Catch up on Goner Theory so far

Co-Written with @dimensionalbox​

Warning: This post contains major spoilers for ALL runs of Undertale.



In all of the theorizing of Undertale, there’s one character who stands out. One character, shrouded in mystery, who doesn’t abide by the rules of the game. Who has practically nothing adding to his backstory.

That’s right.

We’re talking about Papyrus. Although Papyrus is played off as a naive, innocent goofball of a character, nobody in Undertale is without their secrets. And when you stop to look deeper, there are a lot of almost mini-mysteries surrounding him.

Why is he the only character without an asterisk before his speech? Why does his death affect subsequent events of the game including the ending so much? Why does his room stop all music, even post-pacifist, when no other place does? Why does Flowey take such special interest in him, even saying that he kept him from boredom the longest? Why is he literally the only one who can’t kill you?

As the questions pile up, it seems that Papyrus might be one of the most secretive characters of Undertale. But what, exactly, is he hiding? To answer this, we need to take a look at what Papyrus actually knows.

As was previously mentioned, Papyrus doesn’t seem to retain nearly the same amount of knowledge as Sans in the new timeline, if anything. He seems to be almost too ignorant of anything involving lab work to have explicit memories of the Dead Timeline. But what if something other than memories carried over? Something that he might be desperately trying to hide?

Even though Papyrus is constantly talking about how great he is, he actually seems to think that he isn’t important at all. He constantly reaffirms the idea that he has no friends, and that he is of no real importance to anybody. When, in fact, the opposite is true; the residents of Snowdin will all feel as though something has gone terribly wrong without him, and killing only Papyrus in a neutral run will net you a pretty bad ending- Toriel exiled, Undyne a furious empress, and monsterkind now wholeheartedly focused on destroying humanity.

So if Papyrus is so well-loved by his friends, his brother, and practically anybody who comes into contact with him, why does he feel so strongly that he’s unimportant?

Well, the short answer is we just don’t know.



There isn’t anything, anywhere, in Undertale’s plot to indicate why this is the case, and it’s this which makes both Papyrus and Sans the exceptions of the main cast. Toriel and Asgore’s tragic problems stem from the loss of their children, Alphys has her secret shame hidden in the True Lab, Undyne is both driven and hindered by her hatred of humans, but the skeleton brothers have nothing. We never actually find out where their issues came from, or if we’ve even helped them solve them by the end of the game.



The other Goner Theory posts were partly our attempt at explaining why Sans spends the whole game deliberately deceiving us; he gives us countless hints that he has a tragic past he can never return to, and his Lost Soul battle has his text shaking with the emotion he’s been hiding behind that permanent smile. But as we dug deeper into the holes in our theory, we started to see how Sans’ ‘mysterious’ act could be a game of smoke and mirrors - like the magician’s assistant provides a glittery distraction, his role is to hide the even bigger secret that’s standing right beside him.

Papyrus is arguably even more mysterious than his brother, and we didn’t notice this until we started wondering why he didn’t seem to fit into the Goner Theory. He appears so larger-than life, so open and honest, that you forget how little you actually know about him. He has no backstory. His motivations aren’t clearly defined. Why does he want to be loved so badly? What made him want to join the Royal Guard?



If we look at his unusual hesitation in his Lost Soul dialogue, it seems even he’s not sure about why he wants these things.



And what’s even more damning is that he seems to be constantly trying to throw us off his trail. You can examine things during your date with him, but he only explains what they are. You can call him all throughout the game, giving him more dialogue than probably any other character, but he only ever comments on what’s around you. And even the breadcrumb trails he leaves hinting at something aren’t about him - they’re always about Sans.



For someone who’s supposedly so great, he really doesn’t talk very much about himself. And nobody else seems to know him either; the townsfolk in Snowdin don’t even seem to know if he’s an adult or just a really tall kid, and Undyne only comments on the things Papyrus does rather than anything about his character. Meeting you at the start of the game, he’s thrilled to be your friend, and his whole character screams of something that’s meant to be taken at face value… but when has that ever applied to anyone in Undertale? Even the seemingly irredeemable Flowey gets his own character arc!



Again, this is smoke and mirrors; pay no attention to the skeleton without a past. Keep your eye on the guy who teleports all over the place, constantly breaks the fourth wall, and deliberately comes across as weird and otherworldly. The one who is so obviously deceiving you that you can’t see the other deceiver.



Papyrus often jokes that there are no skeletons in his closet except him; but if that’s true, then why does he keep doing this? What reason could he, and Sans, possibly have for deceiving us? To answer that, we need to look at a new line that was added very recently.



“Blasted apart” seems to confirm that Papyrus’ special attack is the Gaster Blasters, which means that Papyrus’ Pacifist/Neutral Run battle is pretty much confirmed to be an ‘easy mode’ version of Sans’ Genocide fight. This reinforces the idea that the skeleton brothers have the same abilities, and that Papyrus is much more powerful than he appears - his fight is already unusually hard for that point in the game, to the point that he’s the only boss fight that can be bypassed if you fail too many times.



But as we mentioned before, Papyrus is also the only boss who will never kill you under any circumstance, even in Genocide. And when that new dialogue was added, it removed the reason that most people assumed; that Papyrus is simply too naive to realize how dangerous you really are. I mean, look what happens when he spares you, and you kill him. He wasn’t expecting you to attack, right?

But following the update, the meaning of this line changed drastically. If you instead abort Genocide at this point and then date him, he pretty much tells you that it’s a good thing you surrendered. That if you’d continued to be violent, he was prepared to use that attack. You would have been blasted apart. Up until you laid down your weapon, Papyrus was going to kill you.



But why doesn’t he? And how does this change the meaning of what he was expecting?



It seems obvious from the beginning that Papyrus was afraid while fighting you in the Genocide run. And it’s perfectly reasonable response- after all, you did murder countless monsters on the way to him. So it’s easy to chalk up his fear to being afraid of you killing him.



But what if it wasn’t? It was already established in the pacifist/neutral runs that Papyrus is very strong, even when holding back. If Papyrus does have the same magic as Sans and we judge by pure stats, Papyrus is literally 20 times stronger than his brother. Why would someone with that kind of power be afraid of one, small human?

The answer seems to be.. He wasn’t. Papyrus is the essence of confidence- With the amount of power that he seems to wield, there’s no reason for Papyrus to just be afraid of you destroying him. The stats almost speak for themselves:

Assuming that Papyrus isn’t utterly naive nearly to the point of stupidity and didn’t truly believe that the child was approaching with friendly intent, this seems to mean that he was so confident in his abilities that he totally let his guard down. And that brings us back to what exactly he didn’t expect.



Keeping the lowered stats and the reason for them in mind, it would seem that the thing Papyrus wasn’t expecting was for you to kill him in one hit. He grossly underestimated just how much he was holding back - a fatal mistake. But Papyrus isn’t stupid; if he knows exactly how hard to hit you so that you never die, only drop to 1 HP, he should also know exactly how much he needs to defend himself at minimum, right? Worst case, he should’ve taken more damage than expected - he shouldn’t lose so much control over his magic that he can be one-hit killed by someone much weaker than he is.

It would almost seem as though something beyond Papyrus’ control is lowering his attack and defense more than he intended. Where have we seen this before…?



That’s right - Asgore. The fight where you can make his attack and defense drop by talking to him, eating the Bscotch pie in front of him, turning his own emotions against him to make him vulnerable. And the same thing is happening with Papyrus - even when he wants to do the right thing, there’s something inside him that holds back. He doesn’t want to hurt anyone; he doesn’t want to kill you, even if doing so would be completely justified on a Genocide run. And he feels this so strongly that he can’t increase his defense enough to survive a single attack from you, even though he thinks he can.



It wasn’t the attack that was unexpected, it was the fact that he wasn’t able to take it. Because Papyrus isn’t just afraid to die; he’s afraid of his own power, and using it to its full potential.



And there are other, more subtle things that seem to hint at this, like the fact that Papyrus seems desperate to assume the role of a protector, and idolizes those who use their strength to defend the weak. For a start, he wants to join the Royal Guard, even though being trapped Underground means they have very little chance to be heroic. He seems to be convinced that by doing so, he’ll be idolized and loved… but aside from Undyne, who gets by on being generally terrifying, none of the Royal Guard seem to be taken so seriously.



Hell, Sans might be technically part of the Guard by acting as a sentry, and he shows how much of a joke that is by making it an actual joke, even turning his sentry station into a Hot Dog stand at one point. So if Papyrus has an overwhelming drive to be a ‘defender’ - perhaps to control his strength and overcome his fear - it makes sense that he’d want to join the Guard, even if it’s in name only (like the Pacifist Neutral ending where he becomes its sole member).



And there’s more; specifically, Papyrus’ ‘battle body’. After Toby Fox’s statements on Twitter regarding the Earthbound crossover Game Theory suggested, we can safely assume that the Starman-esque logo is just artistic flair… but the rest may not be completely original, either. It bears an uncanny resemblance to an obscure superhero known as The Ghost - a character who has fallen into public domain use, which from a writing perspective would allow Toby to use the character in any way he saw fit.

If Papyrus is afraid of what he’s truly capable of, it makes sense that he’d idolise fictional superheroes and the struggles they face. They have to hide their incredible powers from the mundane world they live in, and exist as average people. They turn something potentially dangerous and destructive into a force for good, and learn to control their abilities so well that they never kill, but only capture their adversaries.



Like a little kid who wants to be Superman or Batman because it makes them feel brave, Papyrus refuses to take off his costume, even in the shower. And he’s so into his role, weeks after the costume party, that he even assumes a heroic pose, cape flapping in the wind, as he calls himself “The Great Papyrus”. Perhaps less of a narcissistic description, and instead the name of the ‘superhero’ persona he’s created, like “The Amazing Spider-Man” or “The Uncanny X-Men”.



It’s no wonder his battle with you in Neutral/Pacifist seems more like a game; by pretending you’re a threat that needs to be contained, he’s able to continue roleplaying, and continue to convince himself that he’s the hero of his own story (even to the extent that Post-Pacifist he assumes your quest was to get him into the Royal Guard!). And it’s only by playing along with his game that he eventually drops the superhero act - at least a little - and even changes clothing when you date him, letting you get a rare glimpse of the monster behind the mask.



This outfit is pretty much the only indicator we get that Papyrus is interested in anything outside of being in the Royal Guard - you can tell from the shoulder pads, vest top and shorts that he’s into basketball. But he never explicitly mentions this to us at all - and that, again, makes him unique amongst Undertale’s cast, who all have hobbies that add to their character depth. Even Sans’ interests are hinted at, as Papyrus tells us he loves Science Fiction, especially when it’s real.



Sure, we know Papyrus likes cooking, to the point he seems almost obsessed with spaghetti. But don’t forget; that hobby was originally Undyne’s, and she only started giving him cooking lessons because she was worried about how he’d fare in battle. Papyrus could be playing along because he likes and wants to impress Undyne, and hopes that someday she’ll let him into the Royal Guard.



And again, this brings us back to smoke and mirrors. It’s almost like the brothers’ roles as “the weird guy who makes jokes” and “the spaghetti-obsessed Royal Guard wannabe” are deliberately lacking dimension. And combining that with how difficult it is to get a straight answer out of Sans, the guy who gives you the runaround even when he’s determined you’re not a threat, granting you access to his Secret Lab only after pranking you multiple times to test your patience…

…It’s almost like Sans and Papyrus don’t want us delving too deep into their personal lives, especially when it has to do with their past. The closest we get to knowing anything significant about the bros pre-game is the “date” with Sans at MTT resort, but this tells us more about Toriel than about him. Sans may be secretive, but Papyrus gives us nothing.



Sans’ reason for keeping secrets, at least, seems obvious. It makes his role as the Judge, and especially as Genocide’s final boss, all the more surprising and impactful. He deliberately sets himself up to be something other than he seems, but leaves you guessing as to what until the very last minute, when he either reveals the reason he’s been following you so closely, or unleashes the full extent of his terrifying power.

But where does that leave Papyrus? What could he possibly be keeping from us?

He’s desperate to be loved and idolizes those who control their power. He’s afraid of his own strength. He has a tendency to gravitate towards anything that will make him seem like he’s helping, like he’s living out that same potential for good that he sees in everyone else. He wants to feel like he matters, even though his very existence seems to have such a stabilizing effect on the Underground that his death (and his death alone) can cause the monsters to violently rebel against a long-standing monarchy.

But why?

Well… as we said, we don’t know.

We think it’s probably related to something from the Dead Timeline - something related to the origins of Papyrus’ power, and how it makes him different from ‘average’ monsters. Something must have happened in the past which set him on the path of the hero; something that he doesn’t want us to know about, and Sans seems to be assisting in hiding. But this is just speculation on our part - there isn’t enough solid evidence for us to draw a conclusion for now.

At the very least though, we hope that by writing this, we might have opened up a new path of exploration, in the direction of the big, Papyrus-shaped hole many have pointed out in our theory. Maybe there’ll be more info in future patches, more hints here and there, but for now, all we can say is we know about as much about Papyrus as we do about Gaster.

And that’s very, very interesting.