"Remember Frisk you are the ball game" -Sans Undertale

Kindness: death is a preferrable alternative to this imprisonment, is it not? Integrity: I am racist

If red soul can mean whatever the player's like, then I am "Ball Game"

Another way kindness could be seen as evil would be killing everybody so they don’t have to suffer underground anymore. That would be considered a “kindness” to the monsters

8:11 quote from undyne: “killing you now is an act of mercy!”

It is weirdly reassuring to me that even a skilled speedrunner, struggles to get the red flag.

I personally see the Red Soul being the trait "Love", and that *still* fits this. The bright use is Frisk being loving to Monsterkind, and giving them mercy. However, the dark side of Love is loving Undertale's characters as *toys* . It's playing the game over and over again, killing, spareing, trapping the underground in an endless loop, just because you "love" the monsters.

8:20 Flowey arguably shows us an even darker side of kindness. (Fitting given he uses a lot of green...) You can use Kindness to lull someone into a false sense of security, or to trick them into feeling they are in your debt. A lot of players who end up falling for Flowey's 'tutorial npc' shtick, early in the game, do so because he's acting kind. This can also cause them to distrust Toriel, since she also treats Frisk with sudden, unexpected, unexplained kindness. "Love Bombing" is one of the most unsettling tactics a manipulator can use, because it's easy to brace yourself against an attack, but it's very hard to brace to defend yourself against kindness.

I don't know why people think the red SOUL is Determination when it's clearly shown to be Ball Game.

The fact that the blue soul uses a toy knife proves it represents patience because it would require a lot of patience to kill someone with a toy knife

For kindness, I also saw online that the genocide route would be them thinking the monsters being dead is the best for monsters, thus showing “kindness” Also, after a while, the FIGHT button instead is replaced with the MERCY button. But that’s just what I saw, and I thought it was cool! Edit: 700 likes?!? Not to be annoying or anything, but this is my most liked comment! Thanks!

Shayy:" *Perserverence can show the most evil in people despite being imprisoned, impaled, they do not stop for anything because of their own disgusting trait to perservere despite knowing how horrid their acts are.* Plankton-"

0:00 is the beginning of the video for those who were wondering

7:03 makes me think that a patience soul genocide route would involve stirring up conflict between monsters so they fight and then killing them when they're weak

Each of these virtues could be corrupted into a vice: Patience - Lazyness Bravery - Recklessness Inegrity - Dogmatism and rigidity Perseverance - Complacency Kindness - Naivety Justice - Revenge Determination - Stubbornness

“There was once a very famous painter in Germany” -Enby frog talking about a 2015 indie role playing game made by Toby Fox

AHHHHH also i like seeing kindness as kind of the same thing here, doing the monsters a favour by actually putting them out of their misery and pain from being trapped underground and from a bad situation with no real escape and actually watching the video makes me think that bravery would kill all the monsters quite funnily for the opposite reason the monsters were trapped in the first place, humans were so scared of monsters taking a human soul, and its funny to think how instead a brave person would go and show that they arent scared by what everyone else thought and so bravely fought these monsters to end humans fear permanently

9:36 Actually, if you want to compare the routes to the SOULs, you could argue the Undertale Genocide route is the best example for a darker side of Perserverance. It's continuing on the same path, slaughtering all the monsters, even though there is no visible benefit, just continuing for the SAKE of continuing. Perserverance. I know something along these lines is mentioned at the Determination segment, but the point stands.

Speaking of the Red Soul. There's a whole question about how canon the idea of Determination = Red Soul really is, especially when considering Deltarune exists. While it does make sense for the constant motif of determination being what the red soul, that's never been officially said, just a common head canon. It would make for a fun video to go into alternative interpretations of what the Red Soul could otherwise be.

8:07 I think Undyne says that "Killing you now is my act of MERCY!" when you try to spare her. So yeah, that checks out.

There is an undertale au with like 50 souls.

For kindness, another example would be acting kind in order to manipulate someone

I think Frisk’s soul is just the culmination of all soul traits. In Papyrus and Sans’ boss battles, your soul becomes blue, in Undyne’s battle your soul becomes green, in Mettaton’s battle your soul becomes yellow. And doing the ball game perfectly (= using all the traits) gives you a red flag. Maybe it could just be the ability to adapt to every situation, which would actually be interesting since it would fit with what you said about the player’s soul having no confirmed ability, because it just represents the player. In other words, it ADAPTS to what the player wants it to be.

the section about kindness reminded me of the different interpretations Gerson gives of the delta rune. an "angel" coming to free the monsters from the underground, or an "angel of death" coming to "free" them from the pain of life

12:38 is the end for those who were wondering that btw

HAHAHA. That brief cut of Writing on the Wall's thumbnail was really funny as a bit. I also like the observation of the red soul's open-endedness being so the player can imagine what it means. All that being said, you've brought up some very fascinating points about the negative aspects of the other traits. It's always fun to see positive traits spun on their head.

Bravery, rush your enemy’s down. Justice, you give those agents you their retribution. Kindness, put them out of their misery. Patience, wait till the perfect moment to strike. Integrity. Stop everyone from harming someone again. Perseverance. Over come their strength no matter what.

Oh yes, the red soul frisk uses is “Ball game”

Not only does the idea of soul traits having a dark side make good food for thought, it also makes you wonder what the red soul trait could actually be if it's not determination. Here's a few ideas I had. Curiosity: Undertale and Deltarune are games that encourage players to interact with everything and try different things. If you're curious enough, you can discover amazing things. However, curiosity also has a dark side that is perfectly represented by Flowey. You might do bad things just because you're curious about what would happen. And of course, there's the phrase of, "Curiosity killed the cat." Control: While control in a video game is self-explanatory, it could also mean having control over your own life. On the flipside, you may see it as control of others. You can control the lives of monsters by resetting and loading in Undertale, and in Deltarune, you control Kris who escapes your control on a few occasions. And in Snowgrave, you're indirectly controlling and manipulating Noelle. Choice: Kind of overlaps with control. Being able to choose things is great. However, when you have the power of choice to make decisions, said choices can hurt the lives of others. Freedom: A common theme in both Undertale and Deltarune. In Undertale, you can either free the monsters, or free yourself (which doesn't always end well). You are free to do what you want in this game. In Deltarune, while freedom isn't as present, it can still be seen in the secret bosses of chapters 1 and 2 for their motivations (The air crackles with freedom.) As you see in the real world, freedom can be used in many bad ways such as freedom of speech or freedom to bear arms to hurt other people.

quite possibly the most engaging gameplay footage of any shayy video

I've been thinking about this for a while now, and there is a lot of souls made by fans if you search Undertale soul charts, and even music. A good example is composer Vetrom, he has made covers for soul variations or new souls, as well as other people being inspired by this and making their own souls and all of them are really interesting in concept. Glad you decided to touch the souls aspect in a deeper manner!

for the evil version of kindness I was sure shayy would speak about undertale green in wich Coby(the kindness soul) could end the monsters he meets out of "mercy" to put them out of their mizzery, that was very intresting since the prophesy of the angel could still apply to Coby "freeing"the monsters from their pain and sparing them of their long and painful existance in the underground.

2:39 exactly i've been telling people for ages that red represents "ball game"

hey I have something else to add to the idea of an "kindness" geocide route. I saw a somewhat similar post on reddit a while ago about what you talk about in your video but the idea of kindness in the Geno route could mean something else murdering all the monsters could be about of kindness since they will never see the surface again. kindness likely fell early and with not that many souls its "reasonable" to think they might never be able to see the surface literally what all the monsters hopes and dreams are. so in a sense of "kindness" they kill them rather than getting all of their dreams crunched on a "Unobtainable goal" I could see that as a sick twisted perverted sense of "kindness". killing them before al their hopes and dreams get crunched and that way they can still die without breaking their hearts or die with hope in their hearts. it would be a sick sense of "kindness" but a kindness nonetheless I think either could work but I think this is a lot more fitting in my opinion.

9:11 Bravery is just one step from foolishness.

I feel like the integrity did kill some monsters because the item is called “dusty tutu” and it’s not just because it’s old. All the other items aren’t “dusty” meaning it’s monster dust. Also the red soul is the logo for UNDERTALE and the red text is BALL GAME. So there is some correlation between the red soul and the story? Game? Like Frisk, Chara, and Kris all contribute to the UNDERTALE or BALL GAME as you will. Idk just felt like to share that info. Great vid btw.

I will not take the vulture slander. They don't even wait, they search.

The ball games results describe battles in many ways that match the traits "Ball" is "Small." You waited, still, for this opportunity, ... then dethroned "Ball" with a sharp attack." - Patience (Also matching toy knife) "Even when you felt trapped, you took notes and achieved the end of "Ball."" -perseverance (Also matching torn notebook) "Your concern and care for "Ball" led to a delicious victory." -Kindness (Also matching burnt pan) "Hopping and twirling, your original style pulled you through." -integrity (Also matching with the dusty tutu/ballet shoes) "Your sure-fire accuracy put an end to the mayhem of "Ball."" -Justice (also matching empty gun) "You are the kind of person who rushes fists-first through all obstacles" -Bravery (also matching the tough glove) here we can see glimpses of the souls personality, how they used their traits and evidence towards what weapons they used. This is truly masterful writing

Genuinely such a great and interesting thought process about such a seemingly forgotten part of the game. I've thought about how these souls might have a positive impact on the games world before, but seeing the darker possibilities really just shows that it doesn't really matter how good something is, it can always be corrupted.

10:00 Team Rocket have been trying for over one thousand. Put some respect on my goats

I gained a new understanding of the other humans just like you did after beating Undertale yellow. I never really thought what they were like, how did they feel and why did they end up in the underground. After the fangame however I started to wonder what the previous souls experienced and how did their story go Really well made video, I love an analysis like this! 😁

One other potential kindness thing i wanted to mention, is the possibiltity that the kindness soul thinks they are being kind, because they think the monsters would rather be dead than be trapped

I read an article explaining the idea that the red trait is Love, and Determination is gold. Love has the duality of pacifist "love" or genocide "LOVE". Meanwhile the save point stars made of determination are golden, same with the text when you save, and Flowey (which is more symbolic than proof.) It's a cool idea that really demonstrates the flexibility and mystery of those traits.

Imagine a kindness genocide route being like "all the monsters are suffering they should be vanished to get them out of their suffering"

I really like what Omega flowey said in Undertale Yellow's neutral route. "You know, some say yellow is the color of justice. Close, but that's not the word I would choose ... Yellow is the color of judgment. Consequence ... "

Personally I think that Love is the trait of the red soul. Partially based on that phone call you can make at the floor 3 left elevator with Papyrus and Undyne. But it also makes the most narrative sense. If we look at pacifist it’s through your love for monsterkind that you manage to befriend and free them from their prison while with genocide it’s because of your increasing LOVE that you kill everyone in your path. While determination is a major part of Undertale I’d argue that love takes on a larger role in the background. It’s your love for the characters that makes you want what’s best for them. It’s your LOVE that drives you to do stronger and stronger attacks to get everything out of your way. It’s your love that makes you want to keep coming back and exploring new things. And it’s your LOVE that causes you to distance yourself from the characters so you can test things like “what would happen if I killed this character?”

“needed to mention that- no reason why (: “ NICE

Undertale Yellow also displays the two sides of justice through Ceroba in the pacifist route; she tries to kill Clover with the justification that she could save monster kind with their soul

Ah yes the seven human souls: Frisk, Clover, Toy Knife Enthusiast, Thanos, Twitter User, Plankton, and The Joker

this is also a tip i saw for writing: a character's greatest strength is their biggest weakness. confidence turns to arrogance, loyalty turns to stubbornness, practical turns to uncaring, and the list could go on forever. every trait has its highs and its lows

7:41 EY BRO YOU DONT HAVE TO GO THAT FAR BRO

One thing I thought of for kindness geno is this: In the twisted form of kindness, to them, by killing all the monsters, they are setting them free from their burdens of living in the underground.

7:11 another example of how patience can be used for evil is that to kill sans, you need to be *patient* and wait for him to fall asleep first

really enjoyed this video! it genuinely is crazy how, even closing in on a decade since undertales release, theres still new things to talk and think about

I really enjoy this style of video and would love to see you make more of it. Keep up the good work

might as well add my two cents. it’s actually really funny that you posted this now, as after i played undertale yellow i had this same idea and a lot of the same thoughts. yellow’s ending depending on what definition of justice you had really made me think about the other souls and what their adventures could have been like. for clarity, i’m going to use different words depending on the positive and negative, like justice and vengeance for example. patiecne i thought would be a a good friend who would always listen to you, while cunning would be like a snake in the grass waiting to strike. bravery would be someone who could overcome their own fear to stand up fir those they loved, but recklessness would be someone who unthinkingly threw themselves headfirst into things, regardless of the consequences. integrity would be someone who was honest and upstanding, but conceitedness would be someone who thought of themself and their views as better than others, and would go out of their way to enforce that. perseverance would be someone who never gave up, but obsessiveness would be someone who got so tunnel visioned everything else got sidelined, including morals. kindness was hard. a kind person, i obviously don’t need to explain the benefits of that, but could easily become someone that, like you said, thought there were doing the world a kindness no matter how terrible their actions. justice and vengeance, obviously. and of course, determination. capable of extraordinary good or terrifying evil. none of these are mutually exclusive, of course. as well as real life itself showing just how varied a person could be, in universe neutral routes demonstrate this greatly. but it always made me think how something good could be flipped on its head. either way, great video! i’m glad to see someone talk about this. love your content, too, shayy.

If you want to get into video essays, that was a 10/10 start, I'd love to see more!

I'd love to see more videos like this from you, Shayy! It was a great watch

7:47 Ah yes, my favorite undertale character, Adolf.

I'm going to help with bravery here. By definition bravery is a courage to do or say things that you percive as danger to yourself and going against your perception of danger, like for example do things that aren't acceptable by other people whether those things are good or bad depends on many factors but put that aside. No moral dilemma here.

i love a video essay, and i love a shayy video too! great points made :3

Thank you so much for more undertale content 🥹 you’re my favorite undertale/deltarune KZfaqr

This was a great video essay! This honestly made me do a double take, I never saw it that way before! It honestly gave me ideas for stories I could write, the idea of a personality trait being double sided like that is so cool to me! Thanks for the content!

Ball game is the best part of undertale

"I wonder how Shayy's gonna explain the Green Soul." *_"So there was this painter in Germany-"_*

Loved the video and the dedication you put into it, especially because as you said it's based on a single textbox in the game. Hope you make more videos like this!

Need more of these videos! Love just hearing people talk about Undertale

As a well known man once said: « Reality can be whatever I want » This line alone justifies what you just said about the souls being double sided and all of them EVEN KINDNESS can be evil and rotten Heck I’ll even take an example from a fanmade soul:The hate soul Hate is usually seen as a negative trait which only brings destruction And even if it’s true for the most part you can also just as well hate something bad like hating war for example Reality can be whatever you want If people tell you « you are so kind » that doesn’t mean you will always stay as « helpful » to others On opposite if people tell you « you are so stubborn » that’s a proof of determination (or perseverence both work in this) and this stubborness (is that a word ?) can be what makes you great NOW THAT DOESN’T MEAN YOU CAN DO ANYTHING KIDS YOU AREN’T JEVIL

Kindness might be the most messed up genocide route ever if it happens in a fangame. It feels disgusting to think that we're doing kindness to monsters by killing them so that they won't be imprisoned anymore. I love that concept!

Really enjoy the video essay format shayy. Opened my eyes to the duality of souls.

i like video essays, i listen to much, much longer ones while im at work or just playing games. glad you did one

Frankly I like to think that every human trait gets an overpowered super move through determination at lv 19-20 Since frisk, through determination, can oneshot everything now Clover at lv 19-20, their soul gets a laser upgrade along with clover having enough determination to save and load. Question is now, what would be the other soul's super moves,,,

10:59 my personal headcanon is that the red soul’s trait is “Courage” based off of an old Undertale theory video from several years ago made by Underlab. (I’ll have to check if that video/channel is still up) Basically, the idea is that all the human souls’ trait are on a spectrum, just like their colors. For example: Kindness is green. The two colors that make green are yellow and cyan, thus making Kindness a combination of the traits Patience and Justice- being mindful of others, but still trying to act out what one thinks is right. So in my mind, the red soul would be an equal combo of Perseverance (magenta) and Justice. Sort of like how Bravery is orange, but there’s more perseverance being expressed. So Courage being along the same vein as Bravery, but not the same. (I hope that made sense. Sorry this comment is so long)

This is a very good in depth analysis and I'm astonished that as a writer, I never considered it this way myself. I especially liked how you elaborated on patience, that example to lead into an actual death for Toriel in the game was good execution. I hope you do more videos like these!

Shay. SHAY. YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW MUCH I LOVE THIS VIDEO. I have been brainrotting about the human souls and their traits for years and especially after playing Undertale Yellow, it has lead me to thinking so hard about how each trait can have different sides to them. This video is short, sweet and pretty much articulates what my brain has been screaming about for the past few months, excellent job!

Always knew you had that "video essay" potential in you! ;) When you announced you were gonna upload today, I was almost entirely sure that you were going to talk about the main Genocide Route of Undertale, debating on various positive and negative takes people have come up with about it throughout the years. When I saw the thumbnail and title, I clearly understood that it was something different. Especially from the thumbnail's content, I thought the topic would be how people perceive the SOUL in Undertale, if it's a self-insert, something strictly connected to the player or not, all that stuff. After realising I was fooled, not only one, but TWO times regarding the real topic of the video, I was delightedly surprised by being wrong actually, I think it made me appreciate it even more! You said it right, no one stopped to rant about the double meaning of the SOUL traits, it was pleasant to see such a refreshing point of discussion, even if it was for a shorter video duration! Amazing to see that it was Undertale Yellow that sparked the idea for this, yet again this masterpiece proves to be even more masterpiece than any other masterpiece ever seen!!!!! I adopted the term "Vengeance Route" a while ago for the No Mercy Yellow route, but I'll probably double think after using it again :). In the end, it all comes down to the vision Clover had of "Justice", and the fact that this principle can be applied to every single fallen human if you really think about it, is a really good storytelling technique! I especially love how you used examples closer to real life to really hammer down the idea of what can generate many bending paths that the humans might've gone through when traversing the Underground! This is one of those videos that makes us realise that not all Undertale has been fully delved into to the point there is nothing new anymore! Suffice to say, Shayy, please keep putting up these kinds of discussion videos. I think it would look really nice to have a combination of long gameplay videos and more complex-crafted topic discussion uploads, regardless of their duration honestly! The only small critique I can push through is the thumbnail design, I think it could convey what you talked about in a better way! Maybe with a more faithful depiction of the good and dark side of the SOUL traits. Hope you take this as a motivating compliment to keep pumping awesome bangers! ;)

9:21 brave ones, foolish ones, both not walk the middle road

This makes perfect sense to me. Great job!!

A very thought provoking video! Undertale Yellow got me thinking more about how the SOUL traits apply through the different routes and this really helped with those thoughts! Also it was a great video essay, looking forward to more!

This leaves the real question: what is the dark side of Ball Game?

11:50 NINE years? I swear I was just a kid hearing about a cool indie game. How time goes by.

Perfect title and thumbnail combo, referencing the other Soul colors as well as The Dark Side of the Moon, love it

Great video as always shayy. I love video essays!!

That thumbnail is amazing Pink floyd mixed with undertale is something i never thought i would see

Justice, more like JAUNDI-

Great video essay, Shayy! I think it's very interesting to take the traits of the SOULs and see how ALL of them can have darker sides to them, it's something that I started thinking about recently with the release of UTY and how we see the different definitions of "justice" depending on the route you take.

Hi Shayy, love your essay, hope to see more!

God I adore undertale yellow. It’s crazy how a non canon fangame can change someone’s perspective of UNDERTALE, the original material. This is such a great analysis you outdid yourself:)

Really liked the video! While I feel a bit weird about UTY as a whole, it definitely got the SOUL trait of justice right. Also, I get that it's a popular headcanon, but it feels like "determination" is a bit too close to "perserverence", as all of the bad examples you mentioned for one could also apply to the other. Could just be me missing something though.

I really liked the video essay! Hope to see more in the future! (As long as it’s something you’re interested in doing)

10/10 video bestie PLEASE do more video essays

i think red being determination fits since undertale (especially the genocide route) is all about players being so determined to experience every little bit of content in a game.

If im being honest, I always saw the red soul as "power" since red is usually the color of power and strentgh and yadda yadda, but also in deltarune, when kris removes their soul the red soul we(or the soul) loses power. the red soul is tied to the player and the player has the power to literally do anything My evidence is pretty loose but you get the idea

Kindness could also be found evil because of them killing the monsters to send them to a better place, i got this idea from macbeth specifically when Ross tells Mcduff that his wife and kids are fine when really they are dead and and doing well in heaven

Y’know, I wouldn’t be mad if you made more video essays; I love your insight!

Man your video essay on Dark Souls looks great!

Personally I like to think that the red soul is of Love not Determination. Mostly due to the fact that all humans seem to have determination. Given undertales double meaning of love/LOVE I think it’s fairly obvious how this fits with this dark side theory as well.

Love that you’re doing videos like This :)

That was really good. I could really get used to seeing such videos of you

9:30 I.. uh.. I did not know that. Doesn't change much though /pos