UNDERTALE: The Symbolism of Chara

In this video I explore the symbolic role that Chara players in Toby Fox's UNDERTALE, and then present a little theory I have about why it makes sense for Chara to be "evil" in the game, though "evil" is bit of an oversimplification.

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Sources:
Music: UNDERTALE OST, OMORI OST

[wingedmirage]

This follows my own thoughts on Chara pretty closely. The human Chara wasn’t necessarily evil, just troubled/traumatized, but whatever remains of them after death has become something else entirely. Just because it was made from the remains of Chara doesn’t make it actually Chara, any more than a leopard fur coat is still the original leopard.

[unsleepingcities]

this is a good video! ive been increasingly chara-pilled this past month after reading oblivion theory (highly recommend, its a good theory and mainly meta analysis about undertale and deltarune) which goes over a lot of what you talk about here-- about chara being the representation of your desire to see numbers go up, to complete games. i dont think what chara is is necessarily Evil, because they are supposed to be a part of you. you arent evil by doing a geno run, youre just succumbing to the natural tempting desire to See What Happens, like what sans says. they are the demon that comes when You Call Its Name (by literally naming it), they are the exciting feeling of making your stats increase in games. (like... chara filling up their glasses of water to the brim, picking too many flowers that it covers their face.) even toby fox said that what chara is is too important to be sold in a store.

[thenobody]

I'm curious to see if chara will appear in deltarune. However, on chara as a character I kind of see chara as a kid who struggled with empathy but learned it through the monsters somewhat

[snakebot]

pacifist and genocide end in kind of the same way where asriel/chara speak to the player and urge them to stop playing the game

[TheSkyGuy]

Chara(cter) is interesting.

They didn't make you do the No Mercy route. _the player_ did that independently.

Chara just enforces a final consequence that neither Sans nor Flowey were able to do.

[ssomenerdd]

10:49 I think it could be explained by just the fact that LV is a thing. We gain none of it on Pacifist and niether we(the player), Frisk, OR Chara become stronger. We gain maximum LV possible on Genocide and Chara gains enough power to show themself. They don't gain enough Power only on genocide because they're evil. They gain enough power only on genocide, because it's the only route where it is possible to gain enough power (or at all). It's not like if Chara was good they would be able to show up in Pacifist, because killing people is still the only way to gain LV/power. It's not about Chara being evil. It's about just actual rules of this Of course I'm not trying to say the theory's wrong. Just my thoughts

[karmaspidr]

Finally. A Chara Analysis that doesn't claim that they are purely innocent.

[petrenocka]

13:20 I think you're off a teeny tiny bit here. Souless beings in Undertale have no emotions, positive OR negative. It part of the thematic link between Flowey, soulessness and completionism
What Chara retained after dying wouldn't have been her hatred. It would've been their determination. And if nothing else we can conclude that in life Chara was determined to kill humans. So this is the kind of determination they have after death.

[scootie_scoot]

some kid (20-something Toby fox) living in his moms (andrew hussie) basement 😭😭 that got me ! Great video btw keep up the good work !! ❤️❤️❤️

[Absoli]

0:39 My favorite UnderSwap take was mentioned!

[WinterAyars]

Chara does have some pretty strong associations with the devil. Notably, "first to fall" and "fallen angel" are both accurate descriptions of Chara and are also descriptive of the Christian Satan mythology.

Chara doesn't kill Flowey unprompted. They wait for our input, unlike with Sans or Asgore who they kill unprompted. You can sit in front of Flowey forever and Chara will wait, but as soon as you press a button it's over for him. Notably: it's also over for you, the player. That, specifically, is the point of no return. If you reset before killing Flowey, even though Asgore and Sans died, all is forgiven. You can go through and get a true pacifist ending and everything is fine. The moment you hit a button, however, even before Flowey is fully destroyed, it's over. If you reset, even before the swing lands, you're still locked into the genocide ending and cannot get the world back without losing your soul.

"If Chara wasn't inherently evil it would make no sense for them to gain power..." Sans spells it out over the various judgments and Chara says it. Chara isn't "inherently evil", but they're a soulless being like Flowey. Over the course of the route, you the player teach them to kill enemies and become strong. ("I realized the purpose of my reincarnation. Power.") They become strong not because of some inherent moral nature, but because they're the one absorbing the EXP from slain monsters ("Every time a number increases, that feeling... That's me.") and that EXP allows them to more easily distance themself from the personhood and lives of the monsters they're killing, becoming more efficient at it. They're accomplishing a task, not committing mass murder--at least, by the end. Now, that IS evil but it doesn't have to be that way. Why does Chara not appear at the end of True Pacifist? Probably because the Chara we see in Genocide is taking over Frisk's body (see: the "stay with Toriel" ending of Soulless Pacifist where Chara jumpscares us again) and in True Pacifist, they allow Frisk to live their life without being consumed. The reason they show up in genocide is because they completely consume Frisk. In true pacifist, they have no desire to dominate others because we, the players, have given them no reason to do so. Absent our guidance, they have no such desire: They are not inherently evil.

Which is not to say Chara is somehow inherently good, either. They're a demon, but in an amoral sense not an evil sense. They're not really alive, they're just a spirit haunting Frisk. They have no particular personal drive for good or evil during the majority of the game, no matter what route you're on, they're simply observing and reporting what they see to us through the narration. They mostly don't make moral judgments toward us or our choices. However, there's one notable exception: If you do the genocide route, then do it again Chara chastises you. They say we (the player) and they are "not the same". They say they can't understand why we would do what we're doing, that "This SOUL resonates with a strange feeling", that we are "wracked with a perverted sentimentality". They go on to tell us "I cannot understand these feelings any more" and also "Should you choose to create this world once more. Another path would be better suited."

Why do they suddenly get judgy here, of all places? They're being powered by Frisk's SOUL. They're no longer soulless, they're developing feelings of their own and they don't like seeing us continue to destroy the world. Chara can no longer understand our feelings when we decide to destroy the world again because, now that they have a (stolen) soul of their own, they see there is no point in causing needless suffering. Instead, they tell us to do something else.

I won't comment on Chara's actions while they were alive but i could. This comment is long enough as-is but the short version is i'm much more on the "chara defense squad" side of things. Chara is amoral and can be evil, but only after we convince them to be. They have some sociopathic (aka, now antisocial personality disorder) traits, but they're perfectly happy in a True Pacifist run where you are at most a jerk to people. (For what it's worth, Asriel has some (very subtle) characterization suggesting he was a bit sociopathic while alive, too.)

Regarding why Chara was brought back: I strongly suspect they were brought back because we, the player, called their name. Asriel asks if Chara returned because they heard him calling their name but that's probably not it. But someone else does call their name immediately before they appear: us. We name them. They explicitly say in genocide that "Your power awakened me from death." That could be Frisk's power, but i don't think that's just the soul color aligning (though i do think Chara was also a red soul and high-Determination while alive). Chara also describes themself as "The demon that comes when people call its name" in the double genocide ending, which fits with us awakening them by "calling their name" on the name screen.

I also want to point out that even in the True Pacifist run, Chara is incredibly powerful. They are not as "alive" as they are in the genocide (and particularly double genocide) ending, but they are still active and powerful in that run. As evidence, Flowey's speech at the end begging Chara to not reset the world and to (instead) let Frisk live their life. Whether Flowey is speaking to Chara or to us, the player, through Chara it is ultimately through Chara that we can reset the world. After genocide, we cannot reset the game without Chara's permission. The reset power and the save/load power are both probably Chara's power. They could decide to reset the world. They simply choose to wait and do whatever we want them to, unless we've done genocide but not yet handed over our (Frisk's) SOUL.

[scootie_scoot]

(You are incredibly underated btw…adore your analysis of indie games and everything in between !! )

[Magma-Idiot-]

I think this is a good video on Chara is in the Geno-route, there's serious irony that both the Dreemurr children became evil (and embody completion players).

There are a few things I do want to point out as a bit of a critique:
- Determination isn't the red trait (which go unnamed in the game), it's the color of the save points and the text color Alphys used when she discovered the power, gold. If it was, Alphys wouldn't be able to discover the power (it's a universal power, and implied that the previous humans had the power too with the Asgore fight)
- the thing you mentioned about a theory people have regarding Chara learning from the player is their literal in game text before they ask if you was to erase the world. (They are also talking directly to the Player, whose DT awoke them, not Frisk's.)

I will say this, you made a good video about Chara, I like the take you have on their character.

[Matt-zulu]

Something that I don’t like about Chara is how so much of the fandom views them as a black and white character, always seeing them as either pure evil or purely innocent when the game does a lot to imply that they are much more mentally complex, especially if you subscribe to the narrator theory (which I do). Chara actually seems to be a pretty realistic portrayal of victims of child abuse as they are heavily implied to be suicidal, use humor as a coping mechanism and be more quick to violence but not being completely void of empathy and compassion. They even show disgust and confusion when they learn that Frisk/the player only did the genocide run for fun at the end. Also one part that you missed about Chara in the game is that the reason they only appear in the genocide ending is because they got power from Frisk Levels Of Violence which is why they talk so much about power at the end of the game as it gad corrupted them, not to mention the fact that they were forced to just watch as they’re adoptive mother gets mudered which wouldn’t have helped with their sanity either. (That’s not me hating on your video though, I just wanted to correct that).

[OdysseyCoder]

So i think there IS a good version of chara, otherwise who tells you Asriels name during the pacifist fight...who gives you those visions.

[oofieodyssey]

You had me at "it's like that episode of rick and morty"

[desprezolorde]

Excellent explanation.
I wasn't full aware of the "lore", per se, but I like Chara. She sacrificed herself for a noble purpose, apparently, and awakened to annihilate the world's hypocrisy...
She deserves to be my desktop wallpaper. The merciless and vengeful, determinated to erase all that's left... Poetic.

[loganjohnson]

It’s nice to see someone who sees Chara as is, rather then twist and contort facts to make them good. As so much of the fandom does.

[percent]

Funny thing about Chara: that’s not their actual name. Their actual name is whatever you name them at the beginning of the game. Naming them “Chara” does give the dialogue “the true name, ” but this is simply a joke about how base gamemaker characters literally have the name “character, ” shortened to just “Chara.”

In reality, “Chara” should just be called what they’ve only really been called in-game: The Fallen Child.

[therealhesam]

IT FIXED MY OVERTHINKING BUG OF MY MIND ABOUT UNDERTALE
*SUPER RESPECT* ❤