Hello new followers! you seemed to like my last analysis, so I thought I would make some more. It’s scope is a little narrower, but maybe a little easier to digest?

This is a theory specifically about Chara while they were alive, in the Underground, with their family, specifically relating to why they may have gone through with their plan and what might have motivated them.

I have a more extensive list of headcanons related to what we actually see of Chara in the game here, but it’s not necessary for this to make sense.

“The Underground Was Full of Hope.”

I heard that line in New Home, while the monsters recited their story to us, to Frisk. And … After I thought about it for a while, it started to bother me, it really did. I mean, I understand that Asriel and Chara were sort of a symbol of a new era, but I thought … the underground was full of hope? These kids must have been something really special, if that’s the case. But, there’s gotta be a reason, right? A reason that the underground was so full of hope one day, and then the moment that Chara and Asriel perished, gone …

There are some interesting differences between Home and New Home that call for examination. There is a kids’ room in each, and a dining table in each. In Home, there is a single twin-sized bed, and three chairs around the living room table, two large and one small. In New Home, there are two twin-sized beds, and four chairs around the living room table, two small, two large. Home is set up for Asriel and their parents to live in, while New Home is built around the assumption of two children. When the Dreemurrs lived in Home, they had Asriel with them. But when they lived in New Home, they had Chara, too.

There’s a problem with this.

When Chara fell into the Underground, they fell through the same hole Frisk would one day come through, into the Ruins. The monsters in New Home tell us explicitly, they fell into the Ruins where Asriel heard their call for help and answered it. Now, Asriel at this time was a child, a small child. They would not have wandered far from home. They, and the rest of the Dreemurrs, must have lived in the Ruins. But … if that’s the case, why do we not find evidence of Chara’s presence in Home? Where is their chair? Where is their bed? It’s as though very shortly after Chara’s arrival, New Home was built.

The Ruins. We learn from the Shopkeep in Snowdin that, when the barrier was first erected, the people retreated all the way into the back of the caverns, afraid that humans would follow them inside and slaughter them. But then, we learn, they expanded back out of the Ruins. Their King built a new city in honor of a new hope, flush with the barrier’s edge. This is sharp contrast to Home, which was tucked as far away from the barrier as possible. It was a short walk from the Throne Room to the barrier itself! What could have caused such a remarkable shift in perspective? What event could have caused the entire kingdom to gather the courage to move to this new place, the very border they had been avoiding for millennia, and move so quickly that the Dreemurrs never even had to get a new chair or new bed for their adopted child in the Ruins? Chara’s fall. But how?

The prophecy …

‘An angel who has seen the surface will come, and the underground will go empty.’ The cause of the monsters’ rising hopes, their courage … It wasn’t some abstract concept of unity and peace between humans and monsters brought on by the Dreemurr’s adoption of Chara. It wasn’t because these two children were ‘symbols of the future.’ It was because this human had fallen from above, and had become so close to the Dreemurrs that they as much a part of their family as the king and queen’s flesh-and-blood son. Chara was more than just the child of their king and queen to the monsters of the underground … They were the angel that would usher them unto hope and free them from their prison. Think about what Asgore called them … ‘The future of humans and monsters.’ What a phrase! If Asgore is at all representative of the rest of the Underground, they expected Chara to shape the fate of the world and save them all.

Now. Let’s look at this from Chara’s perspective.

We know from Asriel that the reason that Chara came to mount Ebott was ‘not a happy reason,’ and when they inquired as to why Frisk had come, they seemed to be pressing, asking if Frisk had come to … Die. That something happened to Chara, while they lived on the surface, that filled them with a hate for humanity. It seems to me that he was asking whether Frisks’ story was the same as Chara’s story. In all likelihood Chara came to Mount Ebott to die. They were a sad, broken, angry child who just wanted everything to STOP.

Instead, they came to the underground, and it had to be one of the happiest times of their life. THE happiest, probably. They were adopted by a family that loved them, and would have loved them just as dearly even if the monsters’ did not consider them to be their nascent angel. Can you begin to picture how happy they would be there? How loved they would feel, after coming from a place that had hurt them so badly? But …

Imagine the pressure they must have felt. To the monsters, Chara was their angel, but Chara was just a kid! A hurt little kid, with serious problems, who had oh so recently wanted to just die. The monsters had given them everything. And in return, all they wanted was one thing … Freedom. That’s too much pressure for a child, any child, a healthy and happy and well-adjusted child, nevermind one like Chara with so many rough edges, with so much churning, quiet hurt inside.

Maybe Chara wanted revenge on their village. Maybe they wanted to hurt everyone there. Maybe their actions would have started a war. But, let’s not forget how much pressure there must have been on them to become the angel of the underground, to fix everything, to break the barrier and save everyone. The accidental poisoning of Asgore was just the last straw, the last straw that broke the balance in Chara’s mind that weighed their life (which they had already tried to end for no reason other than to end it) and happiness against the hopes and dreams of all the monsters in the underground.

Chara isn’t a demon. They’re an angel with broken wings that never had time to heal. They’re a child who tried so hard to become the hope that the monsters’ wanted that they destroyed themselves and dealt grievous wounds to the people closest to them. Think about that, next time you listen to the tapes in the True Lab. Think about that, next time Gerson tells you about the prophecy. Think about that, when the monsters in New Home tell you about how the underground was full of hope.