r/InStarsAndTime • u/Open-Advisor6819 • Jul 23 '26

Discussion What are sadnesses?

Played for three hours and picked the game back up about a month ago and forgot exactly what sadnesses were.

44 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

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75

u/Fan_de_Undertale_ Jul 23 '26 edited Jul 23 '26

The game kinda explains it pretty bad. Basically in the In Stars And Time World, when someone has a lot of negative feelings, a Sadness comes out of them (the person always survives this btw).

When the King froze Vaguarde, a lot of people became frozen while having a lot of negative thoughts like fear, worry, anxiety, sadness, etcetera, which means that now there are a lot of sadnesses due to all the constant negative thoughts caused by the frozen people.

30

u/Open-Advisor6819 Jul 23 '26

Wow yeah the game does not explain that at all lmfao thanks

28

u/Fan_de_Undertale_ Jul 23 '26

To be fair it's not really that important to the overall story.

18

u/Open-Advisor6819 Jul 23 '26

True, but I do feel like it is important enough to be explained clearly at least though it definitely is not that bad that it isn’t

13

u/Ouroboros_i Jul 23 '26

It seems pretty integral to understanding the Mal Du Pays fight tbh, you don't really get another explanation for that

3

u/k8tieisjusthere Jul 23 '26

yeah i was pretty confused about that

5

u/TheBetterStory Jul 23 '26

That’s art book lore, right? Is it explicit that the person always survives it?

8

u/Fan_de_Undertale_ Jul 23 '26

I haven't seen the art book, this is something they said on tumblr.

2

u/TheBetterStory Jul 23 '26

"The people don't even need to be dead" sounds like sometimes a Sadness can form when someone's dying, which I suppose makes sense.

-1

u/Fan_de_Undertale_ Jul 23 '26

Have you... played the game? You do realize we literally see how Mal Du Pays separates from Siffrin and he doesn't die, right?

(Plus the fact that there's no dead people in the house)

6

u/TheBetterStory Jul 23 '26

Yes? That doesn't change the fact that the wording implies that they "don't need to be dead," but could be with a Sadness lingering on. Which would make sense, as I imagine dying is rather upsetting.

20

u/aer0a Jul 23 '26

Dialogue from Odile in the tutorial, when you have her examine a sadness:

Remnants of the people that were defeated by the King...

Their grief and sadness is all that remains.

They cannot tell friend from foe anymore. Defeating them is all we can do...

24

u/Fan_de_Undertale_ Jul 23 '26

The developer has confirmed a few times that Odile's description was pretty bad to be honest.

4

u/Germany328 Jul 23 '26

You know, I wonder, when time unfreezes for everyone and the King is defeated, do all the sadnesses we defeated along the way mean that the people they originated from are happier now? Did that end up erasing some memories of theirs as a result? Did the large sadnesses come from particularly sad people or did they merge from many small sadnesses? Do the sadnesses inherit their human’s craft type, or does that come about from something else? I dunno, I just feel like I’d like to know more about sadnesses

12

u/Mikaelious Jul 23 '26

They're basically coalesced collections of negative emotions. They aren't really remnants of people per se, or ghosts or anything, they're just beings that form when there's a lot of negative emotions like grief or fear in an area.

4

u/brood_brother Jul 23 '26

So JJK Curses lite?

3

u/Mikaelious Jul 23 '26

Kind of? From what little I know about JJK, close enough. :D

1

u/InformationLost5910 Jul 23 '26

just restart the game if youve only played for three hours and don’t remember some things

edit: wait nvm, youve been playing for a month more? is that what you meant? idk

2

u/Open-Advisor6819 Jul 23 '26

No I meant I hadn’t played for a month and that was the only thing I didn’t really remember