Characters / Undertale - The Fallen Human

Undertale Main Character Index
Major (The Human Child, Flowey, Sans, Papyrus, Undyne, Mettaton, Asgore Dreemurr)
Others | Monsters | Spoilers (The Fallen Human)

SPOILER ALERT: As this character is a Walking Spoiler, all Undertale spoilers are unmarked. You Have Been Warned.

The Fallen Human / Chara / Playername

"Greetings. I am (name)".

"HP. ATK. DEF. GOLD. EXP. LV. Every time a number increases, that feeling. That's me."

The Fallen Human, better known to fans by their "true name" Chara, is a character of ambiguous age, gender, and personality, much like Frisk. At the start of the game, a human child with one stripe on their shirt is shown climbing Mt Ebott and taking a tumble into the Underground in 201X, and you are asked to name "the fallen human". You find out at the end of one of the main routes that's not the character you've been playing as, a human child with two stripes on their shirt who fell in the future many years after Chara, and whose name turns out to be Frisk. It's not exactly a lie, since Chara is the "Fallen" Human in one sense of the word. Well, maybe two.

The first human to ever fall into the Underground, Chara was adopted by Asgore and Toriel and became Asriel's Best Friend. They died long ago, supposedly from an illness. Truth is, they convinced Asriel to help them kill themself to try to destroy the barrier, merging their soul with Asriel's and going to the surface to gather more human souls. Never keen on the idea, Asriel stepped in to stop them from going through with killing anyone, but was mortally wounded himself and both children died. Unaware of the secret plan, the deaths of both his children in one night sparked Asgore's declaration of war on humanity that make Frisk the enemy of the Underground in the game.

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#-D

• Abstract Apotheosis: As the character quote states, they are the embodiment of stats. On one hand, the Fallen Human probably becomes the embodiment of killing everything to gain power in the Genocide Route; in order to achieve 100% Completion, you have to do some pretty horrible things, including kill every single friend you've made in a previous run. On the other hand, the Fallen's stats help protect Frisk in the Pacifist route.
• Adopted into Royalty: Chara was adopted by the Dreemurr royal family when the king’s son found them after they fell into the underground. They're only called "the human" by the monsters in the present day however whereas the rest of the family get royal stylings of "prince", "king", and "queen", so it's unclear if any actual royal position came with the adoption, or if they just enjoyed the benefits of being the pampered human child of the kind and beloved monster royal family. They were regarded as "the future of humans and monsters" at the time, hinted to be believed to be The Chosen One, and Asgore has no qualms asking Frisk (who's about Chara's age) to be the monsters' ambassador to humans in the Golden Ending, so it does seem they were being groomed to inherit some kind of political power alongside Asriel, the future king.
• Allegorical Character: Chara in the Genocide Route is supposed to represent a typical RPG player. They kill in order to gain power, are happy to see their stats increase, and once they are done with a world, they simply move on to the next with no regret or consideration for what they've done.
• Ambiguous Gender: Just like Frisk, the Fallen Child's gender is left ambiguous. The canon name is "Chara", which is short for character and not indicative of anything. The ambiguity is understandable, since you can name them (almost) anything you wish.
• Ambiguous Gender Identity: Like Frisk and Kris, the usage of they/them pronouns to describe Chara is debated by fans, whether these are meant as a placeholder for the player to choose their gender or to portray Chara as canonically non-binary.^note On one side, the player is allowed to name the Fallen Human and Toby Fox even suggested naming them after yourself in a Tweet (though only if you couldn't think of anything else), which along with how Flowey seems to be Addressing the Player at many points where he thinks he is addressing Chara, caused many to view Chara as a representation of the player. As a result, some fans believe Chara is written as gender-neutral simply to let the player project on them and "Chara" should match the individual player's gender. However, Chara is pointedly not you any more than Frisk is, as they have their own specific history, demonstrate their own personality and opinions, and even seem to be Addressing the Player directly — facing you at the end of Genocide, rebelling against you if you try to control them in that ending, and outright musing on how you and them are not the same in the second Genocide ending. At the same time you are given the option to give them a name at the start of the game, you are not given the option to also customize their gender, even though implementing it would've been as easy as letting you pick their name.
• Ambiguously Evil: Oh boy... Chara's overall role in the game, motives, and morality is an extraordinarily unclear and controversial topic, and arguably the most hotly debated subject related to this game. Very little can be said for certain about their true goals, especially in regards to the game's backstory. They may have been sincere with Asriel about wanting to kill only enough humans to break the barrier, or given the darker aspects of the character, may have wanted to lay waste to their home village or possibly to get revenge on the entire human race. ​The most upfront information we get about them from Asriel, the True Lab tapes, and Genocide made a strong first impression on fans of an Enfant Terrible who manipulated monsters and now seeks revenge on Asriel and the rest of the Underground for their plan being foiled. Most saw them as a Hidden Villain who acts as Frisk's Enemy Within and comes out to play in Genocide as the Villain Protagonist possessing Frisk. Though initially it was thought they only hijacked the narration in Genocide with the ominous and cruel red-colored Flavor Text in it representing their thoughts taking over, since then, fans have found enough possible evidence to craft a pretty compelling case that they are really the good-natured Narrator All Along in all routes and only turned evil in Genocide because of the player's choices.
• Ambiguously Human: In addition to being able to exist in some form after death despite not being represented by a floating soul like the rest of the fallen humans, they exhibit powers by the end of the Genocide run that pretty heavily suggest they've become… something new. Most notably, they're able to take the player's soul in exchange for getting the game back, despite the fact that the game clearly states that humans cannot take other human souls, possibly because Chara came back soulless as Flowey did.
• Ambiguous Innocence: Ever-smiling, Chara appears to be completely disconnected from morality, driven solely by amusement. They only appear in the flesh after you help them seize full control of Frisk's body by slaughtering every monster in the Underground, and most of their character is unnervingly vague. Was Chara always this heartless? Was Chara ever even mortal to begin with? Did YOU do this?
• And I Must Scream: In the Genocide Route, Chara's narration for their former coffin is a chilling, "(It's as comfortable as it looks.)" After they died with Asriel and before Frisk landed on their grave, might Chara have somehow been conscious of being a corpse for all that time? And Asriel thought being turned into a flower was bad... Even the otherwise fairly heartwarming Narrator Chara theory carries some implication of this: when "reincarnated" inside Frisk's body as their Spirit Advisor, if they can't or don't share control with Frisk outside of Genocide, Chara is now stuck as a voice in Frisk's head merely watching Frisk live their life, essentially shifting them from one And I Must Scream scenario to another. However, after completing the Genocide route, they can completely take Frisk's soul with the implication they possess Frisk and make Frisk the backseat passenger.
• Antagonist in Mourning: Assuming Chara is the narrator (And assuming they are evil), killing Undyne in the neutral path causes the narration to sound more and more crestfallen during her slow disintegration.
  Undyne's body is wavering.
  Undyne's body is losing its shape.
  Undyne's body...
  ...
• The Antichrist: The Prophecy is that "The Angel... The One Who Has Seen The Surface... They will return. And the underground will go empty." Mostly this is taken to mean they will free monsters and bring them to the Surface, but it's said there is another interpretation among hopeless monsters lately that it may mean the angel will be an "Angel of Death" who will in fact "free" monsters and empty the Underground by killing them all. Naturally, fans believe Chara—"returning" after death, asserting themself only in the Genocide route when monsters are being slaughtered, and then bringing on The End of the World as We Know It even if the player tries to say no—is the darker side of the prophecy being fulfilled as the Angel of Death. The hellish connotations of the term "Antichrist" is further driven home by Chara suggested to have become a demonic entity possessing Frisk by force to do the deed, and them offering a Deal with the Devil for your soul. Their innocent, youthful look doesn't hurt either, inviting comparisons to other demon child Antichrists.
  • Some posit that they may have intended to be a Well-Intentioned Extremist version of this trope in life, if they did have bigger, darker plans than they shared with Asriel due to their raging hatred of humans, but meant them for the benefit of monsters. By Killing All Humans with theirs and Asriel's power or triggering a war with monsters winning, the world would be left to monsters alone to inherit. This is stated to be local Satanic Archetype Asgore's plan when he hit the Rage Breaking Point after Chara and Asriel died.
  • One interpretation has the Fallen Human along the lines of an Anti Anti Christ: a would-be Antichrist who then turns good through the Pacifist route from Frisk's influence and supplies Frisk the memories needed to SAVE all-powerful, rampaging Asriel, in turn saving the world.
• The Atoner: The Narrator Chara theory would make them this in the Pacifist Route. After being responsible for the death of their brother, the breakup of their parents, and Asgore declaring war on humanity, all by trying to kill people to save the Underground, now they're going to use Frisk to save everyone by not killing everyone. Averted in the Genocide route, although it could be said that the Soulless Pacifist ending represents them holding You/the Player/Anomaly responsible for your actions, thereby atoning for their part in the route.
• Audience Surrogate: On some level, they're implied to be a representation of the player or some kind of vessel for the player's intentions. Exactly how far this goes is up for debate. Notably, Toby Fox replied to a Tweet asking what to name them by saying to give them your name if you can't think of anything else (he also joked you can also name them after your cat, which would at least make Genocide funnier).
• Ax-Crazy: Their narration leans this way in the Genocide route, to the point of counting down how many monsters are still alive in each area (ostensibly to help you know many are left to hunt down and kill) and their CHECK on Monster Kid saying "Looks like free EXP." The first major sign of it comes in Toriel's house. Looking through her kitchen will normally get the narration, "Inside the cupboard are cookie cutters for gingerbread monsters." In Genocide?
  Where are the knives.
• Badass Bookworm: Their dialogue is measured and intelligent, and they are much more dangerous, cunning, and powerful than you'd expect a small child to be. Reflecting this, the Check description on the Royal Guards changes in Genocide to an almost word-for-word quote referencing Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto.
• The Bad Guy Wins: If you go through with getting the Genocide ending, the first human wins. Forever. Even on subsequent playthroughs.^note Well, unless a player erases all records of their corruption, but that's probably not meant to be canon. Want to back out of the Genocide run at the last minute? Or want to go Pacifist after you already helped them achieve their goals? The Fallen Child won't let you.
• Bad Samaritan: Rather than a Heroic Suicide, the Evil All Along reading of Chara has them wanting to give Asriel their SOUL for their own agenda of gaining the power they wanted to use to kill the humans of their village, since as Asriel points out, their plan succeeding would have reignited a war between humans and monsters (and could easily result in the genocide of one race or the other, more likely monsters since humans had beaten them once) and the Fallen could have been aware of that. When their plan to force him to kill failed, it got him killed as well, killing the child who had seen them as his best friend and causing their adopted parents to divorce with Asgore heartbroken and Toriel embittered. For those who believe the Fallen is only "reincarnated" in Genocide, they return only to finish the job by killing their former parents, their "best friend forever", half the Underground, and then destroying the world.
• Became Their Own Antithesis: Manages to be this in opposite directions, depending on how you interpret them. If you believe they were originally a Well-Intentioned Extremist who genuinely wanted to just free monsterkind and thought they'd be heroes with Asriel, then the fact that their plan led to death, suffering, and widespread despair among the monsters makes them this trope — and in the Genocide route, it goes even farther by way of them destroying the entire world. If you believe that they originally were a bad person with dark ulterior motives (and buy into the Narrator Chara theory), then the Pacifist Route can be seen as their redemption.
  • Also, it's possible that watching how the Anomaly kills everyone in the Genocide route could have made them fall into despair. As a consequence, they try coping with the situation by convincing themself that what the anomaly does is right.
• Best Served Cold: According to some, The Fallen's hatred for humans unfortunately outweighed their love for their adopted family, and Asriel's betrayal and Chara's mummification was a catalyst for their murder spree.
• Big Bad Duumvirate:
  • Seemingly with Flowey on the Genocide Route, until Flowey realizes he's probably on their hitlist as well and Chara seems to turn on him.
  • They believe they have one with their "partner", which is either Frisk or the player themself, explicitly assisting their partner in repeat Genocides even as Chara's ending monologues indicate they don't see the point in it themself, and possibly assisting them even in other routes after Genocide. That's not to say Chara isn't perfectly capable of going against said partner's will if they disagree.
• Big Bad: For the Genocide route, and worst of all, it's your fault if they win. Though, they make it clear that it was your actions that caused the world's destruction.
• Big Bad Slippage: This might be happening during the Genocide route. It's hard to see them as anything but malevolent at the endgame when they destroy the world and demand your SOUL (and at that point, they're clearly the greater threat, given that there is no in-game means to effectively defy them), but whether or not they always intended to slaughter everybody else or if it was your influence that pushed them to do that is uncertain. Even with a less charitable interpretation of the Fallen Child's character, they explicitly state that you were responsible for "pushing everything to the edge".
• Big Good: If interpreted as the narrator or player (see Anomaly), they are this for the Pacifist route.
• Bizarre Taste in Food: Assuming they are the Narrator All Along, then in the Hard Mode they state that the snail pie smells nice while Frisk blanches at it. They end up acquiescing that it’s an “acquired taste”.
• Black Eyes of Evil: At the end of the Genocide route, Chara's eyes become noticeably wider, rounder black eyes. If you choose not to erase the world, their eyes will start dripping with something black before they rush the screen, their entire face now seemingly melting and completely Laughing Mad, and then crash the game.
• Blank Slate: It's implied that after they died, they lost their SOUL and determination along with it. When the player names them, they are brought back and possibly grows a new personality depending on what route the player takes.
• Blasphemous Boast: Inverted. The player would naturally assume that after doing a Genocide run, they can simply reset everything and play through again like nothing happened. Chara, having hijacked the game, rebukes them as a deity in the void of nothingness, telling them that their actions have real consequences, which they are now totally impotent to negate.
• Blush Sticker: Has a rosy pink blush to their cheeks. Their pink cheeks and striped shirt are a visual reference to the design of the Kid Heroes in the Mother series, which had Blush Stickers as a gender-neutral trait.
• Boomerang Bigot: According to Asriel, Chara hated humanity. This is probably why they were so eager to murder the humans that were attacking them on the surface, and probably the reason they went up Mt. Ebott in the first place.
• Bootstrapped Leitmotif:
  • Fans have occasionally repurposed Toriel's "Fallen Down", Asgore's "Small Shock", or Asriel's "Memory" or "His Theme" to double as a non-evil Chara's theme. Canonically Chara in Genocide is linked to at least one reused bit of music: slow down "Anticipation" (the lead-in to the default battle theme "Enemy Approaching!") and you get the oppressively mechanical, looping version of the theme, nicknamed "In My Way" by fans, which was first used at the end of the demo if you go for a Genocide, right as Chara comments "That was fun. Let's finish the job." It plays in the full game when Chara seems to seize control on their own to initiate a fight with Monster Kid, terrify Flowey when he senses their murderous intentions, and for the END screen in both variants of the Soulless Pacifist ending. It's also similar to that creepy minimalistic BGM that plays when you meet them in person at the end of this route.
  • "Once Upon a Time" (one half of the game's Theme Tune of "Undertale" together with "His Theme", Asriel's leitmotif) shows up in many places throughout the game, but some people believe that it is meant to be Chara's theme. It is first and most prominent playing when you first see and name Chara at the start of the game, is a major part of the area music in Toriel's and Asgore's houses where Chara once lived, and it and "His Theme" together make up "Undertale", the song playing when theirs and Asriel's story is told. If the narrator, it would make it all-too-appropriate for them: "Once Upon a Time" is the first song you hear when you open up the game, its gentle piano counterpart "Good Night"^note used for the Neutral ending in the demo but unused in the full game is the last song on the official soundtrack, and the song titles sound like they are spoken by a storyteller or narrator.
  • Chara is sometimes associated with "Undertale (Unused)" specifically, an early version of "Undertale" that was not used for the final game and is mixed with a different arrangement that predated "His Theme". This is likely because the scene that it was intended to be used for was the story of Chara's life in the Underground, but this version of the song sounds much more world-weary and melancholic (matching with Chara's pessimistic worldview) than the warm, bouncy "Undertale" used in the final version.
  • Thanks to the team behind Undertale the Musical, and Undertale: The Narrator's Musical following afterward, "Star", another unused track, has become this for Chara as well. It also helps that there actually is a star by the name Chara, said to be one of the stars most likely to support life.
  • Many fans treat "Megalovania" or "Megalo Strikes Back" as Chara's Battle Theme Music or Leitmotif for making fanmade battles and song covers. Both songs were originally made by Toby Fox for other projects^note "Megalovania" was made for 2008's The Halloween Hack, "Megalo Strikes Back" was part of an EarthBound fan-album in 2012, but are associated with Chara in fandom: "Megalovania" is the song that plays in the fight against Sans as the final boss of the Genocide Route, but some argue that technically Sans already has a battle theme ("Song That Might Play When You Fight Sans") that never actually plays in the game; this could be a gag from Toby or meant to hide Sans' real boss music back when everyone on the Internet didn't know about his fight, but some take to mean that it is Chara's battle theme because Chara is the boss Sans is fighting. "Megalovania"'s title is very similar to the term "megalomania", an unnatural desire for power, which is exactly what Chara says they're after upon completion of the Genocide route. The background for "Megalovania" would make it even more fitting, if Toby intended the connection: Toby originally wanted to use the song "Megalomania" from Live A Live for The Halloween Hack, but had to improvise and created "Megalovania" instead. The villain from the game associated with "Megalomania", Odio, bears more than a few similarities with Chara as a human-turned-demon who attacks different timelines.
  • Then there's its 'sequel' "Megalo Strike Back", which isn't even connected to the game outside of the guy who made it, but is very popular for Chara battles since it leaves "Megalovania" as Sans' theme. The association is mainly because the song was originally associated with Giygas, another character associated with death-bringing power and hatred of humanity, once a normal being turned into a nightmarish Abstract Apotheosis, who was even adopted by another species, close to his mom, and faced with the prospect of killing the species that once took him in. Search up "Megalo Strikes Back" on YouTube and you will mostly see results for Chara.
• Broken Bird: Sympathetic portrayals tend to be this. Even if they aren't or never were evil, it's obvious that the Fallen Human was/is seriously messed up.
• Broken Pedestal: For Asriel in the True Pacifist route. After Frisk manages to withstand all Asriel's attacks and eventually save him, he realizes he was right to not let Chara kill anyone and finally and reluctantly admits Chara wasn't the best person, unlike Frisk who is the kind of friend he wishes he always had. With that said, if you try to play again, it's Chara he addresses as the one he believes is in charge of the resets, and he still seems to trust that they are well-meaning and can be reasoned with (going out of his way to reassure them that this is the happiest outcome for everyone, and believing they were fighting to stop the resets), appearing somewhat awkward and melancholy but not bitter with them. So no longer the greatest person in his eyes, but perhaps not a bad one either.
• Broken Smile: An alternate interpretation of the smiles associated with Chara in Genocide, starting in Waterfall (after Papyrus tried to show mercy and was killed for it) and seen on them in the ending. As the more sympathetic take on Chara makes them a Stepford Smiler in life, their unchanging expression with their frozen smile in the ending may be to show how they've been utterly ground down and destroyed as a person. If you then try to welch on finishing the job and erasing the world, this tips over into them going Laughing Mad.
• But Thou Must!:
  • Choosing to not erase the world has the fallen human tell you that you're not in control, then does it anyway. Selecting the option on any subsequent Genocide playthrough has Chara say that "you made your choice long ago," and still do it.
  • Likewise, Chara's initial offer to take Frisk's SOUL really gives you no choice in the end. If you say no, then you will be presented with 10 minutes of black screen. Keep repeating until you finally give it up.
• Cain and Abel: The Evil Chara theory positions them and Asriel this way, with Chara as the manipulative, ill-intentioned sibling using their innocent and adoring best friend and brother Asriel for their own purposes, up to deliberately poisoning their father for a laugh and trying to use Asriel to kill humans. Come the Genocide route, Asriel has undergone a Face–Heel Turn and together they are Siblings in Crime, though the last part of the route is to have Chara kill Asriel as well and come full-circle with the Cain and Abel trope.
• Came Back Wrong:
  • In the Genocide route, former Hope Bringer Chara returns as a soulless creature like Flowey and becomes The Dreaded. Even their own adopted father, who immediately recognizes Frisk as a human child no matter their LV in any other run and admits to thinking of Chara when he looks in Frisk's eyes if he is spared, somehow completely fails to recognize the creature in front of him as Chara or as even human by the time they approach him at the end of the run. He just politely if confusedly inquires as to "what kind of monster you are", implying Frisk's appearance under Chara's control has been warped beyond what the player can see. That's all without mentioning the Nightmare Face they pull in the ending if you refuse them, and the very deep and distorted version of Photoshop Flowey's Evil Laugh they give in one of the Soulless Pacifist endings.
  • Inverted if they are the narrator of other routes as well; they seem kinder and wiser than we were lead to believe they'd been in life, and despite their old hatred of humanity, they show no hostility towards Frisk and in fact sound quite friendly with them. In Pacifist, they even help Frisk SAVE Asriel and break the barrier. This could be due in part to them being turned into a Blank Slate by the loss of their SOUL and/or being influenced by Frisk's SOUL.
• Canon Name: The Fallen Child's name is whatever you chose at the start of the game, though the names of some characters will be denied. Promotional material for the game had the player's name set as "CHARA" (as in character), which is said to be the "true name" if you input it. "Mainchara/Truechara" is what Frisk's and the Fallen Child's sprites are named within the game, the game defaults to "CHARA" as their name if the player manages to skip the naming screen, and Toby Fox's storyboards for Asriel's flashback openly refer to the Fallen Child as "Chara."
• Cheerful Child: In appearance at least, and if they are the Narrator All Along they are definitely very sassy, curious, excitable, and talkative, coming off as an adorably bratty know-it-all towards the player and a teasing and affectionate companion and friend to fellow human kid Frisk. It is however implied to be a Stepford Smiler act at least some of the time, and Genocide breaks them hard enough they lose all their cheeriness and turn violently unhinged and disinterested in anything besides killing more people.
• Coordinated Clothes: Chara and Asriel wear green shirts with yellow-ish stripes (Chara has one wide cream-colored stripe that matches their skin tone, Asriel's yellow stripes match the color of his petals as Flowey). It's shown by flashback that the two also happened to be wearing shirts with one stripe the day they met as well.^note This may not be that surprising though since according to Monster Kid it's tradition for monster children to wear striped shirts in the Underground, and going by Chara and Frisk, this might be true for human children too.
  • The Heart Locket is also hinted to be part of a matching set for Chara and Asriel—the locket and knife in the giftboxes belonged to the Fallen, because it's a pattern that all the fallen humans have two belongings that are their unique weapon and armor Frisk can pick up, and Asriel also gives himself a heart-shaped locket when he transforms in his boss battle.
  • This is part of Chara and Asriel being framed overall as twins: Chara was adopted by Asriel's parents making them his sibling, they seemed to be the same age and shared a bedroom and wardrobe, and were "inseparable" as each other's constant playmates and closest confidants. As a running gag, the flavor text calls Asgore's bed "king-sized" and alludes to Toriel's bed being queen-sized, real bed sizes with a double meaning about their roles as king and former queen of the Underground, and as part of that theme Asriel's and Chara's beds are "twin-sized".
• The Corruptible: Already Ambiguously Evil in life or a would-be Well-Intentioned Extremist, they claim they were uncertain of what to do when they woke up and were only made into what they are now by the Anomaly's guidance in the worst ending. If one subscribes to the "Narrator Chara" theory, then it comes with a "bonus" of Corrupt the Cutie as they otherwise seem a non-aggressive, playful chatterbox who's all too happy to narrate and show off their knowledge for you.
• Create Your Own Villain: If you subscribe to the "Chara represents your actions" theory, you're the one that pushes Chara over the edge.
• Creepy Child: Even in life, the Fallen Child was described as being able to do a "creepy face" (it amused Asriel though), laughing off Asgore getting sick (though whether it was nervous guilty laughter or malevolent laughter could be unclear), nursing a hatred for humanity, and being willing to kill themself and other humans.
• Creepy Monotone: The further you go down the Genocide route, the more monotone the narration becomes. By the final cutscene, the Fallen Child speaks in a deadpan tone, without Voice Grunting and in mostly short sentences.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: The game tactfully glosses over the details of Chara's death beyond the grief it brought the kingdom, only saying that Chara "got sick" and later revealing they actually ate fresh buttercups to kill themself. This is probably because it's better you don't know what eating buttercups can do to your digestive system and bowels. Adding to that, the taste and blistering to the mouth they cause is immediate and painful enough to deter animals from eating enough to kill them; Chara, a child, swallowed down enough flowers that they died slowly in their own bed. Not the most fun way to die.
• Cry Laughing: If one subscribes to the "Narrator Chara" theory, then there's a moment in the "So Cold" amalgam fight where, upon selecting the "Laugh" ACT option, it says "You laugh, and keep laughing. It's SO funny you can't stop. Tears run down your face. (Beat) What? You didn't do that?" This could be interpreted as Chara being the one crying, and not Frisk.
• Cute Is Evil: Always cute, possibly evil all the time, and certifiably evil in Genocide. Possibly with a heaping helping of Cute and Psycho on top depending on how Faux Affably Evil they are.
• The Dark Side: Becomes increasingly corrupt with the more EXP and LV you gain.
• Deadpan Snarker: If you believe the Narrator Chara theory then Chara is incessantly cheeky. No matter the route, the game's narration is full of sarcasm and dry observations. Even in the Genocide route, Chara coldly quips of Monster Kid, "Looks like free EXP."
  [after failing a puzzle] Wow. You are super fast at being wrong!
  [examining behind Papyrus' sentry station] ?!... There's a camera behind the... "sentry station."
• Deal with the Devil: If you choose to Earn Your Bad Ending and try to start up the game again, you'll see that the world has been destroyed by Chara. However, Chara decides they have one more thing on their wish-list, and will make you an offer to restore the world if you give up Frisk's SOUL, which will theoretically give you an opportunity to amend for things… Except that's not how it works out. Enjoy the Sudden Downer Ending you get if you try to go Pacifist!
• Death Seeker: Implied by Asriel in bonus dialogue at the end of the Pacifist route, and again as Flowey when talking to them in New Home in the Genocide route. According to Asriel, they climbed Mt. Ebott, where people are said never to return from, for reasons that weren't "very happy." Flowey says outright he was Driven to Suicide at first to "follow their footsteps" and "erase his own existence". Given that "ERASE" is also how Chara's euphemism for the act of destroying the world, it's very possible this is how they described their reason for climbing the mountain.
• Deconstructed Character Archetype: Assuming the "Player is Chara theory" and/or the "Chara represents your actions theory" (Which has usually been used hand in hand with the "Narrator Chara Theory") are true, then Chara can be a deconstruction of the Audience Surrogate. In the Pacifist it's usually played straight, with the narration having snarky dialogue, holes in their knowledge, and reactions that the player themselves might have. However, things take a sharp turn downhill in the Genocide route, where it's shown that (if any of those theories or a combination of them are true) Chara is easily swayed into evil by your actions, shutting off their emotions and becoming a psychotic completionist like their adoptive brother, or more accurately you. It's also worth noting that Toby Fox himself said that for a more accurate experience that the player should name Chara after themselves.
• Decoy Protagonist: After a fashion in the Pacifist and Neutral runs. The opening of the game, along with the subsequent naming sequence, lead the player to believe that Chara is the character they're playing as. It's not until the end of the Pacifist run that it's made clear that the player character is Frisk.
• Demon of Human Origin: They were confirmed by monsters to have been human when they were alive, but as an undead spirit, they call themself a demon in the second Genocide ending, indicating that they have transformed after their death and possibly due to being corrupted in Genocide. Some fans believe them calling themself a demon is only to show they've embraced despair and accepted their role as a villain, but others take their words literally. Chara seems to possess the player character, can take your soul in a Faustian bargain, their face unnaturally melts and drips black ooze in the Jump Scare, many characters in the Genocide route indicate the player character (presumed to be Chara at that point) is something inhuman, and Chara has the power and desire to erase the world and kill everything.
• Demonic Possession: To how great of an extent is ambiguous, but certainly implied to be happening at times in the Genocide route. It is in fact unclear at many points in the Genocide route who is actually in charge of the human character's body, and when: Chara, Frisk, and possibly the player themself are jumbled up in one body and the narrator's apparent Sanity Slippage makes it very muddled who's actually the one piloting Frisk's body and doing most of the actions. Due to the narrator's newfound terseness, their sentences become so clipped and to-the-point that they don't make it clear if Chara is speaking as a detached observer over Frisk's shoulder who gets way too into the bloodshed, Sharing a Body with Frisk as equal partners, or somehow empowered by the player to supplant Frisk directly as the dominant personality in Frisk's own body and narrating impatiently to the player to get on to the next kill. The hidden "Weird Route" from Deltarune Chapter 2 opens up the possibility that like Kris with Noelle, either Frisk or Chara were used against their will by the player as a conduit to control and corrupt the other.
  • The narration in Genocide still describes "you" as the one actively feeling and doing things, even as late as the last area. It almost always uses second-person in battle (notably even the final battle against Sans only uses second-person and still talks from the perspective of an advisor trying to coach you on what to do, rather than as the one fighting him directly; the only "battle" where this is not the case is Monster Kid's, where NarraChara does invoke first-person with, "In my way," then doesn't use first-person or second-person at all in battle with Undyne the Undying). It also includes things that could only be referring to Frisk still being present during the route to some degree, like using second-person to say of the locket, "You can feel it beating" (Instead of "I can feel it beating", and this in the final area where Chara is already using a lot of first-person to refer to themself). The narrator does begin (infrequently) using first-person to refer to Chara even in the first area with "It's me, Chara", and by the final area they've started to act directly at least some of the time^note saying "(I unlocked the chain.)" in New Home is in fact the only time they claim direct responsibility for any action during the Genocide route
  • Several times in Genocide the player character acts independent of the player's inputs; while the player character does this in other routes as well, it's generally believed that these actions in Genocide are Chara and not Frisk, since Chara points themself out in the mirror instead of "you"/Frisk. At the end of the route, this culminates on Chara acting on their own to deliver the killing blow to Sans when it's not the player's turn, triggering a battle with Asgore and attacking him without any prompting, and then delivering seven more attacks on Flowey after the player delivered the first (indicated to all be Chara by the attack animation in all cases being the same Chara later uses to erase the world, even if you don't have the knife equipped). If you choose not to destroy the world, they'll then directly disobey your command, asking "Since when were you the one in control?" and attacking the screen with a Nightmare Face.
  • If you sell Frisk's SOUL in the ending and reset for True Pacifist, the Fallen secretly escapes the Underground inside Frisk's body, and fully seizes control of their body in the post-credits scene when control of the character is beyond your control. Both variants of this ending suggest that the Fallen has… less-than-pleasant plans now that they're out on the surface.
• Determinator: It's worth noting that one of the few concrete things we do know about them is that they knowingly (having seen how sick Asgore got from the buttercup pie before) put themself through what would have been an agonizing death to pursue their and Asriel's goals.
  • If Chara does take control away from Frisk/the player in Genocide or other routes, then they manage to seize control of the body from either a Time Master with enough determination to survive against a monster god with power equivalent to seven human souls, or an Eldritch Abomination from another world able to control said Time Master as a vessel. They also come off as an Implacable Man straight out of a slasher movie that was set loose on the Underground, cutting down monsters left and right and refusing to stay dead when killed.
  • Because they had the same color soul as Frisk and many fans theorize that determination is red souls' key trait, those fans also assume determination was Chara's soul trait, like Frisk's. Whether Chara was ever able to harness their determination to control time the way Frisk can (and, it's suggested, the other six fallen humans could) is never touched on. Their name appearing on the player's SAVE FILE, their memories of Asgore urging them to stay determined at the game over screen before the game automatically loads back to the last SAVE Point, and Flowey directing his pleas to not reset to Chara may all be hints that Chara has been the one in control of the SAVE FILE the whole time — or at least Flowey believes they were if he's unaware of the player's existence. This may be why you cannot load or reset anymore only after hitting the Point of No Return by having Chara kill Flowey, and why Chara is the only one who can choose to "recreate the world" with what appears to be a True Reset once you agree to their Deal with the Devil.
• Didn't See That Coming: Chara assumed correctly that Asriel would absorb their soul after they died. They didn't realize that Asriel could or would still stop them from killing humans, though. With Asriel holding Chara back, they end up sustaining mortal injuries from the human mob and their plan fell apart.
• Dissonant Serenity: Once the Fallen Child introduces themself, they look a lot like Frisk but with their eyes wide open, a Blush Sticker, and a hearty smile instead. If you refuse to erase the world though, they don't even seem upset, but they will mock you for thinking you were in control and crash the game with a Jump Scare, complete with a creepy face and Evil Laugh.
  • In the "I have places to go" Soulless Pacifist ending, the group photo shown after the credits has this effect. The same sweetly smiling Chara has replaced Frisk in the photo, and all around them everyone else's faces are crossed out with red X's to imply Chara either plans to kill them or already has.
  • If the Fallen Child is the narrator at all times, they act largely the same in Neutral and Pacifist regardless of how much violence you do (outside of changes to Frisk's and Chara's mental state shown by examining the dog food bag or punching the Mad Dummy before their fight starts) and cheer on your victories regardless of whether you win by killing and gaining EXP or not. Some of the jokey narration remains intact even in Genocide, and aborting Genocide (not fulfilling all requirements and making it instead become just a high-kill Neutral run) snaps the Fallen instantly back into the normal goofy narrator for the remainder of your Neutral run. In addition to the Fallen being implied to have been a Stepford Smiler in life, their monologues in the first two Genocide endings suggest they become soulless when they died and as a result their views and morality are even more screwy than in life.
• The Dog Bites Back: One interpretation of the Fallen Child turning against you in the Genocide ending and hijacking your Pacifist endings. After all, you made them destroy everything and everyone they cared about, showing that you didn't really care about the monsters, then tried to get away with it by making everyone forget and going for a happy ending anyway.
• The Dreaded: Ironically. There are no townspeople in the Genocide Route; the NPCs have all evacuated and hid in a shelter somewhere to escape the "human's" killing spree, not stopping to clean out their money drawers. It takes longer to trigger monster encounters the more you kill because it's implied monsters are sense your Killing Intent and are scrambling to hide, and in Genocide specifically it's implied the random encounters are unlucky monsters trying to make it to the evacuation zone to escape you. Even Flowey, the Big Bad of the normal game who tries to goad you into killing him to prove him right and smugly Go Out with a Smile if you do in Neutral, is scared shitless when it clicks Chara might be angry about him stopping them before. As it turns out, boy were HIS instincts right.
• Driven to Suicide: Highly implied to be the reason they climbed the mountain in the first place. According to Asriel, "he knew the reason Chara climbed the mountain. It wasn't for a very happy reason." A conversation with Flowey in the Genocide Route toys with the idea Chara erasing themself was the reason.
  Flowey: But I decided it wasn't worth living anymore. I decided to follow your footsteps. I would erase myself from existence.
  • If they hadn't meant to poison Asgore, Chara concocting their plan to poison themself with the same buttercups and inflict a needlessly horrible death on themself to give Asriel their soul points to Chara feeling guilty for what they'd done and trying to make up for it in a very twisted way.
• Drone of Dread: After the protagonist empties the ruins of enemies, the music for the area changes to a distorted ambient track. This track is called "But Nobody Came"^note Or "Too Much" judging by the sound file, mus_toomuch. It's probably in reference to taking too much monster candy from the bowl also in the Ruins, referencing how the narrator reacted to it: "You took too much too fast. The candy spills onto the floor." and on checking the spilled bowl, "Look at what you've done.". After exiting the Ruins, all overworld songs are lower pitch, slower versions of their usual counterparts.

E-M

• Emotion Eater: One interpretation is if Asriel became soulless when he attaches to a flower, Chara might have done the same with Frisk. According to Asriel, he can only feel the feelings of the soul he's attached to, so it would also explain why Chara's emotions reflect Frisk's actions: Chara's narration is warm over the course of normal runs, while it grows colder and more Ax-Crazy during the Genocide route.
• The Empath: If we assume they're the narrator, they seem surprisingly good at reading Frisk's emotions at certain moments, which is awfully impressive considering how nonplussed Frisk looks most of the time. Sharing a Body might or might not factor into it, but they also seem uncannily good at reading the monsters Frisk fights, to the point of describing what they're thinking. It may have simply been part of their ability to read people, since Asriel states several times as himself and Flowey that Chara was the only one who understood him.
• Enfant Terrible: Certainly this in Genocide if they weren't already. Chara looks to be a sweet-faced, cheerful, rosy-cheeked cherub in elementary school, but may have poisoned their adopted father for laughs and canonically were already plotting the murder of six (or everyone in their village or even beyond that) even BEFORE losing their soul. They seem unbothered by the murder of the people who once showed them kindness and took them in, don't shy away from killing other kids, their parents, or best friend and brother, and reveal themself to have become an outright demonic entity by the end of the route.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: While they were still human, they seemed to have some genuine measure of love for Asriel and their adopted parents. They model themself after Toriel so much they still mimic her speech patterns when giving their Genocide ending speech, and it's hinted by their subdued narration for Asgore's pink "Mr Dad Guy" sweater that they might have knitted it for him - not to mention the lengths they went to try to free the Underground^note Chara's dialogue hints they genuinely meant to free monsters with Asriel, as they say "Our plan had failed" (as in, mine and Asriel's plan to free monsters and be heroes) instead of "My plan had failed" (as in, my real plan to trick Asriel into thinking we were saving monsters so I can kill humans).
  [on the framed photo angled to face Chara's bed in normal runs:] (It's a family photograph.) (Everyone is smiling.)
  [for the same photo in Genocide:] ...
  • There's evidence that some of this affection might have even survived late into the Genocide route. Aside from their Visible Silence looking at the family photo, they evidently treasure their old locket that's a Friendship Trinket for them and Asriel, and won't kill Asriel unless the player gives the command first… though by the time they hit the maximum LV, it doesn't stop them from killing Asgore without player input, and any lingering hesitation to kill Asriel doesn't stop them from violently hacking him to bits once you nudge them into it.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Might give two examples at the end of Genocide runs, if you treat your actions as just a game:
  • If you complete the Genocide run and come back to the game wanting another playthrough, they'll call you out on thinking you're above consequences. If you agree to that, they just say "Exactly" and give you the Silent Treatment, making you wait another ten minutes in the void (after the ten minutes you had to wait on the black screen for them to speak at all), before they'll even speak to you again to offer their Deal with the Devil. Keep in mind that according to them, they had followed in your guidance because they wanted there to be a reason they were brought back by you, only for you to prove by your actions that you had no real reason beyond your own amusement to slaughter everyone (including their entire family, possibly the only people they ever loved) and only did it to toy with everyone before getting away with it all scot-free.
  • Playing through another Genocide run has the Fallen Child accuse you of having a "perverted sentimentality" that they cannot fully comprehend. They even feel the need to suggest going for another ending if you do play again. Though if you do complete the pacifist route, they will kill all of your friends and will never let you have your happy ending — so either the Fallen Child was only saying that to manipulate you and advance their own goals, or Chara is taking it upon themself to punish you for your refusal to accept consequences.
• Everyone Has Standards: It's subtly implied throughout the game that the Fallen Child is the narrator for all the Flavor Text. This flavor text treats you taking more than one Monster Candy as a Felony Misdemeanor for going against the attached note's request (the bowl is supposed to be for everyone and the note asks you to only take one) and reprimands you for taking too much and spilling the bowl, describes you deliberately wasting an entire cooler full of water in front of an overheated Undyne as "sadistic", and has a very curt, almost angry response to you choosing to Laugh or Heckle Snowdrake's mom after how that went the first time. If Chara is villainous and these lines aren't meant to be sarcastic or guilt-tripping, then apparently, it's fine to kill as many people as you want and then destroy the world, but some things are beyond the pale.
• Evil Counterpart: One interpretation sees Chara as The Antichrist to Frisk's Messianic Archetype. They have the same red soul type, can be taken in by Toriel and be Asriel's best friend, and Chara was the first fallen human and an accepted Villain with Good Publicity believed to be Hope Bringer, and Frisk is the last fallen human and must defeat combative monsters peacefully as part of freeing them as The Chosen One. The Fallen is even a simple recolor of the Frisk sprite with the addition of open eyes and a disturbingly sunny smile. Inverting the sprites' colors reveals that Chara's green and yellow jumper is almost a complete color negative of Frisk's blue and purple color scheme.
• Evil Has a Bad Sense of Humor: What few jokes Chara does make in the Genocide route^note besides the non-boss monster encounters and most item descriptions, which don't have Genocide-specific scripts lean toward the tasteless side. Upon being inspected, the hole in the laboratory wall will yield the message "It's just here to complete the look."
  • After you kill anyone, they will describe the bag of dog food as "half-empty" (as opposed to "half-full" if no one is killed), but if you kill all the dogs in Snowdin and more than 20 monsters (required for Genocide but also possible for Neutral runs), they will also add, "You just remembered something funny." Because of how specific the kill requirements are to get it, this is likely to show they are slowly being corrupted.
  • Also applies if they were an Enfant Terrible who genuinely found Asgore's poisoning funny.
• Evil Is Not a Toy: With you on the receiving end. In the Genocide Route, you take control of them, and Frisk, and gleefully slaughter your way through the Underground, corrupting them further with every drop of LOVE and EXP… but at the end, you've made them strong enough to wrest control from you and destroy the game of their own accord, forcing you to sell Frisk's SOUL to them if you want to play again. And every subsequent playthrough, regardless of your actions, will end with the Fallen reminding you who's in charge. Say goodbye to your happy ending… forever.
• Evil Is Petty: "That comedian..." The "comedian" in question is Snowdrake. One of the requirements for keeping the Genocide route active in Snowdin is killing Snowdrake specifically and if it is not dead before the counter is exhausted, the SAVE point text will change to "The comedian got away. Failure", and the Genocide route will be aborted. Since they refer to him as "the comedian", it seems they might be targeting him specifically because they think his stand-up routine is a murder-worthy offense. Boy, tough crowd.
• Evil Laugh: From the Tainted Pacifist Ending, if you choose to stay with Toriel. It's even more horrible than Photoshop Flowey's! You can also hear the traces of one in their jumpscare if you choose not to destroy the world in the Genocide route's conclusion.
• Evil Only Has to Win Once: No matter how many times you finish the game with a Pacifist ending, all it takes is for you to reset the game and finish it with one Genocide, and all of your runs from then on will be doomed to end with a horrible ending, no matter what you do.^note The only way to reverse that is by going outside the game to edit save files or alter how the game reads them.
• Evil Orphan: One interpretation of their story and the conclusion most players seem to come to the first time they play Pacifist and Genocide. Despite how dangerous humans were to monsters and how monsters had good reason to fear and distrust them, the Fallen Child was rescued by Asriel, cared for, and welcomed into the royal family as one of their own. However, some fans believe that Chara was a bad seed who repaid this kindness by poisoning their father figure Asgore in an act of malice and possibly attempted murder, then played it off as an accident to escape blame and felt no remorse. Because of them pushing Asriel into their plan, the family is forever torn apart, and they can return to finish the job by murdering their adopted parents and brother in cold blood.
• Evil Redhead: Compared to Frisk's sprite having brown hair and yellow skin and Frisk having the common fanon characterization as an Incorruptible Pure Pureness, Chara's sprite has red-brown hair and pale skin with Chara's personality canonically either already murderously evil or able to be corrupted into being a murderer. Bonus points for possibly having red eyes.
• Evil Virtues: If they are the one fighting Undyne the Undying and Sans instead of Frisk, then they are as unwaveringly determined and fearless as Frisk is, with no signs of second thoughts despite the severe difficulty spike; the closest they come to showing anything close to fear is the very neutral, "You feel like you're going to have a bad time" after surviving Sans' insane opening attack. As bad as they are in the end, they do seek a purpose to what they do and don't seem to be pointlessly sadistic, as they don't want to keep doing Genocides over and over, dissatisfied that they have to do it however many times you decide to do it. And even before that, they fearlessly laid down their own life for their plan and didn't seem to falter even towards the end of their Cruel and Unusual Death. They may have even loved the Dreemurrs.
• Evil Weapon: We don't see what the Real Knife looks like in-game, but judging by its Steam Trading card, it glows blood-red. True enough, hacking the game as to get the Real Knife early (or on a non-Genocide run) would make most monsters instantly Spareable, implying even the monsters can see how evil this weapon is. However, since it's found in the same spot as the Worn Dagger, the knife may just be the dagger from an Ax-Crazy Chara's perspective in Genocide.
• Eviler than Thou: By the end of a Genocide playthrough, even Flowey is terrified of them, and is eventually reduced to begging to be spared. Should you feel remorse and refuse to destroy the world, they'll point out you don't have any say in the matter, destroy it anyway, and prevent you from playing the game again unless you sell them Frisk's SOUL.
• Exposition Fairy: Acts as this for most (if not all) of the Genocide run. The Narrator Chara theory posits that they are this in Neutral and Pacifist runs as well.
• Eye Awaken: If you happen to clear a Pacifist run and stay with Toriel after selling Frisk's soul to the Fallen, the last cutscene of Toriel bringing pie to Frisk ends with them waking up after she leaves, with red eyes, a huge grin, and a terrifying laugh.
• Face–Heel Turn: In the Genocide route if you believe they had been sincere in wanting to help monsters. Doubly so if you take the popular fan routes of completing Pacifist and then Genocide, and if you believe they are the narrator: you/Frisk previously completed a Pacifist route, where they were filled with hope by Frisk's actions, seem to be friends with Frisk, and helped them save everyone, only to be corrupted and turned into a nihilistic Ax-Crazy mass-murderer by Frisk's actions in Genocide.
• Face of an Angel, Mind of a Demon: At the end of a Genocide run, their rosy dimples and sunny smile run entirely counter to the unfeeling and bloodthirsty creature they actually are at that point.
• The Faceless: Has their face hidden in the intro and in Asriel's flashbacks. It's only in the Genocide route when we see their face.
• Family Theme Naming: The Fallen's Canon Name gives them this with Toriel, for gaming mechanics: Toriel is a Punny Name short for "tutorial", about her guiding Frisk through the Video Game Tutorial, and Chara is short for "character", referencing their connection to the player.
• Faux Affably Evil: They can look VERY cute and cheerful, and if they were Evil All Along they can certainly put on a convincing act as a loving Hope Bringer, notably making Asgore sick with a poisoned pie under the guise of an innocent child baking a treat with Asriel out of love for their dad, playing it off as an honest misunderstanding with no apparent consequence, and making Asriel think their amusement at the family's suffering was them just trying to be cheerful when everyone else was upset. One interpretation of the narrator theory is that they're merely putting up the facade of a pleasant narrator hanging out in the background in the Pacifist run, biding their time until you decide to give them the EXP they need to get stronger.
  • In Genocide, where they are certainly evil, they are likely the one who, starting in Waterfall, starts breaking out into Slasher Smiles each time they enter battle with a monster. They also seem to listen to Flowey's speech patiently enough with no sign of hostility, before finally (apparently) asking, "Why are you telling me all of this?" It's only when he himself works out that soulless creatures like them wouldn't hesitate to kill each other that they finally advance on him with an offscreen Nightmare Face. Likewise, at the very end of the route, they're quite genial and even grateful towards a Genocide player for awakening them from death. But if the player chooses to disobey them with their last choice, their ugly side comes out immediately.
  • The Genocide ending in the demo pretty clearly makes Chara this in one line, "That was fun. Let's finish the job." This line was removed from the final version of the game and has no equivalent, so it's unclear if Chara is still meant to have the sadistic and "pleasant" personality implied of the removed line.^note Toby made the demo for the Kickstarter, which he Tweeted is not canon. It also features an outdated method of gaining EXP simply by hurting monsters instead of only for killing them. This was also removed and would not have made sense with the definition of EXP later given in the game of "execution points" measuring how many people you've killed.
• Fourth-Wall Observer: Possibly. The popular theory that the player is a force in-universe and is the one responsible for Genocide, not Frisk or Chara, has it that Chara is not addressing Frisk in the Genocide ending, but you, possibly having only grown aware of you in Genocide as you overrode Frisk's will. In said ending, Chara is facing the camera directly against an empty black background and Frisk's sprite is nowhere to be seen, making it easy to conclude that they are talking directly to the player. They indicate knowledge of another world that you can bring them to, possibly meaning Deltarune or other video game worlds you can bring them into by naming the player character. They can also crash the game and erase the world (a trick shared by Photoshop Flowey) by slashing at the screen, and if you refuse to erase the world, they do something no other character does — even Flowey — and rush directly at the screen, meaning you, before attacking. Lastly, in the Soulless Pacifist "I want to stay with you" ending, they suddenly turn over to look at the screen and laugh, as though aware that the player is watching and probably horrified.
  • That said, it's worth noting that there are other fake-outs meant to make you think the characters are aware of you^note Flowey in particular is designed to make you think he's aware of the fourth wall and is talking directly to you, but it's revealed that he is so jaded that he thinks of the world around him as a "game" he doesn't want Frisk/Chara to stop "playing" because things will go back to the way they were, and he's really talking to Frisk and/or Chara when you think he's talking to you and Chara could still well be talking to Frisk since it is Frisk's body they control after "you" sell "your" soul to Chara, and the "you" they address refers to Frisk in all other instances of the narration. Chara doesn't speak in the Soulless Pacifist ending to shed light on who exactly they were talking to and what exactly is going on.
• The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You: Want to go back and reset after the Genocide Route? Bad news: Chara destroys the game. Literally. The final thing Chara attacks is the game itself.
• The Gadfly: If you assume they're the narrator, they often poke affectionate fun at Frisk and their actions.
• Generic Name: Chara is short for..."character."
• Greater-Scope Villain: The Fallen Child is this during the Neutral and Pacifist runs due to being responsible for all of the recent problems in the Underground. You do meet them face-to-face in Genocide, but they can't be defeated in-game.
• The Grinch: In the Genocide route, inspecting the Christmas tree at the center of town displays the message "Nothing for you." (Though considering you did just kill everyone you could in the Ruins and Snowdin, perhaps you deserved that.) The protagonist can also take three snowman pieces from the Snowman until he becomes a "useless pile of snow".
• Heartbeat Soundtrack: Their theme when they speak with you in the Genocide run involves a hollow, creepy use of this.
• Heel–Face Turn: One way to interpret their character arc, if one believes they were villainous in life but redeem themself in the Pacifist Route.
• Hello, [Insert Name Here]: When asked to enter a name at the beginning of the game, they are the person you are naming, rather than the character you are controlling.
• Hidden Depths: Gerson indirectly implied that while living with the Dreemurr family, they were just as embarrassed as Asriel by Toriel and Asgore's moments of being Sickeningly Sweethearts.
  • If you subscribe to the Narrator Chara theory, (PDF copy of original post) suddenly their personality becomes much more fleshed out from the vaguely defined character we hear about from monsters and the Omnicidal Maniac we meet in Genocide.
    • They sound fond of Frisk despite their stated hatred of humanity, they are usually composed but have a witty, sometimes sarcastic and sometimes juvenile sense of humor, they normally try to nudge you into showing mercy to monsters, seem disappointed in you if you're a jerk, and are as intensely tight-lipped about their personal secrets as Asriel suggested they were, notably very carefully keeping their identity and relationship to the Dreemurrs hidden from Frisk and the player outside of the Genocide route.
    • They seem to like animals, gushing over dogs throughout the battles to even Toby Fox's own Tweet about what would happen if Chara encountered a Cat Mettaton (Mettaton MEOW). (Archived post.)
    • There are also some indications throughout the game that they may have had a passion for botany, having a special fondness for the golden flowers from their village, the enthusiasm the narrator shows in realizing the plant in Toriel's house is the typha Frisk just read about in her gardening books, and Asgore having planned on giving them a "Worn Dagger," which the narration identifies as a perfect gardening tool. It's also theorized that Chara knitted the "Mr. Dad Guy" sweater for Asgore (no small task given that Chara was a small child and Asgore an enormous Boss Monster) since they fumble the narration a bit on seeing it in normal routes and seem surprised he still has it in Genocide. This would give Chara an interest in both gardening and knitting.
    • They know what a Tsundere is and the SAVE Point after Alphys disparages Mew Mew Kissy Cutie 2 is snidely called "Bad Opinion Zone", implying Chara is an anime fan who likes Mew Mew Kissy Cutie 2 and is annoyed at Alphys badmouthing it. They also sneak in references to things like Blue's Clues^note In the PlayStation ports, donating 35G to the dog shrine unlocks a new "reward": "(Huh?! Blueprints...!?) (Literally. It's white paper but covered in little blue pawprints...) (Wait...) (Blue pawprints...) (Could it be a clue!?) (... No, it's totally useless.)", Doctor Who^note Of a doghouse meant for one of the Canine Unit dogs in Snowdin, who are all the size of human adults, they say, "(What a tiny doghouse!) (It must be bigger on the inside.)", and Star Wars^note For the Check on Looxes, they pun, "Family name: Eyewalker", making them seem pretty well-versed in pop cultures. This makes sense given that Chara is confirmed to be the human child from the intro who fell in the 2010's, when all the real-life franchises would be recent enough that Chara would be acquainted with them. The Genocide route also has them quoting Kitchen, a Japanese novel aimed at adults and not kids, so they seem to have been a very advanced reader for their age (whatever it was).
• Hidden Villain: Despite being the catalyst of the Dreemurr family's breakup, Asgore's declaration of war against humanity, and Asriel's death then revival as the wicked Flowey, none of the characters save for Flowey/Asriel, Dr. Alphys, and Frisk ever uncover or know of the First Child's impact on these events by any ending, including the Golden Ending, and only Frisk and Flowey know or suspect they're even still around. Although, the Easter Egg on the naming screen where you can attempt to name the First Child after the main characters may prove otherwise if such is canon.
• Hijacking Cthulhu: If Chara is in fact the narrator, then this actually happens to them in the Pacifist route: Frisk's emotions rub off on Chara in the same way the monsters help Asriel feel again, and Chara becomes a benign force influenced by Frisk.
• Hope Bringer: Described in life as having filled the Underground with hope. It's implied that meeting the Fallen Human is what ultimately gave monsters, who'd been living in fear and dread of humans coming back to finish what they'd started in the war up until then, the courage to finally expand from the cramped quarters of Home into the rest of the Underground.^note A book in Toriel's house says, "Trapped behind the barrier and fearful of further human attacks, we retreated. Far, far into the earth we walked, until we reached the cavern's end. This was our new home, which we named... ""Home."" A book in Snowdin continues the story, but picks up at, "Fearing the humans no longer, we moved out of our old city, HOME. We braved harsh cold, damp swampland, and searing heat... Until we reached what we now call our capital. "NEW HOME."" There is no book between explaining why monsters lost their fear of humans. However, Asriel and his parents were living in the Ruins when the Fallen came, since Asriel was close enough to hear the Fallen calling for help when they fell in the Underground and the Fallen also spent some time living in the Ruins before the move to New Home, as they have one drawing of a golden flower pinned up the child's bedroom in Home and another one in the shared bedroom in New Home, strongly implying that the Fallen was the reason monsters lost their fear Asgore even called them "the future of humans and monsters". Ironically, their grand plan to set everyone free was such a colossal failure that it only got them and Asriel killed instead with both their souls gone for good in the bargain, plunged the whole kingdom into despair, and caused Asgore to vow in blind, grief-stricken anger that he could wage war and Kill All Humans for the death of his son.
• Horrifying the Horror: The simple fact that Chara would be willing to kill Flowey (an emotionless, insane creature) if he gets in their way completely spooks and scares him. By the end, Flowey is downright terrified of them.
  Flowey: (after killing Asgore) See? I never betrayed you! It was all just a trick, see? I was waiting to kill him for you! After all, it's me, your best friend! I'm helpful! I can be useful to you! I promise I won't get in your way! I can help! I can...I can...please don't kill me...
• Humanoid Abomination: They were (most likely) a normal human child in life, after dying and reviving, they have become a very different ghost. Before her fight in the Genocide Route, Undyne says, "Human... No. WHATEVER you are...", which is the only time she accuses the player character of being inhuman, even if you kill many monsters in other routes without triggering the Genocide run, implying it is specifically something wrong with Chara and their increased presence in the Genocide run. By the end of the run, they've gained access to several Lovecraftian Superpowers similar to what Flowey can do including at his most powerful, such as a Game Face that involves their eyes and face melting away, Grand Theft Me / Demonic Possession abilities, the ability to override the player, Break the Fourth Wall, completely erase and recreate reality, and take the player's (or Frisk's) SOUL — a particularly disturbing feat since it's established that Humans cannot take Human souls but Chara can take your SOUL just fine.
• Interactive Narrator: If they really are the narrator, they're this trope to previously unheard of extents, starting with them being able to tell Frisk/the Player about different monsters by Checking them and the Player being able to affect and corrupt Chara by killing monsters, making the narrative itself change and reflect your choices and actions, and finally ending with them subjecting you to the horrifying narrative tone you gave the story in the Genocide run.
• Interspecies Adoption: A small human child who was adopted by magic, fire-wielding, semi-immortal, anthropomorphic goat monster royalty. Chara apparently ran away from home (if they had one) and tripped and fell into the Underground, where monsters were sealed away and forced to hide after humans waged war on them. The drop was so bad they were left weak and injured, and called out for help. Instead of running away from a threat, the monster prince Asriel helped them up to come back home for treatment, and instead of killing the wounded human when they were still vulnerable to use their SOUL to cross the barrier, his parents the king and queen decided to take them in and care for them like their own. Mementos scattered around the house suggest it was a loving family. The fact the Dreemurrs weren't human was probably just a plus to Chara, who hated humans anyway—or more tragically, if they were treated better by monsters than they were by humans, then coupled with seeing how badly humans screwed monsters over with the war and the barrier, it would've been reason to hate humans even more (and all the more willing to kill to free them).
• Jerkass: In the Pacifist epilogue, Asriel admits, "Maybe... The truth is... Chara wasn't really the greatest person. While, Frisk... You're the type of friend I wish I always had. So maybe I was kind of projecting a little bit." This makes it likely that Chara was in fact a Jerkass to some degree. Fan interpretation of his statement ranges; common interpretations include him referring to Chara's willingness to kill even if for a good cause making them not great in hindsight when compared to Frisk, that they could be harsh and may have scolded him for crying, that they could be a bully, outright manipulative and/or emotionally abusive, or even WORSE.
  • Jerk with a Heart of Gold: If they laughed off Asgore's poisoning to mask their pain or try to cheer everyone up, did genuinely care about the Dreemurrs, and wanted to free the monsters. They hatched up a plan that would involve killing at least six people to free their adoptive family. If they're interpreted as the narrator, they're also this way to Frisk in their sarcastic comments.
  • Jerk with a Heart of Jerk: If they laughed off Asgore's poisoning out of callousness or sadism, never truly cared about monsters, and only wanted to use them to wage war on humans for the sake of revenge. Definitively become this in Genocide. For obvious reasons.
    Genocide narration: [if you try 'Talk' on Toriel] Not worth talking to.
• Killing Intent: Seems to be what makes them The Dreaded and possibly what gives them their world-breaking power in the Genocide Route, as "intent" is communicated between monsters by magic and however they felt before, Chara is now gunning for killing monsters and destroying the world. They give off an innate sense of wrongness that scares Doggo even though he can't see them, and sensing Chara's murderous intentions at the world is implied to be why the bosses of the route pull out all the stops to stop you, as Undyne goes Undying and only in Genocide does Sans breaks his promise to Toriel and try to kill the human.
• Lack of Empathy: It's implied that, like Flowey, the fallen human has no soul and literally cannot feel empathy or love, at least not if Frisk's SOUL isn't actively giving them something to tap into. Notably if they are the narrator, they're disappointed by you killing, sure, but don't raise a fuss about you for killing randomly encountered monsters, cheering you on either way and excitedly rattling off whether you got anything from the fight same as they do if you spared it. Apparently being naughty and taking more candy than you were allowed is scummier than killing. (Although in fairness, Frisk is a small child getting jumped by monsters and forced to fight back in self-defense—so maybe that's more Chara rallying behind their new body-buddy than anything.)
  • And that's with the narrator still preferring you spare them. Much worse in Genocide where they don't: at best they treat monsters as faceless sources of EXP and GOLD to be busted open like piñatas, and if someone really pisses them off, they deserve to be sliced into nothing. If you complete a second Genocide run, Chara will note a "strange feeling" in the soul they've claimed from you, what they call a "perverted sentimentality", and will admit they can't understand the feelings you have towards the world of Undertale anymore, though it's not clear if this is because they might not have a soul of their own anymore, because they've become too warped by LV, or they're just admitting even they don't know what's wrong with you to keep doing this.
• Last Request: To see the golden flowers from their village again, and monsters were crushed they couldn't fulfill it before Chara died because of the barrier^note The golden flowers that are in the Underground in the present, Flowey included, were from sticky seeds that got stuck in Asriel's fur and brought to the Underground when he returned and turned to dust in the royal garden. Asriel tried to honor it by taking their SOUL to cross the barrier with their body and lay them to rest on a bed of golden flowers in the village, only to be attacked and murdered by humans who believed he had murdered the human, which enraged Asgore and his kingdom, as Asriel was only trying to pay the Due to the Dead of his best friend. However, it is revealed in the Pacifist route that Chara's death was a preplanned suicide to collect six more SOULs from other humans, and Asriel reveals that it was in fact Chara who picked up their body and brought it to the village.
  • This one innocuous detail makes for another point of contention in the Ambiguously Evil argument for fans: why did Chara make that Last Request and take their body to the village? Was it purely pragmatic, to give Asriel a cover story to leave and go do what he needed to do without Asriel being questioned and exposing the fact it was all preplanned? Did Chara anticipate humans would think Asriel killed them and so brought their body to the center of the village to provoke them into attacking Asriel, thinking it would be a good excuse and Asriel would fight to defend them, in turn making them responsible for getting Asriel killed? Did they want to show the villagers their corpse as some grand gesture of who it was taking vengeance, or to show the villagers the consequences of their treatment of Chara (whatever it was) driving them to this? Could it be as simple as their wish to see the golden flowers again was genuine, since they made multiple drawings of them as seen in Home and New Home, and they simply wanted to put themself to rest there because of whatever special meaning the flowers had to them?
  • Whatever Chara's true intentions, Toriel and Asgore notably do their best to honor Chara's last wish: the golden flower patch Frisk lands on at the start of the game is heavily implied to be Chara's grave, meaning Toriel buried them in the only other patch of sunlight in the Underground and grew the golden flowers on their grave to give them the last thing they asked for, tending to them with dedication everyday and going back to the grave after Frisk defeats her, telling them she has to look after the flowers for why she can't join them on their journey. Asgore's own garden, where Asriel turned to dust and dropped Chara's returned body, is now overrun with wall-to-wall golden flowers as they've overtaken whatever flowers he originally had planted there, symbolizing his out-of-control grief over his children. In general he seems to have inherited Chara's fondness for golden flowers, putting the flowers all over his house and even favoring golden flower tea as his favorite.
  • In the Pacifist epilogue, despite his mixed feelings on Chara, Asriel goes to the site of Chara's grave to take over Toriel's duty of tending to it now that she is going to the surface (though the Winter Clock Alarm app dialogue shows that as Flowey he at least visits the surface on occasion).
• Laughing Mad: Though not audible in the Genocide ending, should the player refuse to destroy the world, Chara will charge the screen with their melting Nightmare Face making a gesture somewhat close to laughing. In each subsequent Pacifist ending where the player decides to have Frisk stay with Toriel at the end, Chara’s Evil Laugh can be heard after the screen cuts to black.
• Lemony Narrator: If one believes that they narrate the Pacifist and Neutral routes too. They regularly tease and joke with Frisk, rename the items into funny abbreviations during battles (e.g. Butterscotch-Cinnamon Pie becomes "ButtsPie"), give suggestions on how to spare monsters, and make sarcastic comments about the scenery. Sometimes very sarcastic if you're the type of player to look at EVERYTHING.
  • They do tone it down quite a bit at times. What's nicknamed "Serious Mode" quietly turns off all joke names for items and goofy flavor text during select battles that the narrator actually has a stake in. The battles in question are ones against Chara's own family, and the Genocide route boss battles.
• Lethal Chef: Putting buttercups instead of cups of butter into a butterscotch pie made for Asgore.
• Look Behind You: If you die to Undyne the Undying and try again, Chara uses this on Monster Kid to get them to drop their guard quicker.
• Momma's Child: Implied to be the case in their more sympathetic interpretations. If one were to subscribe to the Narrator All Along interpretation, Chara appears to have adopted Toriel's mannerisms: Addressing the player/Frisk with "Greetings", making similar jokes to her, and speaks with a lack of contractions (i.e. "it is" instead of "it's"). Checking Toriel has the flavor text say "Knows what's best for you", implying they are in support of their adoptive mothers plan to keep Frisk with her.
• Manipulative Bastard: The evil interpretation infer from the VHS tapes that Chara was a False Friend and bully with a toxic or abusive relationship with Asriel and a history of browbeating Asriel into second-guessing himself, agreeing with them, and feeling ashamed of himself for crying, in effect grooming him into being their obedient lackey. If so, they were smart enough to know his parents wouldn't approve and managed to keep it hidden from them under their own roof. This makes Asriel flying in the face of their expectations and rebelling against them on the surface some well-earned karma. After his loneliness and trauma made him relapse into over-idealizing them again and wanting to believe they were his best friend, Asriel finally accepts for good how bad they really were to cement his character growth, leaving him ready to finally move on from them and start recovering.
  • This interpretation also reframes their supposed Even Evil Has Standards moments from post-Genocide as them trying to shift their fair share of blame off them and onto the player, to guilt-trip them into ultimately giving Chara their soul and unleashing them on the surface. From a meta perspective, if they ARE evil then they deserve some props for this as well because they couldn't have split the fanbase any worse if they'd done it with an actual knife — getting unearned benefit of the doubt and oodles of sympathy and fans willing to go to bat for them, not unlike how they might have manipulated monsters despite having good reason to be wary of humans.
• Mask of Sanity: While initially cast in a sympathetic light, Asriel admits at the end of True Pacifist mode that Chara "...wasn't really the greatest person" and adds that they "hated humanity," indicating some misanthropy. Asriel also mentions that Chara laughed it off when the two of them accidentally poisoned Asgore. However, some fans think this was done on purpose, and that Chara wasn't trying to laugh off the situation, but just laughing.
• Meaningful Name:
  • Well, Meaningful Nickname, but they are known as "The Fallen Human." This moniker could be taken literally, as we watch them fall into the Underground in the opening sequence right before we are asked to name them. It has double meanings too, as "fallen" could be taken to equate them to a Fallen Angel (a cherished Hope Bringer for monsters in life, but in Genocide becomes the Angel of Death who makes the Underground "go empty" by destroying the world and in Pacifist becomes a Broken Pedestal for Asriel), or Foreshadowing that they are long since dead (for monsters, "falling down" is a Deadly Euphemism).
  • Their Canon Name is Chara, which also has many meanings:
    • It's short for character, judging by the names for Chara and Frisk's sprites (truechara and mainchara, respectively, in the game files). Chara is named at the beginning of the game like many standard RPG player characters, you see that name used on your UI while playing, and trying to reset after True Pacifist has Flowey talk to you and call you by the name you used for Chara when trying to try to talk you out of resetting. This raises the possibility that Chara may be the "true character" we're playing as. This meaning is even preserved in the Japanese version, where Chara's name is キャラ (Kyara), an abbreviation of the Japanese word for "character," キャラクター (Kyarakutā).
    • At the end of the first Genocide ending, Chara is a deconstruction of the mindset players can have in playing RPGs: fighting enemies to level-grind until they hit the max, with Chara claiming to be "the feeling" when those stats raise, viewing power as their purpose, and having no more interest in the world of Undertale now that they're gained all the EXP possible in it. In the second Genocide ending, Chara refers to themself as "the demon that comes when people call its name" in any time or place, again alluding to how you named them, and in both endings they want to move on to the next world with you. The way Chara describes themself brings to mind a dark personification of the player character under the control of a player who seeks out enemies to ruthlessly kill for EXP, and if they are talking directly to YOU and not Frisk, then they are saying they will always follow you into other games you play when you "call" them by naming a player character.
    • "Chara" is also the name of species of aquatic plant, and it's hinted that Chara was fond of flowers and gardening.
    • "Chara" is also the name of a star in a binary star system, which may be a connection to the unused track "Star" on the Undertale Soundtrack and is symbolically meaningful for the hope they used to bring to the trapped monsters of the Underground who wish to see the stars and once saw Chara as their future. A dual star system would also be an appropriate description for them with either Frisk or Asriel.
    • If pronounced like "character" as suggested, then "Chara" is a variation on "Cara". Cara is Irish for "friend", fitting a character repeatedly referred to as Asriel's Best Friend. The name "Chara" or "Kara" comes from the Latin carus meaning "loved one" or "beloved", which fits how Chara was beloved by the Underground when alive. Now it might seem to be an Ironic Name for them during the Genocide route, but when you take into account what LOVE stands for in Undertale…
    • χαρά, pronounced like cara or kara, is Greek for "joy". Unlike the Frisk sprite's neutral expression, Chara's sprite has a cheery smile by default. Frisk suddenly smiling like Chara is one sign they're possessed by them in Soulless Pacifist endings.
    • While Asriel's name references the Archangel Azrael, Chara's may be a veiled reference to Charon, the Psychopomp of the Underworld in Classical Mythology. Their original goal was to 'collect' six human souls after death, and they potentially guide Frisk throughout the Underground. Ironically, Chara themself apparently still hasn't found peace in death after all the time that's passed. They can also potentially personally 'deliver' quite a few people directly to their afterlives.
    • In Japanese, kara can mean "empty" or "blank"; when you get the opportunity to name Chara, it is indeed a blank space that you can fill in with whatever name you wish, so it's all the more fitting their Canon Name is itself a sort of "blank space". Moreover, Flowey describes his soulless state as "empty", and in the Genocide endings Chara indicates that they are indeed a soulless creature like Flowey, with them implied to have become a Blank Slate in death who becomes a demon under a Genocide player's guidance.
    • In Polish, kara also translates literally to "punishment", and even at their worst Chara seems deadset on making people face the consequences of their actions. Given the endings of Soulless Pacifist runs...
• Memento Macguffin: The sappy "Best Friends Forever" Heart Locket was a gift for Chara from the Dreemurrs, maybe from Asriel himself considering the inscription. It's also the endgame armor upgrade, and the best you can get without sinking time and money into Temmie Armor. At the end of the No Mercy Run, the Heart Locket is renamed the Locket while the Worn Dagger is renamed the Real Knife, and they've become much stronger armor and weapon respectively in response to Chara. Chara mentions that Frisk can "feel it beating" when they touch the Locket, and when they put it on:
  Right where it belongs.
• The Mirror Shows Your True Self: Interacting with anything that shows Frisk's reflection/image (a mirror or a monitor) while on a No Mercy run will give "It's me, Chara" as the description. In debug mode, it is possible to have unused "Chara" sprites appear as the protagonist's reflection in puddles and mirrors; this is theorized to be a scrapped feature that was meant for post-Genocide playthroughs. This theory is strengthened by the Spooky Photographs of the Soulless Pacifist ending credits in the full game, which will now show Chara in place of Frisk.
• Misanthrope Supreme: They developed a hatred of their home village and humanity before arriving in the Underground, and tried to make good on their plan to unleash their and Asriel's combined "full power" and kill at least six humans. How many targets they really had, and whether it was for the monsters' sake or for their own vengeance, is up to the player's interpretation.
• Mission Control: In the Genocide route, they directly advise Frisk that Sans can't keep dodging and to just keep attacking, and also warn them that "reading this doesn't seem like the best use of your time" when Sans begins attacking Frisk's SOUL while it is still in the menu. When Sans dodges even Frisk's ambush, Chara takes matters into their own hands by interrupting him with an attack of their own. That puts him down for good.
  • It's implied they're the one providing the stats and information from Checking monsters in a fight, possibly even in non-Genocide routes. If so, this means they are effectively advising Frisk in all fights.
• Mission Control Is Off Its Meds: Played straight in the Genocide route, taking control to force a fight when Monster Kid tries to pull a Go Through Me, with the battle flavor text aggressively saying, "In my way." The flavor text also flip-flops between clear support of continuing the Genocide run and passive-aggressively blaming you for it, saying there is "Nothing for you" among the presents in Snowdin Town, claiming a potted plant in MTT Resort is "judging you for your sins", and again referring to "your sins" being used against you in the battle against Sans. The flavour text also becomes downright aggressive in New Home, angrily asking "Where are the knives." when you inspect the counter in the kitchen, though this is juxtaposed with the somewhat more amusing "No chocolate." when you check the fridge.
  • If the narrator in non-Genocide runs, they slip into this to varying degrees in the True Lab fights where it's implied Frisk and Chara are both kinda freaked out. It seems at its worst against the Memoryheads and Snowdrake's mother.
• Morality Pet: For Flowey/Asriel, shown most prominently in a Genocide Run where he solves puzzles for you and otherwise helps you along because he thinks that the Human Child is possessed by the Fallen Child. As demonstrated by how satisfied the Fallen sounds to have the Locket — a Friendship Trinket celebrating their bond with Asriel — "right where it belongs" if you equip it, and the Fallen's hesitating and needing the final push from you to kill him at the end of the Genocide Route, the feeling is somewhat mutual even then.
• Multiversal Conqueror: States at the end of a Genocide Run that they want to "erase this pointless world, and move on to the next." What this means is ambiguous: Do they want to conquer other timelines with the power of Reset? Do they want to travel to an Alternate Universe? Is this a meta comment referring to you playing other games with new challenges for both of you?
• My Death Is Just the Beginning: The recollection of New Home's monsters would have you believe that the Fallen suddenly fell terminally ill. The truth is that the Fallen convinced Asriel into taking their soul and poisoned themself. It is unclear whether the goal really was just to get souls to break the barrier or kill everyone on the surface, or if either of them knew Chara would be able to take control of his body or even still conscious as a soul,^note Asriel hopefully says, "And we'll do it together, right?", and if Chara had bad intentions it would have been hard to trust things would go according to plan without them forcing his hand, but monsters don't seem to already know that human souls have their minds present, as they don't mention that Chara's consciousness was also controlling Asriel's body and never seem to worry about if the souls Asgore took might be unwilling to help him wage war on humans and break the barrier after he, y'know, killed them but in any case Asriel gets cold feet and resists the First Child's attempt to attack the humans at the village they arrive in. Chara dies a second time when he is mortally wounded, until eventually they're reawakened by Frisk's determination.
• My Rules Are Not Your Rules: Manages to pull this on both Sans and the player during the last Genocide boss fight. Throughout the fight, both you and Sans understandably expect the FIGHT command to initiate one attack per turn. But after Sans dodges your attack yet again after using his "special attack", Chara retaliates on their own with a second unprompted attack.
• Mysterious Past: Very little is known about their life. They came from the same village they later attacked, and they hated humans so much they ultimately tried to destroy their whole village. Asriel does know why Chara traveled to Mt Ebott, but doesn't tell it to Frisk, leaving a bit of ambiguity there as well: he does say they had a not-very-happy reason to climb a mountain they knew travelers were said to disappear (implying at least one likely reason) and him pausing and then bringing up their hatred up humans suggests he knew or figured that reason was probably connected to their hatred for humanity. Exactly where all this hate came from is never revealed, as Asriel says, "Why they did, they never talked about it. But they felt very strongly about that."
  • The most sympathetic interpretation view Chara as a traumatized and abused child, who hated humans because their life on the surface was really just that bad. In particular the way Chara phrases their suggestion to Frisk in the description for the Faded Ribbon ("If you're cuter, monsters won't hit you as hard") is commonly brought up to support the theory that Chara was physically abused in the past and tried to come up with ways to get hurt less, leading to their Stepford Smiler persona. In this light, Chara's Troubling Unchildlike Behavior stemmed from trauma they coped with badly, like Asriel.
  • The least sympathetic interpretations view Chara as The Sociopath and a budding serial killer. Since no tragic backstory was even offered and the most clear-cut information we get about them paints them in a highly sinister light, some take umbrage with Chara being compared to Asriel, feeling the "tragic backstory for Broken Bird" excuse is sympathizers going overboard and even if something did happen to Chara, it doesn't justify what they do later because unlike Asriel, they never show remorse or atone. The abuse theory is also suspect, since it's in the lore of the game that monsters' Attack goes down when they don't want to fight thus the Ribbon info is explaining why it's decent armor. These interpretations tend to view Chara as climbing the mountain out of misanthropic impulse to get away from humans, or at the worst extreme searching for monsters already plotting and hoping for a way to gain power to kill humans.
  • Fitting for their Mysterious Past it's even somewhat ambiguous if the legend that travelers never returning already existed at the time Chara climbed it: Chara was the first human to fall down, so as far as we know no one went missing before them and in theory the legend would have only started after they and the other humans went missing. Some argue that the legend wouldn't exist yet and the tragic spin on their reason to climb the mountain isn't supported by the text. On the other hand, Asriel's line when he says, "Travelers who climb Mt. Ebott are said to disappear" uses quotation marks, indicating he's quoting someone, and then says he knows why Chara climbed the mountain. The only person who he could be quoting is Chara, the only other person besides Frisk he's met who came from the surface and would have known the legend. It's possible the legend was also just folk superstition about the mountain monsters were said to be sealed under.
  • A third camp argues that Chara is someone whose missing backstory doesn't matter or even literally doesn't exist due to the highly meta nature of the game and Chara's role as an Allegorical Character. In this perspective, Chara was only designed to reflect the worse impulses of the player to treat the world as a game they use and then move on from, rather than treating its characters as people you care about, and "Chara" should only be viewed as an extension of the player, instead of a truly "real" character like the other Undertale characters.

N-Z

• Narrator All Along: A widely-held theory within the Undertale community, though not necessarily the case. Worth noting that in the official Japanese localization of the game, most of the game's dialogue is almost exclusively written in Kana, while Chara's dialogue is written in "proper" Japanese, meaning it employs a standard level of Kanji usage, moreso than anyone else in the game. However, the red text that appears in the narration during No Mercy, which even under the Greater-Scope Villain interpretation was thought to be Chara's voice, is also written in Kana…
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:
  • For you/Frisk. In their first and only appearance in the game itself, at the end of a Genocide run Chara reveals that the protagonist's "human soul" and "determination" were the cause of their reincarnation and that the protagonist's murderous ways has led Chara to believe that the purpose of their awakening was power itself. If you want to play the game again and try another route, you have to sell Chara your/Frisk's soul first, and if you ever get the Golden Ending, it's implied Chara takes over Frisk's body to do their own Genocide run offscreen.
  • While they are undeniably a Greater-Scope Villain, if they were good in one way or another, than their plan certainly backfired spectacularly, making their shadow Obliviously Evil rather than intentional malice.
• Nightmare Face:
  • Apparently, they pulled a creepy face Asriel would ask them to do, according to the tapes in the True Lab. Asriel gets them to scare him with it, but we only have his reaction to go on and never see it due to Asriel forgetting to take the lens cap off the video camera. When they start making an (again, offscreen) creepy face at Flowey in Genocide, it truly frightens him because this time he realizes Chara isn't kidding around.
  • If you refuse to erase the whole universe, their eyes and mouth warp and melt unnaturally as they laugh maniacally and rush the screen in a Jump Scare.
    "SINCE WHEN WERE YOU THE ONE IN CONTROL?"^note Note the ambiguity in interpretation (in the Japanese version, they make clear what it means: "SINCE WHEN DO YOU GIVE ME ORDERS?"). Are they claiming they've been manipulating the player the entire time? Or pointing out the player wasn't in control for the consequences?
• Not So Above It All:
  • An out-of-nowhere bit of levity late into the Genocide route, even if read as Evil All Along and only present in the Genocide route: searching through the Fallen's former home in New Home gets flavor text descriptions unique to Genocide, narrated in the Fallen's Creepy Monotone, and poking around in the fridge gets, "No chocolate." Generally the red text in this route comes off as creepy or menacing, but for that particular line, it's impossible to read it as anything but a grumpy kid sulking there wasn't a treat for them... even if this particular grumpy kid is terrifying.
  • The way Asriel talks about his crying suggests Chara may have told him, "Big kids don't cry", as if they thought Asriel and them had to act like "big kids". If the narrator, they indeed act very snarky, mature, and cool, but also find many things encountered "cute", exclaim over the "cool toys!" in Toriel's house, make a joke about the butterscotch-cinnamon pie being a "ButtsPie", they like a "trashy" anime like Mew Mew Kissy Cutie 2 (and get a little snippy about Alphys' vocal dislike of it), and absolutely lose their cool in their excitement realizing the Final Boss of the Pacifist run is Asriel as "the Absolute GOD of Hyperdeath!" (implied to be a villainous character Asriel made up with them when the two were playing together) and eagerly announce his attacks with special over-the-top names as they do for no one else.
• Not Too Dead to Save the Day: In the Final Boss fight of the Pacifist route, Frisk saves the Lost Souls their friends were turned into by using their good memories together and The Power of Friendship. When they go to save Asriel too, a Happy Flashback sequence of Chara and Asriel's first meeting plays, and Asriel has a Villainous BSoD as he starts feeling again. As we've seen fragments of Chara's memories throughout the game when Frisk goes to sleep, dies, or gets knocked out, it follows that these memories are also Chara's. If the Narrator Chara theory is true, they likely stepped in and used their own memories to save Asriel similar to them taking action in the Genocide ending. The idea that it was good memories of Chara that saved Asriel (instead of the start of his realization that Frisk isn't Chara as the counter fan theory goes) gets some support from Toby Fox's rough drafts for the sequence, which show that originally the flashbacks would've featured a number of Friendship Moments between Chara and Asriel from their time together, but he had to cut them for timing.
• Odd Friendship: Implied to have one with Frisk if the Narrator Chara theory is true, which would make Chara's friendship with Frisk the only one Frisk has no matter their actions in different runs and especially unusual given Chara's stated hatred of humans. Chara, the undead and likely soulless spirit of a dead misanthrope, haunts the last fallen human Frisk through the entire Underground while narrating their every action, forming a Straight Man and Wise Guy dynamic between Frisk's stoicism and Chara's constant jokes in the narration (or going by some of the sillier things Frisk can do, they could be considered the straight-faced Cloud Cuckoo Lander to Chara's Deadpan Snarker). Implied to become a Villainous Friendship in Genocide.
• Omnicidal Maniac: At the end of the Genocide route, they become the Angel of Death for the Underground and then erase the whole world whether you agree to it or not, destroying all life left after your killing spree in the Underground. And before they do it, they'll mention wanting to "move on" to the next world with you, implicitly so the two of you can do the same thing all over again to other worlds. Though even they won't understand your obsession with destroying everything if you choose to have them recreate the world just to destroy it all again.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business:
  • At the very end of the Genocide Run, despite having stabbed Asgore mid-sentence without the player pressing anything barely five seconds previously, the first Fallen Child seems to hesitate when confronted by their sibling, Asriel, requiring the player's input for them to kill him.
  • If you assume that they are the narrator, they don't make jokes at all during the fights with Toriel and Asgore and go dead silent during the latter once Asgore immediately and decisively destroys the MERCY button, removing even the option for Frisk to spare him. Chara only speaks again as much as is necessary to convey critical information and frequently becomes simply Visible Silence. Likewise they stop talking at all and fall into Visible Silence when a spared Toriel tries in vain to convince for Frisk to stay and laments she can't save even one child,^note If anything Chara might have preferred Frisk stay put and live with her in the Ruins; Toriel's plan is to force Frisk to stay with her and Chara's Check of her says, "Knows what's best for you", indicating support of her plan, but Chara is also intent on following Frisk's guidance and Frisk apparently wants to leave the Ruins and later when a SAVED Asriel gives a heartfelt Anguished Declaration of Love to "Chara" (Frisk).
  • There are a number of SAVE Points towards the end of the normal runs where Chara does not give any encouraging messages about how Frisk is "filled with determination", or even say anything at all—they have Chara's name and the name of the place and nothing else, not even the "Determination" message from Genocide. Perhaps not coincidentally, these "silent" SAVE Points begin once Alphys tells Frisk point-blank the Awful Truth that if they want to cross the barrier and leave Underground, they have to kill Asgore and take his SOUL, and continue all the way up until you actually fight Asgore. The other "silent" SAVE Points are when they're lured into the True Lab—a very creepy area that seems to skeeve out Frisk and Chara pretty badly, and that holds more secrets about Chara's family.
  • If they are the Narrator All Along, Pacifist has several moments from the True Lab on:
    • Choosing to Heckle or Laugh at the amalgamate of Snowdrake's mom has them sounding out of it, getting their description of Frisk's actions wrong for the first time and only realizing it at some sign from Frisk themself, and possibly indicating that Chara is dissociating or close to some kind of breakdown. Choosing to Heckle or Laugh again anyway has Chara actually snap at you.
    • Their usually calm and composed narration slows to a crawl when Flowey calls Frisk with Asriel's voice. You can almost hear the Oh, Crap! in their dialogue... and they don't even have a voice.
    • They also get VERY emotionally involved in the final fight against Asriel, swinging between seeming despair, excitedly describing Asriel and his attacks with childish glee, and encouraging Frisk, only to fall completely silent as Asriel starts pouring his heart out to Frisk (who he thinks is Chara).
• Our Ghosts Are Different: VERY DIFFERENT.
• Pay Evil unto Evil: One interpretation from the endings of the SOUL less True Pacifist Route is, that Chara reminds the Anomaly, that they are "not above consequences". It still remains questionable, if they did indeed kill everyone simply because they want to, to apply the lessons the player have taught them, or because they consider that you don't deserve your happy ending. Since no one is actually seen dead, some even go the extra mile of suggesting Chara might no longer even want to hurt anyone, only trying to scare you off so you'll stop toying with everyone or to punish you by throwing reminders of the Genocide timeline in your face.
• The Perfectionist: An evil example. If you don't kill Snowdrake specifically as one of the 16 monsters in Snowdin, it will automatically abort Genocide with Chara grumbling, "The comedian got away. Failure." They also show the personality of one in how they keep careful count of exactly how many monsters are left to kill in each area and exactly how much EXP and GOLD you've won from killing each monster.
  • According to Toriel, the Fallen had this habit in life where they would always fill a glass of water "just peeking over the brim" regardless of how thirsty they actually were, claiming it was "the most efficient way to fill it". This got Asriel copying them (and still does, as Flowey). When Asgore recognizes Toriel is still doing it, they have a small bonding moment, both evidently thinking of their children.
• Player Character: Either a subversion or double subversion, depending on how you view Chara: are they the main villain, the narrator, or are you controlling Frisk because you are Chara?
• Point of No Return: The final and true one for the Genocide route, as once you encounter them face-to-face, you can't quit the game at all, and the game will be corrupted.^note At least on the PC version. Unless you use Task Manager or Force Quit on Windows and Mac, respectively. In comparison, up until you actually cut down Flowey, you can Reset the game at any time you wish with no true consequences on your end, other than him calling you out on it.
• Psychic Radar: Demonstrates this ability in the Genocide route from Snowdin on, able to sense the exact number of how many monsters are left alive nearby and informing you at save points how many you have to kill. If you haven't fully cleared out Waterfall before the Undyne boss fight, they'll even temporarily stop you to warn that they "strongly felt" a certain number of monsters still alive. Like their ability to erase the world, it's unclear when or how Chara got this ability — whether it was acquired from getting stronger by gaining enough EXP (the first save point they exhibit this power at has them at LV 6), or a power Chara always had, possibly related to their ability to Check monsters for stats.
• Psycho Knife Nut: All fallen humans are associated with a specific weapon; Chara's is the Worn Dagger/Real Knife found in the bedroom they shared with Asriel. Besides their infamous "Where are the knives" line, they are shown using the slash of the Real Knife to destroy the world, the attack animation of the killing blows on Sans, Asgore, and Flowey implies it was Chara using their knife to kill them, and their flavor text about the Real Knife is the only time the Genocide narration breaks from its usual cold and terse tone, sounding downright gleeful about getting their hands on it. In fan works they're like a mini Michael Myers, almost exclusively using a kitchen knife to attack, even though playing them that way in-game is actually a bad strategy.^note There's only two "knives" you can use in the game, the Toy Knife made of plastic in the beginning area that's the second-weakest weapon in the game, with plenty stronger non-knife weapons soon after it, and the Real Knife all the way at the end that's technically the strongest... though by the time you get it, enemies die in one hit anyway, making its high Attack functionally useless. Even that is implied to really just be a gardening knife their protective parents dulled as a safety precaution, and not a kitchen knife. Switching to better weapons as you get them will help you defeat enemies sooner to make the tedious work of emptying the Underground quicker. As for the two bosses in Genocide, it's more advantageous to equip the Ballet Shoes or Torn Notebook as your weapon against Undyne for better damage than the Toy Knife, and the Torn Notebook and Cloudy Glasses against Sans instead of the Locket and Knife to slow down the damage he deals.
• "Psycho" Strings: An unearthly, screechy-sounding noise forms part of their theme "music", which plays when you encounter them at the end of a No Mercy route.
• Rainbow Speak: Multiple lines of new flavor text unique to Genocide are color coded in eye-catching red to grab the player's attention. They also do this several times in the main game with yellow text, presuming that they remain the narrator across all routes: whenever you save at save points, to highlight the option to turn Mettaton around and flip his switch, and keeping track of which of the Lost SOULs you've already Saved from Asriel. Asriel's name is also written in literal shimmering rainbow text on the battle menu at the same time they recognize him as the "God of Hyperdeath" in his Final Boss fight, in response to his rainbow-colored attacks and background. They also parody this trope in normal runs if you decide it's worth taking a closer look at the empty, useless Ball Game hole, as indicated by the sarcastic quote below.
  Ah! Woah! Wow!
  It's a "Hole".
• Reaching Between the Lines: The 9999999999999999 was the WORLD being hit, hence the screen shuddering on 'impact.'
• Reality Warper: The Fallen Human, Chara, has the ability to completely erase or to recreate their world. Note that it takes a monster absorbing multiple human SOULs to come anywhere close to that level of power, but Chara is capable of doing so even before getting Frisk's SOUL, seemingly because of all the EXP and LV they've gained that have increased all their other stats. Unless the stats work in a different way for player characters or Humanoid Abominations than the simple explanations Sans gives, these stats should only be "A way of measuring someone's capacity to hurt," which would mean Chara became so Ax-Crazy and gained enough Level Of ViolencE that they were able to use The Power of Hate to destroy reality with a knife.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Deliver a few pretty scathing ones towards you after a Genocide route:
  [if you try to play again after the world was erased] It was you who pushed everything to its edge. It was you who led the world to its destruction. But you cannot accept it. You think you are above consequences.
  [if you sold your SOUL to bring the world back... only to do Genocide again] But, you and I are not the same, are we? This SOUL resonates with a strange feeling. There is a reason you continue to recreate this world. There is a reason you continue to destroy it. You. You are wracked with a perverted sentimentality.
• The Redeemer: If one interprets Chara as also being the narrator in the Pacifist Route, another theory that goes hand in hand with it is that the flashbacks seen at the end of Asriel's Final Boss fight (where Asriel finds Chara and takes them back to Toriel and Asgore) are the result of Chara supplying those memories in an effort to redeem their brother.
• Red Is Violent: In contrast to Frisk's Red Is Heroic. Both have/had a red SOUL, but Chara has the strongest presence in the Genocide route and is much more hate-filled, violent, and dangerous in it than Frisk in Pacifist.
  • The scary Genocide-specific Flavor Text sometimes turns blood red as well: at Toriel's house asking where the knives are, the SAVE Points from Snowdin on keep track of how many monsters there are left to kill in each area, and New Home is littered with red text explicitly from Chara's POV: "(The date I came here.)", "My drawing.", etc. For a time it was even thought canon that Chara only narrated the red text to differentiate them from the considerably less-murdery narrator and their white text, and represent Chara taking over the narration—but this is debunked in the game itself, as "It's me, Chara", "In my way", and the entirety of their Genocide speeches, all also explicitly from Chara, are in the same white text (as is most of the changed Genocide flavor text).
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: The mysterious nature of Chara and what is seen of them in the Pacifist flashbacks (especially of what seems to be a family photo with Asriel laughing giddily and Chara shyly hiding their face in a bouquet of flowers) paint a picture of Chara as the more withdrawn, secretive Blue Oni to Asriel's excitable, Cheerful Child Red. Though we don't hear Chara's dialogue in the tapes, they are firm in their conviction and seem to be arguing The Needs of the Many while Asriel is emotional and doesn't want Chara or anyone else to have to die. After they Came Back Wrong without their souls, Asriel is a monstrously sadistic and Hot-Blooded Red Oni who enjoys taunting and killing people for fun and throws tantrums when things don't go his way, while Blue Oni Chara seeks higher purpose instead of pleasure, is unnaturally composed, and kills and then moves on to the next without ever even speaking to their victims.
  • Their dynamic with Frisk is more ambiguous. Frisk is The Stoic and wears blue and purple whereas Chara has a smile, pink cheeks, reddish hair, and may have red eyes, at least visually framing Frisk as the Blue Oni and Chara as the Red Oni. Frisk also seems to Turn the Other Cheek and be aligned with pacifism, whereas Chara was more violent and vengeful with their plan and attempted retribution on the villagers, which could support this.
  • An alternate reading of Frisk as more brash (based on the potential in all routes for them to challenge opponents to Bring It, in game options but also automatically) and flirtacious, jokingly or not (from all the flirt options), and Chara's wordy flavor text that makes them sound sophisticated and coolly snarky, and apparent passiveness and willingness to follow their partner's lead time and time again even when unhappy with it, could make them the Blue Oni again, this time to Frisk's Red Oni.
• Redemption Quest: The entirety of the Pacifist Run may be seen as this for the Fallen Child if you believe they accompany and assist Frisk, either because what happened at the village made them have a Heel Realization, what their actions have turned the Underground and Asriel into made them have a Heel Realization, or Frisk has proven to be the future monsters really deserve.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: In the Soulless Pacifist version of the scene where Frisk is shown living with Toriel, the Fallen's eyes glow red as they remind you they now own Frisk's soul. Fandom also regularly depicts Chara with red eyes at all times, whether they're evil or not. Their sprite seems to have normal brown eyes in the Genocide endings, but whether their eyes are "meant to be" brown or bright red is unclear since Toriel has black eyes on her overworld sprite but dark red eyes in the encounter screen.
• Revenant Zombie: Becomes one after coming back from the dead in the end of the Genocide Route thanks to the Player's accumulated LV, their new purpose being to "destroy the enemy" and "become strong". They're powerful enough to destroy the universe in one hit and do so whether the Player approves or not.
• Revenge by Proxy: Some fans theorize that their motive for killing monsters in the post-Genocide Pacifist ending may be to enforce consequence on the player for their actions in the Genocide timeline everyone but Chara has forgotten. Since even attacking you directly and destroying the game world failed to get rid of you, Chara may understand that killing monsters and ruining the Golden Ending you worked for are the only way they possibly can hurt you.
• Rewarded as a Traitor Deserves: After Flowey kills his father (having tried and failed to warn him of Chara), he tries to make himself seem useful so Chara won't kill him. He gets hacked to pieces for his trouble.
• Riddle for the Ages:
  • What was the Fallen Child like before the events of the game? Did they Used to Be a Sweet Kid who got pushed over the edge? Or were they always an Enfant Terrible that only saw their adoptive family as stepping stones for their revenge? There's no definitive answer, and the few hints we're given could point to either extreme or anything in between, and as a result their ultimate reasons and motivations for doing what they do are also shrouded in mystery. Some mysteries that are hotly debated included…
    • Did Chara poison Asgore by accident, or was it on purpose? On one hand, cups of butter and buttercups are a spoonerism, but those who believe Chara was truly evil think Chara did it on purpose. In addition to this, when Asriel says Chara laughed off the situation, was it a nervous laugh because it was a bad pun? A nervous laugh out of fear or distress? Or an Evil Laugh because they were completely evil?
    • Did Chara truly care for Asriel and the Dreemurr family, or see Asriel as a stepping stone for getting revenge on humanity? There are plenty of small details that point to Chara being the joy of the Underground when they were alive, but other see this as a mask to darker intentions.
    • What was their relationship with Asriel like? Interpretations swing wildly between Chara and Asriel truly being best friends that went awry, to Chara being Asriel's abuser and manipulator.
    • Did the fallen human actually want to unseal the barrier? Or was it a means to destroy humanity? Or did they intend to unseal the barrier and destroy humanity in order to let monsters inherit the surface?
  • Another major question is the extent to which the player influences them as a character. The EXP and LV values the player is shown on the interface are for Chara, not Frisk, and it's through the player's choices that their LV and EXP rise. This, along with dialogue thanking the player for their guidance in the Genocide ending suggest that the player's actions twist the first child into an Omnicidal Maniac, rather than them having been that way all along.
  • Is the Fallen Child making Frisk move during cutscenes in the Genocide route, or is Frisk moving on their own? The former is widely accepted among the community, although Asriel's dialogue in the epilogue hints that he could take away control at any time, just as Frisk may be taking away control from you, the player. There are also moments in the neutral/pacifist runs where Frisk moves on their own anyway, such as stepping forward on their own to challenge Photoshop Flowey... same as the player character does against Sans in Genocide).
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: A possible interpretation of Chara's aggression towards Flowey at the end of the Genocide route, as the flower is Asriel, after all, who got them both killed. Also a potential interpretation of Chara's actions killing themself so Asriel could take their soul and then trying to use their full power at the village, seeing as they hated humanity.
• Sad Clown: A different interpretation for them "laughing off" theirs and Asriel's poisoning of Asgore when Toriel and Asriel were upset about it; that the poisoning was accidental and Chara tried to use humor to downplay the seriousness of the situation to cope with it, without taking any amusement from the near-death poisoning at all. Asriel even says that he wishes he'd laughed it off like Chara did, which could support this take on it. In addition, there is a running theme with monsters being used to laughing off their pain and forcing smiles in horrible circumstances, and as a child of the leading royal family (who all make pained smiles instead of crying when saddened in the game), Chara may have picked this up as well.
  • Pops up again (with the same ambiguity) in one of the sadder/more horrifying moments of the Pacifist Route: "You laugh, and keep laughing. It's SO funny, you can't stop. Tears run down your face..." Though they acknowledge "But it's not funny", implying that the first laugh was a coping mechanism.
• Sanity Slippage: Some theories suggest that the progressive effects of EXP and LV corrupt Chara from a benign force, to a being Driven to Suicide and at the end of the spectrum into an Omnicidal Maniac. Interestingly, once you've killed 20 monsters and activated the Genocide run in the Ruins, the narrator still sounds fairly normal and chipper in their jokes and observations of the Ruins and Toriel's house, with the four new lines of Genocide-specific flavor text that do slip through the cracks ("But nobody came", "Determination", "Where are the knives", "It's me, Chara") sounding incredibly hollow compared to the brighter, chattier narration in normal routes. Toriel's death in the Genocide run followed by hearing Flowey suggest they "destroy everything in this wretched world" marks the point where they make their true Face–Heel Turn; only starting in the next area do they go full-blown Ax-Crazy, and prioritize your mission of emptying the Underground above all else, set on destroying the world.
• The Scapegoat: Regardless of how one interprets Chara, both as a person and how they fit into the story's meta narrative, at the end of the day, it's still the player's responsibility to choose violence or mercy. Even if they're interpreted as an abstract representation of you or your own temptation or something similar, nothing ever forces you to kill^note even at the very, very end when Flowey is killed, you have to push Chara to kill him when there's a pause as Flowey turns his face into Asriel's, and yet many players erroneously attribute their own actions to them. The game itself seems to have predicted this, as Chara has this to say if you commit genocide and then try to undo it:
  Chara: Interesting. You want to go back. You want to go back to the world you destroyed. It was you who pushed everything to its edge. It was you who led the world to its destruction. But you cannot accept it. You think you are above consequences.
• Screw This, I'm Out of Here!: Aside from "You called for help" and exclaiming that his defense has dropped to zero when the souls finally help you out, Chara's narration is completely absent during the Omega Flowey fight, without even the Visible Silence from fighting Asgore. This is justified though in that, while Chara likely lived long enough in the Underground to know the strengths and weaknesses of each monster, Omega Flowey is a complete Eldritch Abomination that Chara's never seen before.
• Sealed Evil in a Can: Effectively "sealed" when Asriel stopped them from killing anyone in their fused body, resulting in Chara staying dead and unable to interact with the world at all before the game. They are then bound to Frisk and the player after Frisk lands where they're buried, bringing them back as a demonic spirit now inside of Frisk via Frisk's powerful resurrective determination. Some fans believe after they're "awakened" at the beginning of the game, they're powerless to actually do anything unless you "feed" them enough EXP to possess Frisk and reach their full power. While some believe Chara can be turned good by Frisk's influence, others believe they're either biding their time or too weak to fully express their true personality during non-Genocide routes, making them a very abstract example of this trope.
  • Even after they claim your soul after Genocide, they're still forced to adhere to whatever playstyle you choose, as they are displeased with you repeating the same Genocide route and acknowledge they can only "suggest" another path if you play again, making the player (or the game itself) the Can and Chara Frisk's Enemy Within during normal gameplay. In the Soulless Pacifist ending, they're unleashed once the game ends and your ability to control the Player Character is over.
• Secret Test of Character: One of the theories about Chara is that they're watching Frisk to see if humanity is as messed-up as they remember, or deserving of the mercy Asriel showed them.
• Senseless Sacrifice: They killed themself (by poisoning themself with buttercups, while we're at it) so they could merge their soul with Asriel's, cross the barrier, gather six more human souls by killing six more humans, and returning to destroy the barrier for good. Asriel backed out halfway through, killing them both and leading to despair among the Underground, Asgore declaring war on humanity, Toriel leaving Asgore, and Asriel ending up as Flowey.
• Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: In the Genocide Run ending they shift from being a Terse Talker of short simple words to giving a formal speech, and demonstrate a few cases of this (for instance, saying 'eradicate' instead of 'kill'), coupled with a Creepy Monotone. Even them voicing their contempt of you in some potential dialogue after Genocide is the most caustically polite way you'll ever be called a sicko. The Neutral/Pacifist narration shows similar diction as well mixed in with more casual dialogue, made more quirky and playful by the much lighter circumstances. Similarities in Asriel's and Asgore's speech patterns, and Chara's and Toriel's, indicate that Chara takes after Toriel's more formal way of talking.
• Sharing a Body: Briefly with Asriel in the backstory, during the plan. They shared control, but Asriel ultimately was able to take it from them to keep them from hurting anyone and return to the Underground with their body. While the details aren't elaborated on, they probably do something along these lines with Frisk after they fall into the underground, depending on the theory either only in Genocide or in all routes, and either as Demonic Possession or a symbiotic one.
  It's you!
  Despite everything, it's still you.
  Still just you, [Beat] Frisk.
  It's me, Chara.
• Slasher Smile: Their smile once you've succeeded in completing the Genocide route and in Soulless Pacifist endings more qualify as Dissonant Serenity. However, normally an exclamation point appears over Frisk's head when a random encounter happens; starting in Waterfall in Genocide, it changes to a =) smiley Emoticon VERY similar to Chara's expression, but with a longer, wider smile.
• The Sociopath: Possibly, if read as always evil. The way they endeared themself to the Underground with a sweet act, were a False Friend to Asriel and monsters at large, laughed off others' pain, and inflict suffering and death with an air of casualness, could read as an efficient sociopath using empty charm to blend in, brush off mistakes, and brute-force people into doing what they want. Unlike Flowey, who at first appears to be the other example of The Sociopath but turns out to be capable of being good even without a soul, they did already have a soul to give Asriel at the time they would have been doing this. It's stated monsters know what their own souls are made up (love, hope, and compassion) but don't know what the human soul is made of,^note Though determination is confirmed as part of it from Alphys' research, and the red flag for Ball Game drops a whopping hint that bravery, justice, integrity, kindness, perseverance, and patience are all also part of it so it's not known if Chara could be evil in spite of their soul or if the human soul is simply a powerful neutral force that Chara used for destruction.
• The Soulless: When Asriel absorbed Chara's soul originally it wasn't like how we see him control the captured souls in boss battle against him, but more akin to a Fusion Dance where they shared control over his body and he describes it as the two of them having "combined" their souls. Since their combined soul permanently shattered after death, this left Asriel and implicitly also Chara without souls of their own when they are resurrected.
  • Alphys' notes in the True Lab state monsters can't absorb the SOULs of other monsters and humans can't absorb the SOULs of other humans, but as Flowey, Asriel is able to absorb the SOULs of almost all the monsters in the Underground in the Pacifist ending and after Genocide, Chara is able to demand your SOUL as part of your Deal with the Devil with them. This puts Chara in the same category as Asriel, as coming back without their own souls has seemingly made them "something that's neither human nor monster" by the rules of nature in Undertale, and therefore both soulless Asriel and soulless Chara are freely able to absorb souls of any type. Asriel and Chara also describe the feelings they sense secondhand from the absorbed SOULs in similar ways, reinforcing the connection.
  • Flowey's dialogue in Genocide suggests the reason he even believes the merciless killer before him is Chara isn't because they were particularly Ax-Crazy or hateful towards monsters in life^note (he'll also believe Frisk is Chara in a Pacifist run befriending everyone and trying to free them; and if you abort a Genocide run and fight and spare Asgore in a normal run, Flowey will still think you're Chara and chide you with "Chara. You haven't learned a thing. In this world... It's KILL or BE killed."), but because in his eyes they are acting as if they don't have a soul either ("empty" is how he repeatedly describes both his soulless state and the player character in Genocide) and therefore must be Chara finally returned, soulless but having managed to "steal" the new red SOUL. If you complete Genocide, they do indeed decide they want Frisk's SOUL.
    Flowey: Hahaha... You're not really human, are you? No. You're empty inside. Just like me. In fact... You're Chara, aren't you?
  • If interpreted as the narrator who begins neutral or good but can be influenced to evil by the player's actions, the soulless version of Chara presents a similar arc to Asriel as Flowey, who are both capable of being good despite their soullessness. Both kids start off individually inclined to want to do good and help people when first reincarnated, but are incredibly easy to corrupt due to their lack of souls.
• Speak of the Devil: Referenced if you complete a consecutive Genocide run, calling themself "The demon that comes when people call its name." You actually do get to name them at the start of your game before you do anything else, which might be how you "call" them.
• Split-Personality Takeover: They appear to do this at the end of a Genocide run, and used for shocking effect at the end of a soulless pacifist.
• Stepford Smiler: Implied to have been this in life, with everyone calling them the hope of the Underground, having been dearly beloved by the Dreemurrs, and Asgore describing them as having a hopeful look in their eyes, while at the same time they harbored some extremely dark secrets about their hatred of humans and why they climbed Mt. Ebott regardless on your take on their morality. It's also subtly hinted at if Chara is indeed the narrator, though you'd only notice it by comparing lines from different routes: the narration describes the bag of dog food as "half-full" in the Pacifist route, but if you kill even one monster, it becomes "half-empty" instead, referring to the question of whether the glass is half-empty or half-full and suggesting that the narrator has a bleak outlook if you kill anyone — but odds are you won't notice because they'll keep the same lighthearted, snarky tone for all the other flavor text.
  [normal narration describing the bed Chara died a Cruel and Unusual Death in:] (What a comfortable bed.) (If you laid down here, you might not ever get up.)
  [Genocide Chara, on their own coffin:] (It's as comfortable as it looks.)
• Stepford Snarker: If the narrator, Chara frequently makes light of fighting monsters who are trying to kill Frisk, and even of Chara's own death, all in a flippant, nonchalant tone. It's also alluded to by the Joke descriptions against Woshua, implied to all be taken from the Fallen, long before Frisk (the one relaying the jokes) or first-time players would know anything about them or their history.
  You tell a joke about two kids who played in a muddy flower garden.
  You tell a joke about a kid who ate a pie with their bare hands.
  You tell a joke about a kid who slept in the soil.
• Straw Nihilist: Despite their smile, believing power is the only reason they were brought back makes them into this. They only care about if what they're looking at is "useful" to them and call the world "pointless" after wringing it dry of all the LV they can get. In their flavor text during the route they fluctuate between listlessness, anger, and bitterness, at you and everyone else, and don't even seem to share Flowey's Ax-Crazy joy in killing people in different ways, having an almost mechanical approach to both narrating and committing murder. Culminates in a Suicidal Cosmic Temper Tantrum even if you say no. Trying to render the destruction itself meaningless by bringing back the world seems to be what REALLY pisses them off as it proves even the lesson you "taught" them meant nothing.
  • At the end of the Genocide route, they explain that they were uncertain WHY they were revived after their plan failed and looked to you for guidance in their "reincarnation". It's hinted they still fall into nihilism (though at least a non-violent one) if you kill anyone in Neutral and prove their jaded viewpoints right, despite still putting on a brave face about everything. Conversely, seeing how hard and patiently Frisk works to spare everyone seems to give Chara back hope that everything can work out.
  • Though Asgore said their eyes were full of hope, it's implied they may have had some of the makings of this in life. The Golden Ending seems to leave the narrator as optimistic as you can make them, but Flowey's monologue if you relaunch the game after the Pacifist ending makes it clear he suspects Chara is the one who is trying to reset and undo the happy ending everyone's living in. He seems to be assuming that they would reset not out of malice, though, but because they just can't believe there can be peace between monsters and humans on the surface, hinting that Chara believed Humans Are the Real Monsters and made it known to Asriel. He tries to convince them everyone is happy, but is resigned to the idea it probably won't get through to them even if their intentions aren't evil.
• Superpowered Evil Side: If Frisk is the hero and Chara is the villain, then they function as one to Frisk (and arguably to the player). The Genocide route implies they are at least occasionally in control of Frisk's body and the player character can pretty much bulldoze through all the Underground. By the end of Waterfall, they've gotten bloodthirsty and strong enough that they trigger a battle on their own, and the killing blow Undyne dives in to save Monster Kid from is automatically a One-Hit Kill even to her with her impressive stats; if not for her finding her own determination to become the Undying, the battle would already be over. Then, after Sans dodges all the player's attacks, an unknown force suddenly takes control and kills him with a second attack not initiated by the player; this force is believed to be Chara taking full control. Completing the route has Chara become stronger than Frisk or the player.
• Support Party Member: The Narrator Chara theory casts them as the lone invisible teammate to Frisk in all routes, passively helping them by offering information while Frisk's actions reshapes Chara's beliefs, though they still have aspects of this trope even if read as the active force in the Genocide route. They play Mission Control in battle, and may be helping you use the save points to heal your HP and save your progress. The huge difference in power between their knife and locket in normal runs (+15 to Attack and Defense respectively^note which is still nothing to sneeze at, the knife gives the biggest attack boost out of other weapons and the non-Genocide version of the locket comes in third behind its Genocide counterpart and the Temmie Armor as the strongest armor of the game) and Genocide runs (a whopping +99 to Attack and Defense respectively), notably the only equipment that has the stats change between routes, also seems to point directly to Chara's involvement as "the feeling" of your stats rising, as buffing their old belongings absurdly high to symbolize their bloodthirstiness and lust for power.
• Symbiotic Possession: Under the Narrator Chara theory, Chara seems to be a benevolent cooperator with Frisk, with the two children now Sharing a Body. The majority of the time Chara only gives information and encouragement to Frisk, but most of the randomized messages for a successful Flee attempt are in the first-person only otherwise associated with Chara in the Genocide run. As the flavor text only addresses Frisk in second-person even at the end of Pacifist, and Chara is the only other one known to use first-person in the flavor text, this leads some to theorize it's Chara speaking, taking over to run away... but of course not without the attitude you've come to expect of them.
  Escaped...
  I've got better to do.
  Don't slow me down.
  I'm outta here.
• Talk to the Fist: Beyond what the player does through the Genocide path, the Fallen will increasingly walk forward during conversations, engage in fights and strike enemies without any input from the player.
• Terse Talker: The save point text being reduced to "X left" and "Determination" is one of the more famous features of the Genocide route, but by New Home, almost all their narration text is comprised of short, clipped sentences, and none of the wit and charm of the narration in Neutral and Pacifist to be found.
  • You can see a similar evolution into this by hitting the dummy in Waterfall (that turns out to be the Mad Dummy) with different levels of LV that reflects Chara's and Frisk's attitude towards fighting changing.
    (You tap the dummy with your fist.) (You feel bad.)
    (You hit the dummy lightly.) (You don't feel like you learned anything.)
    (You sock the dummy.) (Who cares?)
    (You punch the dummy at full force.) (Feels good.)
• There Is No Kill Like Overkill: Near the end of the Genocide Route, if you choose to attack Flowey, Chara/Frisk doesn't just strike him, but hacks away at him over and over until there's nothing left. And then, for the final kill of the Genocide route, The Fallen attacks the game itself, which fills the entire screen with 9's, causing it (and the window itself if the game's being played in windowed mode) to shake uncontrollably and close the game. Rebooting it will open up to nothing but an empty void and the sound of howling wind.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: For the Genocide route. They already hated humanity, but now they're out to wipe out monsters too and eventually reality itself. Even if they were already a Jerk with a Heart of Jerk, now they have no need to look good and play nice with monsters anymore, and are free to drop the Mask of Sanity to terrorize and kill everyone.
  • It goes double assuming they are always the narrator (and had good intentions). Much of the changed narration in the Ruins for Genocide is creepy as all hell, but not specifically malicious. Chara narrates Toriel's battle mostly as normal, but they do get in one much-harsher optional line of flavor text: ordinarily, thinking maybe you can use Talk to end the fight the way she taught you, you can try using the optional Talk action twice without success before the narrator will gently tell you, "Ironically, talking does not seem to be the solution to this situation." Contrary to what you might expect from what you were taught earlier, using Talk won't do anything to progress or resolve her fight no matter the route. This is still true in Genocide, but this time if you try to use the optional Talk action, they simply say, "Not worth talking to." Ouch.^note Arguably softened by the fact the same narration still shows a subtle sign of mourning her when she is dead: after Toriel's death in any route, the flavor text for the stovetop in her kitchen—including the corrupted flavor text of Genocide—changes to sadly note, "No one will use this anymore..."
  • Especially applies post-Ruins. Snowdin kicks off a 180 degree change in tone in narration, and they don't improve from there (unless you reset or don't fulfill requirements to keep Genocide, making it default to a Neutral run instead). The narration is bitter, cold, spiteful, and methodical about the extermination of monsters, blatantly pushing for you to kill them all. Once you reach Papyrus and he tries to defuse the killer human with a Cooldown Hug, the narration first neutrally notes, "Papyrus is sparing you." ... but if you Check him, it coldly and bluntly adds, "Forgettable."
• Took a Level in Kindness: For the Pacifist route, if they are believed to be the narrator or player. They may have hated humanity, but even though it would only take the monsters getting Frisk's soul for Asgore to unseal the barrier and declare war, they never show any sign of turning on Frisk and instead aid them in saving everyone, monsters and humans, without a single person getting hurt.
• Toxic Friend Influence: Chara pressured Asriel into a plan that would inevitably involve murdering humans and possibly outright war. It backfired, killing them both. If after completing a True Pacifist run, the player walks all the way back to the first screen to talk to him, Asriel will expressly state this, admitting that Chara probably wasn't the greatest person and he shouldn't have so idolizing of them, even saying Frisk is the friend he wishes he always had.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Hinted to be chocolate. Toriel keeps a bar of it in her fridge out of what may be sentimentality and if you check Asgore's fridge at the end of the game, the Fallen Child grouses that there is "No chocolate." in their ordinarily very unnerving red text in one of the few times they actually act their age… but only in the Genocide Run. The fanbase has taken this idea and run with it. Though Chara shows no interest in taking the name-brand chocolate bar that is in Toriel's fridge when they're still in the Ruins, Deltarune seems to have cemented their love for chocolate as canon, by way of the player character Kris (a Composite Character of Frisk and Chara) portrayed by Toriel as a total chocoholic.
• Transformation of the Possessed: In the No Mercy route, going along with other instances in the route where the characters seem to be sensing or seeing something disturbing about our player character In-Universe that we can't from our side of the fourth wall, it seems there's something distorting Frisk's appearance while Chara's possessing them beyond what we can see on the screen. Normally Asgore realizes Frisk is a human the second he lays eyes on them, but here Asgore automatically assumes by looking at them they must be a fellow monster... then on closer look, becomes absolutely baffled trying to figure out what they are. What on earth he's looking at to confuse him so much is better left alone.
  • In both Soulless Pacifist endings, Frisk abruptly physically transforms into Chara last-second, or at least suddenly takes on some of their physical traits. "THE END" appears in red and "In My Way" suddenly kicks in with the insinuation that Chara has awoken to kill them all, this time with full control over Frisk's body and soul. In "I have places to go", the photograph after the credits will have the faces of Undertale's cast crossed out in red, except for Chara, who is in the photo instead of Frisk. Since no one in the photo seems to have noticed it's Chara and not Frisk, this may mean it's a case of The Mirror Shows Your True Self, where Frisk only shows up as Chara in the photo after it's taken. In "I want to stay with you", at first the "sleeping" "Frisk" looks normal as usual... until they suddenly snap their head to face the camera with bright red eyes and Chara's signature Blush Sticker and smile, followed by a cut to black and a horribly deep, inhuman Evil Laugh.
• Troubled Abuser: Asriel's overly eager-to-please demeanor with Chara gave rise to a theory that Chara emotionally abused Asriel to make him do what they wanted. While some fans use this to interpret Chara as a pint-sized version of The Sociopath and a False Friend, others who believe this theory see Chara more as an abused, angry child who perhaps did care for Asriel—but nonetheless had internalized toxic ways of how to act and treat others from their life on the surface, which shaped their interactions with their best friend and led to them abusing and traumatizing him in turn.
• Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: It is largely unknown what they were like before their nightmare-inducing soulless Genocide incarnation. However, at five to thirteen years old (like Frisk, their age is ambiguous) they were, at the very least, a misanthrope with a chip on their shoulder for the people of their hometown, not to mention laughing off poisoning Asgore, if only by accident. They planned their own slow agonizing suicide via buttercup poisoning, convinced Asriel to assist with said suicide plan to fuse souls to pass through the barrier, and they were planning to kill at a minimum of six humans in their hometown for their souls. They also may have had a fixation with knives or sharp objects in general, as Toriel made a point of hiding or removing all of the knives in her kitchen sometime before Frisk's arrival and also filed down the gardening tools in her house, with the name of Chara's Worn Dagger possibly hinting it too had been similarly filed down in Chara's time—if this isn't just Toriel being overly protective, this hints that she and Asgore may have been worried about Chara harming themself and/or others.
• The Un-Favorite: A strange, complicated case:
  • Although the New Home monsters and Gerson unequivocally refer to Chara together with Asriel as their parents' children, by present day Asgore and Toriel themselves only acknowledge Asriel as their son and don't include Chara as one of their children; Asgore laments, "I remember the day after my son died" when Chara had also passed away earlier that same day, and says he wants to see his wife and "child" (in the singular) again,^note Though it should be noted that Asriel is consistently referred to by Asgore either by name or as his "son", while "child" is gender-neutral; since he seems to know Toriel is not dead, this could be him saying he wants to see his estranged wife and visit the grave of his human child, as she took their body from the coffin he put them to rest in and refers to Chara instead as "the human who fell here long ago". Meanwhile, Toriel doesn't mention either Chara or Asriel in-game, but in the Winter Clock App refers to Asriel as "my son" and Chara only as "someone" she knew "a long time ago". It doesn't seem like they only consider biological children their real children, as the Deltarune version of Toriel and Asgore are shown to be Good Parents to their adopted human child Kris and don't treat them any differently from their version of Asriel, with everyone from the NPCs to the Deltarune narrator openly regarding them as part of the Dreemurr family and calling them as such. Asgore and Toriel do remember Chara with fondness which rules out the possibility that they see Chara as an Evil Orphan who ruined their family and caused their son's death.
  • On the other hand, Toriel shows an unusual amount of devotion to Chara's memory if she doesn't consider them her child, as she carried their mummified body all the way across the whole Underground with her to give them a proper burial, planted golden flowers on their grave to honor their Last Request, and won't leave the Ruins to accompany Frisk (at first) because, "Somebody has to watch over these flowers." Their drawing is also still up in the child's bedroom (unlike the photos in the house that have been removed) and she keeps more golden flowers in her bedroom, seemingly to remember them.
  • Though Asriel talks more like Asgore and Chara talks more like Toriel, it is hinted Asriel was a Momma's Boy and Chara may have been closer to Asgore. Despite the potential for The Unfavorite above, Flowey seems to suggest Chara was Asgore's favorite, as he says with a frustrated expression that he tried "hundreds of ways" (presumably including revealing himself as Asriel) to convince Asgore to show him the human SOULs without succeeding, but then beams and says, "Chara... I know he'll do it for YOU." Similar to the meaning golden flowers seem to hold for Toriel in honoring Chara, the potted golden flowers that symbolize Chara's Last Request are in near every room of Asgore's house as the only Splash of Color in the mournful gray home, and the garden Asgore tends in the throne room is overgrown with the same golden flowers. The dialogue you get if you spare Asgore after already fighting Photoshop Flowey implies he believes Frisk is The Chosen One because they remind him so much of Chara.
  • As Asriel calls Chara his "best friend" instead of his sibling, this could mean that unlike Kris mentioned above, Chara was not so much formally adopted as they were "Asriel's new friend who is staying with us now", treated as kindly as one would any child but not as close to Asgore and Toriel as they were to Asriel. It isn't known how long they lived with the family to have the chance to be officially adopted, but Chara and Asriel do not look noticeably older now than when they first met, so it is possible they didn't have much time together before the buttercup pie incident and Chara's plan.
  • Any preexisting baggage Chara might have had with the concept of "family" could have also caused the Dreemurrs to take more care not to rush Chara into something they weren't comfortable with. The sweater it's implied Chara knitted for Asgore has the words "Mr Dad Guy" on it, a cute nickname to be sure but one that could mean Chara struggled with straightforwardly calling Asgore "Dad." Sadly, Chara seems somewhat surprised Asgore still has the sweater after all this time, which might allude to them seeing themself as The Unfavorite.
• The Unfought: Despite debatably being the game's only genuinely villainous character and the cause for almost everything that went wrong, the only time you directly get to confront Chara is at the end of the No Mercy route, when it's far too late to fight them.
• Vague Age: As with Frisk, we don't know how old they were when they fell into the Underground (or how much time has passed since they died, for that matter). They are only described as a child, meaning they could be anywhere between five and twelve years old.
• Vile Villain, Saccharine Show: Even moreso than Flowey. Almost everything we see of the Fallen Child in Genocide paints them as a cold, humorless Enfant Terrible willing to kill anyone without remorse, even their own former best friend and family. Even outside of the Genocide Route, they are seen as Ambiguously Evil as far as their morality when they were alive is concerned, with interpretations of their character ranging from a troubled kid at best and a wicked psychopath at worst. They are unable to be fought directly or redeemed in any route, or indeed encountered at all in-person outside of Genocide or Soulless Pacifist, and in both cases it's implied to be The Bad Guy Wins without hope of anyone being able to stop them.
• Villainous Friendship: Subverted with Flowey, who thinks they have this going on in Genocide since they were best friends in life. Regardless of whether Chara retains any fondness for Asriel, he's afraid they'll kill him for betraying them before, and ends up brutally killed by Chara's hand if Genocide is completed.
  • Chara seems to view their partnership with you/Frisk as this, possibly as a replacement for their former friendship/partnership with Asriel. Despite how callous and insulting they are to monsters in Genocide, they show you/Frisk significantly more patience and help, are pleased to have the Best Friends Forever locket "right where it belongs" if you equip it, and are nothing if not polite and grateful to you in the ending. If you agree to erase this world and move onto the next with them, they seem to feel pretty chummy with you, saying "We'll be together forever, won't we?"
• Villains Out Shopping: If you believe the narrator theory and that they're also a villain, then the entire Neutral/Pacifist route turns into this, with Chara powerless to do anything except casually shoot the breeze with you until you decide to kill.
• Villain with Good Publicity: If they were evil in life, then they hid it well from the Underground (not to mention their parents). Even years after their death, the monsters who tell Frisk about Asriel and the human talk of the hope they brought the Underground, show great sadness over their death, and find it difficult to talk about them dying. By all appearances, Toriel and Asgore still remember them lovingly. Alphys does find the VHS tapes revealing the truth about Chara talking Asriel into their plan, but makes a point of not showing them to Asgore. Asriel's words about Chara in the Pacifist epilogue may be him finally getting past his guilt and loneliness with Frisk's help to acknowledge the truth about Chara, if only to himself.
• Voice Grunting: The only character in the game to completely avert this, as their dialogue at the end of the Genocide Route is delivered in complete silence. (However, their dialogue earlier on the route, as well as throughout the rest of the game if they are the narrator, uses the default text sound.)
• Walking Spoiler: So much that all spoilers have been removed.
• Was Once a Man: After their plan with Asriel failed, they're now a soulless entity akin to Flowey, but inside Frisk instead.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: If Chara cared about monsters, they were likely just a kid who found a loving family in the most unlikely of places after trying to "disappear" to Mt. Ebott, and wanted to destroy the barrier and free monsters. But this drove them to not only willingly sacrifice their own life even when it devastated their new family. They also planned to kill six other humans to take their souls, and they roped a reluctant Asriel into helping them kill themself and being the monster who'd absorb their soul and the others. That didn't work out the way they thought it would, and they ended up screwing things up in the worst way possible.
• Wham Line: In Genocide, the unique flavor text that starts in the Ruins sounds decidedly... different. And suddenly you realize your "Featureless Protagonist" might be more than you thought.
  [looking in the mirror at both Toriel's and Asgore's houses, where you usually get "It's you!":] It's me, Chara.
  Where are the knives.
  • Just about any of the Genocide red text counts because of how unsettling it is, but the first SAVE Point you use in Snowdin can be a shocker. Gone are all the cute, whimsical musings about the sights around you filling you with determination. Now the narrator is only focused on one thing:
    16 left.
• Where I Was Born and Razed: In the Genocide route, Chara ends up either possessing Frisk outright or assisting them to make the Underground go empty, killing off their own family in the process, and then completely erases the Underground itself along with the rest of the world. It's implied they've possessed Frisk to do it again at the end of a Soulless Pacifist run.^note If you choose not to stay with Toriel, the photo of Frisk with their friends has Frisk replaced by Chara and everyone else's faces crossed out. Previously, whatever their original intentions and whether it was the first thing they tried despite agreeing to only take six souls with Asriel or a change in plans after the villagers attacked Asriel, they ended up attempting to do this on their old village.^note The monsters say, "ASRIEL had the power to destroy them all" of the villagers, and Asriel later confirms, "They were the one who wanted to use our full power".
• Wicked Cultured: Checking the Royal Guards in a Genocide route results in an alternate description that directly references a passage from the Japanese novel Kitchen. The quote is exact enough to seem to be deliberate from the Fallen's perspective, and uses the same first person pronouns as the rest of the altered text.
• Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: Possibly, depending on interpretations of their hatred of humanity and how they fit into the Neutral and Pacifist routes.
  • Asriel reveals he knows why they climbed Mt. Ebott, a place he knows is where people disappear never to return, but says only that it wasn't a very happy reason, then follows it up by telling Frisk Chara hated humanity, all with a pained expression on his face. Fans sympathetic to Chara take this to mean that Chara was mistreated as a child in some way by humans and, coupled with the fact that they committed suicide in the end and that in the Genocide route Flowey alludes to following in their footsteps by trying to erase himself from existence, that they went to Mt. Ebott wanting to die because of it.^note Some cite the opening that shows Chara fell into the Underground on accident because they tripped on a tree root, and not throwing themself down the hole on purpose, as a reason why this may not be true, but Chara tripping on accident doesn't negate the possibility that they had something self-destructive in mind for going to the mountain in the first place.
  • The "narrator" theory holds it that it's your/Frisk's actions in pursuing the Genocide route that corrupts Chara from the snarky and friendly guide we get from other routes into the cold and power-hungry demon we meet at the end who believes the world is pointless and should be erased. This may be supported with Chara's own words, as they'll explain that they woke up confused about why they were back and say it was you who woke them up and your "guidance" (in hunting down every last monster in the Underground) that convinced that they were brought back for the sole purpose of gaining power by killing everyone.
• Worthy Opponent: Strongly implied to consider Undyne one, describing her as "the heroine" in Genocide. Checking her in other routes has her similarly described by the gushing narrator as "the heroine that NEVER gives up" and sounding distinctly crestfallen over her slow disintegration if you kill her. Fan work and theories tend to expand on this, having the Fallen Child look up to her on Pacifist runs as well, and drawing explicit parallels between their attitudes towards humanity and her status as the only monster shown to naturally harness Determination.

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