Muffet's Hidden Depths and Depravity | Undertale Character Analysis

Chapters:

0:00 - Introduction
0:39 - Alphys' Evacuation
1:23 - Muffet's Secret Speech
3:18 - Noble in neutral?
5:52 - Conclusion & Channel Update

#undertale #muffet #undertalemuffet #genociderun #genocideroute #nomercy #nomercyrun #undertalegame #characteranalysis #analysis #videoessay #undertaleanalysis

[jackin_it]

I’d honestly love if you could get a unique, almost dystopian ending for only sparing Muffet on a No Mercy route.

[gretchling]

before there was spamton we already had a money-grubbing, bug-associated minor character who ran a shop with absurd prices, and had a fight with an absolutely banger theme... really makes you think

[FestiveAngel]

Muffet is a character that's in a weird place. She's a kickstarter OC but she's given a surprising level of importance. What makes her stand out is how she's actually pretty terrible to people who aren't spiders (yet also makes food out of them). It's a pretty big contrast to the more nice monsters in the rest of the game, and it's not hard to see why people often change her character. Anyway, great work as always!

[SemiHypercube]

Perhaps an _even more_ obscure interaction is if you somehow get enough money to buy something from the Hotland bake sale, she lets you pass without even entering a battle...

...that is _unless you are on the Genocide route, _ in which case she still fights you anyways, though with an extra line before fighting her.

[darklink]

I am actually genuinely surprised at how many people didn't know this side of Muffet. I mean, I get that almost anybody in the right mind would instantly kill her to save time, but even then, I felt like, even beyond the No Mercy route dialogue, this side of her is implied a few times, but at the same time, I can get it. Great analysis video as always!

[matti.]

Muffet's existence is kinda refreshing, it shows monsters aren't inherently sweet and friendly creatures who wouldn't hurt a fly. Adds variety and the concept itself is pretty funny

[krisonthefamilycomputer]

I think muffets amorality is sorta what makes her a neat character, she isn’t inherently super evil or a hero either, she’ll just do whatever it takes for them to get what they want and i think this aspect is really what makes her great, her character fits the nature of actual spiders

[thatoneenvy]

Fun fact: for these who didn't know, if you attack Muffet in the pacifist run(without killing her), you will earn gold at the end of the fight

[therotryzit]

To quote the Fallen Child: "If you're cuter the fandom won't critizise you as much." Or something like that.
Interestingly Muffet is not the only boss who becomes instantly sparable on the No Mercy Route she shares this position with Papyrus and the Mad Dummy (or Glad Dummy in this case).

[Green-cyvrbu]

alot of Undertale fans like to hit characters with the BLACK OR WHITE MORALITY BEAM which takes away alot of their interesting grey traits. afterall, look how many fans paint Toriel as a 'can do no wrong' figure and paint Asgore as 'pure evil'. thank you for painting them grey for the general populous to hopefully not overlook! I haven't read Inverted Fate in a couple years, but it's a good example of Undyne's grey characterization as I feel it's totally in-character for her to take such an antagonistic position in that story.

[monkeychief]

I’ve never heard of Muffets genocide dialogue, it’s really interesting! Also about whoever paid muffet to kill you, I think it might be a reference to the fact that Muffet was made by a kickstarter backer who paid to put her in the game. So someone literally paid a lot of money for her to fight you.

[ugiugiyogyn.]

the genocide dialogue is really obscure compared to the neutral and pacifist speeches, so i can't really blame the fandom for getting a wrong impression. cool analysis video; while i was aware of the dialogue, i didn't notice the implications of that dialogue, like muffet being effectively the reason genocide continued past hotland.

[whim]

I'm glad you highlighted how much care UT has for the monsters, giving them background story's even tho the player wont ever see it. And Muffet is a great example of that, since although she's doesn't have a lot of "lore" for the game, she's still a fun character with more than meets the eye, and even explains some questions about how things happened in case the player is wandering. Basically I like how UT has so much space to analyze characters haha

[TaskMaster]

Muffet is pretty evil for a monster, huh.

[Spacebugg]

In her defense, if you spare a single, puny, insignificant Whimpsun in the ruins, Sans also decides to not kill you.

[milanesaempanizada]

Honestly I love how Muffet's immorality/ammorality basically references two things:
One: Her being portrayed as stingy and caring only about raising enough money to help the spiders trapped in the ruins, being a reference to how she was bought-in during the kickstarter.
Second: Her caring only about spiders (despite the fact she still makes pastries out of spiders) and generally not giving a shit about everyone else, I feel like it's a sort of reverse-arachnophobia
Idk I think she's pretty neat

[greyscaleadaven]

Very interesting topic! I've always liked to think of Muffet as a true embodiment of moral neutrality in Undertale as well. We see more and less heroic people throughout the story (i.e. Flowey being a stereotypical villain for most of the game at least, Undyne being portrayed as heroic in her actions, etc.), but none of them seem to share this trait of absolute indifference towards the rest of the underground. The closest I could see is maybe Sans, but even then at extremes he is willing to establish a good aligned moral code for himself to avenge his fallen friends and he has his general moments of moral goodness throughout the game like helping his brother out and checking up on Toriel. The only way we see that Muffet listens to anyone is through gold and her own interests, which is not inherently good or evil. I'm not exactly sure on the money part being neutral entirely, but that might be yet another interesting topic to cover from the perspective of workers like Burgerpants, the Royal Guard, Alphys, or even the Nice Cream guy in Undertale/Deltarune. She's very much akin to a bounty hunter, willing to do the bidding of the highest bidder. She's very similar to Colress from Pokemon if you know who that is. More self-interested than anything, and willing to work with someone to achieve their goals. But they aren't exactly out to get anyone, and the moment their benefits end or something better comes along is the moment they decide to turn tail on their benefactors for better or worse.

[AraumC]

My favorite theory is that the person hired to kill you isn't Flowey of Mettaton, but the KICKSTARTER PATREONS. Think about it, Muffet literally says the person who hired her paid a lot of money, and what did it take to get her into the game? "Changing shape" refers to the fact that it's not just one person, but many acting as one.

[An_Account]

I always knew about some of Muffet's weird actions during Genocide, but since you mentioned the cannibalism on top of that, I realized that Muffet doesn't care about anyone other than herself. It seems she only wants to get the spiders out of the Ruins so she can eat them rather than actually freeing them.

[johanhernandez]

What I like about Muffet is that out of all the monsters we meet, she is the only one with a truly non-human morality, like you could be the most depraved criminal in history and she would still like you just because you didn't harmed spirders, like she saw a nation wide crisis and the only thing she thinks is to kill and eat the person thats warning her.