Undertale places a huge amount of narrative weight on its ability to directly address the player. The game treats the fourth wall as more of a fourth door, constantly breaking out and making snide comments directly to the player. One of my favorite examples of this meta narrative is right at the start of the game. If you actively avoid Flowey's "friendship pellets" long enough, he eventually shows his true colors, saying "you know what this is all about don't you". Aside from the incredibly complex narrative Undertale weaves by interleaving ideas such as saving and reloading directly into its story and worldbuilding, Undertale uses its meta narrative to control the way the player interprets the work.
We've spent a lot of time in class talking about role-playing, specifically regarding the difference between identifying AS a character and identifying WITH a character. Undertale does its best to make you think that you the player ARE Frisk. The beginning of the game asks you to name your character (as many RPGs do), the protagonist is mostly silent, and when second person pronouns are used, they're usually used to address Frisk. The reality of the world space of Undertale however is the opposite. Frisk is an entity independent of the player. In fact, because Frisk has a soul, Frisk might be one of the only entity in the world of Undertale that is completely independent of the players perception.
By thoroughly convincing the player to identify with Frisk, Undertale makes its moments of meta narrative that much more jarring. During the Sans fight at the end of the genocide route, Sans counts the number of times he's defeated you. He's aware that you as the player are just starting over, and his comments throughout the fight aren't directed at Frisk, but at the player controlling him.
At a number of junctions, Undertale actually calls people out for the way they play the game. During the Sans fight, Sans comments on the fact that the player is just doing the genocide run to see what happens, that they are't doing it for some moral reason. Also during the genocide route, Flowey comments on people who only watch games (At least we're better than the sickos who just watch it happen).
This is sort of an incomplete thought but since we focused primarily on the tropes Undertale subverts I wanted to open up a broader discussion of the significance of the meta commentary in Undertale.
I do agree that Undertale has several aspects in which helps you identify as Frisk, from Frisk generally be a silent character, to the androgynous nature of Frisk, to inputting a name, all those contribute in identifying as Frisk. I would argue though that the addition of meta commentary does not do so much as help you identify with Frisk, but identify as you being a part of the game, subverting the idea of having to identify as the character or with a character, since the game forces the player to be part of the game. At this point, it no longer matters whether you identify with Frisk or not, because the game being aware of the actions you take…
Thank you for your post. I found your point about the meta moments of the game really interesting, especially from a moral standpoint. By bypassing Frisk and reaching out directly to the player, the game helps to create a moral structure that exists less in the "video game world" and more in the real world in which the player dwells. Also, although you noted that the game's meta moments take place with Sans and Flowey, I think the argument could be taken even further. Undertale creates a new class of characters that can see past the individual save state of the game, instead seeing all the save states and their multiple different timelines at once. The only characters in this…
In our group discussion we talked about signs in the ruins saying "if you can read this press the blue switch" as being specifically directed to "you", the player, because they tell you what color switch to press. But I think the fact that the switches are behind columns and you can't see from your point of view what color they are makes it more directed towards Frisk. The ambiguity makes the player do the sort of double take you describe (I'm separate from Frisk?), or maybe not if you just think it's a dumb sign/puzzle.
Maybe a more common and stronger example is combat. I'd make the case that, perhaps troublingly, it's in combat when you and your character…