An Undertale Theory

This post is a theory I have about Undertale.  If you've not played the game in its entirety, this post will be heavy with spoilers.  If you've never played the game before and think you might then it's probably best not to read on.  You have been warned.

I have written about Undertale before on this blog and of the emotive story it tells and the environment that it depicts.  This theory is a little technical in nature however and reads a lot into some of the game mechanics and the idea that the creator Toby Fox might have been quite literal in certain areas of the game.

This whole theory sprang up when I decided to watch Dan and Phil play Undertale and I noticed something I never noticed before.  I have seen many people play through this game, one reason I love it so much is the fact that each person experiences essentially the same story but each person's experience of that story differs, sometimes wildly so.

In their very first video when exploring the game mechanics Dan opens the menu and looks at their stats and Phil makes an entirely off the cuff comment "We're level 1 though, that's better than level 0" - which my immediate thought was "That's not actually better" then suddenly I found myself asking, Why is Frisk level 1 and not level 0?

Now you might react straight away by saying that everyone starts on level 1 but I am not sure that is actually true.  The prequel / sequel / whatever-quel to the game is called Deltarune and in it the first time you reach a save point you save over an existing save file called "Kris" which is Level 1 with 0:00 time played.  This is important to note because it shows that a save file already exists in that game with the name of the player, or as I have concluded, with the name of the soul that the player controls.  That distinction is important.

In Undertale when you first reach a save point there is an existing save file called EMPTY which is level 0 and has 0:00 time played.  Again you might think that means there is no existing save file but again I don't think that is the case.  I think the reason it says empty is because the save file belongs to a character without a soul and therefore without a name, because they are an empty vessel.  Which character is that?  Well for anyone that has played the game in its entirety they will recall that once Asgore falls, Flowey steals the human souls and then says "Boy! I've been empty for so long... It feels great to have a soul inside me again" which establishes that he was empty before.  On top of this, Flowey talks about his save state many times throughout the game, so he needs to have one to return to - I believe Flowey's save state is the EMPTY file.

To some people that much at least will have been obvious and they will have figured that out long ago, but there's one tiny little problem.  Flowey's save state exists after Asriel died but before Flowey started messing with the world and timelines.  In other words, Flowey had not killed anyone yet, and his EMPTY file shows that he is level 0.  LV 0 in the game, where LV within the cannon of the game actually stands for Level of Violence also known as LOVE.  Which raises the question, if Flowey had never killed anyone and was level 0, why is Frisk level 1?

Within the game cannon, there is another stat EXP which is yet another acronym but this time the game tells us it stands for Execution Points which are earned by killing.  The game is not explicit in restricting this solely to monsters but it is implied to be so as the human world is rarely mentioned within the game itself.  All of this would suggest that Frisk has never killed anyone because he would have EXP if he had - except there's one tiny problem with that.  When you kill Asgore you do not earn any EXP.  That one single instance in the entire game where killing a character does not earn EXP establishes that it's possible to kill without gaining EXP.  Further to this, the ambiguity of whether killing a human would increase EXP also leaves everything open to speculation.

Therein lies my theory, I believe the reason Frisk is level 1 as opposed to level 0 is because Frisk has actually killed someone.  Not only that, when you complete the true pacifist run, if you travel all the way back to the ruins you can speak to Asriel who asks Frisk why he ran away, and goes on to say that most humans know that anyone who goes to Mt Ebott never returns, and thus the humans who run to it usually do so for dark reasons.  He goes on to say that he knows why Chara climbed the mountain, and that it was not for a happy reason.  This entire conversation heavily implies Frisk was running from something and that it was something dark. 

To some it will make sense, and to others there will be a plethora of contradictions and reasons why this can't be true.  I don't claim this to be cannon, all I can say is that this is the thought that occurred to me, and the more I think about it the more questions that arise.  Nevertheless, two simple facts remain, Frisk starts at level 1, not 0, and it's possible to be level 0, knowing this and knowing that killing is the method of increasing your level my only conclusion in simplest terms is that Frisk has already killed someone.