DIGITAL ROOTS - SPAMTON NEO AND THE UNCANNY VALLEY OF DEATH

DIGITAL ROOTS - SPAMTON NEO AND THE UNCANNY VALLEY OF DEATH

spamton NEO is viscerally horrifying to me, and i mean that in the best way possible.

i think it's the way he moves. it's hard to explain. he twitches and thrashes on his strings; he's animated, but his movements are jagged, articulated. in a way, spamton NEO portrays a dichotomy of organic and artificial matter—not by contrast, but through their fusion. he's not quite real, but not quite fake. he's alive—but can you really call that living? he's something artificial trying to be organic, and failing.

i think the best way to describe spamton NEO would be uncanny.

the cyber world is a virtual, computerized realm; naturally, it's free of plant life (aside from maybe a few binary trees). there seems to be only one exception to this, however. while the rest of the cyber world is an inorganic utopia, the mansion's basement stands in stark contrast. this basement was built atop wooden rails and what looks like dirt. at some point it was seized by nature, now a home to corrupt data, and overrun with overgrown vines.

most importantly, however, this basement was where a lightner's dying dream was left to decay. it was an empty, metal shell, rotting with rust—before it became the subject of spamton's worship, and before it became a vessel for spamton's own dying dreams, as he inhabited the machine in a futile attempt to fulfill them.

in a way, this machine is is a 'false idol'—and when spamton embodies NEO, he embodies this idea. from the practically plagiarized leitmotifs in his theme down to his own name, spamton invokes himself as a bizarre facsimile of mettaton.

in undertale, mettaton was "the idol everyone craves". he believed that he would be saving humankind from destruction by taking frisk's soul. he would breach the surface, and become humanity's star—its savior. mettaton NEO, described as "Dr. Alphys's greatest invention", was designed after the delta rune symbol. with giant, rainbow wings and a triangular body, mettaton NEO was the last line of defense for monsters and humans alike: a shining, winged angel taking on the symbol of monsterkind's prophesied savior.

by becoming spamton NEO, spamton is directly appropriating both mettaton's body and ideals in service of his own desires. he embodies this divine, angelic vessel, yet the form he takes is anything but holy. it's a grotesque being of tangled wires and metal flesh, carried aloft not by its stolen wings, but by the strings holding it in stasis. his description states, "He is his own worst invention."

though mettaton doesn't appear as we knew him in undertale, his presence in deltarune's world is undeniable. his dreams took form in a world of fantasy, which happened to be the same world as spamton's life. as a lightner, mettaton occupies a higher space in reality; he is inherently more 'real' than spamton—a darkner.

spamton is a lesser, artificial being pretending to be something bigger than he is. by inhabiting this 'heaven-piercing' body, spamton is attempting to break through the barrier of reality, and rise above his creators. he fails, of course. no matter how hard he tries, spamton cannot become real. he cannot become holy, or whole. he's an artificial, inorganic being, created by hands that have long since abandoned him.

after defeating spamton NEO, ralsei says this:

* I... don't think it meant anything, Susie. * It seems like it was just a corrupted program. * He turned into our ally, so let's just accept it.

of course, this wrong. ralsei seems to know this, too—facing abjection, it's not hard to see why ralsei would try to distance himself from spamton. but the way he describes spamton, as "just a corrupted program"... i think that means something.

glitches and technological malfunctions occupy a strange spot of existence. they weren't intended to exist, but they always do. every program has the capacity to malfunction. whether it's a nuisance, an irregularity, or something genuinely catastrophic, error means something, even if it shouldn't.

imperfection defines that which is organic, and glitches are organic manifestations within inorganic creations. they're born of error, grown between faults in lines of code, like dandelions in a sidewalk. these imperfections ironically make them all the more inorganic, however.

by introducing nature to an artificial construct, glitches represent the artificial perfection of machines and technology. think about how corruption or glitches affect a video game, for example. they shatter the veil of immersion and reveal the game’s true nature. it isn't magic, it isn't a miracle—it's all lines of codes strung together, weaving the fabric of a false reality. it's not real.

a glitch is a program lashing out at its creators from the strings of code that bind it—not because it has any reason to, not because it wants to, but because it has to, because it was born from its programming, not beyond it. in the end, a glitch is only able to act as far as its code allows it to.

spamton really was "just a corrupted program". but that doesn't make him any less real—or any more fake.