the big plue

Kris normally takes five turns to arrive in the Sound of Justice battle, but if Susie loses all of her health during any of these five turns, Kris will arrive immediately.

i miss my kids

So Undyne lied to Papyrus. She led him on about the Guard, and she wasn’t honest with him. She didn’t actually train him. She was never going to let him in the guard.

We all know this.

I think something that people don’t think about, though, is the rest of that conversation, and Why she handled that situation the way she did. This is something I have fallen into a lot, too, because Papyrus is my favorite and I have a bad habit of focusing on him… but I think I wanna explore this from Undyne’s point of view instead.

Because it’s really interesting, isn’t it? 

Throughout the game, Undyne is otherwise portrayed as being as empathetic as she is direct. There is no problem that she can’t suplex or headbutt! She’ll eat a rock! She’ll fight the sun! But she won’t tell Papyrus she can’t let him into the guard.

A lot of the time, I think we read this conversation as being revealing of who Papyrus is. It gets used a lot as fuel to infantilize him. In fact, seeing something about that is actually why I wanted to write this. Additionally, this conversation where she reveals this is where she tells us about Asgore’s sadness, his fatherly tendencies and his strength and his nature beyond being the not-so-final boss. 

[Image Description:  Undyne is sitting across the table from you. You’re in her house. The window’s been smashed, and the table, too, with a spear sticking out of it, and she’s left some things on the stove and theres just a sword in the middle of her floor, but it’s calm for now. Various things are left on her counter. You’re both drinking tea.]

But this is Undyne’s conversation on Undyne’s hangout and this conversation is meant to make us understand Undyne. 

So, here’s my take:

I think Undyne is not good with emotions beyond the obvious, and she uses others and their experiences and emotions as examples and ways to understand and work through her own emotions and complicated, shifting thoughts. She’s not gonna tell a human kid her anxieties, because thats not the kind of person she is. She’s direct whenever she can be, but these are not matters she can be direct with. She’s a fighter, not a philosopher. 

She starts this conversation by telling you you remind her of Asgore, because…

[Image Description:  Undyne is sitting across the table from you. She’s throwing her head back laughing at you, probably obnoxiously. She says “You’re both TOTAL weenies!!!” with three exclamation points, and “total” in all caps.]

She calls Asgore a TOTAL WEENIE, then relents, and says he’s not a weenie all of the time. That’s when she tells us the story of how she tried to beat him up when she was little, to prove she was the strongest, and how that leads her to become his apprentice, and how she eventually knocked him down.

[Image Description: Undyne is sitting across the table from you. Her eyes are closed, her head is bowed. She says “I felt… bad.”]

She felt bad.

Undyne is expressing with that that she used to value strength above all else, and viewed the world through that very narrow lens. She’s surpassed Asgore, at least in one match, and that should have been a victory for her, but instead the situation lead to an emotion she hadn’t expected: She felt bad. And Asgore was so proud of her.

And then she tells us about Papyrus, and this is the same thought as the other story, because she’s expressing that the role she’s taken on as Head of the Royal Guard is her graduating to a leadership position like Asgore’s. 

[Image Description: Undyne is sitting across the table from you. She says “So I’m the one who gets to train dorks to fight!” She’s throwing her head back laughing. Not at you this time.]

She introduces Papyrus to this story then, and starts with saying she doesn’t know if she could ever let him in.

I think an important phrasing there is that she doesn’t know. This is not a solid open and shut decision. She hesitates and stumbles over this admission. She does not know if she’s going to let him in. She doesn’t think she is, but she doesn’t know. 

She’s stuck. I know you could say this is just a matter of phrasing, and might not seem significant, but the way she stumbles over explaining herself, its like she’s trying to work out right now exactly why she won’t let him in. And she’s maybe only realizing now that the answer was always going to be no.

[Image Description:  Undyne is sitting across the table from you. She says “I mean, it’s not that he’s weak.” She’s grinning… but she’s sweating it out a little.]

[Image Description: Undyne is sitting across the table from you. She says “He’s actually pretty freaking tough!” Her eyes bulge with passion!  ]

She’s quick to say its not that he’s weak, and that he’s pretty freaking tough - really strong praise from Undyne, who just called you and the King of All Monsters total weenies - and then she starts talking about how he’s too innocent and nice! And how he was supposed to capture you, but ended up being friends with you instead!!!

And… again, a lot of people are quick to read this as a flaw in Papyrus. A fully literal assessment of him by Undyne. But is it?

There is a reason she’s telling you this. 

There’s a reason she’s emphasizing this to you: Look where she is right now. 

[Image Description: Undyne is sitting across the table from you.]

She was supposed to capture you.

 But instead, she’s making friends with you.  

If this is a flaw in Papyrus, this scene is her admitting to herself and to you, that this is a flaw that exists in her too.

But also, this scene, with her stumbling over herself talking about weakness, strength, weenies, not weenies… is her also realizing, through Papyrus, through Asgore through you: 

This was never a flaw at all.

She’s different than Papyrus. She goes harder. She’s more willing to kill you. She’s more willing to push forward. But this scene is her coming to terms with a hesitation she’s been struggling with, a bad feeling when she finally makes her opponent fall, an urge she doesn’t seem to have fully thought through to teach Papyrus something else. This wasn’t a long term plan. There was no long term plan. She doesn’t know if she can ever let him in. She’s trying to delay having to make that decision, because she doesn’t fully understand the decision, or at least she didn’t until right now, sitting down across from the enemy and sharing something she’s always shared with someone she very much cares about. 

Undyne didn’t know how to deal with the fact that she might not want to go to war after all, until the very moment that became an option. It was abstract before. It was easy before. But she’s had her doubts and finally now she understands them. And she’s trying to express this to you now at the same time as she’s trying to understand it.

And now that all this is out of the way and she can stop thinking about it, she’s going to work on befriending you AS HARD AS SHE CAN!!!

[Image Description: Undyne is no longer sitting across the table from you. She has lept onto the counter behind her, and knocked everything to the floor. She’s thrown her head back and is grinning widely, challenging you to cook with her! “Fuhuhu!!! Afraid!?” she asks, and you can tell from her punctuation that she’s very excited about this. “We’re gonna be best friends!!!” ]

Anyway, I love Undyne, and I felt like this was a scene that needed more attention in her direction, because it’s not about Asgore and it’s not about Papyrus. It’s about her, our terrifying new bestie.

(also thank you @weia-yo​​ for helping me with analyzing this scene months ago. Only just now had the necessary spoons to write it up)

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