Is Undertale's Neutral Route Morally Wrong?

Despite not being a very long game, Undertale is a game that's been talked about to death on the Internet. Undertale is an ingenuis game that seems charming and childlike on the surface, yet has a dirty secret unlocked by the player's own twisted intentions. The game contains 3 major routes the player can take. Neutral, Pacifist, and Genocide. In this video we'll be asking the moral question, is the neutral route of Undertale good or bad? Enjoy ;) #undertale #gaming

I do not own any music included in this video.
0:00 Intro

1:14 Ground Rules
3:58 Ruins
6:46 Toriel boss
7:48 Snowy Forest
9:11 Papyrus boss
10:11 Waterfall
11:30 Undyne boss
12:58 Hot-Land
13:46 Mettaton boss
14:42 Asgore boss
15:35 Flowey boss
16:07 Conclusion

[WyvrnOnYT]

One thing I forgot to say near the end. I am not a "lore expert" when it comes to Undertale. If there's anything in this video that is objectively incorrect, please feel free to correct me.
Edit: Many commenters have corrected me on Papyrus' bossfight and how you can't die during it. I appreciate it but There's no need to correct me on that anymore 😂😂

[aureliamastergoomba]

9:45
The only error I found in this video so far:
Papyrus is the only monster Frisk encounters that can *never* kill them! Papyrus lowers Frisk down to 1 HP, and captures them by putting them in his shed. Papyrus also willingly heals Frisk up, so he does show that he does have a lot of restraint.

[personunnamedREAL]

Actually, something not really covered in the neutral route often (because most people don't know about it) is that, if you go through the neutral route while killing a few monsters, flowey tells you "if you get through the whole underground without killing a SINGLE monster, I WON'T kill the king."

But here's the thing. You still don't have to do true pacifist for this. Meaning, if you just spare everyone and befriend nobody, you can get to the end of the game and have Asgore not die!!! Right??

Wrong.

If you do this and attempt to spare Asgore, he will recognize that keeping you trapped in the underground is cruel, and he will KILL HIMSELF so that you can take his soul, and then flowey destroys his soul.

It doesn't really matter if you spare or kill him, he was going to die no matter what.

He never really wanted to kill you, he just wanted the fight to be over.

[Tails_The_Fox]

The worst ending you can get is killing everyone except for glad dummy. Everyone everyone loves is dead and glad dummy will eventually become to depression with its coming hatred for the body it fused with.

[devaraanimation]

don't forget that you are still technically playing neutral in pacifist

[QFwaXRhbGlzbSBiYWQu]

13:30 Another error. No matter what's the route, even if you're in genocide, Muffet gets a letter from the spiders in the RUINS saying you never hurt a single spider and then (even if you didn't buy a donut) she spares you, and if you still try giving money, she refuses.

[funkyflame]

It's straightup impossible to say if the neutral route is morally good or bad, because your actions can range from killing nobody but not hanging out with undyne, to killing literally everybody except one enemy that is required to continue the geno route

[robirdta]

I can't blame Frisk for accidentally killing the first froggit as its a new environment to them and probably reacted out of pure fear not realizing they could spare the froggit. Undyne is completely reasonable to kill/ not give water to, that monster is literally hunting you down and not giving you an option to surrender, Mettaton is throwing their life into mortal danger and makes it clear that they have ill intent towards Frisk, Asgore striaght up doesn't let you spare him, meaning Frisk has no other option than to kill him. Flowey is a no brainer, he's far too dangerous to be left alive and terrorize the underground, yes they're a deeply traumatized child who was unfairly hunted by humans, but he's shown he's indifferent to commit mass murder and extremely dangerous and willing to harm others if given the option

[helloeverybody.]

This may be a random enemy to bring up, but killing Vulkin seems a bit more morally questionable than other monsters. I'd still say it's justified since your life is still in danger, but it's made clear throughout the fight that Vulkin is not trying to hurt you, they're just stupid. Vulkin thinks their attacks heal you. Killing Vulkin would still fall under self-defence, but it would be a little worse than killing someone like Doggo or Migosp.

[gamerdomain]

9:39
You can *_not_* die to Papyrus. He truly does nonlethally capture you, just as he claimed, and then put you inside of a jerry-rigged jail inside of his shed.
… he made the bars too wide, like he did at the bridge before Sans' sentry point, though.

[Lavenderflowergacha]

2:48 Sans actually can’t remember. He is just very good at examining body language and he knows of the existence of resets. Though never experiencing one.

[Discount_Jesus]

I think it depends on how you play the neutral ending- like fighting monsters isn’t wrong, most of them are trying to kill you or doing something that would lead to you dying. I think where it becomes morally wrong to fight on neutral is when an enemy either starts to spare you or tries to run away.
Like killing Undyne is justified, but because on neutral you can never kill papyrus before he stops fighting, killing him is wrong

[Aktedya-jtvw]

I think trying to kill Nabstablook after willingly engaging it is ... questionable. At least on the first turn, I don't see a reason to not try talking to it.

Also, something to consider about the self defence thing is that you can attack enemies until they don't want to fight anymore.

[ivanlol]

Random enemies can be justified as self defense(except whimsun). Toriel can be justified as she does ask us to prove us we are strong enough to survive, imply we have to fight her. You can't kill Papyrus before he spares you so Papyrus is unjustified as you have to attack after he surrenders. Undyne, Muffett, Mettaton and Asgore literally want your soul so that's justified. Flowey attempts to kill you immediately. Attempts to kill you over and over again until he's satisfied while taunting you which definitely counts as strange and unusual forms of torture on top of murder. Flowey is 100% justified. Keep in mind this is just my opinion. If you disagree that's okay.

[ΒύρωνΒακαδήμας]

a lot of monsters are trying to kill you all the time so as much as u love all the characters, if you're a random kid in a place full with monsters that say they need your soul then HOW can you not be terrified?

[helio]

neutral is what actually would happen realistically

[SoundtrackDetector]

Would be cool to see if this is also true for yellow, especially considering clovers naive but noble intentions making even its geno route sympathetic, even if morally wrong

[Green-cyvrbu]

14:35 I never really understood why people say this about Napstablook, Mettaton, Papyrus or Sans. it's not like Sans and Papyrus are UNDEAD CORPSES, they're skeleton-type monsters. so no, they're not already dead. same with Napstablook, it's not like he's the soul of some human, he's just a ghost monster, a type of monster. and Mettaton isn't a robot, he's a ghost possessing a robotic vessel created by Alphys. I know you don't use that as an argument for why killing them is okay, but you mentioned it as if it's a fact, so I wanted to correct that, is all. love the video btw.

[daviddimitrov]

Remember Chara is not a demon people! We need more people who understand this. If you kill everyone YOU killed everyone. Chara only helped, even if you do a few genocide routes Chara even shows disgust.

[ScapeVEVO]

Can’t you just like- run away tho
I think assuming a kid will attempt to kill in self defense in the first place is presumptuous, if I’m a kid in this environment my first instinct is to run…