Death Prediction: sans vs The Beast

(Obviously, spoilers)

Through millennia and generatons mother nature created the apex hunter, mankind. But be careful if you wander into the supernatural, dear humanity, into the forests of imagination or the caverns of magic. Watch out for strange lights and eyes in the darkness. If you lose your way you may find the hunter has become the hunted, by a monster that hunts more then just your body...but your soul itself.

sans the skeleton, the "easiest enemy"

The Beast, the death of hope

Long ago the Earth was the dominion of two races: the humans and the monsters. War broke out between these two ending, after a long time, with the humans victorious who sealed the monsters underground with their magic. one of these monsters was sans the skeleton (whose name is not capitalized). sans, along with his brother Papyrus are royal guard trainees and sentries for Snowdin forest who are supposed to be on the lookout for humans though sans states upon first meeting him that he doesn't really care about capturing anybody

However it is later revealed, sans had made a friendship with Toriel, the queen of the monsters in hiding, over bad jokes. Toriel wished to protect human children from the king of the monsters Asgore, who wished to attain 7 human souls to break the barrier sealing the monsters underground. Toriel made sans promise, despite his dislike of promising, to protect any human that came by, and of sans hadn't made the promise, the human would have been killed on the spot. It's possible both of these are the truth and sans wouldn't have wanted to kill human trespassers just out of his laziness. 

Now it might seem hard for someone like sans, who has the lowest stats in the game and is thus "the easiest enemy" to protect a human from monsters of the Underground. However your ol buddy sans the skeleton has more then a few tricks up his sleeve. 

Physiology:

sans is...well....a skeleton. However further then that, sans is a monster. Monsters are mostly made of magic. Magic itself is not purely physical but a monster's body is a physical thing made of it which can do things like sweat, get physically ill, and breathe. Despite being the physically weakest monster, weaker then even Monster Kid, sans can easily tank the heat of Hotland, even sleeping comfortably in it.  This is impressive as the heat of Hotland can quickly evaporate a cup of water including the styrofoam cup itself. Even a conservative calc of this would suggest that sans can withstand hundreds of kilojoules of energy. It's possible sans' durability could be massively higher. When monsters consume food, it is converted perfectly into energy, suggesting that their bodies can possibly withstand the 100% matter to energy conversion. If they converted even 0.1 kilograms, it would equate to over 2 megatons of energy. However there's no other feat like this and the mass content of monster food is unknown (though in fairness, sans can stack 30 hot-dogs? on Frisk's head so you could argue them not falling is a sign they have substantial weight or it not affecting Frisk is a sign they don't have substantial weight) so it's easier go with the first value.

More then his physical power, sans is quite famous for his speed, possibly normally the highest in the Underground. sans is capable of consistently dodging strikes from Frisk, with only a surprise strike being able to hit him. This is despite Frisk having numerous attempts, and even when he was literally asleep after when the attack was launched. An earlier Frisk was able to react to and move comparable to attacks that are literally soundwaves from a dog and missiles from the mad dummy. This is consistent with him being faster then Undyne who sprinted from her house in Waterfall to Papyrus' house in Snowdin extremely quickly, a speed calced to supersonic speeds.

sans also might be immortal. He's a skeleton made of magic but also at one point during his fight he says "even if we have to wait here until the end of time." That might be hyperbole but either way it's not really helpful since it's only agelessness immortality.

Magic:

Due to their magical nature, many, if not all monsters have the ability to use magic and sans is no exception. sans, like all monsters can directly interact with opponent's soul. sans in particular can use telekinesis to control his opponents soul (usually forcing it to the ground) and hitting them with bones erupting from any direction. He can also summon bones (including blue bones which are intangible to those standing still but hit moving enemies) and platforms floating in midair as well as laser weapons shaped like skulls called "gaster blasters" for general Undertale-verse style danmaku. His attacks cause a poison to slowly damage a soul over time called "KR" or "Karmic Retribution". I have seen statements that this is related to one's sins, though I have been unable to find confirmation in the game. sans attack is 1, meaning all his attacks do minimal damage but this is misleading as they essentially do a constant stream of 1 damage as opposed to singular burts of damage.

Beyond normal Undertale-verse magic, sans is actually rather infamous for his manipulation of spacetime. He can casually teleport and warp space to create impossible "shortcuts" or move an enemy's soul a spatially warped distance in combat.  He can teleport in his blasters and telekinetically control them to use them regardless of location and can teleport his opponents. He also has a form of metafictional time stop. He can "refuse to take his turn" and while he and his opponent are both conscious, neither can take an action (unless they can break the metafictional rules). This is actually not a one-off instance, he has frozen time at other points.  He can't actually act during this time stop, so he can't attack a helpless enemy, but it does give him the opportunity to pause the action and plan.

Mental:

sans, despite his goofy exterior, is actually a scientific supergenius able to, likely via some machine, analyze the timelines progression. He's also a fairly good manipulator and not above using trickery to win like pretending to spare his enemies only to instantly kill them. sans is also really good at getting informaton about his opponent, being able to read how many times he's killed Frisk in a row by Frisk's facial expression. He is also able to read levels of violence and execution points, or how many times one has killed, although it's implied this may also be related to his supernaturally good facial expression reading.

Also despite what he is primarily known for character-wise, in the genocide run, after being hit with well more then enough force to kill him, he actually manages to stay alive for a little bit. This is possibly the second most impressive will feat of any monster, after the true hero of the monsters Undyne, literally reforming her body from willpower.

Weaknesses:

sans, like all monsters, is made of magic whose properties depend on intent. If a monster's will to fight drops, or an enemy strikes with intent to kill, the attack will be far more damaging. sans is also the "easiest enemy" with physical stats of 1 (though these are somewhat deceptions as sans attacks do 1 continuous damage as opposed to large bursts of damage, and he dodges all attacks)

sans is also infamous for his weakness; sans almost never involves himself and displays very little will, prefering to goof around. He describes this as laziness, however during his battle it is born from his realization that no matter what he does, the events will be reset without him having any memory. This engendered a fatalism in him that makes it hard to give his all...or "or is that a poor excuse for laziness?" Where laziness and apathy start and end can be hard to tell, but sans only gives his all when he can no longer afford not to care. sans has naturally very little will due to the seeming pointlessness of exerting effort and fatigues fairly easily often sleeping around or falling into apathy.

Personality:

sans is introduced as a silly goofster who enjoys puns, bad jokes, pranks, and lazing around. This seems to be a defense to protect against the sense of meaninglessness that pervades his existence, an existence where no matter what happens, it will all get reset and he'll be back doing the same things. Despite that when everything was being threatened permanently, despite he had no chance of winning, sans stepped up to defend it all. sans had no chance of winning and he was aware of it, but fought regardless, hoping to crush the evil determination of the genocidal anomaly. sans represents the crushing force of apathy and fatalism, being a fight so hard and so aggravating that it would reduce the player's will to apathy.

 

There exists a place that few have seen, a mysterious place list to the annals of history. This is the place where lost souls go, and where long forgotten stories are revealed. It is a perilous place abounding in magic. However of all the perils in the Unknown, none are more feared then the Beast.

The Beast is the de facto lord of the woods collectively called the Unknown. A shadowy and sinister figure, he is the hunter of lost souls, stalking like the night, singing like the four winds. He is the death of hope and all those whom lose hope, shall forever be a part of his forest.

(Note: It is strongly implied that the Unknown is actually an astral place outside physical existence. However because this is not confirmed I am not going to be including that in this blog. It's also wierdly irrelevant to this particular fight.)

Physiology:

The Beast is a creature of edelwood (8:24), woods made of the souls of those who have become lost in the unknown and which "bleed" oil. The Beast seems to have control over the wood making up his body, able to shift it at one point in anger (6:52). However the wood body he has is not his true self, for in truth, the lantern he tricks others into keeping aflame, has his soul within. (6:50) So long as it is aflame, he will not die. 

As the Top Tier of the verse, the Beast likely scales above the lesser threats in The Unknown, including "Papa", a creature the size of a small house, and the beast-wolf. The beast-wolf was a normal dog before eating a turtle with edelwood oil on it turning into a monstrous wolf that could survive the force of a mill's wheel (8:50), the sheer force destroying the mill (9:10). Notably this was only a dog that had eaten a little edelwood oil and which the Woodsman implies is vastly weaker the the Beast. (9:20) This possibly could be talking about the Beast's intellect and wider range of abilities but it does still suggest the Beast should at least scale to the beast-wolf.

The Beast also easily scales to the speeds of most humans in the verse, clearly moving equally to the Woodsman. (4:12) He should thus be superior to Wirt, who is less physically capable, if only by a small bit. There are numerous talking intelligent animals in the Unknown which Wirt has moved comparable to, including an angry bear.  More impressive he was able to react and move slightly as Papa's tears were just beginning to fall but before they had reached him. This is impressive as Papa's tears quickly filled the farm they were on, flooding it. It's difficult to tell how big it is due to the odd perspective however it is a fully functional small farm. A small farm in the United States (where OTGW is set) is, on average, 231 acres or 934,824 meters squared. This would equate to a circle of radius ~545.5 meters. This seems to happen quickly, faster then they can say another word despite Wirt, Beatrice and Greg all speaking. Assuming it was 1 second this would be obviously 545.5 meters per second or ~ Mach 1.6. Assuming 2 seconds it would be ~Mach 0.8. As such the feat is a high end subsonic, possibly low supersonic speed feat.

 

Magic:

The Beast has several supernatural abilities beyond his physical capabilities. Easily his most famous is his ability to turn anyone who has lost hope into edelwood. (8:14) This actually extends not just to those who have lost hope but to those who are dying or dead physically, even if they have not lost hope. The Woodsman warns Greg and Wirt to keep both their bodies and spirits hearty (1:40) and the Beast says all those who will perish here (in the forest) will become trees for the lantern. (8:03) This is how he almost converted Greg to edelwood, not by crushing his hope (as Greg has the highest hope in the series), but by exhausting the young boy in the cold and brekaing his body. He can also cause edelwood to bind those who are starting to lose hope. (9:05)

The Beast is also surrounded constantly by an aura of darkness, save for his glowing eyes. He can freely manipulate his dark aura such as when he tried to stealthily extend his hand in darkness (4:05) and can even engulf an area in total darkness. (6:55) The Beast also knows a few more tricks. He can throw his voice, a form of supernatural ventriloquilism. With it he commanded Adelaide from far away, being the voice of the night. (10:08) Indeed he is known for his sinister song before he kills. The Beast can control his soul within the lantern, making it appear as other things to deceive. 

Also I'm not sure how to interpret this, but after the Beast died, the Woodsman's daughter returned (10:00) despite her disapparence due to the Beast's interference. I've seen some people suggest, on a seperate note, that the Beast has weather manipulation due to the sudden strong snowfall in the ending, but I'm not sure what says the Beast caused him. The best I can tell is that Greg's dream, which seemed to have some truth within it, suggested that the North Wind changed the weather in his dream to reflect the change of weather in reality, and him being seen as a stand-in for the Beast but I don't think it's very clear evidence for it.

Mental:

The Beast is an infamous manipulator. (8:10) He has an almost supernatural ability to make people listen to him, which he used to convince Adelaide of the forest to listen to his commands without objection, deceived the Woodsman into doing his biding for years, and almost got Wirt to become the new caretaker of the lantern.

He also seems to have some level of awareness of the happenings in his woods, as he was aware of when Wirt had lost hope and he could bind him with edelwood, however it's vague.

Weaknesses:

The Beast's most infamous weakness is his lantern. His soul is within it, and if the flame goes out in any way, the Beast will perish. In addition, Beast's abilities are somewhat reliant on his opponent running out of hope. This is most obvious with the explicit limitation that only someone without hope can be turned to edelwood, but things like his darkness manipulation and his voice manipulation are also tricks used to intimidate and deceive those who already see him as an unstoppable force. 

That leads to his other weakness, he may be a great manipulator, but he relies on his opponent to be deceived and not having full information, keeping them metaphorically "in the dark". He was defeated at least once by the woodsman, who has no special abilities save stats just because he was fighting for his daughter and was neither intimidated or out of hope. The Beast isn't much of a fighter, and doesn't have much fighting experience or direct fighting abilities.

Personality:

The Beast represents the loss of hope, the encroachment of night. Those that have fallen to despair will remain forever in his domain, literally as a part of him. Those whose only hopes are depraved or vile are manipulated to his biding, trying to stave off his displeasure. He seems affable at first, if intimidating in apperearence, to those that are unaware, the quiet and gentle approach of the cold darkness of giving up, of letting oneself die. However it is yet another deception, for he is a sinister personality that will literally feed on the souls of those that have accepted his inevitability.

Alright, the combatants are set. It's time.....for a DEATH PREDICTION!!!

Twilight broke over the strange and distant wilds. The frontiers of the Unknown, the strange to the strange, came to the crest of Mt. Ebott. Creatures tended away from those places, sensing the strange and twisted energy of the lord of these woods pursuing a lost child, far from home, before he fell down...down.....down deeper past a barrier long since forgotten, a barrier light and darkness and man fell through without error. 

In the shadows deep underground, sans lurked on the watchout from humans. The area was a small rocky tunnel, with some of the great old trees making their roots and growing from this spot up above, above where the humans resided. A large circular room, with several trees within sprouted from this spot near the barrier, an intersection of the forest and the underground. Not many knew of this entrance to the underground, so small and remote was it, but to his surprise, a child had indeed fallen down. A human child. sans remembered the promise he had made the ol lady and did not engage. But the child was followed by a mysterious figure...

The Beast wandered in the underground. Such was on the edges of the unknown, skirting the great mountain. He had seen a lost soul, full with hope, pass by here, capable of powering his lantern for a pleasently long time. He made his way down nimbly down the rocks falling, as a graceful beam of pure darkness down into the depths into a circular room, a building of some form. But before he could pursue the child, he saw to his surprise... a skeleton wearing the most peculiar clothing looking at him with an insulting grin.

sans beheld the Beast and was somewhat taken aback. The figure was as though a great inky blob of darkness had come to life, save for two glowing eyes in the darkness. sans was mildly unnerved. He didn't like not being able to see this being's expression.

"Do not impede me..." said the Beast softly but sinisterly "return to Pottsfield, or fall." He didn't want to waste time and let the human get away.

sans replied with a jovial tone "I can tell you have a BONE to pick with that human...but I guess I'll have to do." Silently sans said to himself "old lady, your promise is really getting me in trouble. I guess we're having a bad time today."

sans immediatly attempted to skewer his enemies soul with a surprise bone surge from below. The bones crashed through the grounds scratching at the enemy's body, creating the scratching sound of wood on bone...

"...Huh?" said sans in confusion. It was like his enemy didn't have a soul.

The Beast growled in anger and sent a shadowy hand at sans' position but by the time it got there the skeleton had easily sidestepped.

"Hmmm, I can see you are stronger then you appear." The beast said with a gutteral growl.

sans casually balanced one bone on a finger telekinetically. "I'm not the type to just stand there and take it."

A cruel laughter came from the Beast's position before he spread his aura of darkness across the arena, plunging the two in darkness. The only lights sans could see were the lights of the Beast's eyes and his lantern. However sans raised his hand and the area immediatly became lighted by glowing bones spiking from the back wall and two gaster blasters floating to either side of him which fired.

The Beast's eyes sparked with recognition of the threat and dodged behind a nearby tree, completely disappearing in the dark. Before sans could pursue his enemy, he heard his enemy's voice behind him. sans, who was no strange to teleportation teleported quickly to a nearby tree branch, leaning against it to minimize his body area and maximize his stealth.

The two quickly noticed the impass....neither had visual on each other. The Beast knew quickly he was at a disadvantage seeing glowing bones pop up from the ground and the walls randomly searching for him, soon to find him by blind luck. The Beast knocked into the tree adjacent to him and heard nothing fall out. However as the sound echoed through the rooms The Beast saw two gaster blasters beign aiming around the tree he was at.

sans heard the shaking of a nearby tree and quickly tried to summon two gaster blasters to fire at the surrounding positions before he suddenly heard an eerie singing come from the opposite side of the room. A deception! sans tried to quickly skewer the area with bones only to come up empty.

The Beast spoke, his voice seeming to come from all around the room at once. "Why do you fight me skeleton?"

sans responded "Got asked to protect humans. What can I say, when I'm talking to old ladies, I guess I don't have any back-BONE."

"Humans...." The Beast said with a mild disgust in his voice. The Beast attempted to charge the position where sans's voice had come from but sans, expecting this teleported above before raining done bones on his enemy.

A sickening skewer sound was heard and the Beast's darkness shrunk back, as the Beast shuddered slightly. sans triumphantly teleported back to the ground but before he could act, he felt himself begin to slip on the oil coating the ground from the Beast. He quickly conjured a platform to stand on, nearer to the Beast but this was the moment the Beast was waiting for who promptly shot up. sans quickly found himself encased in edelwood. The Beast brought down a mighty strike but just as the blow came to the tip of sans skull, the skeleton teleported away.

"Impossible!" said the Beast in shock.

sans felt his breath start to get harsh. He was starting to fatigue, and he had almost gotten hit. He had to finish this!

sans tried to telekinetically grab The Beast's soul, but again found nothing in his body, only the strange lantern. Inside sans could view a strange humanoid shape....

sans redoubled his efforts, teleporting the Beast into bones on the wall, causing small punctures in his body though sans could not see anything more then brief flashes of parts of his enemy. sans attempted to fire gaster blasters at the Beast though he managed to just barely avoid, slinking to a nearby tree. 

sans bounded from tree to platform to tree, attempting to quickly bombard him with lasers from above even as the Beast conjured up darkness across the room again. 

The Beast attempted to grab one of the platforms to hurl it at the skeleton, but it was of some ethereal make. For the first time in a long time, the Beast felt the shivers of fear, this enemy's attacks were not causing much damage with each strike, but they were relentless and they had a seeming never ending amount of abilities. However he had one last trick.

"Wait, wait" came the voice of the Beast, feigning weakness. "You protect humans? Well this human depends on me..." he said, willing his soul to take a more clearly humanoid form in the lantern. "If I die, then she will do as well." The Beast took the darkness back within him form, taking on a defensive crouch.

sans paused. He promised to protect humans but this being was clearly a threat. 

As if reading his mind the Beast spoke again "I can just leave now and we can both forget this little encounter ever happened" as he said so, the Beast reached his hand like a dark claw along the ground to grab the little nuisance. However just at the moment he was going to do so sans sidestepped.

"Nice try" he said mockingly "but no one dunks on sans!"

Saying so, sans with his right hand brought more bones into the Beast's side, tearing into his wood, telekintically tossing the lantern aside with his left hand.

A chunk of wood fell off the Beast and sans could immediatly see something was not right. The wood had horrid faces carved into them. 

"Is this some kind of joke?" sans asked surprised "if so, it's not a very funny one." however the Beast growled in defiance. Snow and darkness sweeped the area. sans summoned a platform and teleported onto it only to find that his slippers had snow and oil on them, causing him to skid slightly. 

He felt himself start to lose balance and felt his body skid to one side. His breath was caught in his throat. "Wha...what's happening?" he thought to himself, before coughing up leaves.

The eyes of the Beast looked up at him from the pit, able to see him in the faint last light in the sky, watching him begin to turn to edelwood. The Beast would be happy to use this petulant skeleton as kindling. sans felt a part of his body sickeningly convert to wood, and snap off of him. 

"You've delayed me long...but now you will become a part of my woods forever" said the Beast gleefully.

"So....I guess this is how it ends...."he though groggily as the lifeforce began to seep out of him.....however visions of people came to him....Papyrus....his brother....

a blaze in the snow....something primal awoke in sans and the small part of his body....reappeared. sans eyes glowed fiercely against the darkening area. Maybe it was hopeless, but it was still worth fighting for!

The Beast could not believe his eyes, someone who had lost hope....had regained a will to live so strongly? Before he knew what was going he felt himself flung spatially, flung down a seemingly unending corridor, with that strange smiling skeleton appearing and repeating over and over along the sides, bones on the ceiling and the floor scratching at his body. 

"What is this feeling?" The Beast though to himself in fear, it was like his sins were running through his form. Like the souls making up the edelwood of his body screamed in hatred.

The Beast covered the area in darkness quickly but sans scraped a bone against the ground and the oil that had accumulated causing a fire to burst across the area, bringing it all alight briefly against the raging snow. 

Large portions of the Beast's body was torn from him. He quickly attempted to ensnare sans in edelwood again, but sans sidestepped the roots coming up from the earth. sans attacked and attacked, throwing everything he had, more then everything he had into each blow, until his enemy was naught but blazing ash and cinders. 

The snow came to a stop as the battle's tempest ceased. sans' breath was heavy and labored and, happy that he had stopped the strange threat walked over to the clearing and laid against the tree, quickly falling asleep against the snowy bark. As he lay there asleep, he didn't even notice the soul inside the lantern looking at him, or the fact that he was turning to edelwood.

The Beast had been stopped for a time, but sans' soul quickly transmuted into a small edelwood tree, a tree bent and broken by the gravity of the world, and beautiful in it's flowers.

K.O.

So going into this one, I honestly thought that sans would take it relatively clearly due to his versatility and hax. However going into it more, it got more and more unclear and confusing. That said I have to say I think the Beast may be as bad an enemy as sans could get.

So let's go over the obvious point first. The Beast could, at any point, turn sans into edelwood. sans has lost all hope which is what led to his crippling apathy and fatalism. This is worse then it sounds because sans's main defense, his ONLY defense is his ability to dodge attacks. Transmutation is not something you can really dodge however. At best he can get out of line of sight of the Beast but it's unlikely that would stop a transmutation that has already begun and that's arguably not even in character. It's possible sans could be transmuted as well from the fact that he's a skeleton and therefore might qualify as "dead", however he's probably not dead. It's likely skeletons are a natural species of monster however their physiology seems to be close enough that I don't think it means they could resist transmutation, especially since they DO have a soul (even if it's weaker then humans). Also while sans has willpower in a very important fight, and he did at least briefly since he didn't instantly evaporate upon being hit by the second attack, he still didn't have hope. In fact that was the time he arguably had the least hope.

sans is a more skilled fighter sure but despite his ability to dodge attacks he still stands in the line of sight until the moment of attack and then dodges. This could dodge any melee strike the Beast could throw at him sure, but it wouldn't help against something that isn't a melee or projectile attack (which is what comprises essentially all UT-verse attacks)

Now sure, sans could also have easily one-shot The Beast. It would have been relatively simple for him to teleport the soul of the Beast out of the lantern killing him. But not only does sans not have the information, that the soul in there is the Beast (although it wouldn't be unreasonable to suggest a supergenius scientist could figure it out quickly), sans only stepped into fight against Genocide Frisk because he ABSOLUTELY had too. We've never seen him fight otherwise but it's likely he wouldn't have taken it as seriously and gone for the kill right away. 

In terms of stats, the Beast actually would be very similar to most UT boss monsters at low building level and around the speed of sound. The Beast also has killing intent which is not very helpful since any attack from him would one-shot but it is nice I suppose. If you said that sans is low city because monsters convert food to pure energy and Beast is city level from creating a strong snowstorm, the power differential would be about the same.

The Beast could fill the area with darkness and use voice manipulation to trick sans but sans could also use teleportation and spacetime shenanigans to trick the Beast. Problem was two fold, while sans could avoid most attacks, he couldn't avoid being transmuted without at the very least knowing about it first, and second of all, he could do damage to the Beast by teleporting him into blasts or bones or the like, but he couldn't do massive damage to his body since KR has no feats of poisoning the body. This means sans could only do tiny chip damage. 

You might think the Beast would want an area of effect to use on sans but the fact he doesn't means sans has no way of teleporting him into his own attacks or the like meaning that unless sans realizes The Beast's soul is in the lantern, the fight is going to come down to transmutation, a melee strike from the Beast, or one of sans' ranged attacks eventually chipping him down.

sans could delay by teleporting around or using spatial manipulating but his offense was minimal without him figuring out the lantern, and at the very least would take a little bit of thought if he did. Meanwhile the Beast could one-shot at any time. sans was massively more versatility, but sometimes versatility can't stand up to sheer potency.

The winner is....The Beast

Next Time: 

Please join me for my Halloween Special Death Analysis

Special Thanks to my friend Thor for making this amazing next time trailer and for providing the soundtrack for this death prediction.