroyable by human souls and never any monster souls thus invalidating the monster souls Asriel had in them. Thats my idea any way

"Cash in" you said just before the 20min mark comrade. That's how it seems to be. I've never knowingly listened to the song - its just never come up and I don't really remember it but I remember The Office (US) and Andy winding everyone up by singing the chorus and so they nick his phone and hilarity ensues. I always assumed that, given the time at which the song was released and where the struggle was at that point, this was meant to be along the lines of: "'mon lads, pack up the guns, enough is enough,', peace process "peacenik" propaganda which "didn't blame any side" if that makes sense? To see it as this kind of meek apology from a West Brit apologist for English tragedies, as terrible as any civilian tragedy can be, during this decades long part of the centuries-long campaign of resistance, is an insult to how people suffered in the 6 counties during that particular piece of historical context which preceded your analysis alone and it also manages to completely disregard and undermine the intense ideological debates that were going on within the Republican struggle throughout "The Troubles". From the actual pogroms to internment to collusion between the Brit state forces and the loyalist fascist thugs who murdered on the behalf of the Brits (with the majority of their victims being innocent), this is nothing short of an insult but really speaks to the lack of class consciousness of the masses when it came to "The Troubles". I always recommend reading James Connolly and Seamus Costello (IRSP/INLA) to those who want to get a grasp on what became known as "The Troubles". I had to pause at the 20 minute mark so I'm not sure if you got there yet but it is obvious that the songwriter is the real zombie. edit: ugh, just pressed play again and seen the lyric about 1916. FFS this is another Bono just a tiny bit less insufferable (still way off the charts in terms of what is actually "sufferable" mind). I need a fucken antacid. Great point about the distance though, a kind of psycho-social acceptance because it happened in the past. I suppose that the resistance fighters in Palestine and their supporters in the broader middle east are just "zombies" too eh? Final edit but brilliant vid that comrade. Tiocfaidh ár lá

27:28! THIS alone … the existence of a rentier class of British aristocrats collecting LAND RENTS on the land occupied by Irish government infrastructure, buildings, etc. should make ANYONE among the working people of Ireland’s blood boil … the Irish Republicans obviously doubly so. This simple … MEASURABLE AND QUANITIFIABLE fact alone should be sufficient to prove to anyone there’s no “zombie” imaginary oppression and domination by a ruling class aristocracy… in this case a foreign colonizing one, with centuries of malfeasance to answer for!!! And indicate that plenty more questions should be asked about how the resources, assets and wealth of Ireland are being drained from the people to the benefit of a tiny group of collaborators and foreign aristocrats and capitalists.

I think many people go about interpreting undertale the wrong way. While violence and pacifism are integral to the way the game plays out I don't think they're inherently the games core message or anything. Rather undertale is a hardcore deconstruction on how we interact with fiction as a whole, and treats all options as valid as these are game characters, their fates are ultimately unimportant. Undertale has such beautiful character writing and it takes advantage of that by cranking up your suspension of disbelief to the max and allowing you to trick yourself into thinking they're real people. It runs with it for a while too, it does so much to convince you that the characters of undertale are real and react in realistic ways, especially on neutral routes, you get this sense that everyone, even the most minor of characters, has a place in this world. And when you commit yourself to pacifism for the best outcome you get this sense of accomplishment of giving these characters the happiness they deserve, followed by complete nothingness. By this point you LOVE undertale, you love its characters, you are no longer feeling rational about it, you have immersed yourself to the point of feeling genuine joy at the future prospects of a bunch of pixels on a screen, and you want more of this game you love so much. But when you open it, flowey comes in to absolutely shatter both your happiness for these characters and the immersion you've gained. He tells you that if you play the game again, you reset everything, bring everyone back to zero, render their happy endings meaningless. To play the game again is to betray the characters you genuinely convinced yourself were your friends. And those that continue playing accept the idea that undertale is just a game, that the feelings they felt about it were just an illusion, so instead when they play again they do so just to see all possible outcomes, they do as much differently from before as possible and in the process break the immersion they felt as all meaning in said choices has been removed. Genocide is the logical extreme of this thought process. You only get down this path when you are so bored you just start killing monsters over and over and over hoping something eventually happens, and either to your complete shock or delight something DOES happen. And so you dedicate yourself to tearing through the world you once loved, grinding out the very soul of the game itself for any drop of new content to satiate your "perverted sentimentality" as the fallen human would later describe it. And at the end of it all you come across flowey, who describes going through essentially the exact same thing you did. He was left emotionally distant from every other character in the game, and also has the ability to save and load like you do, nullifying any consequences to his actions. So just as you did he did everything the underground could offer, he befriended everyone and killed everyone, read every book burned every book. He has memorized every line of dialogue solved every puzzle and by the time you meet him nothing is even real to him anymore. As the player you are the only being in existence who could ever begin to understand him, and going into genocide is your acknowledgment you are just like him, that you now see the world of undertale as a box of potential outcomes waiting for you to see everything it has to offer and that when you finally get to the bottom of it and run out of possibilities you will finally abandon this game like all others. That is the point of undertale to me, that you come out of it with a vastly different viewpoint of not just games but fiction as a whole and what it means to people, and it saddens me when people simplify it to a basic message about pacifism.

This was fantastic man, coming out of the 33rd County in Coatbridge my dad taught me everything about our history and heritage. It was nice to see someone cover the multitude of rebellions that were held over that 800 years. I'm sending this onto him to have a watch in hospital.

this is by far the best take i've ever seen. bravo.

"We"?

Excellent

toby fox's cultural revolution

It feels like every day, Undertale becomes more and more of a masterpiece

Did i freed them ,No ,Am i doing anything for it ?,Yes i did somthings ,Do i have anything to say to god as a muslim when he ask me about the time i wasted in nothing istead of looking to give the same life that i want for myself to my follow brothers and sisters in islam and others ? ,No .... i dont ....will i change and repent ? ...Yes amin, Are you with me ? ,Yes ?,Hope we do somthing together ,No ?,Hope you inderstand one day that all of this life is a test to see if you choice the mercy of god by surrendering yourself to him and all what you have for he is the most knowing and powerfull and mercifull and ,or choising nothing and leving in a life of lies and not to surender and be confident of yourseft and not needing god even if all and i mean ALL is hes creation and regecting his mercy even he show me all what i did not see of his miracles are showened in front, your choice by not choising is a choice in itself ,hope you the right path in the name of god :) ,peace be with you.

You're definitely on to something. I think that asgore also shows this view by being someone you are forced to use violence to disarm but still having the option to show mercy once they are disarmed. The opressed will fight back and even if you want to be on their side they may lash out at you for being a part of the oppressive group. The best ending is when you convince all parties to disarm themselves.

Does this guy still make videos?

🇵🇸🇵🇸🇵🇸🇵🇸🇵🇸🇵🇸🇵🇸🇵🇸🇵🇸🇵🇸🇵🇸

Never thought I'd hear a fucking Connolly quote in an Undertale video essay

Makes me remember how bioshock infinite pretty much completely misses this nuance.

Amazing video, seeing it as a game about simple pacifism is a bit 1 dimensional. It's a game about violence, and how it is used. It is a game about desensitization and the will to see what will happen going beyond morals. 1000th li-

I was wondering when someone would comment on the subtle political messages in this game. Sadly, they can go missed for the games narrative in the world.

Geno run>pacifist run, no more monster's who want to become god of death.

Couldn't you have taken time to go into the 20th century context? In the first half of the video you don't mention or explain the independence of the Republic of Ireland, the situation in Northern Ireland, don't explain the IRA's origin or relationship with the republic or with northern Ireland. And you don't go into much detail later either. I don't expect this changes the conclusion at all, but you just go straight from the great famine to bombings in London, leaving me confused with more questions than answers.

I mean at the beginning of the game, Flowey literally says to you "But what will you do when you meet a relentless killer? You'll die and you'll die and you'll die!!" literally pointing out that there are instances when not fighting will only end in your death.

Oundertale

HOLY SHIT *gaslighting* has lost all meaning.

Absolutely beautiful video

Amazing video. So educational and interesting. I really appreciate this

Can you please return to youtube?

Why did you forget your channel ?

i think undertale can be interpreted in both in-universe and out-of-universe ways, what i like to call "storytelling" vs "thesis". not only that, but theres so MUCH to it that any one person can have a different opinion on the message of the game. yes, it can be read as a story that heavily relates to real life and real life parallels as such, but it can also be read as a deeply personal introspective story that gets you, the player, deeply hooked simply in the world it presents you with. point is, undertale is EXTREMELY complex. thank you for the new "thesis" interpretation, even if its not entirely airtight in the "storytelling" context of the game. :)

Yo this is a great video :)

I think the monster are using propaganda in the waterfall section...how would they ever even know that they could absorb human souls and gain power from it, if it never happened?

another nuance in undertale that i motice is that, while the liberatory violence is happening against a human, the oppressor, that human is also a child. the implications of that are huge and countless conclusions can be drawn from it. Children are inevitably affected by acts of oppresive violence done by adults. it's not their choice, and its shown in the game that the humans fall to the underground on accident rather than purposely. different characters have a different, nuanced approach to attaciimg the human child as well. undyne only sees the oppressor, toriel only sees a child, asgore sees a tragic, but necessary sacrifice for the liberation of his people. it can be argued, i think, whether monsters are right or not when they attack frisk. on one hand, they are indeed trying to protect themselves from further oppressive violence. but on the other hand, in doing so, they are attacking and sometimes even killing a small child that has no choice but to be there. this nuance is what makes papyrus a great character by the way. he doesn't come off as weak or a bootlicker for trying to befriend the oppressor. i only realised all these things now after watcing this video, and now i love undertale even more. thank you for talking about this <3

I can never listen to this song the same way again, if at all. Thank you, a chara ó Contae Mhaigh Eo ❤

its insane that a few month after this video the genocide in palestine started and just like you said people who never felt what its like to be oppressed cannot understand why resistance groups exist. BTW great video

But we only see the monsters' side in the game, why do we take their word as the truth? Funnily enough this was a really liked reply here: "Besides which, Undertale is a work of fiction, so such nuances don't really apply", I realy doubt Toby just wanted to "plainly" say humans bad, monsters good. We know how strong monsters get if they take a human soul, flowey literally turns into a god when he takes six souls. So I really struggle to believe that monsters' story was completely unbiased as well as not a single human being killed. Plus what if monsters started the war or the genocide and then somehow lost? Would it mean monsters were in the wrong when killing the six humans (and trying to kill the seventh) even though the "oppressors" would be long dead by now, would it be the oppressors (monsters) continuing the oppression? No, I think it would be the same thing you say despite the roles being reversed, monsters wouldnt kill you because they are violent but because you will be their freedom. I do have more thoughts about this but other people said them much better than me (like MutedAndReported3032 and gonzalomeadearanda5751)

And it’s out the playlist just like that, crazy. I can’t believe how backwards her position is compared to what I had always assumed it was based on my misunderstanding of the lyrics. Glad I stumbled upon my own curiosity to check out the actual meaning of the song.

og zombies are way cooler than the current 🇷🇺❤🇮🇪

Thank you for the enlightenment. She is the zombie.

You missed a very important part. In Waterfall, it says that the war was because Humans were scared of Monsters being able to take their souls.

Since the Belgian royal house is directly connected to the british one, we historically seem to completely ignore whatever bad the british get up to. And when you combine that with our own abhorrent genocide, we seem to have extra motivation to ignore that. Even now it is barely taught in history class and I had to learn most of it through youtube. Belgium loves portraying itself like heroic freedom fighters when opposed to the Netherlands and France, but stays real quiet when it comes to it's own (kinda still ongoing) genocidal politics and that of it's "big sister" England.

I love your accent

This is exactly what is being done to the Palestinian people resistance against the colonial apparthied regime called Israeil

Well, you aren’t entirely right about this. You’re right that the oppressed sometimes need to fight for liberation against the oppressors. But you expressed it best near the end of the video, that they need to do it in a way that minimizes unnecessary harm. That’s a very important thing to emphasize. I’m sure you’ll agree that it isn’t justified for people from oppressed groups to senselessly attack people from “oppressor” groups. Like it’s wrong for black people to attack white people just for being white. An important thing to note is that Frisk is a child. They didn’t come to the Underground to oppress monsters, they fell down probably on accident. Granted, we don’t know much about Frisk’s past or how they fell down into the Underground. But they end up alone in a world alien to them, and we do know that most of the monsters attack them first. So, wouldn’t it be justified for Frisk to defend themself? It seems ridiculous to push this “oppressor” agenda onto a child with a stick who managed to stumble into the Underground. They wouldn’t even know about the nature of the War until Waterfall. As for Undyne, her battle theme is called Spear of Justice because the monsters look up to her as a hero, and her actions are just in her own eyes. But this does NOT mean that the game itself glorifies her actions towards Frisk as justified. I believe they are justified in the Genocide route, but not in the Pacifist route and most Neutral routes. The problem is that Undyne attacks Frisk with the intent to kill, no matter which route the player is on. She knows that with their soul, the monsters could liberate themselves, but Asgore’s plan includes waging a war of revenge on humanity with newfound godlike power, with the goal possibly being genocide. Even if Frisk actively refused to harm any monster, Undyne refuses to see them for anything more than the image of oppressive humans that she and other monsters share. Sure, one casualty might seem small compared to the plight of an entire species, but I really don’t think it’s heroic to vehemently try to kill a practically harmless child. On the Pacifist route, she doesn’t acknowledge Frisk’s acts of kindness and mercy as anything more than cowardice and a “saccharine schtick”, and on a Neutral route, she scoffs at the idea that Frisk may have killed in self-defense. I’d like to point to the scene with Monster Kid on the bridge. Monster Kid just found out that Frisk, with whom they were spending time with, was a human all along. So, naturally, they feel conflicted, since they were always taught that humans were the bad guys, but Frisk never did anything to them and they got along just fine. So they try to make Frisk say something mean to them so thet they could hate each other, like they’re “supposed” to. But Frisk can’t say anything mean to MK even if they try, and after MK insults Frisk, they feel really bad about that they run away. But they trip and hang on to the bridge for dear life, while Undyne appears and approaches slowly. Here the player has a choice. If you choose to rescue Monster Kid, they will stand up against Undyne, seeing as Frisk just proved that they were a true friend. MK stands up against their hero, whom they have reverently idolized throughout their life, because they just saw what Undyne couldn’t - that humans aren’t all bad. And Undyne is so taken aback by this that she backs away for the moment. Undyne lies to herself, trying desperately to convince herself that Frisk is the villain. She wants to liberate monsterkind, but she doesn’t want to accept that she’d have to kill an innocent person to do so. But it’s arguably just cruel to paint Frisk as evil to justify killing them, when they’ve done everything they could to be kind and peaceful (on a Pacifist route). And this, I believe, is part of Undertale’s core message: Every main cast member has flaws (yes, even Papyrus), and on a True Pacifist route, you help them work through their flaws. You forgive them, and they forgive you (Frisk) for what humanity had done to monsterkind. So, basically, what I’m trying to say is that “liberatory violence” is only acceptable against a direct oppressor when there’s no other choice: NOT against innocent civilians. Palestinian terrorists target primarily innocent civilians, kidnap them and record themselves torturing them to advance their cause, which is nothing but pure evil. Utterly unjustifiable. I can sympathize with the Palestinian movement for freedom, but not with the terrorists of Hamas. Nor can I sympathize with communist “revolutionaires”, who are merely envious of people better off than them in life, no matter if they earned their well-being through honest work.

I'm not convinced that the narrative given to us by the monsters losing the war is fair & unbiased. Based on the true pacifist ending, we see monsters are not only allowed back up on the surface, but they can even go so far as driving cars & showing public displays of affection if they want. I appreciate you trying to bring a different viewpoint to the table, but I'm going to reserve judgement until we get all the facts about the war, because a lot of what we learn sounds like some serious coping & seething from Asgore.

that is so interesting, because, as a polish kid, my mother taught me that zombie carries a pro-irish resistance message, as well as a pro-liberation message in general. it's almost funny how wrong she was, if it wasn't so horrifically tragic

Free Palestine

you sound like you say "oi mate" 25 times/hour

Ya fuck this song

I see you made the mistake of thinking that every songwriter a) actually has a thought out plan for what they are going to write and why and; b) that they think deeply about the motives that lead to people's actions. Sometimes we just write shit because it sounds good. Unfortunately, a common problem with all humans is that we often retrospectively justify our actions, even if they are contrary to what we may have previously thought. The irony is that most listeners won't have picked up on any messages and as you said, taken it to be an anti war anti violence song using the troubles as a point of reference. That said, thanks for the food for thought. Good vid, worth making.