Greetings everyone, please read this before making any comments further discussing Determination as it contains important information about literally everything in this video. After some discussion in the comments I have learned some new information regarding how Determination works in Undertale. In a book called the Legends of Localization: Undertale, Toby Fox actually provided his own explanation of Determination. "Meaning of the word determination as most commonly used in the game: *Resolve to continue *Will to live *Refusal to give up/die(Appears to be related to fighting spirit in some cases). 'Determination' also turns out to be Alphys' code word for an actual physical substance that she injects into monsters, one that humans produce naturally in large quantities. This substance has the following properties: *Creatures with too much of it are unable to die (De-termination). *The being with the most Determination in the underground has the power to change fate and use the in-game save/load system." To simplify what this means, basically there are two types of Determination. There's the substance that can be extracted from human souls and is used to create the amalgamates along with Flowey, and there's the feeling which is what Undyne uses to transform. From here on out I'll call the substance Determination 1 and the feeling Determination 2. According to this explanation, Determination 2 lets you do a lot of things, like Undyne's Transformation, "* but it refused." in the Asriel fight, and probably some other deus ex machina esc things. Gaining access to the Save/Load system however, is exclusive to Determination 1, meaning if this explanation is to be taken completely at face value, the amount of the substance Determination you have is the only factor that determines who gets control over the save file. Now I'm going to be completely honest for a moment, I really dislike this from a writing standpoint. It doesn't make sense to me that when you have more of Determination 2 you're able to gain special abilities that allow you to transform, or even generate edible dreams, but the Save/Load system is exclusive specifically to Determination 1. If that's how Toby says it works however, then there's nothing I can really do to refute it. It's kinda hard to make an argument against the word of God. The one saving grace for me however is that I can at the very least prove that Determination 1 and 2 are not completely unrelated. During the genocide run, Flowey says this: "At any point I could have let this world continue on without me. But as long as I was determined to live... I could go back." This means that even if Determination 1 is what gives you access to the save system, you need Determination 2 to actually use it. Now, this doesn't prove that Flowey's own Determination would be able to overpower that of a humans, however I honestly still believe that the feeling of Determination is still meant to be a very important factor within the Undertale universe. Monsters are supposed to die when they get stabbed really bad. (Crazy lore I know) With the feeling of Determination however, Undyne is able to completely change that universal constant in order to become more powerful and keep fighting. I've always seen that as Undertale trying to say that if you have a strong enough feeling of Determination, you can do anything, even things that should be impossible. That's why I personally find the idea that the save system just amounts to who is born with the highest power level so upsetting. It just feels like it completely goes against one of the games most prominent messages to me. Even with it being spelled out to me by THE CREATOR OF THE GAME, I feel so strongly that the feeling of Determination is meant to be the most important factor that I honestly question if this is really how it's meant to work. If that's how it works though, it's not like it ruins the whole game for me, it's just something I personally dislike, oh well. So in summary, the evidence points to the substance Determination being what determines who saves and loads, and I cannot disprove that, but I personally like to think that someone with a strong enough feeling of Determination would be capable of taking control of the save system, whether they are human or monster or eldritch plant abomination. That's all, thank you for reading! Edit: RIP Akira Toriyama :(

One quote that sorta always comes to my mind when it comes to this concept is "Chara, your DETERMINATION. Somehow it's even greater than mine." Flowey says this in the genocide run practically confirming that Flowey ever since his first death has been over DETERMINATION-ing everyone else and is actively aware of it

I love that bit at the end about the difference between Asriel and Chara

"You tell asgore that he has killed you x times" Asgore nods sadly This interaction alone tells that every human could save and load

So what you’re saying is that Flowey was forcibly injected with an antidepressant. /j

The being with the most determination (Not the feeling, but the actual physical substance) in the underground is able to SAVE. That's the only condition we are told. It's never stated anywhere that you have to "master" or "harness" DT to be able to save/load. While flowey was only injected with a fixed amount of determination, the yellow kid is a human, a race which does not only have a lot of determination but also produces it naturally in large quantities. If the yellow kid and flowey coexisted in the underground, there's no way the latter would still have more DT and the ability to SAVE.

1:57 Well yes and no, it's both I've read your long pinned comment, and for what you said, there's nothing that could confimr that DT1 and DT2 are two different things, and to me, it seems that it's even the opposite, DT, or Determination, is only one thing in Undertale, well you're talking about determination in that game, you're referring to that power only. Now that I've said this, when I said "it's both" I meant that if you don't have enough DT, you don't have access to the timeline, however, how determined the person is, is also important, as it allows them to use the power granted by the DT. On the paper, anyone could survive like Undyne if they had the will to, and enough DT, but most monsters don't have that will, and even if Boss Monsters technically have more DT than regular monster (hence why their soul can struggle for a short period after their death) neither Asgore or Toriel have the will to come back. 3:00 Well yeah, it's because she's more determined in Genocide that she transform, but in both neutral and Genocide, she can bypass death because she has enough DT, if the will to do that was the only thing necessary to revive, then surely Sans would've done that as well, at least to avenge his brother for example, but he couldn't 3:26 Well, it's just that he has around 6 times more DT than Frisk, and surely almost seven, since, after all, he was "revived" using the dust of a monster whose soul was fused with a human one 3:34 With your comment, I think you've figured it out, but you're comparing two different things here, Undyne can't do what Flowey did, precisely because she doesn't have enough DT (the substance) to overcome Frisk's DT and gain access to the save load reset ability, she has enough to overcome death. It's the same as when Frisk fights Asriel, Frisk lost their ability to save load reset, despite gaving enough DT to "refuse" death, because Asriel has more DT than Frisk, giving him the ability to control the timeline

great video, and I agree!! though it would have been interesting to have seen an analysis of Clover's and Flowey's situation, and why exactly Flowey is more determined than Clover. I think there could be many interpretations to be thought of on the reason why Clover only overpowers Flowey's determination in a true No Mercy run, or how "Determination" itself manifests through someone's strong sense of justice. Yellow might be fanmade, but I enjoy it a lot for being able to start fun discussions with canon material!

Yeah this is what ive always thought but put into words excellent work.

I think it still makes sense if both of those types of determination are the same, and can be thought of as sort of like a quantifiable number, but still is changed by the person's current feeling of resolve

I literally just open ur channel and then u upload this video, Lucky me

their determination is over 8000!!!

Крайне обоснованное заключение. Поддерживаю.

(in refrence to the pinned comment) I like the idea that how much DT 1 is accasible to a person is dependend on DT 2. Example: Based on her melting, Undyne has DT 1. However, her DT 2 would be diffrent on neutral and on no mercy. So on neutral, her DT 2 limits her usage of DT 1, while on no mercy, it allows her to use way more of it. So if someone with higher DT 1 lost a bunch of DT 2, someone with lower DT 1 could take control of the timeline. While I don't think it would allow someone with lower DT 1 to take control of the timeline just because they have higher DT 2 than another person, I can understand if someone thinks it would

the only problem i have is the fact that Flowey exists at all in UT: Yellow like don't get me worng, Flowey is still my favorite character and all but it just doesn't make sense for me that he was around when the 6th human fell and did not tried to steal his soul like literally the first meeting, also the fact that Flowey reseted the world mulstiple times and even went go on a killing spree, which he said it felt so liberating from what i understand about the lore of UT is that the time period between the 6th human and Frisk is so large that Papyrus wasn't even born yet and neither Undyne which from what i understood, she likely never saw a human before Frisk and the only thing she "knew" about them was anime and because of that, Asgore hired Alphys to recreate artifically the power of a human soul which led to the creation of Flowey also from the dialogue of Flowey during the Genocide route implies that Flowey tried mutiple times in taking the human souls that Asgore had, which makes it even more impossible that Flowey just didn't tried to steal clover's soul immediately and then using that power against Asgore

I mean humans DO have inherently far more determination than monsters do. It is a physical substance as much as it is a metaphorical thing. Flowey was merely injected with determination while Clover is a human and thus has the substance in abundance. Of course personal willpower factors into it too but just saying. The bigger problem with UTY is that Flowey shouldn't even exist in the game's timeframe. The game has a whole issue with warping Undertale's timeline in general. At least your argument wasn't Clover couldn't naturally reset because they didn't have a "determination soul" or whatever. "Soul Traits" are just incredibly vague personality traits y'all!

The problem with Undertale Yellow is that its confirmed flowey was created after Asgore had 6 souls and alphys was the royal scientist, basically completely making UTY impossible to happen

Clover has very little determination, this is practically stated in the neutral ending Also Chara's/Frisk's determination have nothing to do with the save system from OG Undertale, the legends of localization book states that the player is the one with unlimited determination and Frisk is just there for the ride

0:22 me fr