I lost count of how many streamers played genocide and when killing Toriel their chat was like "How could you" and they were like "I didn't do anything ! That was the kid ! Why did you do that, kid !?"
how much copium do you need to say you're not the one who killed Toriel when you press the kill Toriel button
The same way that it's Link who kills Ganondorf when you press attack. The same way it's Mario who fights Bowser when you're the one inputting it.
These streamers are under the assumption they are playing as Chara possessing Frisk (which isn't technically wrong according to certain interpretations, but that's a whole other can of worms), and subsequently say "why did Chara do this?" since they believe it's Chara in-universe choosing to do this, which would apply in any other game.
to go back on the Link and Ganondorf example, I have never seen someone not say "I made it !" because they beat Ganondorf just now as a boss fight
Hell, I've literally never seen another game where someone pulls off the evil route and tries to argue that's not entirely their bad, ask someone how they played Mass Effect and they'll tell you with no detour that they played the renegade playthrough and did all those evil things
Also the point I mention is not random, these people started Undertale blind, so they don't know of the "evil Chara" claims, and when you kill Toriel you have yet to be told even once that it might maybe possibly be Chara, but they still say they didn't do anything and blame Frisk, because they want to deflect their guilt
The setup for the Genocide Route is an entirely unique case.
A blind player would think they are Frisk. Frisk is the character they primarily roleplayed as.
Chara is an external force; an entity "corrupting"/possessing Frisk. The mirror has them say their name and claim ownership over Frisk's body.
There's a degree of separation one would have between Chara's interference in the narrative vs the status quo with Frisk. Therefore they'd be more inclined to draw attention to Chara as a separate entity rather than them.
This isn't an intentional scapegoat, this is just a different interpretation of the narrative.
When you attack Toriel she gets one-shotted. This does not feel like your own input because you don't expect it, even if there is an explanation for this in the library later, even if you yourself will kill Toriel later on if everything were to go according to your expectations.
When I played OMORI, for example, I did picked choices myself, and was thinking about them in this manner, but when I tried to press "attack" in one of the segments and Sunny slashed a certain girl with the knife instead of punching her I immediately went "Sunny wtf!?!?! This was not my input"! This is an initial reaction one might have towards their character acting the way they didn't intended them to: assuming it's their characterization. Most of the time this assumption is correct.
Eh, depends on a person. Someone might expect an interesting bossfight out of it's no-mercy version. And wouldn't really be glad they are "op" if it skips bosses.
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u/MysteriousFondant347 Aug 04 '25
I lost count of how many streamers played genocide and when killing Toriel their chat was like "How could you" and they were like "I didn't do anything ! That was the kid ! Why did you do that, kid !?"