#papyruslore

[bonetrousled]

please please please please gawd tell me more about ur pap being the knight theory OR if u would so pls direct me to where u talked abt it before. u have truly GRIPPED me w this

OH GOD I HAVE SO SO MUCH OK. so i DO have the papyrus powerpoint HERE which has a section on that a little more in-depth and i will say i am not the first to come up w this idea but personally it's the only option that makes Complete sense w no holes to me. this is all going off the concept that papyrus is likely younger here bc sans asks kris to hang out w him. my ramblings under a cut bc im about to go fucking CRAZY

the knight, by people that have seen him already, is always referred to w he/it pronouns. papyrus and sans are the only characters that fit the he/it bill (both of them are referred to with it/its in the lost soul fight, nobody else is referred to this way)

there is NO way that kris OR susie could have made the dark worlds in chapter 1 and chapter 2. the dark world had to have been opened AFTER noelle and berdly got to the library (since their books and stuff are open) but BEFORE kris and susie arrived, crossing all of them off potential dark world opener lists. also up until this point kris didn't even Know how to open a dark world

there's the closet in the library that states that "a very large person could easily fit inside". papyrus could have potentially been hiding in there and waiting for others to come to open the fountain. additionally in ut he says that there's no skeletons in his closet- except him sometimes

but then the question of motive comes up. Why would he do that?

so far from what we've seen in deltarune, papyrus is an asocial shut-in. given that the main core of other characters hasn't really been altered, we can also assume what he wants MOST is to feel important and be liked, like in undertale. combining these two aspects leads us to someone who can't bring himself to socialize with others in the real world, but DESPERATELY wants to feel necessary and admired.

the whole deal w the dark world is wish fulfillment, at least as i see it. susie gets a cool outfit with spikes and makes friends, she has her own room with her own style, etc. berdly gets a cool, nerdy sci-fi outfit and is put in charge, and even gets to have a heroic moment towards the end of chapter 2. noelle gets to tell her true feelings to a mother figure and gets to spend time with susie. so if you get what you want most in the dark world, it would make COMPLETE sense for papyrus to not only be spending time in them, but opening more fountains to spend as much time in them as possible.

plus, what have we seen the first two chapters thus far? EVERYONE important and in-charge LOVES the knight. all they do is talk abt him and how awesome he is. double tying in this aspect of wish fulfillment to the weird, perfect nature of hometown- people who didn't really get a chance at life are still alive, everyone is happy, that sort of thing. papyrus is the ONLY main character out of all of undertale that NEVER gets what he wants. every other character gets some sort of completion to their arc, some sort of resolution and closure, they meet their goals, they achieve something. by the end of true pacifist, papyrus doesn't get ANYTHING. his friend count is still stagnant, he never proves himself, or gets any sort of important role (he only becomes the ambassador if you DON'T want to). putting two and two together here, it would make perfect sense for papyrus to finally get his moment- by his own hands.

plus, and this is just a little obvious here, but if you become what you want the most in the dark world, and papyrus wanted to be in the guard- what would you call a member of a royal guard? a knight.

alongside the weird, vague hints that papyrus must have had SOMETHING happen to him in his past and that he wasn't always a great guy (very adamant about how people can change, the "I'M A PRETTY BRUTAL KIND OF GUY" line, the way he admits to you in aborted no mercy that he was going to blast you to smithereens) and we NEVER get resolution/explanation for that (or any of the other weird shit he says [see powerpoint]) i feel like there's just too much setup here for any other option to make sense to me. papyrus is also just very obviously toby's favorite character from ut, he's the only one he ever commissioned art for just to have and he clearly really enjoys writing him and doing stuff w him. anyway ummm im insane :) *grins*

[bonetrousled]

Ccan u please explain like. Halfway down and lower of papyrus iceberg bc i only vaguely know most of these and some i have NO idea

OF COURSE! i'm gonna do the sixth layer and down since that's exactly halfway and Lower

LYING TO SANS AND UNDYNE/FEIGNS IGNORANCE: these sort of go hand in hand. on certain phone calls where only papyrus is on the line, he'll say something to the player. in separate calls on the same topic where sans is present, he acts like he has no knowledge on the subject despite proof that he DOES- he just acts stupid around sans. there's around 3 or 4 of these contradictory calls where papyrus plays dumb when his brother is around. papyrus also blatantly lies to undyne when called in grillby's, turning around the second she says she likes the restaurant and changing his opinion to be liked more by her

SEES FROM PLAYER VIEW: there are multiple instances where papyrus will comment on something in the room on phone calls despite the player being NOWHERE near it or facing the object he's describing. he also claims to have a "PHOTOGRAPHIC MEMORY FOR PHONE CALLS" and asks to have drawings held up to the receiver of the phone to see them. this also applies to the puzzle he claims to have rearranged into the shape of his face, which is only clearly seen as that when viewed from the player's top-town perspective. there is NO WAY he is able to see that puzzle from where he's standing

SHAKING TEXT: papyrus's text in his speech bubbles on his date, his fight, and subsequent battle-sprite appearances is constantly subtly shaking. this used to be MUCH more apparent but has been toned down a little since release. when viewed in the context of shaking text really only being used to show someone who is nervous, upset, or otherwise experiencing some kind of heavy emotion, it's interesting to note that papyrus's text is the only character's that does it CONSTANTLY for seemingly no reason

FOUR VINES: this is just in reference to the fact that in the cutscene before the asriel fight, papyrus is restrained with four vines while everyone else is given two. it's also worth noting that this is the only time that papyrus makes a face of genuine pain in the entire game and it seems like his arm might have been broken from this. combined w the knowledge that papyrus took flowey the longest to get tired of, he knows what he's capable of and ensured to restrain him accordingly

REPEATED LOST SOUL DIALOGUE: papyrus is the only character that nearly verbatim only uses lines he's already said before in his lost soul fight. he says "I MUST CAPTURE A HUMAN! THEN EVERYONE WILL," before trailing off. the first line is nearly identical to his line in his introduction ("I WILL BE THE ONE! I MUST BE THE ONE! I WILL CAPTURE A HUMAN!") while the second is a combination of his aspirations to follow afterwards. everybody else has at least some form of original dialogue that isn't taken from things they've already said. compounding this with the preexisting knowledge that papyrus tends to put on an act when around other people paints a picture that, to his core, he feels like he has to keep this up

WEIRD ABOUT PRIVACY: papyrus just has a weird fascination with keeping things private, as seen below

PRETTY BRUTAL KIND OF GUY: when attempting to initiate the undyne date after having killed someone and not given her water, papyrus will say that she said she wouldn't hang out with a murderer. he somehow gets the impression that this is about him, stating: "SHE SAID SHE WON'T HANG OUT WITH A MURDERER. BUT... HMM... I DON'T REMEMBER MURDERERING ANYONE... THOUGH I AM A PRETTY BRUTAL KIND OF GUY." we are given NO indication as to what this could possibly mean. what is his problem

ECHO FLOWER ROOM CALL: papyrus, generally speaking, will answer the phone and talk to you at least once in the majority of rooms, even in hotland- which he vehemently hates. the exception to this rule (aside from rooms that won't let you call for plot/tone related reasons) is a single room in waterfall, the one next to gerson's shop hall with the floating lights and echo flowers. attempting to call papyrus here will have him answer in a panic, stating: "WHAT'S THAT STRANGE WHISPER? I MIGHT HAVE TO HANG UP." attempting to call again will make him say "PAPYRUS ISN'T HOME RIGHT NOW!!". he will repeat this until you leave the room. if you call in this room after completing the undyne date, she will answer instead of papyrus and he will say absolutely nothing. she mentions that the echo flowers are kind of creepy, but she doesn't have nearly as much of a reaction as papyrus.

PAPYRUS KNIGHT THEORY: general umbrella entry for any evidence pointing towards papyrus being the knight. it would be TOO MUCH For me to get into here but there is an entire section in the PAPYRUS POWERPOINT that covers this. just know i am a papyrus knight truther to my last breath

ABORTED NO MERCY DIALOGUE: if you start a no mercy run and spare papyrus when he offers to turn your life around instead of killing him, you're able to do his hangout. every line of dialogue is identical past this point, save for when you inspect his box of attacks. here, he says: "HEY, THOSE ARE ALL THE ATTACKS I DIDN'T USE. HOW LUCKY OF YOU! HAD I ONLY USED MY SPECIAL ATTACK, YOU SURELY WOULD HAVE BEEN BLASTED TO...". this essentially confirms that he has gaster blasters and WOULD have used them against you if needed

NO RESOLUTION IN TRUE PACIFIST: in the true pacifist ending, he never gets an explanation or resolution to his conflict. he doesn’t get any more friends than he started with (undyne), he never joins the guard, and he never becomes more confident/less lonely. every other main character comes to terms with something and has their past resolved aside from him, INCLUDING SANS (if you have the don't forget fun value and backtrack to his lab, he's put a picture of you and your friends in along with the picture of people you don't know). in the true pacifist ending he says it’s the “worst possible ending” since he can’t join the guard. and genuinely, for him, it’s true. in pretty much every other neutral ending he has SOME sort of semi-important title for himself. ruins caretaker, sentry, king, MTT’s bodyguard, etc. he has SOMETHING to do. he doesn’t even get to be ambassador unless you decide you don’t want to.

THE GLOVES: papyrus NEVER removes his gloves, to the point where he claims he has no idea what his hands look like. this is referenced multiple times in things post-game (toriel says he can put the mittens she knitted him over his gloves in the winter alarm clock dialogue, and he's still depicted with his gloves even in pajamas on the sleepover shirt). this brings into question the idea that he wore them even prior to his costume being made and WHY he wears them constantly

SOLVING THE HOROSCOPE: if you say that junior jumble is harder than the crossword and talk to sans after, he'll thank you for going along with papyrus and riff on him for "[getting] stumped trying to solve the horoscope" in the newspaper. this is easily dismissed, but paired with papryus's multiple strange gaster connections and the heavy presence of horoscope symbols in wingdings, it's a little weird

SCARY BACKGROUND BONETROUSLE CHORDS: the chords at the beginning of bonetrousle (which then continue through to the rest of the song) have an uneasy, sort of disturbing discordance to them. it's easier to hear in piano covers, but it's definitely apparent. the fact that they're present the entire song but get drowned out by louder, more upbeat instruments is food for thought

BONETROUSLED DEFINITION: bonetrousled is actually a word USED ingame and given a contextual definition by papyrus himself. if you lose to papyrus twice, he'll leave you a note in the punishment shack which reads: "PLEASE ASK BEFORE YOU ESCAPE!!! WHEN YOU WENT MISSING I GOT WORRIED SICK!!! - SLIGHTLY BONETROUSLED, PAPYRUS". the interesting implication is that being SLIGHTLY bonetrousled is equivalent to worried sick. we can infer then that the definition of bonetrousled is equivalent to something like "anxious" or "panicked" and thus the name of his theme song IS "i am fucking scared". why

KNOW LESS ABOUT HIM THAN SANS AND GASTER: this is more of a blanket statement which is basically what it is on the tin. if you play the entire game, cover to cover, and learn LITERALLY everything, you will come out of it knowing more about the backstory of sans AND gaster than you do about papyrus. we know nothing about papyrus's history prior to the game except for A) he wants to be in the guard and B) he went to a costume party at some point. that is literally it

SILENT ROOM CONNECTION: papyrus's room will cancel ANY music playing. aside from his house's normal soundtrack, it will ALSO cancel the music that plays at the end of true pacifist when you can backtrack and see asriel. the ONLY OTHER ROOM in the entire game that does this is gaster's room. papryus's door is also identical to gaster's door aside from gaster's being gray

CAPSLOCK THEORY: this is in reference to a pattern of characters with various ties to one another who all seem to speak exclusively in uppercase letters- papyrus, gaster, spamton, and jevil. i will expound on this shortly

BARELY HAS HIS OWN MOTIF: papyrus only has ONE theme associated with him (nyeh heh heh is Just bonetrousle without drums) that shows up essentially NOWHERE aside from the credits. undertale is a game that uses music to connect a lot of things together, and to have such a major character have little to no link to any other themes in the game is strange. an argument could be made for STPWYMFS but it's not even present in the game. put together with the fact that bonetrousle wasn't even originally meant for papyrus and was just a general battle theme, it lines up with his preexisting themes of not really having any identity.

LINKS TO SECRET BOSSES: both secret bosses are characters that are tossed aside/forgotten about, and nobody in snowdin even knows papyrus’s name. they also rave on about one specific goal/dream (that they notably NEVER achieve), and both are tied heavily to gaster. papyrus is very similar in this regard. along with that is papyrus's adamant distaste for "STRANGE WHISPERS" on the phone which draws parallels to spamton. all three characters also have very deliberate "grand finale" type endings to their fights

OK WHEW thatwas a lot . autism blast GO!!!!!!!!!!

[bonetrousled]

Hey can you like make like a small analysis of Papyrus gloves for me. I never noticed that before until your mentioned it in your PowerPoint and now I see it everywhere and it scsres me

i mean i always thought it was one of those "fucked up isn't it? no further explanation" type things, we don't really have any reasons WHY he would continuously have his gloves on. however it's definitely important enough that toby makes sure it's brought up semi regularly and is kept in all merchandise

the fact that he also claims he doesnt know what his hands look like BECAUSE the gloves are always on also just adds to the pile of the associations with him and forgetting about yourself/being forgotten about/emptiness in general. tldr what the FUCK is his problem

[bonetrousled]

my papyrus lore tag is just #papyruslore btw (grins largely) i am also near always down for my opinion on papyrus centric things or papyrus analysis or papyrus questions. know this always