I really don't want an editing war to escalate around Sans' level of power compared to other characters, so I'm just going to say my piece here:
Even if some of the other bosses we see in the game are "holding back" in some way, there's no way to prove that they're any more or less powerful than Sans. However, we do see Undyne fighting with all her might in the Genocide run, and as the captain of the royal guard, logically she should be a better fighter than most anybody in the Underground except Asgore and possibly Toriel. Papyrus might be close to her prowess but this is unprovable and also unlikely given he has spent far less time training. Asgore and Toriel are both clearly holding back during their respective fights, yes, but their methods of fighting are completely different from Sans'. Both of them fight using standard physical and magical methods of an RPG character, taking away as much HP as possible while also having a lot of defense and HP of their own. Sans completely breaks the rules of the RPG by not having a base maximum amount of HP he can take away from you per attack (unlimited chip damage), not allowing you to have mercy invincibility, "poisoning" you in a system where poison is not a standard factor, dodging attacks in a game where dodging is not possible for enemies, bending reality to his will by altering attacks-mid turn and changing gravity, and then ultimately, stopping the battle entirely so that you're left in a stalemate. In addition, his Gaster Blasters are faster and provide you with less reaction time than, as far as I can tell, any other attack in the game. Given what we've seen, it's exceedingly unlikely any other character in the game has these abilities, and regardless of whether or not Asgore and Toriel are holding back, comparing the strength of two completely different fighting styles is very difficult to do in the hypothetical.
However, consider the following: we do know for a fact that both Asgore and Toriel's attack and defense are 80 and 80. That is actually less than Undyne's when she's in her Undying form, which is 99 and 99. Following the numbers that we see in the game, Undyne is actually stronger than Toriel and Asgore. And the game actually supports this as well: in the Pacifist run, Undyne tells you about how, during her training, there came a point at which she was actually able to overpower Asgore in a fight, and she felt really bad about it. And she talks about it as if it happened quite a long time ago, so she's only gotten stronger since. Therefore, we do have two battles that we can compare fairly as bosses who aren't holding back at all when they fight you, and even though Undyne's fight isn't at all easy, it is still demonstrably less difficult than Sans, simply because he doesn't follow the rules. Even if Undyne has more raw strength and better armor than Sans, he is still a better combatant. In terms of how well he can kill you, he is the strongest known monster in the underground.
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You're right. What's explicit in the game is way more important than what users like ~Kaneki Kun may consider "obvious", and all this crap was cut because Kaneki Kun disagreed with it in the first place. One person disagreeing with something is not grounds to cut it.
Migrated to Chloe Jessica!
There's no confirmation of who is the strongest character in Undertale. About some bosses:
Toriel
All she wants is to prevent the protagonist from leaving the Ruins since she really cares about them (even her battle theme name is "Heartache").
Papyrus
It is stated by Undyne that Papyrus is pretty strong, but he just too nice for a serious fight. No matter how much he fought, he'll never be able to bring himself to kill the protagonist.
Undyne
Even if the protagonist can't move in Green Mode, Undyne still gives them spear to block her attacks. She even does this as Undying. What will happen if she activates the green mode without giving the protagonist a spear?
Asgore
In the beginning of the fight with Asgore, he destroyed the MERCY button, showing that he also able to do Interface Screw like Sans but stopped right there due to his reluctance to fight.
Sans
And here's the subject. As you said, he breaks the rules of the game and fights dirty. Nevertheless, that doesn't make him the strongest enemy. Just imagine, if someone who's strong but fight fair clash with someone who's isn't very strong but cheats, and the latter is the winner, would it really make the cheater is the strongest? The only way to defeat Sans is that the player also has to break the game rules themselves. As stated in his Weak, but Skilled section, he's technically really the weakest enemy. It just that he fights the protagonist unfairly that he seems the strongest.
I'm sorry for the late reply and self-righteousness regarding my edit.
Edited by KanekiKun
Hello, sorry for the delayed response. I have nothing to blame except for my laziness. Don't feel bad about the edit, it happens to all of us.
Your argument seems to be "Asgore is stronger than Sans in terms of raw absolute power", which I agree with, but I don't think that means we should revoke his title as the strongest monster, and here's why:
If you were to pit ANY two characters or people together, the circumstances on who would be the strongest would be determined by the rules of the fight and what exactly they're fighting with. I might be able to beat a WWE champion at Starcraft and if a wiki article was made ranking every person's ability to play Starcraft, I would then be placed over him and therefore, in that particular context, be stronger than a WWE fighter. However, there's no way I could beat a WWE champion at practically anything physical for obvious reasons, and under that context, he would be the stronger of the two.
For perhaps a more clear analogy, if Hulk and Batman were to arm wrestle, Hulk would obviously win. However, if you were to make a wiki page and were to make a comment about who was considered the better superhero, regardless of your opinion you would need to take into account more than just their physical strength - you would also take into account Batman's intellect, weaponry, agility, finances, etc, and to neglect to do so would not be very appropriate.
If Sans and the other characters in the game were in a tournament in which they were closely restricted to the rules of the game (the ones that Sans wins by breaking), yes, it would be a much harder to predict who would come out on top, but if it were a free-for-all if every character could do anything within their ability, Sans would indubitably come on top because of his own unique abilities. And since this is an RPG, and whenever we talk about a character's strength on a RPG's TV Tropes page, we are always talking about their difficulty as denoted by the gameplay unless otherwise specified. Does this make sense?
I think its fair to have a note somewhere on the page clarifying that there's ambiguity as to whether or not Sans or Asgore is stronger when talking about the unbroken rules of the game, which is why there was one for the longest time. But aside from that, I really don't see any reason to have all that information removed when its consistent with every other character page and most every other character page in every other RPG on the website.
Edited by FossilsDaDaDa
Cat Commissar
Should we add Dangerously Genre-Savvy in his trope list? I checked History, and there was Dangerously Genre-Savvy trope once, which got deleted because "it's a villain trope". However, the Laconic of DGS says " *usually* a villain", and Sans does break and exploit the RPG game conventions.
Meow. )=< Hide / Show Replies
Heroic BSoD seems to be an overexaggeration to Sans' reaction for Papyrus' death.
1) We have no proof of this. 2) Sans leaving the game afterwards doesn't imply he can't function. He just doesnt consider you a friend anymore. The game text suggests he is actively stalking the protagonist, which means he is perfectly functioning, whether with Tranquil Fury or not. 3) Sans is used to resets and he in full denial until he realizes there is no turning back.
The right trope for Sans' mental state after his brother's death is Heroic Safe Mode. I think some of the stuff on this page goes a bit...overdramatic about this. I will be changing the text for now.
Edited by bellemoonflower
Can we please update the image to have Sans's torso centered on his hips like a PROPER character portrait?
(or is that the joke?)
We've come to a point where this page is just too fucking long. I'm currently out of computer so I can't do it by myself but I think it's high time we made folders in the order of alphabet to navigate on this page easier.
There's something of an edit war over Sans' status as a Celibate Hero going on, regarding how seriously we should take Toby's comment that he's too lazy to be in a relationship. Correct me if I'm wrong, but as far as I can tell, the game gives absolutely no indication towards his level of interest in romance whatsoever - positive or negative. The closest we get is a slight Ship Tease between him and Toriel at the end of the game that, in my opinion, could be interpreted equally validly as romantic or platonic (If it helps my case, I don't ship Soriel at all, but even I can tell that Toby meant for it to potentially interpreted either way - Undyne even tells Asgore "Don't feel bad, there's other fish in the sea" immediately after the first time Toriel and Sans interact, clearly in response to it). Again, don't quote me on this, but that's literally the only time in the game we get even the most remote indication of his interest in romantic relationships.
Also, regarding the possibility that it was just a joke, I'd like to point out that Toby made that tweet in response to somebody asking him "Which of the skeletons is more of a slut?", so... yeah.
Edited by FossilsDaDaDa
So...what do you guys think of adding Took a Level in Cynic on the page? It's pretty much implied in the game (and by Word of God himself) that he was less of a cynic and maybe even an idealist with time-travels and such but Flowey's resets took the life out of him. Or is it too YMMV for it?
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It's more or less outright stated in the game, so, yeah, definitely put it there. Out of curiosity, what Word of God statement are you referring to?
I'm talking about the famous: " You've all seen the happiest outcome. Neither of them could fix the machine, no matter how hard they tried. No one can."
Is it REALLY necessary to put a [sic] note for every single improperly uncapitalized letter in Sans's quotes? It's just overkill, and makes a lot of them annoying to read.