Popular fanon interpretation #1: Papyrus is an idiot.
Popular fanon interpretation #2: Papyrus is a genius and a habitual liar.
Me:
I kind of agree with this? Like, Papyrus is not an idiot, that’s for sure. I don’t think he’s a habitual liar, but I like the idea of him being a genius, or at least smarter than he lets on. I still like the idea of former scientist/engineer Papyrus. ^^;
Oh I’m pretty sure it’s like, canon that he’s an engineer (as a hobby rather than an actual job, IMO), basically–he’d have to be, for all the puzzles he makes.
However I don’t think he’s necessarily smarter than he lets on, because I don’t think he actively tries to mask how smart and capable he is. It’s more because he naturally acts like a goofball, people are caught completely off-guard by how smart he actually is (which is exactly what happens to the player the first time they fight him, unless they’ve been spoiled).
Man, I love Papyrus but he’s such a lying liar who lies. I was reading this meta-theory recently about how there are explanations for the lies/contradictions people point out in the game (I stopped reading it after they mentioned they think Sans is canon Judge of the Underground) and immediately after I thought up a bunch of ways that theory failed and I just found a new piece of evidence that proves that Papyrus lies.
See I was just rereading the Undertale 1st Anniversary Q&A and in this response, in particular, Papyrus reveals that he has never even eaten his spaghetti, which shook the fandom but was also the only thing from it I’ve heard focused on before. So I’m going to point out this part:
That is a direct contradiction to this part of the game:
.
Which proves Papyrus lied in the Q&A about the reason he keeps making spaghetti, because everyone, even Papyrus himself, knows that his spaghetti is bad but no one wants to say it to his face. Which opens up the possibility that all instances where he is contradicting himself he could be lying.
Such as him calling Alphys’ lab a “science house” when at least two other instances show that he knows exactly what a lab is. The difference for that call, in particular, is that Sans is present, just like how in the Q&A he is around Undyne and possibly everyone else. There is more out there but I do not have links to them at the moment, and I just wanted to add this evidence to the pile of evidence that exists proving Papyrus is lying.
I’ve always interpreted the Q&A joke as ‘Papyrus recognizes that spaghetti is a popular dish that almost everyone loves, so he keeps trying to make it despite never tasting it himself,’ not ‘Papyrus mistakenly thinks people love his cooking.’
everybody has that one fictional character that they irrationally adore above all others and will defend to the death and you just get super happy and excited whenever you see their face on your dash
