Marinette Dupain-Cheng

Marinette Dupain-Cheng is the playable character and main protagonist of ANIMALTALE. After Marie falls into the Underground in Paris, she embarks on a journey to return to the surface. Marie is the last of the eight humans to fall into Underground after travelling to Mt. Paris. Marie is not the "fallen human" named at the beginning of the game. Marie's name is only revealed in the True Pacifist Route.

Appearance
Marie is half French and half Chinese. She has bluebell eyes and medium-length black hair with blue reflections. She usually wears her hair back in two pigtails with red hair ties.

She wears a striped pink/purple and blue dress, white socks and brown shoes.

Personality
Marie's personality is ambiguous, allowing the player to project her personality onto Marie. Marie speaks to NPCs throughout the game. NPCs dialogue boxes display "..." to show that the NPC is listening to Mary, and some NPCs respond to questions that Marie asks.

Depending on her actions, players can interpret Mary as merciful or merciless. Some NPCs emphasize Marie's kindness, understanding, and grace in the epilogue. Marie is obedient and only disallows player input when she follows someone else's instructions, such as when Sans tells her to hide behind the Chinese-patterned lamp.

Abilities
Marie's determination grants the power to FREEZE and heal at FREEZE points. The FREEZE file can be reloaded to repeat events that occur after it, but NPCs' memories are not completely erased unless a True Reset occurs. This power emerged when Mary first awoke in the Desert.

Neutral Route
Flowey attempts to kill Marie after he pretends to offer honest advice. Toriel intervenes, hits Flowey with wool magic, and serves as a guide to the Desert. At the end of a long room, Toriel asks Marie to wait for her to return and states that she has errands to do. To be safe, Toriel gives Marie a cell phone to call her with.

Marie travels through the remaining puzzles in the Desert and eventually arrives at Toriel's home. She asks Toriel "how to exit the DESERT," which prompts Toriel to destroy the Desert's exit. Toriel then battles Mary because she wants her to prove that she can survive outside of the Desert.

Then, Marie meets Sans and Papyrus in Sanddin Beach. The brothers set up traps and puzzles in an attempt to capture Mary. After passing through Sanddin, Papyrus battles Mary.

Undyne, the head of the Royal Guard, pursues Marie throughout Coral Reef. Dolphin Kid often saves Marie from Undyne by accident because she is so excited to see Undyne in action. After a chase scene, Undyne destroys a bridge that Marie is standing on, and Frisk falls into the grassy grave. Before she gets up, she recalls a memory from the first human. In the grassy grave, Mad Elephant battles Marie because Marie mistreated his cousin, Elephant, in the Desert. At the end of Coral Reef, Undyne battles Marie after she gives an abridged monologue atop a crag.

After entering Humidland, Marie enters a lab and meets Alphys and Mettaton. Alphys tells Marie that she is not a bad guy, and Mettaton interrupts her with a quiz show. Alphys gives Marie an upgraded cell phone after the quiz show concludes, and she says that she will guide Marie through Humidland and the MOUNTAIN. Before his battle at the end of the MOUNTAIN, Mettaton reveals that Alphys had created all of the traps in Humidland in an attempt to endear herself to Mary. He then transforms into Mettaton EX and battles Marie.

While passing through New Home, the capital of the Underground, Marie learns the story of Asgore and Toriel's children from passing animals. Then, Sans judges Marie in the final corridor and explains the meaning of LOVE and EXP. He also emphasizes Marie's importance in the fate of the world.

Escape
Marie enters the Throne Room and finds Asgore, who tries to make small talk, only to realize her fated confrontation. The two walk to the Barrier and Asgore gives Marie one last opportunity to leave before fighting.

Just before the fight, Asgore shows the six collected human SOULs, preparing the containment process after the battle. Right before the fight starts, Asgore destroys the MERCY button, making it impossible to spare or flee. However, at the fight's conclusion, Marie can explicitly choose whether to spare or kill Asgore. Regardless of the choice made, Flowey appears, destroys Asgore's SOUL and takes the human SOULs. The game then abruptly closes.

After reopening the game, Marie finds that Flowey has saved his own game over the SAVE file, having gained the power to do so with the stolen human SOULs and turns them into dead SOULs. Loading Flowey's game, Marie confronts a powered up Flowey and defiantly steps forward, entering an initially hopeless battle with him.

After Marie calls for help several times, the stolen SOULs begin to revolt: first, they heal Marie, and then they weaken Flowey, leaving him vulnerable to destruction. After reducing his HP to 0 and listening to his monologue, the SOULs remove Flowey's ability to FREEZE or BURN. After this, the SOULs leave Marie and Flowey alone. At this point, there is an option to kill or spare a weakened Flowey before leaving the Underground, return to the surface, and end her journey.

After leaving the Underground, Marie receives a call from Sans, who leaves a message about what happened to the Underground after Asgore died. This varies based on what animals were killed and what friendships were completed.

True Pacifist Route
To complete the True Pacifist Route, Marie must have first completed the Neutral Route.

If Mary has completed the Neutral Route without gaining any EXP or LV (i.e. without killing anyone), it is possible to backtrack in the existing FREEZE file to complete any missing friendships, then achieve the True Pacifist ending.

If Frisk acquires any EXP or LV, she has to reset the game to reach the True Pacifist Ending.

Friendship
While Marie befriends many of the animals in the Underground, only the Undyne, Papyrus, and Alphys friendships are necessary to achieve the True Pacifist Ending.

Marie gains Toriel's friendship by sparing her, but she does not make another appearance until the end of the route.

Marie wins Sans's friendship by sparing Papyrus, and can optionally hang out with him twice (once at Grillby's, once at the MTT Resort,)

Marie gains Papyrus's friendship by visiting him at his home and hanging out or dating him.

Napstablook can be befriended by smiling at her in the Desert, and hanging out with her at her house.

If Marie chooses to give Undyne some water after being pursued, Undyne can be befriended. Otherwise, a reset is needed to achieve Undyne's trust and friendship. Marie visits Undyne with Papyrus's help, and Undyne gets "revenge" by trying to befriend Marie and become "besties", setting her house on fire in the process. She tries to fight Marie to regain honor but realizes that Mary is a "wimpy loser with a big heart" just like Asgore and decides to be friends.

Mettaton can be befriended by sparing him, which can be done by getting his ratings to 12000 (10000 if his front and hind limbs have fallen off) in his battle at the end of the DESERT.

Undyne, having been encouraged to send a love letter to Alphys, gives the letter to Marie, who delivers it to Alphys. This results in a date sequence with Alphys in which she and Undyne realize their feelings for each other and Alphys begins to come to terms with her past mistakes.

After befriending Alphys, Papyrus recommends traveling to Alphys's lab. In the lab, there is a letter on the floor that, when picked up, reads a monologue and the instructions needed to proceed to learn "the truth." Walking through the bathroom door reveals an elevator which goes down to the True Tree after a malfunction.

Marie proceeds to explore the True Tree and along the way learns of Alphys's failed dragon experiments (giraffemates) with determination and also about the origin of Flowey. After exploring the True Tree and talking to Alphys, she gains the confidence to reveal the truth about her dragon experiments to the rest of the Underground. While attempting to leave, Marie receives a phone call in the elevator from an unknown voice. The elevator immediately and forcibly brings Marie to New Home.

Barrier
After returning to the throne room and confronting Asgore again, the pre-fight dialogue is interrupted by Toriel, who stops Asgore from fighting Marie. Toriel is immediately followed by the other main characters who encourage everyone to get along. However, in a surprise twist, Papyrus reveals that it was "a little vulture" who told him to bring everyone there.

Immediately after this reveal, Flowey appears, having stolen the SOULs of the six other humans. He attempts to kill Marie, but Undyne, Toriel, Alphys, and Papyrus use their power to block Flowey's finishing blows. Directly after this, all of the Underground's animals arrive to encourage Mary in the fight against Flowey. However, Flowey reveals that this has what he wanted all along so that he could absorb the souls of all the animals in the Underground along with the six human SOULs.

Due to the immense power gained from the six human SOULs and all of the animal SOULs, Flowey can transform into his true form, and just before the fight begins it is revealed that he is actually Asriel Dreemurr.

During this fight, Marie is invincible, and any hit that would normally result in death instead causes the heart to split, but reform back together. The first time this happens, it is accompanied by the text "but it refused." After stalling for long enough, Asriel transforms again. At this point, Mary can feel the souls of Toriel, Asgore, Alphys, Undyne, Papyrus, and Sans within Asriel and the ACT button changes to FREEZE to represent the act of freeing everyone's souls. This is accomplished by completing a short sequence of ACT options to restore the memory of each lost soul after selecting the said lost soul of a chosen character.

After saving each animal, Marie realizes that there is still one more person to save. After choosing to save "someone else," Asriel's memories of the first human (who resembled Molly) begin to play in a slideshow style. It is then revealed this "someone else" is Asriel himself. After this, Asriel starts to feel the love the animals feel for Marie through the souls he has absorbed, and slowly loses the will to fight as he is overcome with his fear of dying alone.

After reverting to his child form, Asriel learns Marie's name. He apologizes for hurting everybody, and Marie can choose to forgive or not forgive Asriel. Regardless of the choice made, Asriel destroys the barrier using the power of all of the SOULs before releasing them. Knowing that he will turn back to a vulture without the power of the SOULs to sustain him, Asriel says one last goodbye to Frisk before leaving. At this point, there is a choice to hug Asriel or do nothing.

Freedom
After the scene with Asriel finishes, Marie wakes up in front of Toriel, Sans, Papyrus, Undyne, Alphys and Asgore. While the animals remember little about Flowey and nothing about his incarnation as Asriel, they do know Marie's name. At this point, Marie can backtrack through the Underground and talk to the other animals, before returning the surface.

Backtracking to the very first room in ANIMALTALE reveals that Asriel is tending to the flowers. Asriel asks about Mary's desire to travel up Mt. Paris in the first place. Receiving no answer, Asriel lists off foolishness or fate as possible motives, but comes to the conclusion that "only you (Mary) know the answer."

After passing through the final door to the surface, Marie leaves the Underground with friends. Asgore offers Marie the chance to be the monsters' ambassador to the humans. Most of the main animal cast then leave, except for Toriel, who asks about Marie's plans. At this point, Mary can choose to stay with Toriel or to go elsewhere.

Trivia

 * In the English version, the pronunciation of the name Marinette with "mar" as in "marinade" is used, and in French, and other countries, the pronunciation with "mar" as in "market" is used.
 * The first part of her last name, "Dupain," comes from the French words "du pain," which mean "of the bread" or "some bread." This is a reference to her father's job as a baker.


 * "Marinette" translates as "the one who rises."
 * "Cheng," the second part of her last name, translates as "to make."
 * Literally, Marinette's name is "the one who rises to make bread."
 * "Marie" is a short form for Marinette.
 * Naming the fallen human "Marie" initiates Hard Mode.
 * While Marie is allergic to Marinette, this is not true of the other furry or hairy residents of the Underground.
 * Marie is to be right-handed just like in Miraculous Ladybug. Evidence includes:
 * Holding the umbrella and glass of water using her right hand.
 * Offering her right hand to Toriel when she guides them through the Desert.
 * The slicing attack animation curving to the left, implying that force was carried from the left to the right during the attack.
 * Most fatality battle effects display steep slashes from top left to bottom right, a pattern fitting for someone who is right-handed.
 * Out of all the humans that fell to the Underground, Marie is the only human to survive the adventure.
 * Marie was originally going to be a female domestic cat, then a male ocelot and finally a male cheetah, this was changed due to her gender, personality and my idea.
 * Marie was voiced by herself, Marie gave the voice for the other three human SOULs and the Odocoileus Heads, she is also the creator of ANIMALTALE.