Web Animation / Glitchtale

Megalomaniac: 1. A person who has an obsessive desire for power.

"Listen and hear a song the birds are singing. Sit down a while and watch the flowers blooming. A pleasant breeze flows by...leaving a trail of dust. This... is... your... fault...right?"

Glitchtale is a web series based on the video game Undertale by YouTuber Camila Cuevas. It started with a short animation based on the Genocide Run battle with Sans, and things quickly snowballed from there.

Season 1

• "Megalomaniac" - The animation that started it all. After all but completely corrupting Frisk and guiding them on a genocidal path through the Underground, Chara sets their sights on Sans. Both Jael Panaloza (Jakei, creator of Underverse) and super youmna (creator of Othertale) made a reanimation of this episode that retells the events for Glitchtale's Second Anniversary.
• "Yet Darker" - Not long after the events of the first episode, W.D. Gaster seeks to undo his accidental death by stealing Frisk's soul. Came with a short Easter Egg epilogue clip that was later made public.
• "*Determination" - The events of the previous videos has "glitched" the timeline enough for Chara to return as their own separate entity, allowing them to steal the essence of Frisk's determination; Sans and Flowey must team up to stop them.
• "Your Best Friend" - It's time for round two against Chara, and this time, Sans calls on an old friend to help him and Flowey with the fight.
• "Continue" - The battle over the timelines will be determined by the battle between Chara and Asriel.
• Full Compilation

Season 2

• "My Sunshine" - With the events of the previous season long past them, the monsters and Frisk still need to convince the ambassador of the Anti-Monster Department to join their side, while a certain girl also appears much to Frisk's surprise.
• "Dust" - Everything is going downhill as Asgore is placed into jail, Papyrus is tricked into following a human's command, and Gaster makes a startling discovery about one of the main cast's friends.
• "Do or Die" - In light of the events featured previously, Frisk tries to stay determined. Gaster, on the other hand, intends to face the newest threat to their safety directly.
• "LOVE (Part 1)" - The situation gets dire for the main cast, and in light of it, Frisk starts making harsher, even crueler decisions as the main threat grows in power.
• "Love (Part 2)" - As Frisk faces off against Bête Noire, Asriel faces an important talk with Asgore after what happened last episode before facing his old self and going out and helping Frisk. Additionally, Gaster feels anguish after he makes a shocking discovery about Jessica.
• "My Promise" - With tensions rising up and everyone growing desperate as friends are becoming wounded, Frisk decides to take drastic measures to save the timeline.
• Game Over (Part 1) - With Chara in the lead, Gaster tries more experiments to save Sans, Papyrus is starting to snap, and a new person emerges with an offer for Jessica. Things can't get worse, or can they?
  • "Failed Timeline - Chara vs Asriel" - A short glimpse of how things went wrong originally and what steps were taken to try and gain a better outcome. Who said that this was the original timeline?
• "Game Over (Part 2)" - Bête Noire has made her move on the city. As the army struggles to mount a defense against the onslaught of soul-eating blobs, Chara and company race to cut off the problem at its source. The final battle has begun.
• "HATE" - It's a race against time to stop Bête Noire, and the stakes are rising slowly with every passing minute. But it's not over yet. As new and old clash, ideals are tested, and pasts are flung into the present... Not everyone is going to make it out alive.
• "Animosity" - The battles continue as Betty, Asriel, and the giant blob continue to threaten every human and monster that they encounter. And in order to defeat these enemies, drastic actions must be taken.
• "Hope" - The fighting finally draws to a close, though plenty of blood is shed as Hate refuses to go down easily.

Season 3/Prequel/"Meropos"

• "Glitchtale Origins | Glitchtale Prequel Character: Kanashi" - An origin story for a character from the planned prequel series, a young monster named Kanashi. It also includes a rather dark and sinister figure with powerful magic.
• "Glitchtale Origins: Gaster" - An origin story for Gaster in which we get a glimpse of his rough relationship with his father and the monster's high expectations of his son.

Side Stories

• While not officially canon, much of what is in "Sans vs. Flowey" fits easily in the setting established with the other videos. Keep in mind that it predates the series, so it might be a tad sloppy in comparison. It goes into detail about Sans causing "more than my fair share of resets"; namely Omega Flowey repeatedly losing against Sans.
• "Glitchtale Origins: The Black Beast"- An origin story for the Bête Noire, including a more detailed glimpse of the tale of the twin rulers.

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Glitchtale provides examples of:

Tropes A-C

• A Death in the Limelight: Alphys had very little in the way of relevancy in the series, but got plenty of screentime in "Do or Die", the same episode which sees them killed off.
• Ambiguous Gender: Frisk and Chara start out this way, before the series eventually confirms them both as male, The former in "My Promise" and the latter in the description of "Love Part 2".
• Animesque: Later episodes adopt a more anime style than previous episodes.
• Antagonist Abilities: Betty's general powerset is immensely varied and strong, allowing her to take on characters like Gaster and Undyne. She can create body doubles, make her opponent hallucinate, create dozens of pink blobs to act as her personal army, form a scythe from Kumu that cuts through almost anything, possesses super-human speed and agility and can see a person's worst fears and insecurities just by making eye contact. Ramped up when she gains a significant power-up through HATE, allowing her to resurrect and brainwash monsters into fighting for her and giving her regeneration that makes her nigh unkillable.
• Antagonist Title: The term "megalomaniac" is used repeatedly in reference to Chara, the Big Bad, in the first video.
• Anti-Magic:
  • Becomes a major plot point in "Dust", where an anti-magic device is used to frame Papyrus and have Sans Brought Down to Normal, which directly leads to him dying. Fortunately, even though monsters are Made of Magic, it's not enough to kill them.
  • Pink magic in general seems to work this way, at least in part, since the story introducing the wizard of Fear has her draining her brother of her power as the fight wears on (allegedly), and Akumu, who appears to be Made of Magic as well, takes one of Asriel's fireballs to the face and is no worse for wear. However, it has limits, as Undyne the Undying is strong enough to overpower it.
• Anti-Villain: Jessica Grey; while she technically is the one who started the downward spiral of events in Season 2, she's actually rather nice and friendly and only does what she does out of revenge for her "Sunshine" (the child of Integrity) being murdered by Asgore. Not to mention she was being manipulated by Betty and Akumu.
• Anyone Can Die: Starting with Season 2's "Dust", the series makes it a habit of showing that no character, be them side or main character, is safe and can be axed at any time for any reason.
• Art Evolution: The art all around was extremely simplistic in the earlier episodes, partially because it was easier to animate, but the later episodes of Season 2 had the animations looking much cleaner and the character models more practiced. The dramatic fight scenes were also given complex lighting and shading in addition to more detail, making for some impressive still frames.
• Artificial Human: Betty is neither a human nor a monster. She is instead a magical construct made using a little girl's corpse.
• Ascended Extra: The Soul of Integrity plays a much bigger role in Glitchtale than it did in the game.
• The Atoner:
  • Frisk, obviously, though the exact degree isn't clear until "Continue" revealing they had a few pacifist runs at least before doing the fateful Genocide run.
  • Jessica Grey, once she realizes how dangerous Betty really is.
• Back from the Dead:
  • After witnessing Chara returning and stealing Frisk's determination, Sans makes another attempt to rebuild a certain broken machine, rationalizing that if they could make it, so could Gaster. Needless to say, W.D. Gaster is brought back from nonexistence.
  • Sans at the end of "Love: Part 2"; the same happens to Asriel in "My Promise"; both are revived by Betty using HATE on their souls.
  • Chara again in "My Promise" after Frisk replaces themselves with them.
• Badass in Distress: Sans to a minor extent in "Megalomaniac" as he needs Frisk's help to escape from the fight in the final corridor.
• The Bad Guy Wins:
  • "*Determination" ends with Chara stealing the essence of Frisk's determination, Sans and Flowey being forced to retreat and Chara establishing a SAVE file.
  • "Dust" ends with Asgore and Papyrus in jail, Frisk's relationship with Sans becoming strained when they suggest resetting to fix it, Betty and Akumu killing Sans, Asriel barely escaping and Betty showing Jessica that she isn't in control whatsoever, with the cut to black having Betty say she'll keep her promise to turn all the monsters to dust over Jessica's screams of pain.
  • In Do or Die, Gaster manages to back Betty into a corner, only for her to gather enough power to unlock "Rhabdophobia", hijacking Gaster's Duality and Gaster Blaster and turning what was originally a close fight into a total cakewalk. Jessica manages to teleport away with him, but Betty still manages to kill Alphys.
• Barrier Warrior: Everyone with access to Green magic can do this. Frisk can also use determination to achieve the same effect. Papyrus can pull off the same effect with Gaster Blasters.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: The Glitchtale fanbase often demands things from Camila, who ends up giving them what they want in a way that they really don't want. For example:
  • People wanted Sans to come back. He did, but it comes at the cost of him being comatose and unconscious and now people have to look after him instead of fighting Betty.
  • People wanted Chara to come back. They did, but it comes at the cost of Frisk dying with no chances of resurrection and absolutely nobody remembering them.
• Beam-O-War:
  • Subverted in "Your Best Friend". When Gaster fires a laser at Chara, Chara's knife can be seen turning yellow, indicating that they're about to return fire. But when Sans throws Chara into the beam, Chara simply teleports away.
  • Sans and Flowey have one in "Sans VS. Flowey" with a comical remark from Asgore, who has no idea what's going on.
• Became Their Own Antithesis: The Tale of The Twin Siblings in "Dust" shows that the sibling whose original trait was Bravery managed to change their trait into Fear.
• Berserk Button:
  • Agate threatening to kill Amber causes Copper, who is normally a calm and collected guy, to attack Agate.
  • Also happens with Toriel. Betty summoned an illusion where Toriel would see every child she couldn't protect from Asgore. As she sees a vision of Asgore about to kill Chara, she snaps and hits him with an incredibly powerful fireball, severely injuring him.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Frisk, especially from "Love" onward. Although it was made clear from the end of Season 1 that they weren't as kind or innocent as they pretended to be, they seemed to genuinely care about all of the monsters from the start of the series forward—which is one of the reasons they start acting so cruel in the late second season.
• Beyond the Impossible:
  • Frisk finds a way to take a blow from their possessed self and from this one act, started a domino event leading to the rest of the series.
  • Chara somehow manages to kill all the Amalgamates in the True Lab, which are impossible to harm in-game. This is likely because Chara is essentially hatred incarnate at this point, something it couldn't fully manifest inside Frisk.
  • Sans exploits this in Season 1. When Chara manages to manifest themselves, a consequence of a "glitch" that occurred when Sans absorbed Frisk's soul, Sans realizes that if they could return, so could Gaster. Despite the machine being canonically unfixable, Chara's manifestation has done away with what's impossible and thus, Sans exploits this to successfully bring Gaster back.
• Big Bad:
  • Season 1 has Chara, who desires to gain power over the timelines and Frisk's soul, although their spot is temporarily stolen by Gaster in "Yet Darker". It turns out that the true villain is not Chara themselves, but the sentient HATE causing them to act evil as a result of Frisk doing a Genocide route in the past.
  • Season 2 appears to have Jessica Grey, head of the Anti-Monster Division. However, it's revealed that Frisk's new friend Betty is the true villain using Jessica's desire for revenge for her own goals. Then the HATE that Akumu devoured for her in "LOVE: Part 1" starts manipulating her, weakening her, feeding off her energy and finally pulling a Hijacked by Ganon in the penultimate episode.
• Big Bad Wannabe:
  • Jessica Grey ultimately becomes this by the end of "Dust". She was capable enough with the magic nullifier, but she's hopelessly outclassed by Betty.
  • Betty herself becomes this, being on the receiving end of a Demonic Possession by HATE should it go out of control, and with it already having a previous season to show how dangerous it is. HATE eventually does the deed after Gaster mortally injures her beyond the point of recovery by creating a physical form out of her remains.
• Big Brother Instinct: Cam will do anything to protect his little sister in "Do or Die." Even if it means dying for her.
• Bilingual Bonus: A couple of Gaster's lines in "Do or Die" are in untranslated Wingdings.
• Bishōnen Line: Omega Flowey is no match for Chara, but after Frisk gives their soul to have him become Asriel again, he's able to take them on one on one and match them blow for blow.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: "Betty" is in reality the incarnation of fear and hatred. She acts cute only to hide her agenda of ensuring that humans and monsters won't ever live in peace.
• Blood from the Mouth: The series' favorite way to represent serious internal damage, though it's almost never fatal.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: After Frisk was removed from the timeline entirely and replaced by Chara, Camila went through and removed Frisk from a lot of her art previously featuring them, including her YouTube banner, as if they were actually erased from existence.
• Breather Episode:
  • From Season 1, there's "Yet Darker, as while it does contain a battle between Sans and Gaster, it provides a break from the 'Chara' conflict as it comes in between "Megalomaniac" and "*Determination".
  • "My Sunshine", the first episode of Season 2, is more dedicated to setting up the new setting and characters in it. There's no deaths until the next episode and not even any battles until the episode after that.
  • "Game Over: Part 1". The episode before was the Wham Episode "My Promise", where Asriel was possessed and Frisk was replaced with Chara, and the episode after is "Game Over: Part 2", where a battle takes place between Mettaton and Betty and a giant kaiju-sized blob monster begins to attack the city. There's no battles or deaths in "Game Over: Part 1".
• Brought Down to Normal: An Anti-Magic device is used to do this to Sans, which changes him from a Fragile Speedster Glass Cannon to an almost powerless One-Hit-Point Wonder.
• The Bus Came Back:
  • After not having been seen since "Your Best Friend", Flowey makes a return in Asriel's dream sequence in "Love: Part 2".
  • Mettaton returns for "Game Over (Part 2)", over two years since his last appearance.
• Came Back Strong: Frisk gives Flowey their soul to fully resurrect him as Asriel to face Chara.
• Came Back Wrong:
  • Gaster in "Yet Darker", who comes back better than when he was in the void, but still ink-like and with no legs.
  • Frisk's Genocide Run rose Chara from their grave, while corrupting and twisting them with all the generated hate into the Big Bad they are seen as in the series.
  • In "Love: Part 2", Sans returns under the influence of Betty and HATE.
• Cerebus Syndrome: "*Determination" does this to the first season, while "Dust" really does for the second season, beginning a trend of Character Death and widespread chaos in almost each episode.
• Chekhov's Boomerang: Rhabdophobia, Bete's special attack, is used only twice near the beginning of Season 2: Once in Do or Die to use against Gaster to take his Duality attack and defeat him entirely, and the other in LOVE Part 1 against Undyne to take over her spears, which fails when she delivers a counterattack with more spears than her. It is therefore shocking when after around 4 episodes (6 if Love Part 2 and Game Over Part 2 were accounted separately) of Bete not using Rhabdophobia, she uses it again in Animosity to take over all of the Gaster Blasters that Sans had summoned for his special attack, leaving Sans to counterattack and ultimately kill himself in order to save Papyrus and Gaster.
• Chekhov's Gag: In "Do or Die", Asgore is seen admiring the flowers outside Gaster's house while Gaster literally causes a giant explosion aimed at Jessica right in front of him. Just like he wasn't paying attention in "Sans VS. Flowey".
• Chekhov's Gun:
  • The AMD security cameras. Sans and Asriel use them to find out that Betty made Frisk hallucinate the car that seemingly almost killed her and that she wasn't with Gaster during the meeting.
  • The expansion to the Core discussed in "My Sunshine" is used as the setting for the battle against Betty in "Do or Die."
  • In "LOVE Part 1", Gaster sees his memory of his failed experiment, and how it ended up killing him. 2 episodes later, Gaster uses the same experiment again, this time by using Frisk. It goes well because Gaster has determination this time.
  • Gaster's mug. In "Love Part 2", Papyrus uses it to get Gaster to follow his emotions instead of logical reasoning.
• The Chessmaster: Betty manages to gain Frisk's trust by pretending to be in danger, gains Jessica's trust by playing off her desire for revenge, frames Papyrus for an attack on humans, and kills Sans, allowing Akumu to devour his soul.
• Colour Coded Magic: As demonstrated with the human souls in the game and expanded on in Season 2, humans with a potential for magic possess souls that are cyan, orange, dark blue, purple, green, or yellow depending on their predominant trait. Toriel eventually opens a school to help teach children with the potential for magic how to use it, separating them into different classes depending on what color their souls are. Frisk is the only human alive with a red soul for Determination. Chara's soul was turned black for "Hate." Betty's soul is pink for "Fear". Although pink's actually is a side effect of the Bete Noire spell. The real color of "Fear" is dark orange.
  • Both Chara and Gaster have colored attacks that match with each trait.
    • Red: Chara's default color; used to fire Sword Beams and make shields. Gaster uses powerful middle-ranged energy blasts.
    • Orange: Chara fires Sword Beams that can change course mid-flight. Gaster's attack is a bunch of tiny white dots that turn orange just before detonating.
    • Yellow: Chara fires a yellow beam from their weapon. Gaster fires lots of tiny yellow bullets.
    • Green: Chara creates a green shield by swinging their knife. Gaster can create a green bubble that can also be used to trap the target inside.
    • Cyan: Both Chara and Gaster shoot whip-like cyan strands that can bind the opponent. Chara's can even rip off appendages.
    • Blue: Chara's knife grows into a blue BFS that has longer range and more power^note enough to crack one of Sans' Gaster Blasters Gaster's attack is shooting blue circular saw blades.
    • Purple: Chara fires three purple slashes that punches through the first attack it collides with. Gaster's purple attack copies an incoming attack and cancels it out, though he's also shown using purple spikes for impaling his opponent.
• Comes Great Responsibility: "LOVE Part 1" gives a pointed lesson about what can happen when even the kindest people are given more power than they should have. Specifically, it goes into Frisk's real motivations behind the resets: they keep trying to find something new and were too curious and/or bored to let time move on. They got more than they bargained for when they realized one of the timelines was glitched, but decided to press on anyway just to see if anything changed. Their antics not only end with them trapping themselves in the timeline, but also forfeiting their power over it — right before Betty's rampage began, causing numerous deaths that Frisk was powerless to stop.
• Curbstomp Battle:
  • At first, Chara, fueled by their Determination and HATE, delivers one to the main heroes — even Gaster can only take a few hits from them. Once Flowey becomes God of Hyperdeath Asriel, he flips it completely around. While Chara gets several hits on Asriel, he stands up without a single scratch on him, whereas midway through the fight Chara takes too much damage and even though Asriel SAVES them, they still die.
  • In "LOVE Part 1", Undyne hands Betty her ass on a silver plate thanks to her Determination, even after Akumu eats the HATE vial.
  • In "Love Part 2", Frisk's initial attempt to battle Betty at only LV 3 ends with them being on the receiving end of one.
  • In "Animosity", Betty herself is on the receiving end of this at the hands of Gaster. It's arguably the biggest curbstomp battle in the entire series.
• Curiosity Killed the Cast: Ultimately the cause of the series' events. Frisk was aware that the timeline was glitched and decided to experiment with it anyway.
• Cycle of Revenge: A major theme of the series is this, with multiple cycles at play:
  • Frisk's Genocide Route dumped all the HATE accumulated into Chara, who came back to seek revenge on Frisk for getting away without any consequences. Asriel breaks the cycle by forgiving Frisk and Chara.
  • Asgore, as in canon, ordered the death of any human who fell into the Underground for Chara and Asriel's deaths. It turns out that one of the humans killed was Jessica Grey's daughter, whose fury at discovering this fact ruins a chance for peace between humans and monsters and plays right into Betty's hands. Gaster nearly continues it, but ultimately Jessica has a My God, What Have I Done? moment and makes a Heel–Face Turn and he spares her, breaking it.
  • The Wizard of Bravery eventually hated monsters so much after the war that just keeping the Barrier up wasn't enough and so created Betty to ensure peace between humans and monsters will never happen. Betty's resulting rampage sparks Frisk to begin gaining LV to strike back against her, perpetuating the cycle.

Tropes D-G

• Darker and Edgier: Season 2, as of "Dust", considering that it actually introduces Character Death.
• Deconstructed Character Archetype:
  • Papyrus appears as kind and friendly, and will always try to help others overcome all kinds of their problems. As it turns out, he's not like this because he's immature, but because he's mature, and blows up at Gaster in "Game Over, Part 1", saying that he's sick of everyone acting like he doesn't know what's going on.
  • Gaster of the 'Mad Scientist' archetype. Though he tries to use determination to bring back Sans from a catatonic state, after what happened last time with the amalgamates, he's got lots of moral objections. Also because of the mistake with the amalgamates, he thinks himself undeserving and unworthy of help, and tries not to lose anyone else after Sans' death. Really, Gaster himself is a gold mine of deconstruction.
  • Frisk, as the player character, doesn't have a backstory and was simply created by the game. They are also the only one tied the game as opposed to the world itself, meaning that they can give their soul to somebody else and grant those powers onto them.
• Demonic Possession:
  • What is truly revealed about how Chara got HATE. The HATE was originally generated by Frisk on their Genocide run and then dumped because of their happy memories, but seeing as HATE is sentient, it found a new host, that being Chara. Chara at first refused HATE, out of their love for Asriel, and because of their past ideals, so HATE took to the easier option of just out-right possessing Chara. Cue Season 1.
  • Also happens to Sans when he's resurrected by Betty.
• Dead Person Conversation: Invoked by Alphys and Undyne, where Undyne talks to Alphys' spirit and Alphys helps Undyne recover from her Heroic BSoD.
• Despair Event Horizon:
  • Copper Lightvale in "The Black Beast"; after witnessing Amber's death, his SOUL turns white, indicating he's lost his trait of Determination. He then offers no resistance to Agate killing him right afterwards.
  • Gaster is implied to suffering from a combination of this trope and another one after the events of "Game Over, Part 2", in which yet another person (in this case Jessica) sacrifices herself to let Gaster live, provoking tears and an angry glare from the man who speaks in hands. "Give her hell for me", indeed.
  • In "Animosity", Sans dies for real this time, directly in front of Gaster's eyes. Gaster reaches his Rage Breaking Point and shatters, unintentionally draining his remaining child's Life Energy to destroy Betty utterly with absolutely no expression on his face.
• Downer Ending:
  • "*Determination" ends with Frisk's Determination getting stolen by Chara, who now has control over the timeline and has, unbeknownst to them at the time, gained a new power in the form of HATE.
  • "Dust". Papyrus is framed and arrested for something he didn't intend to do, Sans is killed and Betty is revealed to be Evil All Along and goes off scot-free, now with a vial containing Chara's leftover HATE from Season 1. The only silver lining is that Gaster gains a 50% power boost from Sans' death.
• Dramatic Drop: Gaster drops his mug when he realizes that Sans has just died.
• Dramatic Irony: Betty's sympathetic traits are only known to the audience, with her being completely uninterested of telling anyone about them. She takes them with her to the grave.
• Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors:
  • Determination beats Fear, making it Betty's biggest weakness, as it is shown that without Hate, she would've been killed by Undyne the Undying or Frisk at LV 19.
  • Love (the emotion, not Level of Violence) beats HATE, being its antithesis. Chara is borderline unstoppable until Asriel realizes this and he and Frisk use it to purge the HATE from them. Papyrus later uses his brotherly love for Sans to free him from the HATE Betty infected his soul with to try and use him against Frisk. This causes Frisk to realize this is how it works and resolves to use love to beat Betty rather than LOVE.
• Empowered Badass Normal: "My Sunshine" reveals that some humans are capable of learning magic. Frisk is one of them.
• Enemy Mine:
  • Sans and Flowey team up to stop Chara from gaining control over the timeline.
    Flowey: Don't get me wrong... I still hate you. But none of us would survive if they get control over the timeline...
  • After being given to him, the Souls are also willingly working with Flowey to fight Chara. It stops being this after his Heel–Face Turn, since they're on the same side at that point.
• Enemy Without: An inverted example occurs in the first animation. After Chara takes full control of their body, Frisk musters enough determination to break out from Behind the Black and take a hit from their own possessed body for Sans. Chara later pulls a straight example in "*Determination".
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Played with by Betty to Akumu. They may seem like they like each other, like in "Do or Die", when Akumu protects Betty from a Gaster Blaster beam, and Betty gives Gaster a major death glare after said Gaster Blaster nearly kills Akumu. In reality, Akumu only exists to keep Betty's human form; by the time of "My Promise", this is unnecessary, and thus Betty takes her true form once again by merging with Akumu.
• Evil All Along: Betty and Akumu.
• Evil Is Not a Toy: Betty demonstrates this to Jessica Grey in the ending of "Dust" by stealing the Hate from her and torturing her for refusing to hand it over.
  • Ironically, Betty learns this herself after Akumu devours the vial of HATE, and realizes that they'd underestimated it. For one, it's sentient.
• Evil Laugh: Chara and Betty love doing these.
• Eyes Always Shut: Frisk, as in the game. Averted when they elevate themselves to LV 19 in "Love Part 2", revealing glowing red eyes.
• Fantastic Racism:
  • The Anti-Monster Division (AMD).
  • Betty, whose whole purpose is to kill all the monsters and humans and assure that they don't live in peace together.
• Final Boss, New Dimension: Asriel pulls Chara into a pocket dimension for their Final Battle.
• Foreshadowing:
  • After Sans uses his "real special attack" on Chara, the sound of their soul breaking is heard but not followed by the accompanying sound of it shattering. Careful listeners watching may recognize this as a sign they're Not Quite Dead.
    Text Box: But it refused.
  • In "Dust", as Sans dies, Gaster's mug drops to the floor and shatters to pieces. In "Love: Part 2", Papyrus reveals that he repaired the mug. Later that episode, Sans is brought back.
  • The fact that Betty and Kumu can draw on the power of both human and monster souls is a subtle but early hint that they're artificial constructs since neither race can absorb and use power from souls from the same race.
  • In "My Promise", Toriel and Asgore are given more focus. This is similar to Papyrus's increased focus in "Love: Part 2", the same episode which sees him bring back Sans. Sure enough, that episode, Toriel and Asgore are given the job of bringing back Asriel. However, this is also the episode where their strained relationship over their past actions is showcased. Sure enough, that's what prevents them from bringing back Asriel.
• Four-Fingered Hands: Throughout the series. Given that one of the main characters can summon extra magic hands at will, some animation shortcuts are forgivable.
• Free-Range Children: In "My Sunshine", we've got Frisk and Betty. This is Justified since Frisk can use magic and knows defense spells. The same can be said for Betty.
• From Bad to Worse: In "Animosity", while Betty does get defeated, all it achieves is giving HATE full power.
• Future Imperfect: When Gaster reads The Tale of the Two Siblings, it fails to mention Amber at all, instead including such irregularities such as the kingdom falling into ruins from a "rematch" between the siblings. In reality, there was no rematch at all; Agate forces Copper to fight her, but his refusal leads into Amber's death, and eventually him. It also fails at showing the true color of FEAR: dark orange.
• Godzilla Threshold:
  • Chara existing is what reaches it; the 'Godzilla'? Flowey being willingly given the 6 human souls.
  • The continued threat Betty poses prompts Frisk to start gaining LV.
• Golden Ending: How Season 1 ends. The heroes ultimately manage to not only get the same outcome as the True Pacifist Ending, but this time they manage to save Asriel and Gaster, as well as redeem Chara, even if they die as a result. The only real downside to this version is that the Amalgamates are dead, and since Alphys (who never appears) is the only one aware of their existence, this doesn't dampen the ending for the protagonists. Even better, after Sans tells Frisk to tell him when they're about to Reset again (and doesn't listen when they try to promise they won't), they destroy the Reset button, ensuring this Golden Ending sticks. Unfortunately, it doesn't last for different reasons.
• Gondor Calls for Aid: Frisk does this with the souls in Season 1. First to revive Asriel, then to purge the hate from Chara.
• Go Out with a Smile: Jessica Grey, after saving Gaster at the cost of her own life, smiles sadly at the picture of her and her daughter before she is crushed.
• Glowing Eyes of Doom:
  • Sans' glowing blue eye, naturally. After absorbing Frisk's soul, both eyes glow.
  • Chara gets one in "*Determination" and "Continue" when they use their "Special Hell" attack.
  • Betty during the Evil All Along reveal.
  • Frisk after Betty kills Asriel and their LV gets instantly jacked to 19.
  • Gaster has many variants of these. With both his sons alive, his eyes are blue and red (representing Sans and Papyrus respectively). With Sans dead, it's just red (blue if Papyrus dies, hypothetically). If both are dead, Gaster gets purple eyes of doom.
  • Papyrus has one also, which is red in color, but it's only ever when he's really mad, or he's using a Gaster Blaster.
  • After Sans and Asriel are revived by Betty, they get pink glowing eyes.

Tropes H-N

• Happy Ending Override: Despite the Golden Ending of Season 1, things get worse if anything in Season 2, up to including a new Big Bad who is worse than Chara, and Sans' death.
• Heartbroken Badass:
  • Frisk in "Do or Die" after learning of Sans' death.
  • Undyne. She accidentally kills Alphys, her one love, and goes Undying form!
  • Gaster didn't take Sans' death very well, either. His first interaction with Frisk after that event involves him waxing poetic about false hope on the surface world.
• Heel–Face Turn:
  • Frisk backs out of the Genocide Run, though this also counts as Heel–Face Revolving Door considering that they completed Pacifist runs before. They prove that their Face is genuine when they destroy the Reset button.
  • Gaster is the Big Bad of Yet Darker, but becomes an ally after Sans resurrects him. It helps that with the former, it was an example of Came Back Wrong and when Sans does it, it's a proper restoration.
  • Flowey is truly resurrected as Asriel and turns back to good.
  • By the start of "Do or Die," Jessica Grey has had a My God, What Have I Done? realization and is trying to make amends, teaming up with the monsters to help stop Betty.
• Heroes Prefer Swords: Asriel has his Chaos Sabers, The Tale of the Twin Siblings in "Dust" show the Determination Wizard, Copper Lightyvale, wielding his sword, and "Do or Die" shows Frisk using their power to create and wield a sword.
• Heroic BSoD: Frisk is so shocked by Sans's death that they actually lose some of their Determination for a while.
• Heroic Sacrifice:
  • In the event Gaster does not survive his encounter with Betty, Alphys is instructed to turn on the anti-monster and human machine. She does it at the cost of her life.
  • Asriel willingly went against Betty knowing he needed to stop her, if not for Frisk's sake, because of Asgore's pep talk. He dies because of this.
  • Then there's "Game Over, Part 2". Jessica and Gaster are trapped in rubble. Jessica has a teleporter that can get one of them out. Gaster tells her to use it, saying he forgives her. The actual heroic sacrifice comes when Jessica charges it up, about to use it, and then reveals she never planned to, giving it to Gaster, therefore saving him and letting herself be crushed to death by the rubble.
• Heroic Second Wind:
  • Frisk gives Sans one in "Megalomaniac" by sacrificing their soul to him which, per usual for monsters with human souls, gives him a tremendous power boost.
  • The ending of the "Your Best Friend" has Frisk giving Flowey one by doing the same thing, enabling him to become Asriel again, with all the power he has with seven human souls.
  • In "Love: Part 2", Frisk jumping from LV 3 to 19 after Asriel is killed.
  • In "Hope", Asriel's SOUL shatters... but it refused, and Asriel transforms into God of Hyperdeath form.
• Hero Killer: In "Dust", we have Betty. She feeds Sans' soul to Akumu.
• History Repeats: In "Megalomaniac", Frisk (LV 19) fights against Sans while HATE wraps around their Soul. Eventually, Frisk manages to break free of the Hate and end the fight. In "Love: Part 2", Frisk (LV 19) fights against Sans while Hate wraps around his Soul. Eventually, Sans manages to break free of the HATE and end the fight, in almost a mirror of the original battle.
• Hope Spot: At the end of "My Sunshine", it looks like Jessica Grey, head of the Anti-Monster Division, has come around and is willing to make peace with the monsters. Then Asgore is asked how the barrier was broken, and confesses that it was broken with the souls of fallen humans, all of which were children, and describes the last child as having blue eyes and wearing a pink tutu — a dead ringer for Jessica's lost daughter who ran away 20 years ago, which was how long ago Asgore said the last child fell. Jessica immediately turns away from the idea of peace with the monsters and vows to avenge her daughter.
• Humanoid Abomination: Betty takes it to extremes and throws a nice lampshade on it to boot.
  Betty: Who told you I was a monster? Or even human?
• Inconsistent Episode Lengths: The first episode of the series is barely five minutes long, and they kept growing in length until the season 1 finale, which is 16 minutes. Season 2 episodes move in a range of 20 to 40 minutes.
• "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight:
  • Sans wins this one with Frisk in "Megalomaniac".
  • Asriel does the same thing with Chara in "Continue?"
  • Papyrus wins one with a Brainwashed and Crazy Sans in "Love Part 2".
  • The same cannot be said to Asgore and Toriel, who fail to convince a messed-up Asriel back to their side. Chara manages to succeed later though.
• Ironic Echo: In "Game Over (Part 2)", Betty, about to kill a young boy, says "it'll only hurt a little. In the same episode, after Betty is given a surprisingly competent match in the form of Mettaton NEO and has half her face blasted off, she says, "alright, that hurt a little".
• "It" Is Dehumanizing: Starting with "Do or Die", nobody calls Betty by name, instead referring to them as "that thing".
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice:
  • During the fight in "Megalomaniac," Sans does this with his bone attacks a few times, finishing off Chara with one giant bone through their torso followed by a ring of 10 Gaster Blasters firing simultaneously.
  • Sans gets skewered in the middle of "Yet Darker" while trying to help Frisk.
  • Sans also does this to stop Gaster in "Yet Darker."
  • In "Dust," this is how Sans is killed while Taking the Bullet for Asriel.
  • Accidentally happens when Undyne throws her spear at Betty, thinking it is her soul she's aiming towards, when it is actually Alphys' soul.
  • Asriel gets skewered by Kumu.
  • Likewise, Betty impales herself in order to merge her with Akumu to form their true form.
  • In Gaster's debatably one-sided rematch against Betty, Betty gets positively skewered by a load of spikes.
• Interface Screw: Twice, someone manages to prevent Frisk from resetting by glitching the interface.
• It's All Junk: Chara tries to claim this about the locket they're wearing, tearing it off and destroying it right in front of Asriel after the latter claims that they wouldn't have kept it so long if they no longer cared about him. The fact they then start crying seconds after breaking it tells a different story.
• Killed Off for Real: Out of the minor characters, the Amalgamates, some of Toriel's students and Cam are definitely gone for good, as are the major characters Alphys, Frisk, Jessica and Sans.
• Kill the Cutie: Alphys is killed at the end of "Do or Die." Several of the children at Toriel's school are also killed in the same episode, with the boy with a Kindness soul (Cam) getting the most focus.
• Late-Arrival Spoiler: Considering the series' nature, this is a given. There was no warning before "Your Best Friend", though.
• Loves Me Not: At the end of "Sans vs Flowey", Sans does a variant with Flowey's petals to determine whether or not to spare him. Though since he starts with "Spare" and Flowey clearly only has six petals (meaning he'd inevitably end on "Don't Spare"), Sans probably just did it to ruin Flowey's day further.
• Lightning Glare: Grillby and Muffet, who are now competing for customers in the city after the barrier was broken.
• Like Father, Like Son: The first thing Gaster does once brought back is swap Puns with Sans.
• Magitek: This is apparently what a human wizard does, at least where the barrier is concerned, as shown in "Love (Part 2)".
• Man of Kryptonite: A mutual one. While Fear is the only soul trait that can match and beat Determination, so too is Determination the best weapon against Fear. Frisk and Chara's Determination Souls, Undyne in her Undying form, and Gaster's Determination simulating hand blasters are the only thing in all of Season 2 that even can slow Betty down in any meaningful way, much less beat her.
• Meaningful Background Event: "My Sunshine" shows a picture of Toriel along with her class while Betty stands in the doorway. This is Foreshadowing because it shows that not only is Betty a magic-user, she's an outcast amongst other magic-users since her soul is Pink, indicating FEAR.
• Meaningful Echo:
  • Of the visual variety. Chara chops off their own arm to get to Frisk's determination. In the next video, they end up ripping off Omega Flowey's arm to put him out of commission.
  • In "Love: Part 2":
    Frisk: "LOVE, too, is an acronym. It stand for "Level Of ViolencE". A way of measuring someone's capacity to hurt." I promise you something, Bete Noire... (LV jumps from 3 to 19, and Frisk opens their Glowing Eyes of Doom) I will kill you.
• Meaningful Name:
  • Jessica Grey, who holds a lot of sadness because her daughter, her "Sunshine", was killed by monsters. She also brings Gray-and-Grey Morality to the story because while she is sympathetic, she also leads a racist organization.
  • Betty, or better yet, Bête Noire. In English, it means "anathema; an object of aversion; the bane of one's existence." In French, it literally means "black beast." Guess what she takes from Ms. Grey at the end of "Dust" to destroy all monsters.
  • Akumu, the name of Betty's pet, is Japanese for nightmare and what's the dominant emotion in a nightmare? FEAR!
• Mind-Control Eyes: When Betty causes someone to hallucinate, their eyes turn pink.
• More Dakka: Betty attempts to hi-jack Undyne's spear magic... and learns the hard way that Undyne has plenty more spears.
• Motive Decay: In "Dust", we have The Bravery Wizard, Agate Lightvale, from the Tale of the Twin Siblings: they started off wishing to keep the Barrier so Humans can live in peace. But after, changing their SOUL and killing their brother and little sister, they turn the latter to Betty and let her loose to ensure humans and monsters never live in peace. The results are quite telling in "Do or Die", since Betty is an Omnicidal Maniac who has no qualms about killing humans.
• Musical Spoiler: This one wasn't hard to see coming anyway, but right after Undyne is fatally wounded, the music transitions into a vocal rendition of "Battle Against a True Hero". No prizes for guessing what happens next.
• My Death Is Just the Beginning:
  • When Sans dies, Gaster is seen with his blue eyelight going out. Camilla mentioned in the description of one of her speedpaints that this means that Gaster received 50% of his power back from Sans because monster logic. This means Gaster will become more powerful than ever before.
  • The death of Betty sparks the unearthed HATE inside her body to overtake her corpse and manifest into an entity that merges the abilities of HATE with that of FEAR.
  • Undyne the Undying. That's all that needs to be said.
• My God, What Have I Done?:
  • It's clear Frisk feels absolutely horrible about the Genocide Route they did before they managed to abort it just in time.
  • Chara breaks their locket to show Asriel that they don't care about him anymore, only to cry after doing so.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain:
  • Betty's entire purpose is to prevent Human and Monsterkind from reaching peace at any cost. Unfortunately for her, her genocidal actions against both races throughout Season 2 ultimately only result in the two races uniting against her. Jessica, who was initially against monsters, is only pushed into realizing her mistake because of Betty's actions and sides with the heroes, ultimately signing the peace agreement before her death.
  • Killing Asriel instantly gives Frisk a high enough LV to give Betty a decent fight.
  • Betty reviving Sans to fight/emotionally cripple Frisk leads to Papyrus being able to connect with him, freeing him from Betty.
  • Akumu eating the HATE vile allowed the HATE to manifest into a deadly entity after Betty dies at the hands of Gaster.
• Nigh-Invulnerable: Chara and Asriel aren't able to actually deal damage to each other due to the sheer power both have. It isn't until Asriel starts hitting Chara from a different standpoint that anything phases them.
• Not Quite Dead:
  • From what is seen in "Do or Die", Sans' SOUL is not destroyed and shattered yet like most monster souls, leaving enough of a chance for him to come back that he eventually does. Asriel is later put in a similar state.
  • Chara, thought destroyed after the finale of Season 1, is actually stuck in the void.
• Number of the Beast: Gaster has 666,666 HP, allowing him to survive taking a hit from Chara instead of Sans taking it for Frisk, albeit leaving him with less than 0.5% of his HP left.

Tropes O-S

• Offing the Offspring: In "Yet Darker", Gaster tries to kill Sans, despite him being one of his sons.
• Off the Rails: Frisk essentially knocks things off it by breaking out of Chara and Taking the Bullet for Sans and giving him her soul to defeat Chara and reset things. This is what causes the glitches, causing things to go further off the rails.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Toriel's battle against the Akumu avatars in the school.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • Omega Flowey gets a good number of comical ones in "Sans vs Flowey" as he's curb-stomped by Sans over and over.
  • Chara when they see that Sans has their Reset Button at the end of "Megalomaniac".
  • Sans in "Yet Darker" when he realizes that Frisk didn't teleport to Grillby's with him.
  • Flowey in "*Determination" when he sees Chara taking Frisk hostage in the True Lab.
  • A subdued one by Chara in "Your Best Friend" when Sans uses his real special attack.
  • Frisk in "My Sunshine" when they realize Jessica's daughter was the Soul of Integrity.
  • Gaster in "Dust" when he finds out Betty's soul represents fear.
  • Jessica in "Do or Die" when she sees Asriel after she helped kill Sans, but before most knew about her My God, What Have I Done? moment and subsequent Heel–Face Turn. She has an even bigger one right after when Gaster nearly kills her for it.
  • Betty in "Do Or Die" when Gaster almost kills her and Akumu.
    • Gaster gets one in the same episode after Betty gathers enough power to unlock "Rhabdophobia" and hijacks his Gaster Blaster — and worse, his new special attack, "Duality".
  • Most of the times in "LOVE: Part 1" where Undyne hands Betty's ass on a silver platter. She cannot comprehend that monsters can have determination.
  • Betty again in "Love: Part 2" When Frisk goes LV 19 on Betty.
  • Frisk gets a large one when Sans is revived and starts whooping their ass.
  • Papyrus at the end of "Animosity" when HATE possesses Betty's corpse and goes One-Winged Angel
• Omnicidal Maniac:
  • Chara under HATE's influence, who not only wants to kill everyone, but tries to convince Asriel to press a third button that will erase the timeline.
  • To a certain extent, Betty is this as well. Her official goal is to keep humans and monsters apart, and kill the 'bearer of the red soul', but by doing the latter, she'll end up erasing the whole timeline.
• Outliving One's Offspring:
  • Miss Grey.
  • As of "Dust," Gaster has done this in regards to Sans.
  • As of "Love, Part 2," Asgore and Toriel to Asriel... AGAIN. As of the Season Finale, their case is a subversion, however.
• The Power of Friendship: Frisk's desire to aid their friends in their Darkest Hour fills them with DETERMINATION.
• The Power of Hate:
  • Frisk's genocide run generated an actual substance called HATE, which is not only sentient, but capable of possessing people like it does to Chara.
  • Betty plans to use it to see her goal through. "Love" has her use it to power herself up and grant herself new powers.
• Rain of Arrows: After Betty uses her "Rhabdophobia" ability to steal Undyne the Undying's spears, Undyne replies by doing this trope with spears.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech:
  • Chara gives one to Flowey, blaming him for ruining their Thanatos Gambit to destroy the barrier by showing the humans they intended to kill mercy.
    Chara: You betrayed me, Asriel. We ended up like this because of you. But I won't show you any mercy. It's kill or be killed after all..."
  • Chara indirectly delivers an absolutely scathing one to Frisk when confronting Asriel in "Continue", pointing out that their genocide run was entirely their own decision, and that Chara themselves played no part in it before they ended up fighting Sans. Chara also reveals that Frisk taking a fatal hit to protect Sans and resetting, something which shouldn't have been possible in the first place, on top of giving their soul to Flowey while being alive, caused errors and glitched the timeline so much that the whole world is on the brink of being erased for good. Frisk stays silent and can only cry, too ashamed of themselves to say anything.
  • During their fight in "Continue", Chara chews out Asriel when he asks them not to fight, pointing out that such request is rather hypocritical coming from him when Asriel himself killed all the monsters in one of his own reset timelines as Flowey.
  • After Frisk enters the void where Chara is, Chara gives one to Frisk, stating their reasons for not wanting to help them, talking about how they abandoned him, how they played with everyone's lives for fun, and how they accused them of being a murderer to protect everyone's perception of their innocence.
  • Being possessed by HATE seems to give you the power to speak these. Asriel talks to Asgore about how one of the prime reasons he waged war against humanity was revenge when Asriel died by refusing that, and he talks to Toriel about how she was cowardly and selfish when she left Asgore to struggle for a century managing a job meant for two people.
• Redemption Equals Death:
  • Chara's soul is so damaged that their DETERMINATION was the only thing keeping them alive, and once it and their hatred broke, they fade away, but give Asriel what's left so he can stay as Asriel, break the barrier and free the monsters.
  • The death of Jessica in "Game Over, Part 2" could count as well.
• Reset Button:
  • Deconstructed as of "*Determination", as Frisk and Sans's repeated use of it is what allowed Chara to return in the first place. Reconstructed in "Your Best Friend", because since the timeline was cracked enough for Chara to make it back on their own, Gaster was also able to return too.
  • Ultimately defied by Frisk, who decides to SMASH the button after Chara is defeated.
• Retcon:
  • An in-universe retcon occurs when Frisk switches places with Chara, causing them to be replaced and treated as if they didn't even exist by the timeline. This went so far as for Camila to edit her art.
  • Gaster's purple hand power was initially shown to be the ability to copy the attack of the opponent. This was retconned during Season 2's run as a special hand Gaster got from the void and the actual purple hand power is shown to be unleashing purple spikes to impale an opponent, as seen with his final fight against Betty.
• The Reveal:
  • Jessica's daughter was the Soul of Integrity.
  • Betty was Evil All Along and is the Soul of Fear.
• Ripple-Proof Memory: Sans remembers the reset timelines as a result of the glitches. As such, he doesn't believe Frisk when they say they have no intentions of resetting the final timeline. He's pleasantly surprised to learn that Frisk WAS serious about that. He's also a tad sore with Asriel by Season 2 over his many resets as Flowey, but is willing to turn over a new leaf with him.
• Scream Discretion Shot: Used at the end of "Dust" for Jessica Grey being tortured by Betty.
• Self-Harm: As part of her fusion with Kumu, Betty impales herself.
• Shapeshifter Guilt Trip: Betty seems to like doing this.
  • In "Dust", she transforms into Mrs. Grey's daughter to convince her to hand over the vial of HATE.
  • In "Do or Die", the avatar Frisk and Gaster are fighting turns into Sans. It works well on Frisk, shocking them into dropping their weapon, but it doesn't stop Gaster.
• Shout-Out:
  • In "*Determination", Chara is able to teleport, and the graphics when they do implies they're able to do so primarily because of the timeline glitches that restored them in the first place. They're not the first video game character able to teleport due to glitches.
  • The way that Betty's ultimate ability "Rhabdophobia" activates looks and sounds almost exactly like Dio's Za Warudo, although it has a different effect.
• Slasher Smile: Upon revealing themselves in "Dust", Betty shows us one.
• Sanity Slippage: Agate, who was originally a kind mother figure to Amber, lost it after Copper defeated her in a duel.
• Soundtrack Dissonance: "Megalomaniac" goes bad quickly, yet the song playing remains a sad cover of "Megalovania".
• Shut Up, Hannibal!: Asriel repays Frisk for forgiving his past sins in previous timelines by forgiving theirs in turn, refusing Chara's offer to erase the timeline in the process.
• Story-Breaker Power: Season 2 would have been much easier on the main cast had they retained a few of these:
  • Thanks to monsters becoming more physical on the surface, Undyne the Undying goes from being Power at a Price to a straight up Super Mode, complete with a strong Healing Factor and power specifically effective in taking down the Big Bad. Naturally, she doesn't get to keep this power for long, and her trauma over killing Alphys prevents her from fighting at all, let alone as Undying. By the time she does get it back, her power is needed to take on an enormous blob creature threatening to destroy the city.
  • Uninhibited teleportation would solve a lot of problems as it would allow the main cast to go places quickly and prevent situations where some of the main cast must fight alone to buy time. Sans and Gaster both have this ability. The former, who is a Story-Breaker Power in himself, is killed in the second episode of the season through trickery and the latter is left too damaged to use this ability after his fight with the Big Bad. When Sans does come back, him just teleporting once to get upstairs uses up most of the magic he has left, leaving him not wanting to try again to get to the city. This forces the main cast to either use teleportation devices that are either one use or can only teleport a certain amount of people, or travel by walking, driving, or through other unorthodox methods.
• The Stinger: After the credits of season 1's last episode, we're given a glimpse of the "Human Safety Organization," which rejects coexistence between humans and monsters.
  • Season 2 credits end with Gaster being grabbed by what seems to be a glitchy version of himself.
• Sufficiently Analyzed Magic: In "Love (Part 2)", Jessica is seen talking with some "wizards" who are trying to keep the crisis on the surface from getting worse. Said wizards aren't using magic in the same sense as the Monsters are, but instead appear to be typing on holographic keyboards, indicating either magic based on technology, or technology based on magic.
• Summon Bigger Fish: Frisk ultimately empowers Flowey enough for him to transform into his True Final Boss form, the only thing powerful enough to actually fight Chara head-on.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
  • The Internal Reveal that Asgore killed six human children to break the Barrier puts a serious damper in any attempts to secure peace between humans and monsters. Especially when one of them was the AMD leader's daughter.
  • Did Gaster really expect to bring Sans back so easily in Game Over, Part 1, after what happened last time he used determination on a fallen down monster?
  • Asriel attempts to fight Betty a second time, despite it being established in their first confrontation that Asriel can't break through Akumu. It ends exactly like you'd expect.
• Swapped Roles: The Final Battle of season one is essentially an inversion of the True Pacifist Route Final Battle, with Asriel, in his True Final Boss form, versus Chara, complete with him choosing to SAVE them in the end rather than kill them.

Tropes T-Y

• Taking the Bullet:
  • Frisk somehow manages to take one from their own possessed body in the first episode, shielding Sans from Chara's killing blow.
  • In "Your Best Friend", Sans teleports in front of an attack aimed at Frisk. Gaster then teleports in front of him, since he can tank the hit, though it leaves him with very little HP and effectively takes him out of the fight.
  • Sans in "Dust". In what might be the most heartwrenching moment in the whole series, Sans takes a shot from the "Magic Deprivation Machine", then uses the last ounce of his energy to teleport in front of Asriel and save him at the cost of his own soul being eaten by Betty's "Pet".
  • Done several times in "Do Or Die", and strangely enough, not all on the heroic side. Even Inverted by Betty, who tricks Undyne into killing Alphys instead of herself.
  • During "Hope", Chara jumps in front of an exhausted Papyrus and gets a nice slash down the back for their trouble.
• Tantrum Throwing: Based on the chaotic state of his lab near the beginning of "Do or Die" and remarks from Alphys, Gaster did not take Sans' death very calmly.
• That Wasn't a Request: At the end of "Dust", Betty does this to Ms. Grey when the latter refuses to give the former a vial filled with HATE.
• Title Drop: Apart from "Yet Darker", every episode has one.
  • Season 1:
    Episode 1: get dunked on, you megalomaniac. (Sans, after defeating Chara and before resetting)
    Episode 3: [* Determination] (The Save File after Chara establishes theirs)
    Episode 4: Hey, Chara. It's me. Your Best Friend. (Asriel to Chara)
    Episode 5: [* You tell Sans "I won't reset again...from now on, I just want to CONTINUE."] (Frisk, after destroying the Reset Button)
  • Season 2:
    Episode 1: Those monsters sealed their fate when they killed my sunshine. (Jessica Grey, after a mysterious figure offers her a way to avenge her daughter.)
    Episode 2: Don't worry, I'll keep my promise. I'll turn all those monsters to dust. (Betty, to Jessica, while doing... something to her offscreen.)
    Episode 3: I will strike you down, Do or Die. (Undyne the Undying to Betty)
    Episode 4 Part 1: Lv 1 -> Lv 2 ("Lv" here being short for the episode's title, "LOVE".)
    Episode 4 Part 2: We'll use the opposite of HATE. Love (Frisk after realizing that Love can save Asriel)
    Episode 5: Keep My Promise... (Frisk before getting erased.)
    Episode 6: But for you... It's Game Over (Betty to Chara).
    Episode 7: Did you really Hate him that much??? (Betty taunting Toriel over attacking Asgore).
    Episode 8: Then let me show you my Animosity. (Chara facing down HATE.)
    Episode 9: But for the very first time... when I think about the future, I have hope. (Chara to Asriel)
• Took a Level in Badass:
  • Sans once he claims the power of Frisk's soul. With that power, he's able to easily defeat a HATE-filled (though admittedly not yet fully-powered) Chara and Gaster, neither of whom he stood a chance against by himself.
  • After Sans dies, Gaster gains a 50% power boost from it, making him even stronger than he was already.
• Tranquil Fury:
  • After Papyrus is framed for what's essentially a terrorist attack, Frisk reluctantly suggests that they should try to find a way to reset. Sans is furious, but not very vocally so.
  • After Sans dies for real, Gaster's face is utterly expressionless as he obliterates Betty utterly.
• Trauma Button: Both Undyne and Gaster have these after their respective fights with Betty.
  • When Undyne sees Jessica being attacked by a pink blob, she flashes back to Alphys being killed by Betty and tricking her into dealing the final blow. Because of this, she freezes up and Jessica is stabbed in the side by the blob. Luckily, Asgore arrives just in time to save Jessica.
  • When Gaster is arguing with Papyrus and being overprotective and unreasonable, Papyrus restrains him with blue magic, but Gaster flashes back to Betty restraining him using Rhabdophobia and, consumed with rage, throws Papyrus into a wall with his hands.
• Triumphant Reprise:
  • Asriel's Final Boss theme, Hopes and Dreams, plays as his Theme Music Power-Up when he's fighting Chara.
  • In LOVE: Part 1, the theme "The Undying" plays while Undyne lays down the smack on Betty.
• The Undead: Betty, whose body is made from tyhe corpse of a girl that got murdered 1000 years ago.
• Upsetting the Balance: By saving Sans in the Genocide Route, Frisk ends up corrupting the timeline, setting off the rest of the story. In fact, Betty herself is supposed to be based on a checksum, a computer process that seeks out errors. Since the timeline itself is extremely corrupted, Betty is programmed to destroy said timeline.
• Villainous Breakdown: Chara begins having a meltdown during the fight with Asriel as they're being reminded of their time together.
• Villain Has a Point: Agate wanted to keep the barrier up so humans would not get attacked.
• Villainous Friendship: Akumu spends some energy just trying to keep Betty entertained, and certainly seems to want to keep her happy, while Betty is genuinely concerned and goes on a brief Roaring Rampage of Revenge when Gaster almost kills him.
• Wave-Motion Gun:
  • Chara and Asriel spend the Final Battle of season 1 throwing these at one another.
  • Sans and Omega Flowey do their fair share of firing these naturally, even getting into a short Beam-O-War in "Sans vs Flowey".
  • Played up BIG TIME with Gaster's "Duality". Heck, it can even Rapid fire.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: "Best Friend" heavily implies Chara was this. That the entire plan of suicide and bonding with Asriel was all to get the remaining human souls needed to break the barrier. It wasn't revenge or not the main thing... It was because Chara loved the monsters. Asriel calls them out when they try to deny it.
• Wham Episode: "My Promise". Frisk trades places with Chara in the timeline, reveals that they are glitched and would have destroyed the timeline if they stayed, and retcons themselves out of existence. No one remembers them, and anything Frisk did before has been retroactively replaced with Chara.
• Wham Line:
  • "Dust" has Gaster discover what the Pink Soul trait is:
    Gaster: "The pink trait... 'A Bete Noire', The soul of FEAR"
  • "My Promise": Just before Betty regains her true form:
    Betty: I never got used to be[ing] split in two anyways.
  • There are a few possible points in the conversation between Frisk and Chara in "My Promise":
    Frisk: I can't really fix the timeline the way it is right now... so... I want you to take my place
    Frisk: Chara... I'll be honest... I won't be able to go back with you...
    Frisk: It doesn't matter... You won't remember any of it... nobody will...
• Wham Shot:
  • After Betty activates "Rhabdophobia", there are two. First, there is a shot of Gaster trying to use his magic and being completely unable to. Immediately after is Gaster's hands and blaster moving to Betty, who hijacked Gaster's magic and proceeds to lay in a brutal smackdown.
  • After Betty successfully takes Asriel's soul, Frisk proceeds to heal all their wounds, give a brief monologue about the nature of LOVE, and flat out say that they're gonna kill Betty while giving her a red-eyed glare as their LV instantly shoots from 3 to 19.
  • From "Love: Part 2", Betty comments she's going to ask for help in her fight against Frisk. Akumu opens his mouth to reveal a nearly-drained monster Soul that is quickly infused with HATE. Then as Betty asks if this brings back memories, a familiar blue eyelight appears in the darkness.
  • In "My Promise", Frisk enters Gaster's machine, and when they wake, they hear, "...Frisk?" and turn around to see Chara staring at them.
  • There's a pretty big one in "Game Over, Part 2". While Betty is giving her speech, there's a montage of the remaining players in the game. The first seven - Gaster, Papyrus, Undyne, Asgore, Toriel, Asriel and Chara - are nothing notable, except for the fact that Papyrus looks a bit injured, but the eighth is Sans, now fully awake, both eyes glowing.
  • In "Hope", after Asriel is chest-stabbed by HATE's great-sword, his soul shatters. Then, he suddenly breaks the sword with one hand as he starts to glow white before blasting HATE away, the camera cutting back to Asriel now in his God of Hyperdeath form.
• What the Hell, Hero?:
  • When Frisk admits they were considering finding a way to reset after Papyrus got framed and arrested, Sans goes nuclear on them.
  • Gaster seems to be giving one of these to himself in "Game Over, Part 1". After trying and failing to bring Sans back on his first few attempts, he states that he 'failed on every possible aspect'.
• The Worf Effect:
  • Despite how powerful each of them have shown to be, Sans, Omega Flowey, and Gaster are overpowered by Chara and nearly killed. The only one powerful enough to fight them one on one is Asriel in his True Final Boss form.
  • "Dust" does it again, but it's much worse this time. Betty can No-Sell Asriel's attacks, and is capable of negating Sans... before she takes it further.
• Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds:
  • Gaster only wants to reform himself after he's been scattered across spacetime. His methods, however, are a little extreme. Sans calls him out on it. He gladly joins the heroes' side when Sans finds a way to truly resurrect him.
  • Despite being absolutely vile, Betty is this due to being made with a spell that prevents her from having positive emotions such as love and empathy. She is literally incapable of changing her evil ways and becoming a good person, and she never had a say in the matter. Agate is also an ambiguous example, given that it is unknown whether or not she intentionally did this to both herself and her vessel.
• Would Hurt a Child:
  • Chara certainly had no problem trying to kill Frisk.
  • In "Do or Die," several children at Toriel's school are killed so their souls can be used by Betty and Akumu.
  • Agate killed her own sister, Amber, in order to weaken Copper's determination soul for the ability to kill him.
• You Are Better Than You Think You Are:
  • Gaster gives this speech to Frisk in "Do Or Die" when the latter starts to have doubts as to whether they can defeat the Big Bad.
  • Asgore gives another one of these to Asriel in "Love (Part 2)", which helps him out of the rut being Flowey had gotten him into.
  • And Papyrus, the king of these, gives two to Gaster - one in "Love (Part 2)", and one in "Game Over, Part 1". The first about Jessica, the second about himself going to help her. Then there's the one he gave to Jessica herself in Do or Die.
• You Remind Me of X: Visually implied. During "Hate", Rave tries to ask Gaster for advice. Gaster literally sees himself in Rave: there is a moment where the figure standing onscreen flickers between Rave and a younger Gaster. He stops just short of saying the Stock Phrase.
  Gaster: You look smart. Figure it out.

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