You Ever Notice How Sans Is A Little Bit Of An Edgy Dumbass?

you ever notice how sans is a little bit of an edgy dumbass?

i see fandom interpretation of sans usually swing entirely one way or the other—he’s either a completely goofy dipshit who doesn’t care about anything, or he’s an epic, angsty, powerful skeleton man. the latter is definitely a much bigger misinterpretation than the former, but i don’t think it’s right to characterize sans as being an entirely apathetic jokester either.

similarly, sans seems to want you to think two contradictory things: 1. he doesn’t care what you do, or about anything. 2. he’s really mysterious and tough, actually. from the very beginning, sans is like this. it seems like he’s deliberately trying to appear ominous, all while making stupid jokes and engaging in various shenanigans. when you first enter snowdin, aside from sans ominously sneaking around behind you in the shadows, there’s this branch that you can examine. it says, “(It’s a tough-looking branch.) (It’s too heavy to pick up.)” after passing it, you can hear it snap a few moments later. then, if you come back after meeting sans..

sans just completely obliterated this branch, for basically no reason? even the narrator seems somewhat unnerved by this, based on their wording. i can’t think of any reason he’d do this, other than to scare frisk (and the player). of course it could just be some kind of prank, but i mean… it must take some effort to literally annihilate an entire tree branch, and putting effort into things isn’t something sans typically does. it makes you wonder why he chose to put effort into that of all things.

and of course, he later does this:

what’s going on here is that sans undertale, the funny stupid skeleton guy that drinks ketchup and tells shitty jokes to make people begrudgingly smile, that stacks hotdogs on people’s heads and helps his brother make a dorky outfit for a costume party—y’know, THAT guy—is saying that he’d literally murder a child on sight.

… yeah i dunno guys i think he might be lying.

so then why? why does he threaten frisk, in both of these cases? maybe he’s trying to scare them/the player out of resetting? i’m not sure about that. sans seems to understand this ‘anomaly’ at least a bit; he’s aware that they’re doing this just because they can, and they feel like they have to. wouldn’t threatening them, intentionally appearing ominous and mysterious—wouldn’t that just drive their curiosity? it certainly did for most people who did a no mercy run. i don’t think sans is unaware of this, but he definitely isn’t interested in fighting anyone or going through more resets. so again, why?

during no mercy, sans stands by and does nothing, just watching while you kill his family, his friends—he only steps in because the world would literally be destroyed otherwise. it makes you wonder why he didn’t do anything at first. however, he explains this himself when talking about the anomaly:

“to be blunt… it makes it kind of hard to give it my all. … or is that just a poor excuse for being lazy? hell if i know.”

so why does he fight you at all? if he’s entirely numb at this point, why would he suddenly start caring about the destruction of the world? he wouldn’t, simply because he cared the entire time. he’s angry and afraid, and if he really didn’t care, he wouldn’t do any of things he does. it makes me wonder why he tries to convince the player of his indifference. i honestly think it’s because he does care—like, a lot—and he REALLY doesn’t want anyone to know that… including himself. i don’t think it’s a stretch to say that he’s doing this to hide that fact from not only the player, but possibly from himself as well? because sans seems to genuinely believe both of these things; i don’t think his feigned apathy is a deliberate façade to trick the player, and it’s definitely not entirely feigned, either. remember that he literally does nothing to stop you from killing anyone.

sans is understandably enraged about all of this, and he’s obviously upset when the player chooses to kill other monsters (especially papyrus) but he does nothing—because he doesn’t care, because he’s lazy. but mostly because it’d hurt a lot less if he genuinely didn’t care, so he tries not to.

sans isn’t an ultra powerful time-bending entity, he’s not an embodiment of justice when he fights you, and he really doesn’t want to be. sans is a normal, goofy guy caught up in something incomprehensibly horrifying and he can’t do anything about it. he’s angry but most of all he’s tired; he doesn’t want to fight— he doesn’t want to do any of this.