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Undertale / Tropes A

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You can view the main article here.
Tropes A here
Tropes B here.
Tropes C-F here.
Tropes G-N here.
Tropes O-Z here.

Note: "No Mercy" and "Genocide" are two names for the same, officially unnamed, route of the game.
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    Trope # 
  • 100% Completion: Deconstructed. If you want to see everything the game has to offer, you'll have to play through the game several times and take different actions, which is par for the course for most games with multiple endings; however, both Undertale and its characters remember your previous runs…
    • Certain NPCs will notice that you've played the game before. And will "point out" the illogicalities of 100% Completion in the context of the world, to put it lightly.
    • This is outright discussed on the No Mercy run during the segment in New Home. Flowey points out that he tried helping everyone, but eventually that got boring, so he tried killing everyone. He did everything he could differently in every way he could think of until he exhausted every possible outcome and began to see the people of the underground as predictable, scripted actors repeating the same dialogue over and over, so he mostly sat around waiting for something to happen. This makes him a pretty clear in-universe stand-in for the type of player who plays a game to death just to squeeze every ounce of gameplay and dialogue out of it, no matter how callous or cruel the actions they take are. Eventually, even Sans calls you out for doing this not because it's fun or challenging, but because you can – taking the No Mercy route removes most NPCs, changes the fun music to slow, ominous chords, removes all the minigames, and makes all minor battles stunningly easy; in short, it takes away everything about the game that makes people want to play it and makes it actively demoralizing, so Sans knows that the only reason anyone would have gotten this far is because they want the 100%.
    • The game does provide a pacifist completionist goal, however; in the true credits, monster names will be either yellow or white depending on if you've fulfilled a specific condition to make them especially happy or took an easy way out. To make every monster's name yellow, one has to encounter every monster — with some exceptions, such as So Sorry — at least once and fulfill all of their conditions. There's no special bonuses to this, but a yellow name run can be considered a reverse genocide run; while in the latter you intentionally find every last monster in order to hunt them down and slaughter them, in the former you intentionally find every last monster in order to be nice to each one individually.
  • 20 Minutes into the Future: It's an easy to miss detail, but with the reveal that the human seen falling into Mt. Ebott in the intro is Chara (or whatever you named them), it also means that Frisk didn't end up in the Underground in 201X, they ended up in there far later. In spite of this, the surface looks just like the Present Day, though the time period may explain why the monsters were able to develop advanced machinery (such as Mettaton's body).
  • 11th-Hour Superpower: During the final boss fight in the pacifist run, if you run out of HP, your determination stops you from dying and you revive with full HP. The second phase starts off hopeless, with you unable to do anything. Even saving the game is impossible, but then you realize you can save something else. Your ACT command then turns into SAVE, with a new icon and flashing colors, which allows you to reach inside Asriel and "save" the souls he's absorbed and eventually Asriel himself.

    Trope Ab-Al 
  • Ability Mixing: When two or three monsters attack at once, their attacks mix together. Migosp and Jerry are built around this.
  • Abnormal Allergy: The Temmies are enemies whose only "attack" is that they trigger the player character's allergies when they try to cuddle. That's reasonable. Where it gets ridiculous is when you speak to one of them in Temmie Village, and she admits that she's also allergic to Temmies... including herself. She breaks out in hives immediately after saying that.
  • Absolute Xenophobe: The humans of this world in general seem to be this. The War of Humans and Monsters was caused because the humans were paranoid about monsters stealing their souls, and according to Asriel, Chara hated humanity. The Player Character seems to be the only exception (on the True Pacifist Route, anyway...).
  • Absurdly High Level Cap: The level cap is 20, in a game where it's entirely possible (and encouraged) to win at level 1. Getting to the maximum level requires killing every enemy in the game, including the Final Boss, at which point there's no one left to fight.
  • Absurdly Ineffective Barricade: Papyrus's fences, which are built with posts much too far apart to stop you. One hopes that they're close enough together to at least stop Papyrus, given how much bigger he is than you, but since he's a skeleton it's unlikely.
  • Absurdly Sharp Blade: Exaggerated. You can destroy the world with a dagger.
  • Accent Upon The Wrong Syllable:
    • The Temmies speak in this manner, which is an impressive feat given that they only get speech blips instead of voiced lines. This is probably the least weird thing about their speech patterns.
    • In a random event in Snowdin, you can get called and hear the "Wrong Number Song". It isn't voiced, and the simplistic nature of the composition makes it difficult to tell where the downbeat is. If one assumes the song starts on the downbeat, the word emphasis gets very strangenote :
      Oh it's the wrong numBER, THE wrong number song. We're veRY veRY sorRY that we got it wrong!
    • During Mettaton's musical number, again only clear via the music:
      Mettaton: They'll put you / in the dunGEON...
  • Accessory-Wearing Cartoon Animal:
    • There’s a mouse in Snowdin Town only wearing a scarf.
    • In a puzzle room in Hotland, there’s a fox (head) that wears sunglasses.
    • There’s a cat monster in MTT Resort wearing shoes and glasses.
    • Snowdrake’s father in MTT Resort wears glasses, a bow tie, and shoes.
    • A mole can found in the resort wearing a hard hat.
    • Chilldrake, an enemy who only shows up if Snowdrake dies, basically looks like Snowy wearing sunglasses.
    • Gyftrot wears all sorts of things, though this isn’t its choice.
    • So Sorry can wear random hats if you encounter him.
  • Accidental Murder:
    • Some of the monsters are really not trying to kill you in their encounters, but their bullet patterns happen to be lethal (at least to humans, which you are).
    • Toriel only wants to scare you into backing down and returning to the house in the Ruins, as she plans to destroy the entrance to Snowdin to protect you from the monsters. She will react with My God, What Have I Done? if she accidentally kills you during the fight with her, but it's only noticeable for a split second before the game cuts to the Game Over screen.
    • Players experienced with Role-Playing Games in general will get a rude awakening during the first boss fight. The standard method of 'proving' your strength/worth is to beat the opponent to a sliver of their health, then spare them. The first boss is designed to be instantly killed the moment her health reaches about 30%. Most players feel like a scumbag, reload, and then get another rude awakening, unless they've been going for the No Mercy route.
  • Accidental Public Confession: Multiple:
  • Achievement Mockery: Toby makes his disdain for achievements and trophies very obvious in the Sony systems’ trophy list. Once you earn them to make them visible, that is.
  • Achievements in Ignorance: At the end of the True Pacifist Route, Napstablook is the only one who doesn’t know your name. Why? When they saw the “flash of light” (presumably Asriel’s power) make the snails on the farm disappear, they just closed the blinds and went on with what they were doing.
  • Achievement System: In the Sony versions of Undertale. Not that it’s taken seriously.
  • Achilles' Heel: Mettaton in his normal form is impossible to damage, and his lasers can immediately halve your health (and possibly more). However, just flip that switch, and he goes into his EX form. It does have flashier attacks and looks fabulous, but he can’t hit nearly as hard, you can now dodge his attacks, you can damage him, and he has insufficient power supply. Heck, even his EX form has an Achilles' Heel: his heart-shaped core is his weak point.
  • Acme Products: There are a lot of MTT-brand products in the underground.
  • Action Bar: In the battle menu, there is one at the bottom, showing the FIGHT, ACT, ITEM, and MERCY options.
  • Action Commands: When attacking, an eye-like meter will appear over the menu, and a bar will run across it. Confirm the attack when the bar is near the middle, and you do more damage. Don't press anything, and you won't attack. Most weapons change this system a bit, such as requiring mashing of the attack button to deal more damage (Tough Glove) or sending multiple bars at once (Ballet Shoes).
  • Action Figure Speech: Some of the mouthless NPCs do this.
  • Action Girl:
  • Actually Pretty Funny: Quite a few examples.
    • During the first encounter with Papyrus, he is trying to get Sans to work on his puzzles, but Sans keeps blowing him off hilariously.
      Sans: hey, take it easy. i've gotten a ton of work done today. a skele-ton.
      Papyrus: SANS!!!
      Sans: come on. you're smiling.
      Papyrus: I AM AND I HATE IT!
    • If you ask Gerson about the Delta Rune, he calls Asgore Dreemurr “Ol’ King Fluffybuns.” If you ask him about it, he says it’s a great story, but he doesn’t remember it. However, you can get the story in the Playable Epilogue of the Golden Ending: One day, during the King and Queen’s monthly address, after Toriel finished her part, as she was passing the microphone to Asgore, she accidentally said into it, “Your turn, Fluffybuns.” As the whole audience burst into laughter, Asgore rose his arms to silence the room, then said, “I, King Fluffybuns...”
    • During the fight with Sans on the Genocide Route, there is a Mid-Battle Tea Break, and he offers to spare you, saying he still believes there’s a good person inside of you. If you accept the offer, he commends you for it and asks for a hug… before slamming you with an undodgeable attack that kills you, the same way you killed his brother. He then speaks to you in the Game Over screen and drops his iconic line: “geeettttttt dunked on!” It’s supposed to trigger a Rage Quit and you still have to redo the fight, but the music and the way the line is delivered is drop-dead hilarious.
  • Actual Pacifist: The player can be this if they choose to. After all, that’s the whole point of the game: you can defeat your enemies by talking instead of fighting. While you do have to fall into Technical Pacifist territory to get the Neutral Ending (and by extension, the Golden Ending) due to the fact that you have to attack Asgore to progress, you load your SAVE file afterward, which undoes the fight with the king, allowing you to beat the game without harming anyone.
  • Adam Smith Hates Your Guts: The spider goods in Hotland are 9999G apiece. This is especially ridiculous when there are two other shops in Hotland. You can even get spider goods in the Ruins, so you have no reason at all to buy this food.
  • Adaptation-Induced Plot Hole: An extremely minor example. Since the PlayStation versions replace all dialogue referring to the F4 key, the "secret fourth frog" Brick Joke during the Playable Epilogue comes off as completely random. Then again, if you haven't been told about the "secret fourth frog" in the early game, it's absurdly unlikely that you'll find it to begin with, so it's even less of an issue than one might think.
  • Added Alliterative Appeal: During Papyrus' spiel about capturing a human, he gets so excited he breaks into alliteration.
    Papyrus: POWERFUL! POPULAR! PRESTIGIOUS!!! THAT'S PAPYRUS!!!
  • Adjacent to This Complete Breakfast: The E3 announcement of Undertale being ported to PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita jokingly stated that the game was part of a complete breakfast, which consisted of cereal, waffles, and four glasses of orange juice.
  • Adopt the Dog: The player can do this at several points, depending on how they play. For example, the Player Character could go through the Ruins killing monsters like a normal RPG, feel guilty when called out by Flowey, and reset to do the Ruins again without hurting anyone.
  • Adopting the Gender Binary: Ghosts, such as Napstablook, are genderless by default and use they/them pronouns. However, some ghosts take on binary gendered identities once they possess a physical body, such as Mettaton, who went from they/them to he/him, and Mad Mew Mew (formerly known as the Mad Dummy), who went from they/them to she/her.
  • Advancing Wall of Doom: Mettaton’s multicolored tile puzzle has a firewall that moves toward you. However, if you don’t win, Alphys will deactivate it before it actually harms you.
  • Aerith and Bob: The monsters' names. Toriel, Asgore, Undyne, Sans, Papyrus, Napstablook… Aaron and Jerry. And, of course, there's the Temmie that is literally named Bob. And, of course, the player character can be named whatever you want, although the Canon Name of Frisk and Chara is an example as well, as Frisk barely sounds like a name, while Chara is a more reasonable-sounding one (even if it's actually short for "Character," it sounds similar to the actual name Kara).
  • Affectionate Gesture to the Head:
    • Toriel gently pets the player on the head when they first enter her house and she shows them their new room.
    • Parodied during the "date" with Alphys. Undyne hugs a depressed Alphys and pats her on the head… then tosses her into a trash can like a basketball before shouting an encouraging speech at her.
    • In an Easter Egg in the True Lab, lying down in one of the beds causes a ghostly creature to appear beside it, and slowly reach out to Frisk… to reach down to tuck them in, and pat them on the head. It would be cute, if it weren't creepy as well.
  • After Boss Recovery: Toriel, Papyrus, Undyne, Mettaton, and the Mad Dummy all have a Healing Checkpoint right after their fights.
  • Alchemic Elementals: There are three fire monsters in the game: Grillby, Heats Flamesman, and the unnamed green schoolgirl in Hotland.
  • Alignment-Based Endings: There is the Neutral Route, the True Pacifist Route, and the Genocide Route. The first of those has several variations, largely based on who you did and didn't kill.
  • All Is Well That Ends Well:
  • All-Loving Hero:
  • all lowercase letters: Sans and Napstablook speak in this way. For Sans, it's to show his laziness and apathy, especially when contrasted with Papyrus, who has No Indoor Voice. For Napstablook, it's to show that they're timid and are always speaking softly.
  • All-Natural Gem Polish:
    • In Waterfall, there are gems in the ceiling that are so shiny, they’re the Underground’s equivalent to stars.
    • There are luminescent gemstones in one room that were apparently used by monsters for light sources in the early days of the Underground.
  • All There in the Manual:
    • The demo for Undertale included a 19-page instruction manual about the characters featured in the demo (being Flowey, Napstablook, and Toriel), how to attack, credits, and more. On the page that describes the enemy's turn, almost the entire page is scribbled over. Flowey appears at the bottom of the page, saying some people vandalized the page. The only thing readable on the page is the phrase 'friendliness pellets.' Another notable feature is the final page, which reads, 'a note from your friend.' It shows Flowey, smiling, introducing himself, looking forward to meet you in the game.
    • If the player chooses to play the True Pacifist Route, the final page changes to a note from Flowey that simply reads: "Don't get too cocky."
    • If the player chooses the Neutral Route where they decide to kill Toriel, the final page changes to Flowey with an evil smile, laughing about how you decided to murder her.
    • If the player chooses the Genocide Route, almost every page changes to the last thing seen before the player quits the game, which is the Undertale title screen, and underneath it, it reads in red text: "That was fun. Let's finish the job." The last picture changes to a picture of Flowey without a face.
  • All There in the Script:
    • The sprite filenames are labeled "gasterblaster" for one type of bullet used by a certain late-game boss. It's the laser cannon that Sans uses, and is one of the clues hinting at a relation to W.D. Gaster.
    • The canon name of Photoshop Flowey is only given within the credits.
    • The humanoid figure that is seen in Reaper Bird's attacks has its sprite labled Everyman.
  • All There in the Stinger: Oftentimes after a Genocide Route, a player will do the Golden Ending to make up for it. However, The Stinger will either show Frisk become possessed by the Fallen Child and giving one of the most unnerving evil laughs in video game history, or shows a picture of the main cast with their faces crossed out and the Fallen Child standing where the Player Character should be. Either way, it shows you cannot escape the consequences of the Genocide Route and you can never get the Golden Ending again… unless, of course, you mess with the files.
  • All Webbed Up: On your way through the Hotland, you find an area that's full of spiderwebs. You have to try and cross the one that blankets the entire path in order to proceed, and the result is… predictable. During the fight against Muffet, your soul indicator is restricted to jumping from one "web" to the next, and one of the ACT options is "struggle", which just makes her laugh.
  • All Work vs. All Play: Papyrus and Sans, or at least it seems so at first. Papyrus is a Workaholic who doesn’t even sleep, while Sans is a chill, lazy Pungeon Master who hardly does any work and knows everyone. His favorite activity is doing nothing. Somewhat Subverted, as Papyrus still has time to hang out and cook with Undyne, as well as actively watching MTT and interacting on Undernet. As for Sans, it is implied that he may have raised Papyrus and could have even been an engineer, and he has at least four confirmed jobs In-Universe (albeit sleeping on duty and taking frequent breaks).
  • All Your Colors Combined: The souls of the other six humans who fell into the Underground are Color-Coded for Your Convenience. If you play the snowball-golf game just right, it will reveal that each of them corresponds to a specific virtue: Patience (aqua), Bravery (orange), Integrity (blue), Perseverance (purple), Kindness (green), and Justice (yellow), as well as the soul of the Player Character, which is red. At the climax of the game's initial run, Flowey absorbs the souls and uses their power to become godlike. During the battle, you call out to each of them one by one, and once they've each come to your aid, they rebel against Flowey, reducing him to his original form. And of course, the power of all seven of them together is capable of shattering the barrier, freeing the monsters from their underground prison.
  • All Your Powers Combined:
  • Allergic to Evil: A monster's body and soul are interconnected, so their mental state is directly tied to their physical strength. As such, a person with a particularly strong Killing Intent is capable of dealing incredible damage to a monster's body. This is why killing monsters makes you stronger; you become more distant emotionally and treat them more as obstacles.
  • Alliterative Name:
  • Almost Dead Guy: Every single major boss after dealing the final blow. All of them hang in long enough to gasp out their last words to you, either encouraging you to keep going or damning you for what you've done to them.
  • Almost Kiss: Undyne and Alphys almost get to share a kiss near the end of the True Pacifist run, but Toriel interrupts them because the human is watching.
  • Almost Lethal Weapons: This runs through all combat in the entire game. The stick you attack with at the beginning of the game can destroy the world with one strike, while the Player Character at the end of the Genocide Route can survive being repeatedly slammed into bones and blasted by Wave Motion Guns. Justified, however, because monsters are Allergic to Evil and Killing Intent cuts through them like butter, while humans are much more hardy and full of determination.
  • Alone with the Psycho:
    • Nearly every time you interact with Flowey, though thankfully he usually uses these occasions to make some sort of speech.
    • Pretty much anytime you interact with NPCs one on one on the Genocide Route. Especially with Monster Kid, who unknowingly walks alone through Waterfall with a Serial Killer. This is an interesting example because you're playing as the psycho.
  • Already Done for You: Several puzzles are done for you on the Genocide Route. It is implied that Flowey is the one behind it, due to the fact that one switch is depressed with vines. Yes, you are so evil on the Genocide Route that even FLOWEY is helping you.
  • Alternate Animal Affection: Nuzzling noses is apparently a common display of affection among the monsters, to the point where they even made a competitive event out of it. A Battle Couple you encounter were the runners-up one year. Asgore and Toriel were the multi-year, undisputed winners until their divorce. With them out of the way, Dogamy and Dogaressa finally took the title.
  • Alternate Timeline: Each time the player resets the game, starts a new playthrough, or reloads, they're creating a new timeline. Oh, and some characters have Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory.
  • Always Accurate Attack:
    • Unlike most RPGs, there's no accuracy or evasion stats; if you pull off the attack, it will hit, though a few enemies can No-Sell it. This is because, while monsters attack your SOUL with dodge-able bullets, you attack them directly and they don't try to avoid it (likely out of Mook Chivalry or ignorance to human methods of fighting), which is just one thing that makes you very powerful if you take advantage of it. In fact, one of the most startling things in the game is when Sans, the final boss of the Genocide Route, casually dodges your attack. No, he doesn't block it or anything, he just steps to the side as if it was nothing. After all, why should he stand there and take it if everyone else who did so died?
    • Flowey's signature attack is to surround you with a dense ring of bullets that is completely impossible to escape, which he then contracts either very quickly or painfully slowly. He uses it in cutscenes many times throughout the game, but something always stops him from dealing the killing blow, at least when he's using it against you. He turns it up to eleven in one cutscene by instead shrinking the playfield to the exact size of your heart, so you cannot move.
    • The No Mercy route's final boss' last actual attack, smacking you silly against the borders of the box, also deals unavoidable damage. Unfortunately for him, it also can't kill you. He also has a box-covering attack which he uses when you try to spare him, and this one will kill you.
    • The True Final Boss has an attack that covers literally the entire screen. Fortunately for you, it's only an HP to One attack. He will later pull off another unavoidable attack that reduces you to a fraction of an HP.
      • It's actually possible to dodge the former attack, but it requires some luck and involves dodging giant projectiles during a moment when you can't even see anything and your movement range is limited, so it may have been intended to be unavoidable. The latter literally covers your entire movement area, so there's no dodging it.
  • Always Check Behind the Chair: Several examples.
    • There is a Froggit in the Ruins who tells the Player Character that pressing F4 will give one a full screen. However, he believes F4 stands for “four frogs” and is nervous because he’s only seen up to three frogs in the room. However, there actually is a fourth frog, albeit the size of an ant, that you can find by checking a specific spot on the north wall. Later, the first Froggit asks if you ever found the fourth frog, implying he eventually found it.
    • There are several cameras in Snowdin and Waterfall that you later learn are used by Alphys to watch you.
    • One of Papyrus’ puzzles has a switch on a nearby tree that will solve the puzzle for you.
    • Sans has a workshop hidden behind his and Papyrus’ house. To access it, however, you need the key in Sans’ room, which in turn is unlocked by another key, which Sans will give to you if you haven’t killed anyone and you load your SAVE to see Sans’ judgement multiple times.
    • There is a room behind a waterfall in Waterfall that contains the Old Tutu.
    • In the second Bridge Seed puzzle, if you cross the pond on the right, there is a hidden healing item, the Abandoned Quiche.
    • Temmie Village is found on a hidden path in Waterfall.
    • On the second level of Hotland, there is a hidden room where one can fight So Sorry if their computer’s time setting is set on October 8, at 8:00-8:59 p.m. On the Nintendo Switch version, it is accessible for the whole day.
    • In MTT Resort, there is a hidden sign inside a wall that gives you a hint about finding So Sorry.

    Trope Am-An 
  • Amazingly Embarrassing Parents: Toriel and Asgore were this to Asriel and Chara, but in a different way than what this trope usually is. The two of them were Sickeningly Sweethearts who were constantly cuddling and nuzzling noses, enough that Gerson was almost glad for Toriel to leave Asgore.
  • Amazing Technicolor Battlefield: The first phase of the True Final Boss of the Pacifist Route has the background as a changing wave of colors while the boss moves around it. The second phase has the boss' wings with moving colors as well.
  • Ambidextrous Sprite: When Undyne’s sprite is facing left, her eyepatch disappears.
  • Ambiguous Ending: It’s not entirely clear what is happening at the end of the Neutral Route. From what Sans and others say in the call, it seems as if you’ve escaped the Underground, but the thing is, electronic signals can’t pass through the Barrier, so how are they calling you in the first place? Not only that, but how would you have gotten out? Asgore’s soul was destroyed by Flowey, and Flowey doesn’t have a soul at all. Did you even escape the Underground at all? Are you trapped in the Barrier? What’s going on?
  • Ambiguous Gender: The Player Character and Chara is only referred to in gender-neutral pronouns or as "The Human". This also applies to Monster Kid, as well as any ghost without a proper body.
  • Ambiguous Gender Identity: See Ambiguous Gender above. It should be noted that the Player Character is willing to wear an old tutu, and that they’re willing to “date” both Papyrus and Alphys.
  • Ambiguous Innocence: The entire game is a five-hour waltz with the many, many ways innocence can be played with. The obvious example is Flowey the Flower, but this quickly turns into a subversion. Flowey is well aware that he's doing terrible things. He just doesn't care.
  • Ambiguously Bi:
    • Papyrus claims that Mettaton is his "favorite sexy rectangle", and, while he ultimately turns them down, he makes zero comment on the player’s Ambiguous Gender when he thinks they're asking him on a date. Though it's hard to tell how much he means either one, considering Word of God on his ditziness.
    • The Player Character themself will flirt with tons of strange monsters, including Toriel after calling her mom and gelatin. Other than that, the human is willing to date both Papyrus and Alphys.
  • Ambiguously Related: Monster Kid and Goner Kid.
  • Ambiguous Situation: With the uncertain level of Player and Protagonist Integration, "you" becomes a rather imprecise pronoun, and a few conversations take advantage of this.
    • At the end of a Neutral run, if you spared Flowey, he'll speak to you. But it's not clear whether he's speaking to "you" as in the player, or "you" as in the player character. It is at least clear that he's not speaking to the Fallen Child, as if you do this enough times, he'll derisively point out that they were his Only Friend, and you aren't going to change that.
    • If you boot up the game again after a True Pacifist run, Flowey will appear and beg you not to True Reset. Again, it's unclear which "you" he's addressing: "you" the player, or "you" the Fallen Child. But since he pleads you to "let Frisk live their life", we at least know he doesn't mean them.
    • At the end of a No Mercy run, the Fallen Child will speak to you, giving you credit for their decision to devote their resurrection to killing. And if you boot the game up afterward, they'll eventually ask for your SOUL in exchange for resetting the world. Again, it's unclear whether they mean "you" the player, or "you" the player character. It's even possible they're invoking this trope, meaning "you" in one way and hoping you'll interpret it in the other.
  • Ambiguous Syntax: An actual plot point. The opening of the game asks you to "name the fallen human". Most people would think that this is referring to the Player Character. You're actually naming the Fallen Child, the human that fell down the mountain all those years ago. The protagonist is a separate person from the Fallen Child.
  • Ambiguous Time Period: 201X doesn't give the greatest sense of time, except telling us that the time period the game takes place in is in the New Millennium. This also, probably intentionally, muddies the water about how many decades or even centuries have passed between the opening cutscene and the beginning of the game. However, at the dawn of 2020 Toby Fox made a tweet confirming that though the exact year is ambiguous, the 201X time period means it was some point in The New '10s.
  • Amen break: "Your Best Nightmare/Finale".
  • Amicable Exes: Averted and then possibly Played Straight with Toriel and Asgore. In the events that happened before the game, Toriel abandons Asgore after he declares war on humanity when his son was killed by humans. In the final leg of the True Pacifist Route, Toriel and Asgore meet up again after a long time, but Toriel still hates her ex's guts for what he did and finds it near impossible to forgive him, especially after it's heavily implied that Asgore killed several children to harvest their souls so that he could break the barrier keeping his people trapped and go through with his plan. In the Golden Ending afterwards, Asgore wants to make amends and he can be seen trimming the hedges at Toriel's school, implying that the two of them may be working things out.
  • Anatomy of the Soul: The game goes into this a bit. According to Flowey, one’s soul is “the culmination of [their] being.” We also know that a single human soul has power equal to nearly the entire race of monster souls, a human or monster cannot absorb a soul from their own race, monster souls disappear immediately after death (except for Boss Monsters, whose souls last for a few moments), and humans have determination in their souls.
  • ...And 99¢: The Temmie Armor and the spider goods in Hotland are worth 9999G.
  • And Call Him "George": In an encounter with a Temmie, she will try to pet the Player Character. However, the human is allergic and this harms them.
  • And I Must Scream:
    • In the Pacifist run, the True Lab's Amalgamates cannot talk at first, and the player character doesn't even know their names. Their only contact with the outside world is Alphys, who feeds them and hides them from their families.
    • This happened to Flowey when he first woke up as a flower. He woke up inside a flower, unable to move or feel emotions, with no memory of what happened to him. When he called out for his mother and father to help him...
      "But nobody came."
    • The six SOULs that Asgore keeps in his palace. They were once children that Toriel raised, and they are not allowed to go beyond. During the fight with Photoshop Flowey, he uses them to attain godlike status, but they help by healing the player character and rebelling against their owner.
    • In the best ending, every monster plans on vacating the underground to live on the surface. Except for Asriel, who will eventually transform back into Flowey. Keep in mind, Flowey can apparently live a long time (perhaps forever), and it's not specified whether or not he can (or even if he wants to) get out of the Underground, although the Alarm Clock dialogue from 2020 indicates that he eventually left. He can move around on his own, that much is certain (he can be briefly seen following Frisk at several points in the game if Frisk backtracks), but it's not known to what extent.
  • And That's Terrible: “You thought about telling Toriel you watched her die. But... That’s creepy.”
  • Anger Born of Worry:
  • Animal Eyes: Several characters have these, such as Undyne and Catty.
  • Animal Facial Hair:
    • The king of the Underground, Asgore, is a goat person with a beard.
    • Gerson is a turtle with a beard.
    • A faun monster in Snowdin Forest seems to have a goatee.
    • One of the snails on Blook Acres has a mustache.
    • Dogamy has a thin broom mustache.
  • Animal Species Accent:
  • Animal Stereotypes:
    • Gerson is a wise turtle.
    • The Snowdin Canine Unit and Ice Wolf are simple-minded, big, and loyal dogs.
  • Animalistic Abomination:
    • There is a receptionist at MTT Resort that looks some kind of ungodly fish.
    • Gyftrot is a deer-like monster with horns resembling trees and a very strange vertical jaw.
    • Endogeny and Reaper Bird are demented versions of a dog and bird, respectively.
  • Animate Inanimate Object: Quite a few.
    • The Big Bad, Flowey, was a regular flower before being sprinkled with Asriel's dust and injected with Determination.
    • There is a rock in the Ruins that protests against being pushed around.
    • There is a talking snowman in Snowdin Forest.
    • There is a family of slime monsters in Snowdin Town, as well as a different type of slime in MTT Resort, and the janitor working there.
    • The Vulkins are talking volcanoes.
    • The two dummies. Justified in this case, as there are ghosts possessing the dummies.
    • The Moldsmals and Moldbyggs are gelatin monsters.
    • Tsunderplane is a Sentient Vehicle.
    • Pyrope is a flaming rope.
  • Animating Artifact: As revealed in the True Lab, determination is not only a personality trait, but an actual substance that can be found in the souls of humans. It’s ambiguously described as being the will to live/change fate. Throughout the game, it is shown to have interesting effects on dead or dying beings, such as bringing back the Amalgamates, and, after mixing with the dust left from Asriel’s death, reincarnating the dead prince in the body of the flower covered with said dust.
    Alphys: What happens when something without a SOUL gains the will to live?
  • Animeland: Undyne thinks the surface world is this, due to Alphys telling her anime is human history. The player can tell her the truth at the end of the date with Alphys, much to her dismay.
  • Animesque: Invoked.
    • Mad Mew Mew. This is because the boss is a ghost possessing an animatronic from Alphys’ lab that depicts the main character from her favorite anime.
    • Onionsan’s face clearly references anime, and their personality is based off the typical shy girl archetype, which is very common in anime.
    • Undyne bases her whole way of living and fighting on anime. See Action Girl for more details.
    • Mettaton’s EX and NEO forms. It’s very likely that Alphys based these forms on anime characters.
    • The True Final Boss invokes this due to who he is rather than trying to emulate anime style. The Final Boss, Asriel Dreemurr, had died when he was a child. When he, as Flowey, absorbs all 6 human souls and the souls of every single monster, he regains his true form which looks like something that came from an anime. The psychedelic background, the music, and the name of his attacks (as well as Calling Your Attacks) just screams cliched JRPG, but it makes total sense for it to happen since Asriel is still a child at heart and most children think anime and comic books are darn cool.
  • Antagonist Abilities:
  • Antagonistic Offspring: The Dreemurr parents, Asgore and Toriel, have two children: Asriel and Chara. Asriel is reincarnated as Flowey who has performed Genocide Routes of his own in alternate timelines, will kill Asgore if you spare him on your first Neutral Route, and attempts to steal both parents’ souls on the True Pacifist Route. Meanwhile, Chara is reincarnated as the Fallen Child, and kills all the monsters with the Player Character on the Genocide Route, destroying the world (and you, if you try to stop them) at the end.
  • Antepiece: An odd example. Whenever your SOUL mechanics are changed, you almost always have a chance to get used to them before the bosses throw their most dangerous attacks. Same with attack colors; blue attacks are first used by a mini-boss that is explicitly said to only be able to see moving things, while orange attacks are first seen as field obstacles. The only exception is the final battle of the Genocide run, who will happily turn your SOUL a new color and use difficult attacks despite the fact that you don't encounter this mechanic anywhere else in the run.
    • Probably intentionally done with the aforementioned final battle of the Genocide run (against Sans) to punish the player for doing a Genocide run before a Neutral or Pacifist run. In those runs, the same mechanic is introduced early on in the fight with Papyrus, and it follows the pattern as above. In a Genocide run, though, you heartlessly murder Papyrus without ever fighting him, and therefore the battle with Sans will likely catch you completely off-guard. Likely also due to the fact that Sans (if you're heartless enough to push him to fight you at all) is the only Combat Pragmatist in the game with genuine reason to kill you, while it's strongly implied that, even though the others say they want to kill you, most of them have never killed and don't fully understand or enjoy the reality of what it entails.
  • Anthropomorphic Food:
    • Snails are commonly eaten by Toriel. There is a sapient snail on Blook Acres.
    • The Vegetoids in the Ruins are sapient carrots.
    • The Moldsmals and Moldbyggs are lime gelatin monsters.
  • Anti Climactic Parent: A minor example. If you laugh at Snowdrake’s puns, he says, “Dad was wrong!” This makes father out to be a bit of a jerk. However, you can meet his father in MTT Resort, and while he is a bit rude about his son, he’s mostly just sad and wants his son back.
    Snowdrake’s Father: I’m a terrible fathah. Ha ha ha ha... That’s not funny.
  • Anti-Climax:
    • Played for Laughs with the instant noodles: if used in battle, they take a hilariously long time to prepare with no option to skip the text, including taste-testing them and adding the flavoring packets... all this for a healing item that restores 2-4 health, not enough to be worth it even on a Pacifist run (where you have really low max HP). Subverted if you eat the noodles in "serious mode" (fighting Toriel, Asgore, Asriel, or anyone on the Genocide route), in which case you eat the noodles raw (skipping the preparation sequence) and regain a respectable amount of HP.
    • Learning the secret of Sans's bedroom, which is incredibly obtuse. You enter his room and walk through a long, pitch-black darkness for half a minute, a loud droning noise getting closer and closer, suddenly everything goes black… and Papyrus turns on the bedroom light to show that his room is more or less normal (aside from the the self-sustaining trash tornado in the corner) and you've just been running on a treadmill; the entire thing was a prank. Double-subverted, though, because you find the key to the room behind his house where Sans keeps the broken time machine, a hint towards his unsaid backstory that's the reason he has such a depressed disposition.
  • Anti-Escape Mechanism: Undyne’s boss fight is one of the few that actually allows you to flee the battle. However, you cannot flee if Undyne turns your soul green, which removes the flee option, among other things. You have wait for her turn it back to red in order to run away and progress the fight.
    Undyne: As long as you’re GREEN you CAN’T ESCAPE!
  • Anti-Frustration Features:
    • In the Snowdin Forest, Papyrus presents three pathing puzzles. The second one, while not being very difficult in and of itself, has a solution that's only slightly less obvious than the other two. If you "absolutely, dapsolutely want the solution", Papyrus will reveal that instead of solving the puzzle proper, you can just flip a switch hidden in a tree.
    • In Temmie Village, if you buy the "item" that pays for college, it unlocks a new item called Temmie Armor. It has such high defense that Temmie repeatedly insists it makes the game too easy. It's extremely expensive, but the price lowers every time you die, so it's there as a last resort.
    • If you lose during Mettaton's final encounter, you can skip his opening monologue when you retry, which also applies to any subsequent playthroughs. Many other pre-boss cutscenes are similarly cut short if you have to retry, and both Undyne and Asgore conveniently let you save after they give their big speeches.
    • The "don't step on the leaves" puzzle in the Ruins will eventually just turn the entire floor solid if you fail at it enough times.
    • The "change in perspective" puzzle in the Ruins will tell you where the first switch is and clue you into the pillar-hiding mechanic if you walk past the pillar three times without figuring it out.
    • The pacifist run's final battle against Asriel will never take you into a game over screen at all, and has checkpoints every few rounds. It's a good thing for two reasons — the battle is preceded by 10 minutes worth of cutscenes, and there's a portion where you can't heal for 5 turns after an attack that takes most people down to 1HP and has a pattern that's almost impossible to dodge.
    • The game will hold your hand in some boss fights if it becomes clear that you are having difficulty trying to spare them.
      • If you kill Toriel, Flowey will sarcastically hint that you can go back and try again if you want to save her. If you do this, the battle descriptions will drop very heavy hints about the correct path to get past her.
      • If you try to talk to Toriel three times, the game will outright tell you that TALKing doesn't seem to be the solution.
      • The game will tell you that you cannot escalate Papyrus's fight by ACTing if you continue to try.
      • During Undyne's boss fight, she'll eventually keep repeating that you won't escape from her, hinting that you have to do so in order to spare her.
      • If you are particularly stubborn in being merciful to Asgore, the game will eventually tell you that "All you can do is FIGHT".
    • During the fight against Photoshop Flowey, you won't take any damage no matter how many times you get hit during the SOUL segments. Also, after a certain point, the game just closes down immediately when your HP reaches 0 instead of making you watch the Game Over screen again.
    • The distance to the Undyne fight on a No Mercy route from the nearest save point (Temmie Village) is a long way. To circumvent this, a new save point will be placed on the screen right before the one you fight her on. In addition, when you load after dying, she simply says, "You're gonna have to try a little harder than THAT!" instead of going through her whole speech again. The game will also forbid you from progressing towards the bridge until all encounters in Waterfall are killed. Dummy and Shyren can count to this if the kill counter isn't already exhausted as well.
    • If you do a No Mercy route, you won't be able to get the phone upgrades that let you access your Dimensional Box at any time on the map or give you access to a second Dimensional Box. To make up for this, the physical box will appear in a few places where it won't on other routes, such as the hotel, New Home, and the corridor right before the Final Boss.
    • If you're going for a no-save run, there are various points throughout the game where it creates an autosave. With the exception of the Photoshop Flowey fight, these are deleted whenever the game is closed; their main purpose is to save having to restart the entire game if you die. The majority of autosaves are made during Hotland, the CORE, and the True Lab, where there are more difficult encounters that often take multiple ACTs to spare.
    • If you do a perfect Pacifist run on your first playthrough of the game, you're able to entirely skip replaying it to avoid killing anyone and can instead go right into the route for the True Pacifist ending without having to start a new game at all. Flowey will even tell you what to do next rather than asking you not to kill anyone next time as he normally does.
  • Anti-Grinding: If you keep killing the Random Encounters, eventually the area will run out of monsters, limiting how much EXP you can earn. However, nothing stops you from repeatedly sparing monsters for Gold, other than the fact that you don't really need to unless you want the Temmie Armor.
  • Anti-Hero:
    • Flowey is left as one in the Golden Ending.
    • The Player Character can be this depending on their actions.
    • Mettaton is iffy on the morality scale, as he is willing to take the human’s soul for himself to go to the surface and leave all the other monsters behind. However, he is firmly against waging war on humanity or allowing Asgore to do so; furthermore, he does care about Alphys and is reminded of how much he values his fans at the end of his fight.
  • Anti-Love Song: The lyrics to Oh!Dungeon fit:
    Mettaton: Oh my love has fallen down! Now in tears we all will drown! Colored tiles make them a fool! If only they still knew the rules! Well, that was a sorry try... Now let’s watch them fry!
  • Anti-Mutiny: After the death of both his children, Asgore, in a Moment of Weakness, declares war against humanity. However, after Toriel leaves him due to her pacifistic beliefs, the king realizes that it’s a horrible idea, but the monsters still want him to do it.
  • Anti-Smother Love Talk: Toriel is Properly Paranoid about the Player Character leaving the Ruins, for fear of their soul being taken by Asgore. In this case, the player actually has to fight her, either killing her and showing you are powerful enough to survive, or sparing her and allowing her to come to the conclusion herself.
  • Anyone Can Die: A key part of the story. Almost all characters are fought at some point and can be killed in battle. Killing every possible character nets you the infamous Genocide Route, and killing most will get you a Downer Ending where the few who escaped your rampage are struggling to survive and hate you more than anything in the world.
  • Anyone Remember Pogs?: Sans has a pet rock. Papyrus even “feeds” it with sprinkles.
  • Anywhere but Their Lips: Zigzagged. Undyne and Alphys prepare to kiss on the lips towards the end of the Golden Ending, but Toriel stops them. Undyne finally kisses Alphys on the cheek during the credits, causing her to faint.

    Trope Ap-Ar 
  • Ape Shall Never Kill Ape: The monsters are normally pacifistic and kind to each other, but have no qualms about attacking a human child.
  • Apocalypse Anarchy: In some Neutral Routes, the Underground is left as this. This is one of the few ways one can break Sans’ Tranquil Fury policy and see him noticeably angry at you.
    Sans: go to hell.
  • Apocalypse How: The Genocide ending starts with you personally going for the extinction of all monsters, and ends with the Fallen Child pulling off something between Total Extinction of the Underground and Universal Physical Annihilation, in one attack. The only thing we know for sure is that, when you load up the game afterward, all that's left is a black void and a howling wind.
  • Apocalyptic Log: Two of them, both in the same hidden location. The True Laboratory has the written logs from Alphys and the audio tapes from before the deaths of Asgore's children.
  • Apologetic Attacker:
    • The early Random Encounter Whimsun doesn't want to fight, but feels it has to. Its battle dialogue consists of a lot of apologies, it can be spared right off the bat, and its attacks don't even try to hit you.
    • The Optional Boss "So Sorry", as per his name, apologizes for everything. He's not even trying to attack you at all, he's just incredibly clumsy.
    • Asgore manages to be a downplayed version in his normal boss fight; he's less direct about it, but he still makes it clear that he really does not want to fight the protagonist. His Lost Soul in the True Final Boss fight has lines like "Forgive me for this" and "This is my duty".
  • Applied Phlebotinum: A twist revealed near the end of the Pacifist route (but implied in other routes) is that there's actually a difference between being determined as a personality trait and actually possessing a thing called Determination. It's vaguely defined as "the will to keep living; the resolve to change fate" and apparently exists in some kind of distillable form like a chemical or hormone. Humans possess it in abundance and it's the reason you're able to SAVE and never die permanently, while monsters can only handle a certain amount before succumbing to a horrifying Phlebotinum Overdose since they're "made mostly of magic" and lack the physical matter to process it.
  • Appointment Television: Mettaton’s show is this for many monsters in the Underground, since there isn’t much else to do.
  • Arbitrarily Large Bank Account: The Tem Shop will pay infinite gold to buy your items, including enough to send her to college. This humorously implies she already had enough money to go to college, she was just too dense to realize it.
  • Arbitrary Augmentation Limit: Zigzagged. In-Universe, Sans says that LV 20 is the maximum amount of LOVE a person can get, and, indeed, this is true in game, but this is because by the time the Fallen Child is at LV 20, everyone is dead, including the Final Boss, so there’s no one left to fight.
  • Arc Symbol:
    • A strange symbol that is composed of three triangles and a circle with what appear to be wings coming out of it repeatedly pops up throughout the game, such as in shops and on Toriel's robe. In Waterfall, Gerson explains that this is called the "Delta Rune", and is a symbol of monsters since ancient times. According to a prophecy, the winged circle is an "angel" that will free the monsters (which are represented by the triangles) from the Underground. Others believe it's an angel of death that will slaughter them all. At the end of the True Ending, Asriel at first wears a robe very similar to his mother's, and eventually transforms into a horrific creature that bears a striking resemblance to the Delta Rune. At the end of the fight, he shatters the barrier and fulfills the prophecy. The "Angel" is also noted to have been to the surface, returning to free the monsters. Asriel is the only monster in the underground who had been to the surface, after the barrier was placed. Considering that he died soon after, it also makes him a literal angel upon his return in the game, when he shatters the barrier.
    • There's another recurring shape that — for the most part — isn't seen until late in the game. The unique shape of the determination extractor pops up in Photoshop Flowey's body, Sans's Gaster Blasters, and Asriel's Hyper Goner. It appears to be based on a goat skull.
    • Eyes seem to be significant, with the left eye possibly representing violence. The meter that appears when attacking is shaped like an eye, and on the No Mercy route, we not only see that Mettaton appears to be missing his right eye, but both Undyne and Sans get a brightly glowing left socket. When Sans is joking around on a normal route, he will wink by closing his left eye, but when he winks during his boss battle, he closes the right eye, leaving his left open. And finally, the player's attack option is always on the left and mercy is always on the right.
    • Flowers, although they don't carry the usual connotations of innocence (as Flowey demonstrates). The golden flowers are especially important. Their bright color contrasts with the muted palette; they have significance to Toriel and Asgore, and they twice save the Player Character from a fatal fall. (The second time they appear in a very unlikely place.) Flowers seem to be associated with wishes, e.g. the echo flowers, and/or heartache. There's also a distinctly different "golden flower" involved in the backstory — the buttercups that the Fallen Child poisoned themself with.
    • Lastly, there's a smiley face, of all things. Associated with Flowey, the Amalgamates and the Fallen Child. While the symbolism isn't exactly clear, all the things associated with it are demonstrations of what happens when Determination goes horribly wrong.
  • Arc Villain: Quite a few.
    • Papyrus is the main antagonist of Snowdin, though “villain” isn’t as accurate. He’s completely incompetent, and his traps and puzzles pose no threat at all, barring one exception. He does, however, put up a decent boss fight with his blue attack, which causes your soul to be affected by gravity. However, this difficulty is thrown away because if you lose the fight three times, Papyrus will just let you pass out of pity. Afterwards, the Player Character can befriend him.
    • Undyne is the main antagonist of Waterfall, and several times more competent than Papyrus. She chases down the human multiple times with magical spears, and she nearly kills them (the human would have died if golden flowers didn’t break their fall). She is also the hardest fight in the game at that point, and is often many players’ first Game Over. The final fight with her concludes the first thematic half of the game.
    • Mettaton is the main antagonist of Hotland, and one of the most hammy characters in the game. He is very popular within the underground and his brand is everywhere, especially Hotland. He confronts the human no less than five times, and his paid minions also cause the player grief. His final battle in the CORE gives him a new form, and he dances as he throws bombs, legs, disco lasers, and mini-Mettatons at you. If he is spared, he finally realizes the value of his audience and allows the player to pass, concluding the second thematic half of the game and segwaying into the end.
    • Flowey is the main antagonist of the Neutral and True Pacifist Route, in a rare case of being both this and the Big Bad. The Genocide Route reveals the Fallen Child as the Big Bad, making Flowey this.
  • Arc Words:
    • The word "Determination" comes up several times throughout the story in relation to the protagonist as well as humanity. Over the course of the game, the player comes to learn exactly what Determination is, how it makes humans and monsters different, and what the different parties involved in the story want from it.
    • "But nobody came." The phrase not only appears in a couple specific instances of the Pacifist/Neutral route (such as when you fight the three Memoryheads), but seeing that phrase in the encounter screen is a sign that you could be in a No Mercy runnote . If you make a call immediately after Toriel dies, you will get this as a message instead. It also crops up when Flowey talks about when he first woke up as a flower.
      Flowey: "Mom! Dad! Somebody help me!" I called out.
      Flowey: But nobody came.
    • "Don't you have anything better to do?" It's mostly just a catchphrase for Flowey, but it's present in a few other places as well, and ties in with one of the game's major themes.
    • Most of the characters in the game have at least one moment where they say the sentence "Here we are." The two noteworthy things about this phrase is that it's the title of track 83 of the game's soundtrack, the theme of the True Lab, and it's the text that appears when the player uses the Check action on the Real Knife in the No Mercy route.
    • "Hopes and dreams" comes up a lot. Undyne uses this phrase multiple times in all variations of her pre-battle monologue (except one) and during a neutral/pacifist battle. "Hopes and Dreams" is also the title of Asriel's first battle theme.
    • "I can feel everyone's hearts beating as one" gets repeated a lot in certain battles.
    • "Humans. Monsters. Everyone." comes up in a few places, most notably in the boss fights against the final boss in a Neutral run and Undyne the Undying in a No Mercy run.
  • Arcadia: Snowdin is a rare tundra variant. The Ruins could arguably count as this too, especially Toriel’s House.
  • Arcadian Interlude: Snowdin is the second chapter of the game, and the first after the Noob Cave. It definitely has a different vibe from the rest of the game, and it has separate Leitmotifs from the rest of the overworld themes. This is because Snowdin is designed to encourage the Spare mechanic; the calm and homey town of Snowdin shows that the Underground is not as dangerous as Toriel says it is.
  • Area of Effect: Several enemy attacks work like this.
  • Are You Sure You Want to Do That?: Downplayed example, Played for Drama. Sans gives us this during dinner with him at MTT Resort.
    Sans: Down here you’ve got food, drink, friends... Is what you have to do... really worth it?
  • An Arm and a Leg: During the final fight with Mettaton EX, you can blow his arms and legs off if you shoot his heart enough. This lowers the required ratings needed to spare him.
  • Armless Biped:
    • Deconstructed with Monster Kid. They faceplant many times when running, and cannot hold their own umbrella.
    • There is a mouse wearing a large scarf in Snowdin Town who doesn’t seem to have arms. They could be wrapped up in the scarf though.
    • Right next to the scarf mouse is a nacarat jester who also seems to be armless, but also could just have arms underneath their cloak.
    • There’s a Loox in the Snowdin library who doesn’t have arms.
    • Loren, a strange white monster in Waterfall, has no arms.
    • A strange, harpy-esque monster hovering on a hot dog next to Sans’ hot dog stand.
    • Charles, a monster resembling a mole in MTT Resort who works at the CORE
  • Armor Is Useless: There are some monsters covered in armor and checking their stats shows they got the defense to back it up. However, depending on what weapon you use and how high your LV is, you can take down those heavily armored monsters in just a few hits. It's explained In-Universe that someone with a ton of malice and hatred can easily destroy a monster's body and soul (sometimes in a single strike), even if said monster is supposed to be way stronger than the human that is attacking them. It is also explained that a monster is extremely sensitive to the emotions and feelings of those around them and they get weak if they face against someone who has a lot of negative energy. LV stands for Level of Violence (i.e. a stat for It Gets Easier), which explains why you can easily One-Hit Kill almost anyone if it gets really high.
  • Armor of Invincibility:
  • Armor-Piercing Question:
  • Armored Villains, Unarmored Heroes: The Player Character is a little kid wearing a what appears to be some kind of jumpsuit. They also face down many monsters in heavy armor, like Undyne or 01 and 02. However, this trope is downplayed in that the available armors actually increase your defense, while the armors of the monsters don't really protect them as they are affected by intent. This trope is also inverted if you are on a Genocide run, as you are now the villain of the equation.
  • Arms Dealer:
    • The Snowdin Shopkeeper, though the only weapon she sells is the Tough Glove, and the Player Character can get one for free towards the beginning of Snowdin Forest, so most players never buy it.
    • Gerson sells the Torn Notebook in his Dungeon Shop. Again, most people never buy this due to obtaining the much harder hitting Ballet Shoes earlier in the area.
    • Bratty and Catty sell the Empty Gun. Unlike the other two examples, though, it's more useful given that it's the last chance to get a good weapon before the boss fight.
  • Arrange Mode: In the Hard Mode, activated by naming the Fallen Human "Frisk", several enemies in the Ruins are replaced either by exclusive enemies, or enemies that would appear in the CORE outside of Hard Modenote . The end of Toriel's boss fight is interrupted by the Annoying Dog, and the game ends right there.
  • Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: At one point in Snowdin, Papyrus sets up a gauntlet of traps including such dangerous weapons as a cannon, a flamethrower, a spiked ball-and-chain, a spear, and... the Annoying Dog dangling from a rope.
  • Artificial Insolence: The player character sometimes acts independently of the player to show that they're not merely a Featureless Protagonist. This is normally strongly Downplayed, like slowing down as they approach something frightening, but becomes more pronounced throughout a Genocide Run, culminating in them spontaneously killing Asgore and Flowey as the Fallen Human takes full possession of the Child.
  • Art Shift: Most of the game is in a Retraux, EarthBound (1994)-esque style with Deliberately Monochrome, white, pixel art enemies for the battle segments, but the Final Boss of the Neutral Route is shown in a horrifying photomontage/glitch-art style with bullets to match. The fact that this boss is officially known as Photoshop Flowey hints at this.
  • Art-Style Dissonance: Undertale goes the EarthBound (1994) route of goofy, childish graphics (one of the big villains of the game is a talking flower for crying out loud) juxtaposed with dark themes such as horrific scientific experiments, killing children, going insane after living life trapped in a body incapable of love and stuck in a "Groundhog Day" Loop, and potentially genocide and the destruction of all of existence. In fact, if you go the Genocide Route it potentially gets even darker than Mother 3.
  • Artifact Domination: Absorbing the soul of another being causes the host and the absorbed soul to share control of the body. This is what happened with Asriel and Chara and the reason they were killed, due to the two of them fighting for control.
  • Artifact of Power: Souls. More specifically, absorbing the soul of another being. A sign in Waterfall describes a human/monster fusion as “a horrible beast with incredible power.” Flowey absorbs six of them to become Photoshop Flowey on the player’s first Neutral Route between True Resets and Genocide Routes, and he absorbs seven to take on his true form: Asriel Dreemurr. Both times, he gains control of the SAVE file and nearly kills off the Player Character permanently.
  • Artistic Age: Not everyone’s ages are immediately apparent. For example, the Player Character is depicted in fanart anywhere from 5 to almost 20. All we know is that they are a child. There’s also some In-Universe confusion about Sans and Papyrus’ age:
    Monster Kid: I wonder if that weird skeleton is an adult or a kid.
  • Artistic License – Botany: Flowey's primary method of locomotion is that he dives into the ground, and then reappears in another spot, as shown during the moments he briefly submerges just as the player goes back to a previous screen. Flowey's capable of doing this during any of the stages of the world, including a perpetually covered snowland, and a melting hot volcano-area. No flower can adapt so well to so many different environments without dying instantly.
  • Artistic License – Geology: The fact that not only is no one dying from the heat of Hotland, but an entire civilization and a geothermal power plant have thrived in a volcano for millennia without so much as a tremor.
  • Artistic License – Physics:
    • All the humans survive a large fall into the Underground. Why? The flowers at the bottom of the pit broke their falls, of course! The Player Character survives two falls this way.
    • Papyrus seems to fly over the human after fighting them. This is never addressed again.
  • Artistic Title: The title sequence that plays every time the game is opened briefly explains the War of Humans and Monsters, along with pictures, one of which showing Asgore leading his armies against the humans. When the game is opened after Flowey crashes the game, one picture is different and the entire sequence glitches out.

    Trope As-Aw 

Alternative Title(s): Tropes A To G

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