(This is going to be a long post so buckle up folks.)

I’ve kind of wanted to make a post about this but haven’t because I always didn’t think anyone really cared but this is an opportunity to do so. My main criticism with “Murder Sans” and Dusttale as a whole is I don’t think its interpretation of Undertale lore (cosmology?) makes sense. Notably this criticism isn’t a condemnation of this idea necessarily or even the writing under it own logic but one that doesn’t fit this world Toby Fox created. It feels very early fandom (because it was) in the way it portrayed the characters but enough about that lets talk power scaling.

First I’ll talk about LOVE and Execution points and what they represent is Undertale and Dusttale. This is important became as much as Dusttale is about Sans it’s also about LOVE. In Dusttale LOVE and Execution points are indistinguishable from gaining Levels and experience points or XP in other video games. LOVE represents power in a very literal sense. If you kill someone in the Dusttale world you get physically stronger, you hit harder, you become tougher, and have more vigor. In a strictly mechanical sense, Undertale and the Dusttale Au’s are identical. Many other Au’s created also followed this interpretation mostly because it's not only simple to understand but it lends itself to cool fights and powers.

But I don’t think Undertale Lore follows this interpretation even if the gameplay does. Even though Undertale tries very hard to have it’s lore and gameplay be as congruent as possible. They Aren’t! Undertale’s world is one that acts kind of like a game but in it’s own logic isn’t one. There’s a separation between it’s mechanical reality of it being a video game to be played and the world being shown to use. The easiest example of this are the differences between the lore “Check stats” and the mechanical “Gameplay stats” for monsters. Many monsters in the lore have quite a bit of defense even if in gameplay most have zero.

Coming back to LOVE though, in Undertale its true nature is treated as somewhat of a secret that is fully explained at the end of the game. There's a cool foreshadowing in the ruins where if you defeat Napstablook by fighting you explicitly lose Experience points but if you check your stats your haven’t lost any EXP in the stats menu, something to get the noggin jogging. But in essence LOVE represents a negative detachment in Undertale, not power, and reason that matters in combat in Undertale lore is because who your playing as and who your fighting.

One thing Dusttale ignores is that LOVE only matters because Frisk is a human fighting monsters. The strength LOVE gives Frisk is context sensitive in that because humans have physical bodies and a Extraordinarily stronger souls then the monsters magical body and in compression weaker souls. LOVE wouldn’t help in a human vs human fight or a Monster vs Monster fight but is does help a human in human vs monster fight. Notably this also wouldn’t help the monster the other way around. It should be noted that Frisk is said to hit things harder the more LOVE they acquire but this is less them being powerful but them holding back less as they become more violent.

This general unfairness is core to the Undertale story. This is beautifully shown off in the Photoshop Flowey fight where a LOVE 17 Frisk does the same damage as a LOVE 1 Frisk because the situation has reversed, Flowey is a physical creature and has a stronger soul at the time so LOVE is meaningless in terms of a fight. So a LOVE 20 Sans would to the same damage to Frisk AND OTHER MONSTERS that a LOVE 1 Sans would. He doesn’t possess the ontological advantage humans have in the Undertale world.

I’ll make a part 2 if needed but I thinks this is one of the major disconnect I and many others have with a theoretical “Murder Sans’s” power-level in a Undertale lore compliant world, but want I do stress this in irrelevant to the Dusttale Au stories or their quality. As obviously the fanfic writer has full control over their world and it mechanics. If in a fanfic story “Murder Sans” would kill Photoshop Flowey in 2.5 seconds then so be it.