So you were talking about how Bioshock Infinite handled morality a few weeks ago. Do you think Undertale handled it better, and how so?

breastforce:

i mean even Shadow the Hedgehog handled morality better than Bioshock Infinite.

Comparing those two is a bit of apples to a rotten 3 year old orange with mold all over it. Most of the things Undertale does better than Bioshock: Infinite are also things that could be said for Bioshock 1.

But as for things I like about how Undertale handles morality.

For one, it really sticks to one core principle “killing has consequences”. Not ‘killing is wrong’, it just has consequences.

As such it takes a very objective approach to things. Killing isn’t portrayed as right, wrong, just, unjust, etc. It just has consequences. People are going to get angry at you, families get broken up.

Yet at the same time, you can slaughter half the underground and as long as you spare Papyrus, his brother Sans won’t have any problems with you. If you spare Toriel, she’ll still think fondly of you. Unless you’re at either extreme in the spectrum – True Pacifist or No Mercy – the game simply lays out the objective causes and effects and leaves it to the player to determine if they did the right thing or not.

Even when it comes to the polar ends of the spectrum, there’s a lot of room for flexibility.

The No Mercy route in particular does a number of things that I like, particularly in how many chances it gives you to turn over a new leaf, and how it frames the player as the antagonist of the story.

See, by the time you reach sans Sans, Undertale could be interpreted a cautionary tale about how you shouldn’t debate facists but kill them on sight.

Remember, Undertale’s message isn’t “killing is wrong”, it’s “killing has consequences”. By the time the player reaches Sans the game has made every possible attempt to reason with you or attempt to make peace, and you’ve spat in it’s face every single time.

The player has shown that they will not listen to debate, and thus the game throws the hardest boss at you. Sans will kill you, a lot, and every time Sans kills you it’s portrayed as justified. There’s no way for the player to redeem themselves aside from accepting death. If you attempt to show Sans mercy, he will kill you, and his famous “dunking” is portrayed as justified.

Not only is Sans killing you justified, but the narriative makes a point to say that you should’ve died sooner, that you shouldn’t have been reasoned with and that you should’ve died on the spot. Remember that Chara is meant to represent you, they’re meant to have your name. The game is saying that you, the player, that you would be better off dead, because there’s no possible way no way to reason with you other than a swift iron club to your skull.

Now at the same time, if the player has listens to reason and calls off a No Mercy route, the game will respond to that. The people you spared may still like you. Sans will call you a good person if you spare Papyrus. The game slips back into it’s theme of Objectivity-Based Morality: Reasoning works with people that can be reasoned with, and to the extent that they’re willing to listen to reason. Whether or not it’s the preferred action to take is up to the player to determine, as after all, they did take a number of lives leading up to them turning another leaf.

And at the other end of the spectrum there’s the True Pacifist route. One thing I immidiately like about it is that doing “the right thing” is legitimately a challenge. Bioshock 1 ultimately gave you more rewards if you went with the Good route, thus making Harvesting little sisters ultimately meaningless aside from being pointlessly cruel.

Going back to Undertale, taking a pacifist route means that you can’t get any rewards from leveling up, meaning that bosses are going to be harder and harder, and sparing certain enemies is going to be much, much tougher than simply taking them out. Much like how the No Mercy route constantly attempts to reason with you, the pacifist route constantly challenges you to stick to it.

All of this is really compounded by the ways the game breaks the fourth wall. The impact of killing somebody can be lessened if you could just save scum out of it, so the game makes note of it and reminds you that did, in fact, kill those people. Which doesn’t disqualify you from a Pacifist route, it just means that people with 4th wall breaking powers are going to remember it. Because again, killing isn’t wrong, it just has consequences.

And wow that was a lot longer than i intended it to be.