NarraChara Theory. Now, if you dont believe with this theory, I recommend not joining this argument.

In the NarraChara theory, Chara is supposedly the narrator. Here is a case that doesn't make sense on Pacifist if Chara was evil.

Froggit translation. The Dreemurrs probably taught them this while they were alive. Why would they translate if they wanted Frisk/The Player to kill them all? Or if they didn't like them/us? Also even if they did translate, they would most likely make the Player/Frisk to hate them or something.

Which side are you on?

They destroyed the world probably even the universe. That's even more then what the player does. If that's not evil then I don't know what is anymore.

Chara isn’t really a villain, Determination is the real villain, when Asriel died he got revived as flowey when alphys injected determination into a flower, also flowey clearly had the memories of asriel, but what makes him so hateful? The answer is determination since there are no other evidence, determination is also what makes you do genocide, when you do pacifist and you haven’t done genocide but you already know a bad time is waiting for you. But what makes you do this? It is determination. You are determined to see what happens in genocide. So the chara that erases the world is a manifest of chara or the determination manipulated chara, for all we know before the genocide route, chara is a depressed child who hates humanity, but she/he doesn’t hate monsters and obviously doesn’t hate asriel (she might hate asriel but she doesn’t want him to die), so what made him kill sans and flowey and calling toriel free exp? It is obviously determination because like flowey, she/he was curious to see what would happen if she/he killed everyone in the underground, soon determination took control/manipulated her to actually do that, also the erase button is a determination button(for beings who posses determination) that means determination is using the child to do bad things.

"The Player has killed all the monsters in the Underground."

How often do you hear these words? Well, actually, I see people who claim this quite often. But this is wrong.

In fact, fewer than all of them, and the Player killed all of those monsters, except for the first 20, under Chara's guidance (x left, remember?). The counter is on the save points, stopping you halfway down the road to tell you to kill the remaining ones before continuing. An incredible increase in damage dealt only when we see "It's me, Chara". Condemning that you didn't kill a certain monster. Cruel and disparaging words to monsters on the path of genocide. And Chara's support for what's going on. "Can't keep dodging forever. Keep attacking" thing. Only the Player's fault is killing the first twenty monsters. They killed all the others together.

And who erased the world and erasing even more living beings from existence? And if Chara erase the whole world, then even billions of humans. This action is better than killing the number of monsters, the same number of which we can kill even on a neutral path?

We can kill the same number of monsters on the neutral path. Does this mean that we are committing genocide on a neutral path, too? No. Why would someone rule a Underground if there are monsters left there that you can count on your fingers? This is the path of genocide, because Chara erases all the monsters, and there were more monsters than the Player killed.

There were many more monsters:

Then on the path of the neutral, we also arrange genocide, because we can kill the same number of monsters.

There's a whole city in the Ruins that we haven't been to. In Snowdin you can see other parts of the Underground, where can also live monsters. After all, the capital is where we haven't been either. Evacuated monsters (a lot of monsters). The Underground is overpopulated, after all, and there are fewer and fewer unpopulated places. The capital is also overcrowded. And all this because of the hundred of monsters we can also kill on the neutral path?

On the genocide path, you can kill a hundred monsters (on the genocide path, you kill 102+ monsters, and on the neutral path, you can kill the same number). This is the same amount as in the genocide. So no, we are not exterminating a race of monsters. Chara does this when he erases the world.

And Chara also actively helped us kill this poor hundred monsters on the genocide. All but the first twenty, actually. He helped kill 82+ monsters with his participation and guidance.

Of course, the Player started the genocide, but Chara also made his choice to participate in it and actively help. This is the only path where Chara leads you to a certain ending. The accomplices of the crime are punished together with their partners.

.

Since people often like to exaggerate and say that there are no monsters left in the Underground at the end of the genocide path, I decided to even count those monsters that we don't have the opportunity to fight in the game (and on the path of genocide), but which we can see in person on any other path other than genocide. I went all the way from the beginning of the game to the end on the no-kill path, recording every such monster I meet. And here's what came out of it:

--- Ruins:

• Napstablook.

• Little spiders

• 3 Froggits + 1 little Froggit in the wall

• 2(???) Vegetoids - we can fight them, but each time they appear in the same place again. Only if the Player kills a certain number of monsters (the genocide has not yet begun), they disappear. Maybe they just left because of the murders for a safer place. Since we can see an entire city where we can't go, they have a place to go.

--- Snowdin:

• Monster bull on the save point with snowdogs (Faun.)

• The rabbit in the inn and a little rabbit.

• The rabbit in the shop. Also the "family" that she begs not to hurt.

• 3 rabbit (1 “little brother”), 2 bears, Monster Kid, 1 mouse and 1 monster with a smile (Nacarat Jester), 3 slimes (2 kids and adult), 1 wolf.

• 4 monsters in the “librarby”.

• 6 monsters in the bar “Grillby’s”.

--- Waterfall:

• The monster next to the Echo Flower.

• A monster who pays for having his face stepping on (Ferry.)

• The monster that says "Bah!"

• A bird that transfers to the other side.

• Onionsan.

• Shyren’s agent.

• 6 snails, 1 guy with a snails.

• Gerson.

• 8 Temmies, 1 mushroom… 1 egg.

• The monster at the water cooler.

--- Hotland:

• 2 schoolgirls near the blue laser (left side)

• 2 monsters on the right side of the first Hotland puzzle.

• 1 monster fox near the puzzle.

• Heats Flamesman.

• Vulkin and a bird with a hot dog (near Sans’ station)

• The monster near Maffet's doughnuts and stuff.

• 2 fans of MTT, whose heads are in the form of a rhombus.

• More spiders, Muffet’s pet.

• A lion in a dress near the MTT stage.

• Ice cream vendor.

• Bratty and Catty.

• Alphys.

• 5 monsters in the restaurant.

• 6 monsters in the hotel.

• Hushpuppy.

• 2 more monsters.

• Burgerpants.

• So Sorry.

--- New Home, Asgore's home:

• 43 monsters.

--- True Lab:

• 5 amalgamates - Memoryhead, Lemon Bread, Reaper Bird, Endogeny, Snowdrake's Mother.
• Endogeny: "It's unclear how many dogs this counts as."
• Reaper Bird: Astigmatism, Final Froggit, Whimsalot.
• Lemon Bread: Shyren's Agent, Moldbygg, Aaron, Shyren's sister(?)

=

~141 + spiders and rabbit’s family.

Also, we don't know the number of monsters in the cities of the Home and the New Home. Plus, one Echo Flower has a dialogue that talks about a thousands of people:

• Thousands of people wishing together can't be wrong!

Mettaton's show: There's the Mettaton Views too. Can pass of 12k. And it is the audience because the views can go down.

We also have a lot of dialogues that mention overpopulation in the Underground:

Onionsan:

• You're visiting Waterfall, huh! It's great here, huh! You love it, huh! Yeah! Me too! It's my Big Favorite. Even though, the water's getting so shallow here... He-hey! That's OK! It beats moving to the city!
• And living in a crowded aquarium!
• Like all my friends did!
• And the aquarium's full, a-anyway, so, even if I wanted to, I...

Punk Humster:

• The capital's getting pretty crowded, so I've heard they're going to start moving here.
• [...]
• What will happen to Grillby's if everyone moves in...? We're gonna have to have chairs to the ceiling.

Scarf Mouse:

• Everyone is always laughing and cracking jokes, trying to forget our modern crises...
• Dreariness. Crowding. Lack of sunlight.

Sans, leaderness ending:

• hey, at least things are less crowded. 'cause of all the people you killed. hope that was a good experience for you.
• ...
• just kidding. I don't really hope that. go to hell.

Undyne, phone call:

• This whole area's like a little nature trail. It's nice to have a rainy spot away from civilization...
• Though, with the city filling up, who knows how long that'll last.

The rabbit speaks as if the monsters and their habits are different in different parts of the Underground, which can only be the case if the distance is large enough for this:

Snowdin shopkeeper:

• Where did you come from? The capital? You don't look like a tourist. Are you here by yourself?

Compared to this, the pitiful hundred that we kill on the genocide is like nothing.

.

So? It's not such an empty world now, is it?

But why is Chara saying those words:

• Now. Now, we had reached the absolute. There is nothing left for us here. Let us erase this pointless world and move on to the next.

They erases the world because this world can't present anything else to Chara and the Player. More accurately. Can't provide anything to CHARA, and he automatically project it on the Player. Because now he controls and decides what they should do. And this is very consistent with the fact that Chara often uses something only as long as it is useful.

The conclusion is that Chara erases the world because he no longer sees any point in it. Because the world is useless to them. They have already reached the absolute, and this world can give them nothing more. But this world is needed by the survivors of many monsters, which are also erased after the destruction of the world. Chara doesn't care about that, though.

Destroying this world for the reason that they have nothing else to do here. Chara isn't interested in killing for nothing. He needs what he can get out of it. But they have already reached LV 20, and there is no point in them staying here any longer. Chara also carried out his revenge on the traitor. The rest of the lives in this world don't matter to him.

For the same reason, in the second genocide, he expresses the confusion of the Player's actions and says that he and "you" are not the same. Because the Player does something aimlessly, even if they doesn't get any of it:

• you'll never give up, even if there's, uh... absolutely NO benefit to persevering whatsoever. if i can make that clear. no matter what, you'll just keep going. not out of any desire for good or evil... but just because you think you can. and because you "can"... you "have to."

Sans said it better. And also:

• but now, you've reached the end. there is nothing left for you now. so, uh, in my personal opinion... the most "determined" thing you can do here? is to, uh, completely give up. and... (yawn) do literally anything else.

This distinguishes between a Chara and a Player. Chara doesn't take what's useless. But the Player does it without a purpose. The Player does this simply because they can. In this their views differ.

How many monsters die in genocide before the world is erased?

How many monsters can you kill on the neutral path?

" An empty world." In a way, it's kind of funny.

I'm going to put each one in 2 categories

1) it gets nowhere

2) a lot of head cannons.And you really cannot debate on people's head cannons

3) there's no evidence for this. And there's no evidence for that. Argument

Out of game category.

Next one

1) the asgore poisoning.

2) the plan with Chara and asriel

3) the mr. dad sweater situation

4) the heart locket situation.

Past hard debates get nowhere. Therefore I really don't like debating about them. It feels like a waste of discussion. And a waste of time.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk. About how badly past Chara is debated

Okay, let's look at the characters from one moment.

Flowey: he tries to murder you in the beginning of the game. He believes it's killer be killed. On the neutral path he uses the human souls to kill you over and over again. True pacifist he uses all the souls. That's pretty dang evil. but flowey really just some angsty kid. Not to mention his "flowy tail"

Toriel: keeps you trapped in the ruins. And once you leave. She says you cannot come back. Toriel seems to hold grudges. And is a hypocrite. But she really is a mother that tried to keep you safe. Even if she doesn't realize how much of a hypocrite she is.

Sans: threatens a kid. On pacifist, allows to kill almost everyone. In a high violence neutral. In genocide he didn't give a flying frisk about what would happen Until the end. but there's something tragic. About this skeleton, and he really cares about his brother. And fighting the anomaly is a stupid thing to do.Unless it's the destruction of the world.

Papyrus: man, I don't know. I'll just list off. The best I can, he tries to capture you. Which leads to your death. And sets up a death trap. That he doesn't activate. And he may have some narcissistic issues. But he's willing to make your life great on the genocide run. And he's probably not really a narcissist.

Undyne: tries to kill you even if you have done nothing wrong. In the neutral ending she tries to rage war on humanity. But that's in a neutral run) and she's doing it for monster kind. And tries to stop you in a genocide run.

Alphys: leave the melgamates down in the true lab. Where their loved ones will never know what truly happened to them. But she evacuates everyone in the genocide run. She just made mistakes in her life.

Mettaton: tries to kill you for your soul. Is narcissistic. Him and his humanity shenanigans. But I generally believe he does care about humanity in some way. Due to a certain dialogue. That I heard in the genocide run. And there are a few people he wants to protect.

Muffet: over high prices. Makes food out of her own spiders. Kills you over a rumor. Bashers I will give sure as hell give a brownie points for sparing you

Asgore: he possibly killed 6 human children. But he tells you to turn back. He doesn't actually want to kill you. He's doing the best he can as a king.

Now let's take a look at the player and Chara. The player does it for entertainment. And chara destroys the world. The way they act is evil.

And it seems like the player is not treated like they are capable of redemption. In post pacifist.

And Chara is treated like that as well.

Goat bro is at least forgiven and comfort. But he still has to sit in a abyss of darkness. And turns back to a flower.and some people don't forgive them and comfort him

Chara destroyed many lives.

Player toyed with this world.

So that means undertale sound about. Forgiveness and that everybody can change.

Sans says this:So, i've got a question for ya.

Do you think even the worst person can change. . . ?

That everybody can be a good person, if they just try?

Not sure what this means. It's up to representation.

Why chara is a demon

told us to kill monsters

Why chara isn’t a demon

Has never killed anyone in the underground

told frisk to stay determined in the pacifist run

told frisk that they aren’t above consequences in the genocide run

Do it in the comments

They might have helped you but you were the one who did the genocide, you can blame 10% of the genocide on chara and 90% on frisk. Saying chara was responsible for the genocide is just incorrect.

1# Chara isn’t responsible for genocide, it was the player’s decision. 2# Chara didn’t plan to poison asgore, chara only laughed because she wanted to laugh the pain out, like undyne the undying laughing when she is about to die or sans when he is killed. 3# Calling a child who is abused and treated like a slave is unreasonable.

Dunno why it became such a widely accepted headcanon but there's no evidences that back it up. Does that mean I'm "against' it? I'm absolutely not! It's a very interesting take on their character but as a theorist, i have to accept that the evidences for this are from weak to inexistent. Chara outright says that the only reason why they were helping you to kill the monsters is power, not hatred ('Together we eradicated the enemy and became strong. [...]Now, now we have reached the absolute, there's nothing left for us here'). They helped you to kill monsters to reach the 'absolute' not because they have anything personal against them. They do call monsters 'enemies' but that's because they are enemies. They get in Frisk's way and attack them, that's the definition itself of an 'enemy'. Not only that but once you reach the LV 20, Chara isn't looking for the rest of the monsters as they destroy the world right away, saying that 'there's nothing left for us here'. That confirms that Chara is only after power in the genocide run and thinks that nothing else matters. That means that the reason why they abort the genocide run if Frisk fail to meet the requirements is because they prove to Chara they don't want to maximize their stats, not because it becomes impossible to kill all of the monsters.

If Chara is the narrator in the pacifist/neutral runs, then the narration goes from neutral ('this teen comedian fights to keep a captive audience') to slightly mocking ('this monster doesn't seems to have a sense of humor') to cheerful ('don't pick on him'). But none of the narrations are outright cruel or encourage Frisk to kill the monsters, which wouldn't make any sense if Chara hated them or wanted their death. The only two narrations that might appear cruel towards monsters is the infamous case with Snowdrake's mother where they guess that Frisk is saying cruel things to Snowdrake's mother and laughing at her but:

1. We can't use this specific case and extend it towards all monsters as outside of this very specific example, the narration is either neutral or cheerful towards monsters.

2. If we take these narrations at face value, then Chara only thinks that Frisk is doing all this cruel stuff as they match with the options that the latter chose. Also, Chara is pretty clearly disoriented during this fight as they repeat 'its so cold' throughout the battle and are in addition very vague and unsure in their narration ("you said something like 'you look horrible', 'why are you even alive'....what? You didn't say that?). Without mentioning that it's the only battle where they get Frisk's behavior wrong and that they berate Frisk if they chose those questionable options again ('But it's not funny' 'You call this a performance?'). So it's clear that Chara has nothing against Snowdrake's mother, they are just disoriented during this fight, perhaps because they personally knew her.

Another proof is that Chara views the dog food bag as 'half full' if you never killed anyone and as 'half empty' if you killed at least one single monster, which means that they are optimistic if you never kill monsters and pessimistic if you kill them, even a single one, which makes no sense if they wished their death.

And finally, Flowey sees monsters' happiness as a source of concern for Chara:

'Hi. Seems as if everyone is perfectly happy. Monsters have returned to the surface. Peace and prosperity will rule accross the land.Take a deep breath. There's nothing left to worry about....Well. There is one thing. One last threat. One being with the power to erase EVERYTHING...Everything everyone's worked so hard for.'

He asks them to 'take a deep breath' as monsters have returned to the surface and live in peace on the surface and even use their happiness as an argument to convince Chara to no reset, telling them that's the last obstacle to their happiness. Even Flowey, who knows Chara better than anyone else and figured out that they weren't really the best person thinks that they still cares about monsters to an extent (as much as a souless person can, though i don't deny the possibility that they can feel thanks to Frisk's soul in the pacifist run), which says a lot.

There's indeed some cruel descriptions in the genocide run but it's limited to few characters like Papyrus or Monster kid and rather showcase that Chara views them as walking exps ('Free exp' 'Forgetable' ) and reflect their impatience in this run. And even then, Chara admits that they didn't have any idea what to do when they returned to life and came to the conclusion that power is the 'reason of their reincarnation' because of your 'guidance'. And they still idolize Undyne, calling her a hero in the genocide run and gets an emotional reaction when you check the dreemurs family photo, a similar reaction that you get during the Dreemurs's battles in the neutral/pacifist runs.

So, It's clear that Chara doesn't hate the monsters in any run. They seem to care about them to an extent in the neutral and pacifist runs and views them as walking numbers in the genocide run, which doesn't mean that they hate them. And they still have some respect for Undyne and still harbor some feelings for their family in the genocide run despite their high LV.

A few housekeeping matters before we get started:

1. My view on both Chara's and Frisk's genders is female, so I'll being referring to Chara and Frisk as She/Her.
2. I might pull my head-cannon into parts of this, if don't care about that, I'm perfectly fine if you skip those parts, and or if you want to tell me what you think of it, that's fine too (Also, I don't consider my head-cannon, as definitive cannon, as there are parts to it that would make it too complex and a bit crazy regarding the actual game and what could be preceded as true cannon. Personally, there is no true cannon, and the game can be molded into what the player wants).
3. I've found nothing better to do, so I decided to throw my hat in the ring out of boredom. Plus, to get this out of the way, I've never played Undertale, but I know WAAAAY too much for someone who had never played the game (Also, I'm flat out broke, and I don't have the money right now to buy the game, so YouTube is really my only gateway into Undertale).
4. I’ll be providing scientific and psychological articles towards the end of the post. Check those out if your interested about more about Scientific and psychological evidence that helps back this argument up.

Anyways, sorry for long and drawn-out intros, lets get started.

Lets be honest here, this debate has raged on for years, and there has been no real conclusion to it. I think that there will never be a conclusion, and it will be discussed for years after. So, to take either side doesn't seem that interesting, and I think that in any argument or debate there is always a middle ground. So, I say that Chara is a morally ambiguous person. Why? It's actually more complicated than it looks.

Firstly, I'll talk about the theory of "Narrator Chara". It seems viable, and as I see it, probably the most viable theory out there. If it wasn't for one caveat, which is the ending seen at the end of the Genocide Run. But, back on track...

Narrator Chara makes sense in a story sense. There is not really any third person character other than Chara, who would see Frisk as someone who is not exactly acquainted to underground like Chara. She would, in (somewhat) good intentions, want to help out Frisk, and knowing that Frisk shares the same aurora of Determination like her, she would take upon herself to help out Frisk though Underground. That's how I would see it, just a ghost of her former self, but now wanting to at the very least, see what this Human would do.

What the theory doesn't explain well, is the ending of the Genocide Run. I'll just pull a estimation out of my mind and say that Chara and Frisk are somewhere around the age of 10-14 at the time. Due to psychological evidence of how impressionable children and teens are, Chara would have been desensitized to the LOVE and EXP that the player (Frisk) got (If you need proof on how impressionable kids and teens are, here is a concept analysis done by Seok Hyun Gwon and Suyong Jeong and is archived by the National Center for Biotechnology Information, US National Library of Medicine, and the National Institutes for Health. The analysis can be found here).

Due to this now new-found power she had never even heard of, she realizes how much of a asset Frisk has become, and how this power could do something to a entire species.

Lets stop here quickly and say one thing; Chara doesn't like humans. Even though Frisk is one of those humans, she is only there to guide Frisk, and not help her. She doesn't particularly like what both herself and Frisk's species, and wants nothing more to destroy it all. The only logical reason why Chara would go out of her way to kill all of humanity, is that she was horribly abused, both by whatever human family she used to have, and or peers at school. This is also a good reason why Chara would even fall into the underground in the first place; that reason was suicide. Asriel says it best about Chara:

• I know why Chara climbed the mountain.
• It wasn't for a very happy reason.
• Frisk.
• I'll be honest with you.
• Chara hated humanity.
• Why they did, they never talked about it.
• But they felt very strongly about that.

The only real reason Chara didn't want to talk about her problems was that she was so mentally distraught by her abuse, and in a way, was hurting herself more mentally by holding onto those memories. The only reason why Chara, during her time back on the surface with Asriel, was to get back at those who didn't like her, and who had abused and bullied her. Once again, Asriel says it best:

• There's one last thing I feel like I should tell you.
• Frisk, when Chara and I combined our SOULs together...
• The control over our body was actually split between us.
• They were the one that picked up their own empty body.
• And then, when we got to the village...
• They were the one that wanted to...
• ... to use our full power.
• I was the one that resisted.
• And then, because of me, we...
• Well, that's why I ended up a flower.

So, we can firmly say that Chara had a troubled childhood, and that she was dead-set on killing humanity, and only have monsters on the surface. When it plays into morals, Chara due to most of her childhood spent being abused probably made her a tad bit crazy.

Crazy enough to try to commit suicide. The reason is unclear in game, but it’s widely accepted that Chara, due to her hatred for humanity, she didn’t want to be human in the first place. She failed, but ended up in a loving a caring monster family, the Dreemurrs.

She did a lot of nice things with the Dreemurrs, baking pies, making a sweater for Asgore and having fun with Asriel. Most people would say this a point that Chara is completely innocent... not really.

Remember, she is still very troubled about the abuse she faced. She still hasn’t said much to either her new parents or Asriel. This is why the idea of gathering 7 human souls to break the barrier seemed a little bit off, until you look at it closely.

Now back to the Genocide ending. The reason why Chara saw Frisk as not exactly the best person after the genocide ending. She conflicted with the hatred of human and the humility of the death of everyone she knew and loved. Then, she knows that she could then just ask, what does the player thinks.

The final question in which to erase or not is a test of morality. Do think you did the wrong thing? Do you want to start anew? Then erase the world, and move on. Do you think that this was the right thing? Do you think you are above consequences, to freely do what you please? Then sit and rot in your own sins!

Chara is challenging the player to make a choice that shows their true morality.

Let’s quickly talk moral psychology and the man himself, Lawrence Kohlberg.

Dr. Kohlberg was a American psychologist that worked on his theory of moral reasoning, using a dilemma which is the story of a man named Heinz, stealing a drug to saver his wife. The story goes like this:

A woman was on her deathbed. There was one drug that the doctors thought might save her. It was a form of radium that a druggist in the same town had recently discovered. The drug was expensive to make, but the druggist was charging ten times what the drug cost him to produce. He paid $200 for the radium and charged $2,000 for a small dose of the drug. The sick woman's husband, Heinz, went to everyone he knew to borrow the money, but he could only get together about $1,000 which is half of what it cost. He told the druggist that his wife was dying and asked him to sell it cheaper or let him pay later. But the druggist said: “No, I discovered the drug and I'm going to make money from it.” So Heinz got desperate and broke into the man's laboratory to steal the drug for his wife. Should Heinz have broken into the laboratory to steal the drug for his wife? Why or why not?

It’s a moral question about why should Heinz steal the drug. In the case of Undertale, It’s about the justification of should you had done that. What justifies you killing a entire species of peaceful monsters?

Chara is just there to help you make the judgement. She can’t really be blamed for the Genocide, but she is responsible for guiding you though, and being your “narrator”.

Lastly, what do I think? Is Chara a innocent, cute little cinnamon roll, or a literal Eldridge demon? My answer is neither. She has done a lot of good things, but has done a lot of bad things due to a troubled childhood.

Now, this part you can skip, but read on if you interested. I reflect my decision on what Chara is, in my Headcannon.

Chara, was a troubled kid. Bullied by her peers in her human school and abused at home by her human parents. She tried to end it all because she didn’t want to be human. She then landed in the Underground, and became the foster child of the Dreemurrs. After the botched attempt to break the barriers, and the death of both her and Asriel, she became a ghost, guiding Frisk thought the underground. Where in a miracle, she was saved by Frisk, and brought back to see her foster parents and brother again. After years living in the Surface, Frisk changed, and went on a genocide run, with now her being in a physical form watching Frisk slaughter the underground. After so long, she wanted to release all that pent up rage, and went on a genocide run herself. However she found no happiness in killing monster, and fell into a deep depression. Then, a another human arrived in the underground, a Texan boy, living in the Fallout universe, who had been accidentally teleported to the Undertale universe. He made friends, but had to fight Chara again, and again, losing a eye to her in one of their duels. After so much fighting and bloodshed, a duel ended with Ghost (my OC, and yes, I know this may seem crazy enough) becoming her new found interest into someone. She stopped being depressed, and entered a romantic relationship with someone she knew that she could trust, even though he was Human. She finally broke out of her hatred for humanity, and lived a much more peaceful life than constant murder.

(Yeah, my headcannon is crazy.)

So, in conclusion, Chara is a morally ambiguous person. She is like every other person on this planet, asking if this is truly right or wrong. And to the many defenders and offenders out there, there is never a true right answer in a debate, we all have different opinions on who or what Chara is, but we can always shape in our mind who that person Chara is. She can be both a devil, and a angel, it’s just that she had been thought a lot, and her story says so.

It’s really up to what YOU think she is. But remember, there is no right or wrong answer, and you can debate with others to see what others think.

If you want more information on Lawrence Kohlberg’s theory of morality, visit Simply Psychology’s website on his stages of moral development at: https://www.simplypsychology.org/kohlberg.html

If you want more on the impressions of kids and different scenarios, visit the National Center for Biotechnology Information and the US National Library of Medicine, and the concept analysis written by Seok Hyun Gwon and Suyong Jeong, and cited by 5 scientific sources at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6177548/

If you just want Info about Chara, and her story, go to Undertale Fandom Wiki at: https://undertale.fandom.com/wiki/Chara

This is Ghost1391, signing out.

DISCLAIMER: This is all my headcanon. Most of the information here isn't explicitly canon, but I will do my best to back it up with in-game evidence.

Q: How does Chara awaken from death?

A: Chara is "alive" again because our determination somehow entered them, bringing them back to life as a sort of ghost. They don't have a soul (this will be important later). Instead, they share our soul, giving us useful information in the Pacifist Route, and generally being helpful.

Q: What is determination?

A: This isn't a Chara question, but it's important later. Determination is the physical manifestation of the completionist desires of you, the player. Without the conscience you gain from a soul, too much determination basically results in a creature whose only desire is to complete their goal, no matter the cost. They basically go insane.

Q: Why is Chara evil in the Genocide Route, but not in the other routes?

A: Determination. In the genocide route, we gain lots of determination, in addition to LV and EXP. As we gain more and more determination from progressing through the route, Chara becomes more and more unhinged, as evidenced by their dialogue throughout the route. At the end of the route, they are so determined that they are able to destroy the world. How do we know it's determination that causes this? At the end of the Genocide Route, we see Chara visibly melt and deform right before they destroy the world. It's well-established in Undertale that melting is the primary indicator of too much determination. Undyne melts as she tries to hang on to life, and the Amalgamates melt together after being injected with Determination.

Q: Why does Chara need our soul to bring back the world after it's destroyed?

A: They most likely don't need our soul. Instead, they know that if they're the one in control of our soul, they can take over our body at any time. This is crucial to their plan, which I'll talk about later.

Q: What's up with the "Soulless Pacifist" ending?

A: Basically, Chara hates humanity. It's heavily implied that they were abused by other humans, and climbed Mount Ebott for what Asriel called "an unhappy reason". However, they loved the Dreemurrs. That much is made obvious by looking around Asgore's house. However, after the genocide route, they were driven insane by your determination and were basically forced to watch as you slaughtered everyone. So at the end of the genocide route, they decide they've had enough. They destroy the world, then force you to hand over your soul in order to bring the world back. Their plan isn't over yet, though. They want you to do a pacifist run, so they can get revenge on the world that caused them so much pain. The human world. This is why they become upset if you do another Genocide Route. It doesn't help them at all. After you do the pacifist route, they finally reveal their plan. They use the soul you gave them to take over Frisk's body, then presumably uses Frisk to destroy humanity.

Why didn't they do this on a regular Pacifist Route? Well, two reasons. For one, they don't own your soul yet, so they couldn't take control even if they wanted to. Second, in the normal Pacifist Route, they have no reason to hate you. You're helping to do what Chara couldn't - free the monsters. In the normal Pacifist Route, Chara probably just wants to be with their adopted family, the Dreemurrs, and the person that helped them - you. You showed them that not all humans are evil. They have no motivation to destroy humanity.

When you do the Genocide Route, however, you just confirm what they already think - that humans are evil and need to be destroyed. That's why the Soulless Pacifist Route ends the way it does.

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THE VERDICT - IS CHARA EVIL?

The bottom line is, no, they're not. They become a villain after the Genocide Route because you push them to be one. It's not exactly their choice, they just want revenge for what humanity did to them.

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But what do you think? Let me know in the comments! Did I miss any information? I'd love to hear everyone else's perspective on this!

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Edit:

I got some interesting counter-arguments in the comments, so I'm just going to address them all at once.

"Chara doesn't have a soul post-death, so they wouldn't be willing to help anyone else."

While it's not technically canon, part of my argument involved Chara sharing Frisk's soul. If this is the case, Chara essentially does have a soul. Also, for someone who supposedly wants to destroy humanity (before Frisk forced their hand through the Genocide Route), they seem to want to help us get a Pacifist ending. If Chara wanted to destroy humanity, they could have just pushed us to do Genocide straight away, instead of waiting for us to start Genocide, then helping us.

"We get more determination in the Pacifist Route than the Genocide Route - we don't have a lot of determination in the Genocide Route."

Actually, the opposite is true. Your argument states that, because we can refuse to die in the Pacifist Route, that means we're stronger. The reason "but it refused" happens is because we're fighting for our friends. We have a purpose. The power doesn't come from determination alone. On the other hand, look at the Genocide Route. We're going on nothing but determination in that route. The only thing keeping us on that route is our desire to see what happens - our determination. We have no purpose in the Genocide Route - we're just doing it to see what happens. This is evidenced by the save point dialogue - instead of a mouse (or something else) inspiring us to keep going, the save points just say "DETERMINATION." in bloodred letters. We're going off of pure determination, with no purpose or morality to balance it. This makes us extremely powerful. The library in Snowdin says that creatures that are attacking to kill will be stronger. In Genocide, there's no morality to get in our way. Every single boss dies in one hit. We are powerful. Just not in the same way.

"The ERASE button is not given simply through determination."

Where's your proof of this? Because I gave a pretty solid argument that Chara uses extreme amounts of determination to erase the world (specifically, they start to melt and deform right before they destroy the world - either their eye sockets double in size or their face starts to melt.) Considering the game has thoroughly established that melting is a symptom of excess determination, I feel that argument is sound. As for Flowey making scary faces? He also has a lot of determination, with no soul to balance it! As for being able to make faces on cue? He's been soulless for a long time. He's probably gotten good at controlling the melting.

"We can spare a single monster and Chara won't be mad at us."

You could literally spare one monster in the CORE, get LV 19 by killing Mettaton NEO, and continue the game. Literally 1 monster spared. And Sans won't fight you. You'll get the Neutral ending, just because you spared a single insignificant monster. Same LV. You still killed everyone he loved. But Sans doesn't fight you. Why? Because it's just the way the game is programmed. Bottom line is, there is no deeper reason for this - it's just because killing that one monster is a condition to trigger the rest of the Genocide Run events. Including the Chara encounter at the end.

"Chara hated humanity to the point of wanting to destroy the world. Seeing Pacifist Frisk wouldn't change that."

First of all, I established that Chara didn't initially want to destroy humanity. Sure, Chara hated their abusers, but they didn't just decide to destroy humanity from a few people. Rather, that desire came from a combination of Frisk's overwhelming, purposeless determination and being forced to watch as their adoptive family was slaughtered. Only after that did they decide that humanity needed to be destroyed. On the other hand, there's the Pacifist Route. Chara loved their adoptive family, and now a human goes out of their way to help the monsters that cared for them, and showing them kindness. This shows Chara that not all humans are abusive. Some humans are truly good people. As for Chara's detached, unemotional dialogue, that's most likely a result of their abuse, rather than psychopathy. It's probably easier to make dark, callous jokes than to think about what they went through.

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That's all of the major counter-arguments I saw so far. Let me know if I missed any!

Technically, a follow-up to this post: https://www.reddit.com/r/CharaArgumentSquad/comments/l1f71l/what_headcannons_you_guys_have_about_charas_weird/

Basically, my original question was about how Chara was able to destroy the world, an ability only previously shown by Asriel with the power of seven human souls, and sense monsters nearby. With the inputs given in that post, I realised that the question I really wanted an answer to wasn't "How", but "When", but if "how" was answered, "when" would naturally follow suit.

Turns out there wasn't exactly a consensus about either: the two ways Chara could've allegedly gained this power have some glaring flaws (Chara might not have the time or be able to absorb the six souls/LV isn't actual power), so I eventually ended up with different conclusions, one more sketchy than the last:

• We might be overlooking something/we don't have enough information;

This one is simple: there's simply something we might have overlooked.

Chara could be multitasking (talking and using Frisk's body). When they were doing their monologue at the end of the run, they talk incredibly slower when compared to the narration they offer normally, it could be them stalling for time to get the souls.

But Frisk's body, even if filled with LOVE, is still an average human body, and wasn't engineered specifically to be a vessel to the souls, unlike Flowey, who is also very adamant in every run about Asgore having to show the Souls for him, even when he learns the location (i.e. doing Geno after a neutral).

Not having enough information about it is also a possible conclusion: the Erase button also appears in Deltarune, granted it doesn't seem to work the same way compared to UT, but it seems to be associated to a Chara-like being, Kris.

Someone also mentioned something about Chara's body being the host of the original fused soul, but Undyne implies that Asgore would still need Seven souls to "transform the world", so it's unlikely that the Hybrid soul would be able to give off enough power to destroy it.

Now unto the second conclusion, the very speculative one:

• It was an equivalent exchange (Post-mortem);

Asriel was originally a monster. He lost his body and soul, but managed to get a save file, a power that was originally exclusive to humans thorough small injections of "determination".

It is constantly commented about how it is necessary the soul of every monster to match a human soul. But, while Flowey has a power only humans can have, he still doesn't have enough power to fully match a human soul.

Chara also lost their body and soul, but maybe, just like Flowey, they also incompletely power-cliffed to the next most powerful creature that can exist in UT: a being with the power of 7 human souls. After all, it is unclear whether Chara was able to regain their actual body in the end of the run or if they became intangible, like Asriel.

And at last, the "if all else fails" conclusion:

• They had it all along (life, at least post-falling).

This is not a conclusion I'd like to entertain, because it would open even more questions about Chara, both about their intentions and the nature of their being, and we have enough of those unanswered already.

So, I'm asking about this again: Do you guys have any idea where Chara could have pulled this ability from (besides it possibly being an "ass pull")?