Ness is Sans

can you imagine a world where were all represented by a font? What font would I be? Hmmm, no, not Arial, that's too straight. No! Not in that way! Just, straight, as in unexciting. Too uh, deadpool.... BROADWAY! Now that's the one! Now that's the ONE!!! Hello Internet, welcome to GAME THEORY, where instead of putting a joke here I want to ask you a personal question. If you're personality were represented by a font, which font would you be? Take a moment and put you font in the comments. I'm really curious to see what everyone has to say. Maybe find a couple new cool fonts to use. I get bored with old calibri 11. And with that out of the way, it's time to talk UNDERTALE. Now I don't think I've ever gotten this many request to cover a game. Well, except for FNAF. And I suppose FNAF 2. OH and there was FNAF 3. Wait a minute, should I be worried about something here? Anyway, across the board on YouTube, Reddit, and Twitter, you've all been wanting Undertale. And honestly, I'm glad you brought it to my attention. Truly loyal theorists will know that earthbound is my favorite game of all time. So a self aware RPG in a similar style, WHOA MAN, it's like a gift from the indie gaming heavens. Undertale is a game where every character, from goat mom to grind fodder has a sympathetic design and a unique personality, motivations, goals, fears. Whether you're saving or slaughtering them, the game makes you feel something every time you enter an encounter. But to me, one character stood out amongst all the rest. SANS. A skeleton named after the font, comic sans, hence all the font references at the beginning of the episode. If you haven't played undertale I'm sure that was a really wierd opening. ANYWAYS, sans is, well, there's a lot of mystery around this guy. And before we get into it, let me put up a very special spoiler warning: UNDERTALE Is a game best experienced blind. So if you haven't played it, come back after you've finished. I PROMISE YOU, I PROMISE you won't regret it. Alright so everyone out of the pool and ready for the adult swim? Good. Because I'm feeling pretty determined to get to the bottom of sans' mystery. So just to recap for those of you who haven't played the game and ignored the SPOILER WARNING, or just need a refresher, sans is one of the two skeletal brothers who appears in the game. His partner is papyrus, a loud, goofy trap lover also named after a font. But in the world of undertale their origins are a big question mark. All you really know is what's given by a shopkeeper in Snowden, who claims that sans and papyrus just, and I quote, "showed up one day and asserted themselves." Wierd, right? What's more is that papyrus is just kinda the goofy sidekick. SANS is much more complex. He likes fart jokes, but he's also incredibly deadly and much more serious. Not only is his boss battle the hardest in the game, he's one of the only characters who has knowledge and power over space and time. He can take shortcuts through the world on ridiculous routes. He even is walking through walls. He also acknowledges that he's only one of infinite versions of himself, making self-aware commentary of the various timelines you've played through in the game. He can even count the number of times he's killed you. He acts like an arbiter of this world, passing out judgements in the game, even explaining the secrets of EXP and LOVE, or EXECUTION POINTS and LEVELS OF VIOLENCE. In short, he just doesn't quite fit in with the rest of the world of monsters. But then, what, or who, is he? Well, that he doesn't belong in the underground seems to be correct. The evidence shows he used to be a surface dweller. In the true pacifist ending of the game, as the group looks out onto the horizon, papyrus asks sans about the giant ball in the sky. Sans says, quote, we call that the sun. This is important because A, the use of the word WE, and knowledge of the sun, shows that sans has a kinship or knowledge of other humans, and B, that despite he and papyrus both being skeletons, and BROTHER, and apparently both appearing in the underworld at the same time, the clearly have two very different histories. Why would papyrus not know the name of the sun but sans would? We get further clues to sans' origins as we hear him say multiple times he wants to "go home" or "go back." He says as much during his dinner date scene at the mettaton hotel. He notices that the player wants to go home and says, quote, "I know the feeling." He then continues, "maybe sometimes it's better to take what's given to you." As though he ended up in the underworld by accident. AND in a genocide run during his boss fight he says, quote, "look, I gave up trying to go back a long time ago." End quote. And before you say that means going back to the surface world, that's clearly not the full story. His very next line of dialogue is " and getting to the surface doesn't really appeal anymore either." Key word here, is EITHER. Yes, he seems to hail from the surface and wants to go back, but based on the dialogue he no longer considers it his home. It's as though the surface world he once knew is gone, and as though the surface he's from is from a different time. It's pretty intriguing. So we're left with a being that appeared out of nowhere, presumably from being from the human surface but from a different time period, who seemingly had the power to teleport. That a lot of questions and not a lot of answers. But here's where things get REALLY interesting. Sans has a hidden workshop that takes a fair amount of searching to find. You could say it takes a lot of DETERMINATION to unlock. Anyways, obligatory determination references aside, as you start to look for this easter egg sans gives you a key to his room and says "it's time you learn the truth." After visiting the workshop you find some items that leave a lot more questions. A photo album featuring sans and a bunch of people you don't recognize, a badge, blueprints with illegible handwriting, and a broken machine hidden behind a curtain. In the latest update, one more detail was added. A handdrawn picture of 3 smiling faces with the words “don't forget.” so what does it all mean. Well a lot of undertale theorists have been linking these details to a feature to a character named w d gaster. A ghostly figure who never truly appears in the game, honestly covering him is a theory all unto itself, and probably best saved for another day. All of the gaster theories i've seen haven't been able to explain all the details. A photo album, and the badge, and that's what kept nagging me as i researched undertale. A badge? That one in particular stuck out to me. Why would such an oddly specific item to be hidden in the huge easter egg of the room. Something that supposedly reveals the truth about sans. Badges just aren't important in undertale. Then it hit me. What if this badge isn't from undertale? What if this badge is from a completely different game? And was infact the most important badge in the history badge in the history of gaming? This franklin badge. And for those of you who are wondering what i'm talking about, the franklin badge is a pivotal item from the mother series. You know, the one with earthbound, or, maybe you don't know that one either. You know, the one with ness from super smash bros? Yeah well, ness is from earthbound, and earthbound is the second part of this larger mother series. Good? Yeah, well anyways, the franklin badge is an important part of that series. It gets its start in the very first game and carries through the whole trilogy, saving your life many times in the process. It's SO important that nintendo has made it a staple item in the smash brothers series. So i asked myself; what if the badge in sans drawer was THAT badge? Well first off, it would make undertale connected to earthbound, thereby making it even COOLER? But that's still a pretty big logical leap. I needed more. Let me tell you, as i started looking more and more pieces started to fit into place. At the end of earthbound you're given a photo album, covering your adventures throughout the game. To me it's one of the most satisfying endings to a journey. And what does sans have in his other drawer? A photo album of people you don't recognize. Of course you don't know them, they're not character present in undertale. And note the word that's used here, PEOPLE you don't recognize. Not underworld monsters. So that's 2 items oddly linked to the mother series linked to the mother series. But how do the broken machine and blueprints fit in? Well, in the final stretch of earthbound, ness and his 3 friends must travel to the past in order to have their final battle against the evil alien giygas. In order to do that, with the help of dr. andonuts (remember that, he's going to be important later) along with science geniuses apple kid and mr. saturn, create a machine known as the phase distorter, a machine that allows people to travel through time and space. Except, it comes at a cost. It can transport organic material, as a result the young heroes must put their souls in robot bodies in order to save the world. I played this game back in 1997 and i'm not ashamed to admit that when i first saw this scene i cried. It's DEVASTATING. Doctor andonuts says goodbye to his son, these characters you've grown to love are suddenly promising to sacrifice their lives. For all they know, there is no possibility of them being able to come back home. It's all a very dark departure in what was otherwise a fun, colorful, and quirky RPG. so what does all of this have to do with undertale? A LOT, actually. But the first thing you need to know is that mr. saturns are known for their, let's say, unique linguistic style. That would explain the illegible handwriting on the blueprints. And the machine? I think a broken phase distorter is behind that curtain. Now that may seem like a stretch but it actually explains a lot. Sans wound up in undertale via phase distorter, it could provide a reason for why he's a skeleton. He used the machine as organic matter and suffered the consequences, not killing him, but turning at least a part of him into a pile of bones. That could also explain why sans has given up hope for going home. Remember the phase distorter is a time machine. Based on the way he talks, he's not only from a different space but from a different time, with no hope of travelling back to the time he came from. But the crossovers between earthbound and undertale continue. When you speak to apple kid at the end of earthbound, he's blown away by the astronomical odds of ness defeating giygas. Hes going to continue studying the trait called courage, in order to obtain its power. That seems awfully familiar to the experiments happening in undertale around the trait of determination, no? Especially since so much has shown that sans was a key player in those experiments. But i'm sure you also want physical evidence right? Well don't worry, i have plenty. During one of the endings of undertale, we see undyne and alpyhs hanging out on the beach of the surface world. A beach that bears a lot of similarities to the tropical location summers that you play in earthbound. In fact, the geographic layout of the surface bears some striking similarities to the world of mother. When undertales crew of monsters are finally able to reach the surface and look out over the earth, they're met with a beautiful sunset with a tall mountain, a big city, and a sandy area adjacent to water. Notice the sun's reflection, hence the water, and a lack of trees in this middle section, hence the sand. Well, in earthbound you have the big city of fourside, complete with skyscrapers, which you reach via a dessert that just so happens to be adjacent to water, and to the east, a mountain on onett where a meteor hits earth. I always called it onett. But if that's not clear enough for you, mother 1, earthbound zero, earthbound beginnings, whatever you want to call it, it's had a lot of names, had a map laying out the same geographic landscape. A tall mountain to the east of a large city, separated by a desert, with all of it up against a coast. I don't know about you, but to me it seems like there's a definite connection between the world of eagleland (eagleland? Again, unclear how its pronounced.) and the surface world of undertale. But the strongest physical connection, the one that definitely connects these two franchises, comes from none other than papyrus himself. He wears a custom made costume known as his “battle body” but if you look really closely at the designing on the armor, you'll notice a few marks on the chest. Is it just a throwaway detail? Ohoh NO, that right there is an exact match to the ones that appear on the chests of starmen, the most iconic enemy of earthbound. And look at the way he stands, i always thought it was awkward until i saw the two characters side by side. Papyrus’ curved arm and hand is a DIRECT match to the curved arm and hand of the starmen. In short, we have some strong proof that the earthbound universe is somehow connected to the undertale world, which brings us back to our initial question, WHO IS SANS? Well, what if we took in one final step and said that sans happened to be ness from earthbound. He hopped through the phase distorted as a test of courage, carrying his franklin badge, a photobook, and his trusty backpack. Not only do all the items in the workshop suddenly fit, but so does sans’ behavior. Remember, sans can seemingly teleport. And ness just happens to have the ability PSI teleport. Now look at how sans stands, hands in his pockets, legs out, it looks very similar to how ness is shown on most of the marketing for the game. It even explains why sans bleeds when you hit him. He is, or at least, WAS, a human. Oh and finally, sans is only one letter removed from being an anagram of ness. That's just a fun one. I thought it was worth mentioning. But if there was any doubt, we have to look no further than the creators previous work. Toby Fox, the man behind undertale, had previously worked on a halloween hack for earthbound. But this isn't just a simple reskin. The halloween hack tells the tale of dr. andonuts after the events of earthbound. Remember i pointed him out, he's the one who made the phase distorter. In toby fox’s version of the story, we see that the souls of the kids never returned home instead, by going to the past to defeat giygas, there stuck in a new timeline. As a result, jeff never reunites with his father andonuts. And dr. andonuts goes crazy with guilt, because HE’S the one responsible for creating the time machine, taking the souls of his sons and his sons friend to what he assumes aws their death. He's killed 4 kids, and in toby fox's game, he's gone crazy with guilt, trying to deal with that. Im telling you, this hack is DARK. that said, you see a lot of undertale in this game. The appearance of amalgamates, the use of the awesome song megalovania, the prototypes for flowery? And the theme of being nonviolent in an rpg, SPARING your enemies. So why is this important to the story? Well, remember, in toby fox's version of the story, the kids don't come back. They're stuck in the past, with no hopes of getting home, just like sans. and, in the hack, one character is oddly missing, with no explanation as to why. NESS. presumably in this timeline his soul is in a different place than his friends. Which brings us back to undertale. 3 faces, with “don't forget” written on it? Its ness, trying to remember his 3 friends. In short, undertale is a continuation of toby’s version of earthbound, with ness never being able to get home, adopting the name sans, and being accompanied by papyrus, a starman, with knowledge of english, his armor, and his signature posture, but without any of his memory of human things, like the sun. The pieces all just seem to fit. Now all we need is an appearance from Pokey/Porky and we’d have a true sequel. But hey, that's just a theory. A GAME THEORY! THANKS FOR WATCHING!