Characters / Undertale - The Human Child

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

The Human Child/Frisk

It's you!

You're filled with determination.

The main character. A human child who climbs the fearsome Mt. Ebott and falls down a deep cave, awakening on a bed of flowers within the underground.

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#-L

• 100% Heroism Rating: In the Pacifist Route, they gradually gain this status with the monsters of the Underground, to the point where not only do all the monsters come to back the child up when they get attacked by the Big Bad, but the same Big Bad later comes to befriend Frisk in the Golden Ending.
• Action Survivor: If the player does a Low-Level Run, they qualify. The human child is only a kid implied to be around 8. They’ve also survived a world where Everything Is Trying to Kill You, have faced down Photoshop Flowey and the Amalgamates, and can become the monsters ambassador to the humans.
• All-Loving Hero:
  • If you choose the Pacifist route. Despite the difficulty it brings to the journey, the protagonist's empathy refuses to let them kill a single monster.
  • This gets Played for Laughs in Undyne's hangout, which is only available on the Pacifist route. When Undyne orders them to punch vegetables in order to make spaghetti sauce, the best they can manage is knocking over a tomato. The other option is to pet the vegetables. Then again, she did say to treat them like your worst enemy…
    Undyne: STOP PETTING THE ENEMY!!!
• Amazing Technicolor Population: The Player Character seems to have yellow skin. Although, given the SNES-esque art style of the game, this could be an approximation for an actual skin color.
• Ambadassador: The Player Character can be this. In order to get the Golden Ending, you’re not allowed to KILL anyone. You can still attack, however. You will need to defeat the monsters' king, who is renowned as one of their greatest warriors alive, in single combat before you can become the monsters’ ambassador to the humans.
• Ambiguously Brown: Their skin tone isn't really what might be thought of as Caucasian, Hispanic, or Asian, being somewhat closer to orange than a human skin color. This is probably for similar reasons as their other ambiguous traits.
• Ambiguous Gender: Their gender is deliberately left vague, and when characters refer to the child, the pronouns used are exclusively gender-neutral. This is understandable though, as not only does this allow the player to insert themselves in the role, but it preserves the ambiguity so the reveal that the child you named is the Fallen Child, not Frisk, is a complete surprise for first-time players.
• Ambiguous Gender Identity: The use of gender-neutral they/them pronouns to describe the Human Child. Toby Fox hasn't clarified one way or the other if it's for the player to choose, or the confirmation that they're non-binary.
• Anti-Hero:
  • If you choose the Neutral route. While they just want to return to the surface and get away from monsters that want to kill them and take their soul, they are willing to use lethal force when it could be avoided.
  • The Human can be any type of anti-hero depending on how you play them. You can choose to be a pacifist but be a huge jerk while you're at it, or kill literally every monster but spare one so as to avoid a No Mercy run and not be a bad guy technically.
• The Atoner:
  • If you play a Pacifist run after an aborted Genocide Run. But if you actually complete a Genocide Run, then there's no going back.
  • If you killed some monsters accidentally, out of frustration or without knowing the game's true nature and then decided to reset and fix your mistakes, it also counts.
• Audience Surrogate: Played straight, inverted, or averted depending on the route taken:
  • For the most part of the game, the child is not specifically referenced to, nor do they have much agency; all this allows the player to play their role immersively. This is the straight version.
  • However, the child's name is explicitly stated near the tail end of the Golden Ending. This is to allow the player to decouple themselves from the game as it nears its conclusion, bringing closure to the mix. There is a very good reason for the game to encourage the player to move on, and allowing the child (instead of the player, which is impossible) to stay with their friends lets the story end properly. (The game wouldn't want you to feel obligated to stick around.) This is the inverted version of the trope.
  • Of course, if the player decides to start murdering absolutely everybody, then a cutesy child wouldn't cut it as an audience surrogate anymore. In this case, the trope is averted/defied…
  • If the player decides to stick around and take the genocide route after the golden ending, they are subverting this trope.
• Ax-Crazy: Choosing to do a genocide route would make Frisk this by default. Although even if you don't go that far, depending on how you play Frisk, you could still have them be violent and cruel towards the monsters for no reason.
• Badass Adorable: Being something of a Ness expy, this just follows. However, in-universe, any human has the ability to be a force that no monster could hope to defeat simply due to how their physical natures differ. They're just the one who, for better or worse, achieves it. Comes to an absolute head when their DETERMINATION grows so immensely that not even a reality-breaking Asriel can kill them.
• Badass Pacifist: If you choose to play that way. Every challenge in the game can be passed without having to hurt anyone, even if it comes close to ending the world itself at times.
• Batman Grabs a Gun: The only time killing someone in the underground doesn't give you EXP or LV is when/if you choose to kill Flowey in a neutral ending.
• Big Bad: Of the Genocide Route.
• Black-Hole Belly: The child can consume large amounts of food items (including steaks and hot dogs) without any adverse effects. Justified due to the way that monster food works.
• Blood Knight: In the Genocide Route, if the smile that eventually starts appearing above their head before a battle has anything to say about it.
• Bring It: Has several chances to do this, bordering on Fearless Fool considering who they do it to.
  • Instead of trying to make Undyne's attacks easier with Plead, you can go in the opposite direction by having the Child keep Challenging her and making her attacks harder.
    Flavor text: You tell UNDYNE her attacks are too easy. The bullets get faster. (First Challenge)
    You tell UNDYNE her attacks are too easy. The bullets get unfair. (Second Challenge)
    You tell UNDYNE her attacks are too easy. She doesn't care. (Third Challenge)
  • When the unimaginably powerful Photoshop Flowey is gleefully taunting the Human Child with the prospect of him torturing them by killing them over and over again, they do a wordless version of this trope by taking a step towards him, without any input from the player, with the implication that they think they can stop him, even though he now wields near-godly power and has taken back control of the timeline from them. Whatever else the Child is, they are definitely one very brave kid.
• Brought Down to Badass: The Player Character is this during their battle with Photoshop Flowey at the end of the first Neutral Route. The human has lost their Save Scumming ability to Flowey, but is still skilled enough to dodge the attacks of an Eldritch Abomination. Especially if the player is skilled enough to beat the boss on the first try.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: If you plan not to resort to violence, some of the things you'd need to do to spare monsters can come across as bizarre or maybe even border on Violation of Common Sense if taken out of context. Getting a sentient airplane to spare you by moving towards it isn't even the craziest thing you can do.
• But Now I Must Go: In the Pacifist ending, if you choose to not stay with Toriel, Frisk goes off on their own way to who-knows-where, though they keep in touch with everyone.
• Canon Name: In a True Pacifist run, this kid's name is revealed to be Frisk. In fact, this has always been their name; you never named them to begin with.
• Cloud Cuckoolander: It's very downplayed, but the fact that saving at save points reveal how the child seems to see the weirdness they encounter as signs of encouragement implies this. The ACT options the child can perform can also get very silly.
• The Comically Serious: They also never change that overwhelmingly neutral expression of theirs, no matter how wacky, horrific, or tear-jerking a given situation might be.
• Conditioned to Accept Horror: As Sans explains, hurting people drives you away from them, making it easier to hurt them even more, and this is what your LV really measures. The way Frisk hits Mad Dummy also changes depending on their LV as they become more violent.
• Corrupt the Cutie: Inspecting the bag of dog food in Alphys's lab if all the dogs in Snowdin were killed gets the line, "You just remembered something funny," a message that isn't triggered if all the dogs were killed but the Child still has less than 21 kills. Additionally, there are other changes to the narration of certain objects with a higher number of kills that suggests the Child becomes increasingly violent and sadistic the more they kill.
• The Corrupter: In Genocide, if the player isn't an in-universe character after all, then according to Chara's accusations in the Genocide endings, the Child chooses to sweep all areas of the Underground for monsters, not just killing them when a battle initiates and moving on, but actively hunting for all monsters in the area until they're all dead. This convinces Chara that they were brought back to life for the sake of power, and under Frisk's guidance, they ultimately become a world-destroying megalomaniac.
• Cowardly Lion: Doesn't happen often, but there are moments where the dialogue box (during any non-Genocide run playthrough) implies that they might be scared of having to face certain monsters in battle, like Undyne, Muffet, Final Froggit, Mettaton, and Asgore, but soldiers through facing them anyway. Also in the True Lab, where Frisk, on having to approach a partially hidden, creepy, and unknown monster, noticeably slows down from their normal walking speed. The player themselves cannot do a thing about it.
• Creepy Child: On top of the fact that you're going around killing everybody in sight, dialogue from the Genocide run clearly indicates your behavior has shifted to this trope. By the time you're near the end, Frisk isn't even recognizably human.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Implied, but only ambiguously. Asriel notes that everyone supposedly knows the legend that whoever climbs Mount Ebott disappears, and theorises that the protagonist went there before the start of the game because they wanted to disappear. Furthermore, the bandage that the protagonist starts the game with has explicitly already been used several times, indicating that the protagonist may have somehow gotten hurt a lot even before they fell into a cave full of monsters. And despite their young age, they seem to know how to fight, how to threaten people, and how to flirt, so make of that what you will.
• Demonic Possession: The Soulless Pacifist endings, which reveals Chara is possessing Frisk by showing them either replaced by Chara outright in the group photo with everyone else's faces crossed out or suddenly waking up with Chara's smile, Blush Sticker, and open red eyes at Toriel's house. This is the consequence of selling your soul to Chara after Genocide.
• Determinator:
  • The protagonist. They see things in save points that make them determined, and then press onwards. Deconstructed to chilling effect with the bad ending, in which the protagonist simply becomes determined on their own — determined to wipe out every monster in their way, and slaughter everyone for fun or other reasons.
  • In the Pacifist final boss fight, the player uses Frisk's determination to defy death. When the final boss would kill Frisk, their SOUL splits in two, then immediately reforms with the words "it refused."
• Dirty Kid: Played for Laughs, as it's possible to flirt with just about anyone. Toriel even has a special reaction if you call her mother and then flirt with her.
• Easily Forgiven:
  • Heavily zig-zagged based on how you play. The only thing that can get Toriel mad at you to begin with is one of the particularly cruel ways to dispatch her.^note Namely, as a One-Hit Kill on the Genocide route or an off-guard kill after you got her to spare you. She remains compassionate and forgiving if you beat her in a straight fight in a Neutral playthrough. Papyrus offers his forgiveness and support unconditionally, even as he dies, Undyne refuses to associate with you if you kill anyone, locking you out of befriending her ^note and if you kill anyone after befriending her, she'll always take that as an unforgivable betrayal and hate your guts, Mettaton only legitimately bears you ill will to begin with on No Mercy, where he can forgive you as you kill him if you hadn't killed everything in the area yet, since he knows that, at least, humanity is safe. Asgore also bears you no ill will. You're just the next human he needs dead to complete his plan (that he doesn't even want to carry out).^note Even in the Genocide route, you kill him before he can piece together how vicious you truly are. On top of all that, while Sans can certainly be displeased with you in a given run, he'll only despise and refuse to associate with you if you killed Papyrus, which also removes all of his event scenes until the final corridor from that particular run.
  • On a True Pacifist run, they're a practitioner rather than a recipient, where they're willing to spare (and even date and hang out with) some aggressively homicidal monsters. It's lampshaded in Asgore's epilogue dialogue.
  • Subverted on the Genocide Route. After destroying all monsterkind, the Fallen Child won't let Frisk go back without trading their soul. Even after getting the Pacifist Ending again, the Fallen Child will yank away Frisk's happy ending every time from then on.
• Enfant Terrible: If you choose the Genocide route… good God, are they ever. They'll even try to murder other children in their demented crusade to purge all life in the underground.
• Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": Every single monster will call them 'Human'. Until the Playable Epilogue of a Pacifist route, where everyone now knows them as Frisk due to Asriel learning their name while the monsters were inside him.
• Everyone Has Standards: You can have them kill monsters left and right in other routes and play them as a Jerkass even in the Pacifist route, but the Pacifist run has the Human Child seem to not laugh at or heckle the deteriorating Amalgamate containing Snowdrake's mom at all, even when the player chooses that option.
• Evil Makes You Ugly: In the Genocide route, it is implied that exterminating monsters one by one will slowly twist your appearance to the point where monsters can't even acknowledge you as a human.
• Evil Virtues: Should they go down the Genocide route, they possess determination. They are determined to kill absolutely everyone and will accomplish so.
• Eyes Always Shut: In both the sprite art and manual illustrations (though strangely not in official art — according to the promo artwork for the game, the child's eyes are dark brown, for the curious).
• Face–Heel Turn: It's possible to pull a No Mercy run after completing a True Pacifist run. Given the revelations about the child's character from either route, however, it may not be done entirely willingly…
• Fragile Speedster: During a Pacifist Run, you'd be playing this part, as not getting any EXP means your maximum hit points remain 20. And while getting more powerful armor items helps avert the 'fragile' part to a certain degree, you'll still need to have some skill at dodging attacks to survive most monster encounters.
• Good is Not Nice: Some of the choices that don't lock you out of True Pacifist are outright mean. For instance, you can spare Snowdrake by telling him that his father never really loved him, beat everyone within an inch of their life, or eat the Snowman Piece right in front of the snowman himself, insult Papyrus by calling him a "loser", tell Vulkin that its "rump looks like a sack of trash" or that its attacks are "NOT helpful", not saving Monster Kid when they accidentally trip in Waterfall, etc... And of course, the most heinous crime of all, taking as many as four candies from the bowl that says to take one, knocking it over in the process.
• Guile Hero: A less violent protagonist ends up as this trope, taking advantage of the enemy's mindset to end fights without bloodshed.
• Happily Adopted: By Toriel in the True Pacifist Ending, if it is so chosen. The last shot of the ending is Toriel bringing Frisk a slice of pie while Frisk is sleeping quietly in their room.
• Heel: Can play the part in the Mettaton battle (since he naturally plays the Face in this equation), which is an easy way to rack up the ratings. You can do this even as a pacifist, and in fact doing so makes the least violent ending to that fight much easier. Posing dramatically also helps to this end.
• Heel–Face Door-Slam:
  • You can turn aside from your goal in any boss fight in a No Mercy run… up until you fight Sans. By the time you fight him, you're too far in; if you lower your guard and accept his offer, he'll kill you. This is also a Call-Back to his more innocent brother's (genuine) offer earlier in a No Mercy run.
  • If you complete the Genocide Run in its entirety, the Fallen Child makes sure you remember the playthrough by taking Frisk's soul and ruining their happy ending in all subsequent playthroughs.
• Hero Killer: Five of them, no less! In the No Mercy route, they kill Toriel, Papyrus, Undyne, Mettaton, and the final boss, all monsters who are the most heroic in nature. All this serves so that normal monsters will fear the Child long before they arrive, and entire towns will be abandoned out of the Child's fearsome reputation.
• Heroic Mime: The version where dialog with other characters is unspoken or picked as a menu option. Monologues are written in the second-person.
• Hidden Depths: Flowey heavily suspects and verbally speculates that the Child desires a happy ending above all else. He also implies that the reason the Child went to Mt. Ebott before falling into the Underground was to commit suicide.
• Hope Bringer: Becomes an unwavering beacon of hope that everybody in the underground looks to during the pacifist route.
• Humanoid Abomination: Whatever the protagonist was before entering the underground, they're clearly not entirely human by the end of a Genocide Run (possibly due to the player's horrendous actions).
• Implacable Man: The human child is full of determination. In the No Mercy run, nothing is able to impede their rampage. Even if they are killed, they'll just come back from a checkpoint and try again.
• Improbable Weapon User: Starts out armed with a stick, and moves on to a toy knife, a single leather glove, ballet shoes, a notebook, a frying pan, and finally a gun with no ammunition. The final weapon, bucking the trend, is an actual knife, but of what use it will be depends on your route: ironically, the knife becomes a valuable weapon for the final boss fight of the Neutral Route, described as a worn dagger used for cutting plants, while it's purely cosmetic and useless in the Genocide Route, only described as a "REAL Knife" from the Fallen's tainted narration. Also, an event at the very end of the game implies that everything but the stick and the actual knife were possessions of the each of the six people who came here before you and didn't survive.
• Intergenerational Friendship: The Protagonist, a child, becomes friends with everybody in the underground in the Pacifist Route, especially the main six characters who are all adults. Toriel and possibly Asgore are more akin to Parental Substitutes, however, and Toriel can adopt them if you so choose it at the end of the game, but otherwise, the other monsters all see them as close and equal despite their age.
• Interspecies Adoption: Toriel attempts this with the Child early in the game. Later on, Asgore gives Frisk this offer should they spare him, but he's killed before Frisk can make a decision. It's only at the end of a Pacifist Run that Frisk gets to choose whether or not to stay with Toriel. If Frisk agrees, this time it takes.
• Jerkass:
  • On Neutral runs, you can kill anyone you want in battle and leave them dead, even though you have the power to load and try to find a way to spare them (which the game itself, AKA "the friendly RPG where nobody has to die!", encourages you to do).
  • Sans calls you on this if you kill Papyrus just to Kick the Dog (Papyrus being the only opponent who can't kill you, so you can't even claim it was self-defense), asking if having a power like yours means you should do the right thing and then pointing out that you still killed his brother.
  • Even outside of battle, you can be a jerk to NPCs for no reason. Among the worst you can do is stand there and watch poor Monster Kid fall to their death as they're pleading for your help. If Undyne hadn't been there…
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: As shown in this video, you can be quite mean to everyone verbally and through your actions in a Pacifist run, but still befriend everyone and get the happiest ending by refusing to take a single life.
• Jerk with a Heart of Jerk:
  • You can choose all the right options to get a monster to spare you… and then turn around and attack them when their guard is down for a One-Hit Kill, all For the Evulz. Doing this to Toriel causes her to die Laughing Mad.
  • On a Genocide run, you make a point of killing every single monster you can get your hands on, definitely making you this, and you also frustrate Papyrus by walking past all his puzzles without even trying them.
  • After Undyne collapses of heat exhaustion from chasing you into Hotland, you can callously leave her to die — or worse, keep filling up cups of water just to dump them on the ground instead of pour them on her, which the game even has a special response for, describing it as "sadistic". Unlike other jerk actions you can get away with in True Pacifist, doing either of these locks you onto the Neutral run even if you haven't killed anybody.
• Karmic Death: On the No Mercy path, Papyrus offers to spare you in hopes that you'll turn good, but you kill him anyway in one hit while his guard is down. Much later during the Final Boss, if you accept their offer to spare you, the Child will be hit with an unavoidable One-Hit Kill.
• Kid Hero: While the Child's age is never specified, they are just that — a child — and one who braves underground caverns full of monsters while armed with a stick.
• Last-Name Basis: Frisk is actually a family name, and not really used as a given name, giving this effect when other characters address them.
• Lightning Bruiser: You become one in the Genocide route, as you'll be able to kill most monsters (including bosses) in one blow, easily survive damage thanks to having high HP and Defense, and you get to stay as fast as you'd normally be. The Genocide battles with Undyne and the final boss, however, can and are very likely to be challenging depite said powers.
• Locked Out of the Loop: It's implied that most of the monsters (yes, even Papyrus) know the only way The Child could escape the Underground is if they kill Asgore and took his soul, but during the Pacifist Run, they'll take great pains to avoid telling the Child this and either hope they'll either find another way or encourage the Child to cancel their journey in favor of staying Underground. Near the end, Alphys is the one who tells the Child the truth after feeling guilty for the Engineered Heroics she pulled on The Child.

M-Y

• Magnetic Hero: You can befriend every enemy and boss in the game.
• Magically Inept Fighter: All damage they dish out is physical in nature. This doesn't bring too much of a hindrance fighting monsters except with the Mad Dummy, who, as a ghost possessing a dummy, cannot be hurt by standard means.
• Martial Pacifist:
  • While sparing monsters is the encouraged option, the Child is more than capable of fighting back if pressed. Mettaton and Asgore are two crowning examples, the former being a Killer Robot and the latter being the king of all monsters. Even after these fights, they can elect to spare them, and they acknowledge that the child's unwillingness to kill has no effect on their overall strength, neither of body nor of character.
  • Even on a pure pacifist run, the Child will need to fight the king. And they will win.
  • The Child also will still be considered a pacifist if they fight monsters and then spare them before their HP hits zero. While this option is not available for some bosses or minibosses, this strategy can be used on random encounters.
• Meaningful Name:
  • Frisk. A "Frisk" is an event where you have a good time, something with lots of fun, which reflects the pacifist route. To "Frisk" is also to search a person or object for something concealed, which accurately describes how they go through the Pacifist route, figuring out their opponents' inner struggles and helping them find peace. In Scandinavian languages, to be "Frisk" also means to be "healthy" or "sound".
  • Frisk is also a Swedish family name that's derived from the Middle Low German word vrisch, of which one translation means "young", referencing Frisk's youth.
• Medium Awareness: Though at first player would assume that the flavor text only exists for the one playing the game, it becomes increasingly clear that the Human Child also knows what the flavor text box narrating their adventure is saying and is even capable of talking back to it — not that players get to see their dialogue. During battles, some enemy monsters also appear to react to what the flavor text says in the Checks, implying they too can read the flavor text. In at least two cases (and potentially the entire game), the flavor text is clearly interacting with the Child In-Universe.
  Flavor text: You said something like... "You look horrible." "Why are you even alive?" ... what? You didn't say that?
  Still just you, Frisk.
• Morality Pet:
  • Can become this to just about every monster, who were gearing up for war against humanity and under orders to kill the last human to take their soul. Anti-Villain Undyne stands out because she is the most passionate about taking the Child's soul to free her kind, as in a Pacifist run, the Child can befriend her to the point she'll come protect them from Asgore and ultimately change her mind about humans.
  • To Flowey after the Pacifist ending. Despite the sad fate he's been left to, he still has it in him to try to stop the resets by begging the Fallen Child/the player to stop and let Frisk live their life, rather than reset and take away their happy ending.
• Muggle in Mage Custody: They can have this kind of relationship with Toriel, who wants to keep them as her foster child.
• Muggles Do It Better: Because humans are physical, not magical (like monsters), their use of physical force is far stronger than any monster's, as evidenced by a No Mercy or high-casualty Neutral run. However, this means that humans are vulnerable to magic (hostile or benign) that monsters are generally immune to.
• Mysterious Past: We don't know a single thing about the Child's past – only that at one point they ended up on Mt. Ebott somehow. Only in the Playable Epilogue to the Golden Ending does anyone think to ask why a young child would visit a mountain rumored to kill anyone who climbs it, and they uncomfortably change the subject before getting an answer.
• Nice Guy: Play your cards right on the Pacifist route, and the Child can become a hero who solves nearly all of their problems with friendship, is kind to even their attackers, and befriends and forgives everybody.
• Not So Stoic:
  • While it's unknown who's is truly in control during the cutscenes, there's plenty of instances outside of the Genocide run where the child acts (somewhat) independently of the player in expressing themself, most notably in the True Lab: They display hesitation in the bathtub area, as their walking movement suddenly slows as they approach it.
  • They also approach Asgore and Photoshop Flowey without your input. It's implied by Flowey's dialogue before the Asriel boss fight that they even asked him "WHY (are you) still doing this?", hinting that the Child is angry or anguished by what's unfolding.
  • If you reloaded after killing Toriel, they'll look at Toriel as if they had "seen a ghost".
  • At the start of the encounter of Muffet, she will ask the Child "Why so pale?", implying that that they gave Muffet an Oh, Crap! expression off-screen. They seem to also be anxious when first fighting Mettaton and his Nigh-Invulnerability, since there are options to Cry and Yell, with the Cry flavor text hinting that the Child might've actually screamed ("Screaming is against the rules.").
  • If you spare Asgore in some neutral endings, he will note that they have a "hope" in their eyes right after suggesting them to live with him and his wife as their child.
  • If you gain 0 EXP, then Sans says, "even when you ran away, you did it with a smile" during his judgement. It's not clear if he was using a figure of speech (that they remained hopeful and/or kind even when they had no choice but to run from opponents like Undyne), or the Human Child is more expressive than their sprite suggests and he meant they literally smile.
  • An exclamation mark pops up over their head when a random battle encounter occurs, suggesting that the Human Child is startled by the monster's sudden appearance, afraid, or alert and ready to go. This gets replaced by a Slasher Smile in Waterfall and beyond during Genocide, signaling either the Child's corruption into a bloodthirsty killer or Demonic Possession by the Fallen Child.
• Omnicidal Neutral: It's possible to get a "kill everyone" ending without triggering the No Mercy ending.
• One-Man Army: On a No Mercy run, the Child's Determination, LV, and EXP are so high that they can effortlessly massacre countless monsters.
• Perpetual Expression: Retains a neutral expression no matter what, even in the face of emotionally powerful events, so that the player can freely project their own emotions onto them.
• Person of Mass Destruction: In the No Mercy route, they murder their way through the underground.
• Player Character: Because of the way the game handles Player and Protagonist Integration, the human is explicitly made out to be a separate entity from the player. This gets touched upon much more in the Pacifist and No Mercy routes. The Pacifist ending, for instance, reveals that the character's name is Frisk, regardless of what name you picked at the beginning of the game.
• Plot Allergy: To Temmies. This is unfortunate because they also like to pet humans, and without the allergy, they'd be completely harmless.
• The Power of Friendship: In a Pacifist run, this is the only weapon they need! It helps them restore Toriel, Asgore, Papyrus, Sans, Alphys, and Undyne from their Lost Souls forms, and they even manage to SAVE Asriel with it!
• Pragmatic Pansexuality: Several monster encounters have flirting as a possible ACT option, although the most it does tactically is give one of the generic monsters a yellow name in the credits and superficially changes the context of the Papyrus hangout to a date. There's also a date with Alphys on the True Pacifist route, although this only happens because Alphys thinks the human wrote the letter that they're delivering from Undyne. The human can also flirt with Toriel over the phone while in the Ruins.
• Protagonist Without a Past: Little is known as to why the human came to Mount Ebott. Even so, their past doesn't really matter in the long run.
• Raised by the Supernatural: They can get this treatment in the Pacifist Ending if they allow Toriel to take them in, causing them to live in a kingdom of eccentric monsters that are Made of Magic.
• Red Is Heroic: The child's soul is red, they are the protagonist, and they can be heroic if they take the Pacifist route.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni:
  • Because of their dull personality, the Human Child is the Blue oni to many characters, starting with Flowey's more talkative, Sadistic and teasing Red oni. However, being a playable character, you can make them more abrasive than, let's say, Toriel (whom you can call "mom" after flirting with her), making them a Purple oni.
  • However, they clearly are the Blue oni to the First Human's Red, the latter being more snarky in their comments (who become primal during a No Mercy run) and having a brighter sprite with opened eyes and a big smile on their face which contrasts with your character's darker sprite and bored expression.
• Replacement Goldfish:
  • For Flowey, of the Fallen Child. Poor guy couldn't let go, and up until just before the end of the game, he addressed the Protagonist like their long lost friend. This is most evident in a No Mercy Run, where Flowey treats you better because you're acting more like what he expects of a soulless version of the Fallen Child (ie like him).
  • For Asgore of his human child and/or Asriel if you spare him, most blatantly by his mention that he and his wife would take care of them like a family even though it's made clear beforehand that the queen had left after their children's deaths a long time ago and isn't coming back. Usually Flowey kills him at this point, but if he survives then Asgore himself realizes it's a fantasy and kills himself to give you his soul. In the Pacifist route, his encouragement to the Human Child is the same thing he said to Chara, including calling Frisk the future of humans and monsters.
  • An Easter Egg message you can find in an echo flower is from Flowey suggesting that Toriel tried to make you into one for her dead children. He seems to believe she also did this with both of them to the other humans and resents her for it; how much of this is the truth is questionable, though, as Flowey's very much an Unreliable Narrator.
• Ret Conjuration: This only comes up if you die or reload saves at certain points. Flowey used to have the same power, but Frisk's power takes priority over his. Flowey regains it in the form of six save states after taking the human souls from Asgore.
• Retroactive Precognition: They are able to remember any and all activity that that happens in the game except for a True Reset, regardless of whether you saved or if it's part of the same playthrough. This usually does little except change some dialogue here or there, such as expressing boredom during Mettaton's performance because you've already seen it.
• The Runaway: This, and maybe worse, is implied by Asriel as a possible reason why they climbed Mt. Ebott despite the legends surrounding it.
  Asriel: Why did you come here? Everyone knows the legend, right...? 'Travellers who climb Mt. Ebott are said to disappear.' [...] Why would you ever climb a mountain like that? Was it foolishness? Was it fate? [sad expression] Or was it... Because you...?
• Slasher Smile: Starting in Waterfall in the Genocide route, it's implied they smile in anticipation whenever a battle starts (a smiley-face Emoticon replaces the exclamation mark that usually appears above their head when a battle starts). This is interesting, as the smile emoticon is normally associated with the Fallen Child.
• Spared, but Not Forgiven: After Asriel's fight, you are given the option to tell him you do not forgive him for his actions as Flowey, and the game does not imply you are in the wrong if you do choose to not forgive him. Despite this, you are allowed to comfort him (or not) separately from the choice to forgive him or not, suggesting the Human Child might pity Asriel even if they might find it difficult or impossible to forgive him. There is also no option to attack or kill Asriel even after he loses all the souls and becomes mortal again, and he is seen alive even after he has reverted to Flowey, showing that even if you did choose to not forgive or comfort him, the Human Child has not gone back and eliminated Flowey on their own even offscreen, apparently trusting his Heel–Face Turn to stick. Assuming the Child is the one he's speaking to in the Winter Clock dialogue, they even let him hang out on the Surface and are on friendly enough speaking terms with him, regardless of your choice to have them forgive Asriel or not at the end of the game.
• Stoic: After all, although they sometimes shows emotions according to monsters, they has almost no other sprites where they would smile, get angry or scared.
• Technical Pacifist: The Pacifist route requires you to not kill anyone, but there's nothing saying you can't fight, and an Actual Pacifist cannot reach the Golden Ending on the first non-No Mercy run, as doing so requires Asgore at least be fought, though not killed. You can "Spare" several of the minor battles after thrashing them within an inch of their life. However, by doing this, you risk accidentally killing them, since the way that some enemies' health bars work, they can take more or less damage when they're already hurt. The most infamous example is Toriel, but it may be because the Child puts all their power into the finishing blow.
• Thou Shalt Not Kill: Naturally possible, the ability to play this completely straight in an RPG is one of the selling points of the game. Doing so is even necessary for the Golden Ending.
• Tomato Surprise: They have an identity that is not the person you named at the beginning of the game — their name is Frisk. You named the Fallen Child, and even they are revealed to be their own person, not just a self-insert for you.
• Took a Level in Badass: Can take multiple physically if the player kills Monsters.
  • Takes a definitive one in the True Pacifist ending; in the mandatory prerequisite Neutral run, Flowey could manipulate save files freely in their presence with the six SOULs in his possession. By the time they face Asriel in the Pacifist ending itself, Frisk's Determination is so high that the former mentions that he must defeat them to have any meaningful control over the timeline despite him having the equivalent of seven SOULs within him.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: In the No Mercy run, the protagonist becomes remarkedly less friendly with everyone. They can take several pieces of snow from the snowman, completely turning them into "useless pile of snow", and climb roughly on Monster Kid. Sans even describes them as "emotionless" and no one recognizes them as human despite them having a human body and soul.
• Took a Level in Kindness: When you play a Pacifist Run after a No Mercy or particularly dusty Neutral Run. Flowey lampshades and taunts you to take this on your second run after a Neutral:
  Flowey: Remember. DON'T kill anyone. I can't believe this is a REAL thing I have to remind you.
• Transformation of the Possessed: While it's not evident by looking at the sprite, their appearance is implied to become disfigured over the course of a No Mercy run due to their murderous desire. Asgore won't even recognize them as human by the time they reach his lair.
• Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: One has to wonder where a kid got so good at flirting and/or knife-fighting.
• Vague Age: They are never given an age and only ever described as a child. This is probably done for the same reasons as Ambiguous Gender.
• Villain Protagonist: If you choose the No Mercy route. They go out of their way to kill every monster they can and are clearly satisfied when there are no monsters left in the area.
• The Voiceless: They can speak — you can often have them talk to other characters via ACT options, occasionally given dialogue options outside of encounters, and sometimes they speak to other characters on their own — but nothing they say is ever actually written out on screen.
• You Remind Me of X:
  • In Undyne's hangout in Pacifist, she compares them to Asgore after they choose the same tea he likes, and says that the Child and Asgore are both big-hearted wimps.
  • If you haven't killed anyone, using Talk on Asgore during his fight reminds him of someone and causes his attack and defense to drop. If you spare him and he decides to give you his soul to leave the Underground, he tells you that the look of hope in your eyes reminds him of the human who fell in the Underground long ago — in other words, his human child. Considering that the Human Child looks similar to them as seen by their sprites and mentioned by Asriel, Asgore's initial shock at seeing the Child might have been mistaking them for his child.

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Despite everything, it's still you

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