Asgore in Chapter 5 is weird
Here's a sort of short post, but I got to thinking about Asgore in Chapter 5 the other day during work, and I kinda realized something...
I don't think Asgore's turnaround at the end of Chapter 5 makes much sense at all.
I don't just mean in the sense that it's rushed, or that we barely see any of Asgore so there's no buildup, or that his relationship with the rest of the flowers, which are meant to parallel his behavior to his actual family, is all but ignored by him making the resolution pretty ironic... I mean, Kris getting hurt in the Dark World shouldn't have changed him the way it did.
At the end of Chapter 5, Asgore proclaims that, upon seeing Kris hurt, he realizes that he was so busy chasing Dark Worlds, to find the truth, that he sees now that he neglected his family's actual feelings about himself and the situation as his own self-hatred consumed him and drove him away from them.
None of this is to say that his fascination and concern around the Dark Worlds was a lie, however. Sure, part of the reason he was so motivated was to prove that he was right, and to absolve himself from his perceived guilt, but... that doesn't mean that Dark Worlds don't genuinely fascinate him, or that he's wrong about them being dangerous. He still has a duty to figure this mystery out. He's still, seemingly, under Carol's thumb and is financially incentivized to find out more. If the Knight weren't to kidnap Asgore, I highly doubt that he would've just completely stopped all this research after just finding out that actual genuine real-life ALTERNATE DIMENSIONS exist.
All of this is to say... what notions towards Dark Worlds does Asgore have during Chapter 5? They're mysterious, they're dangerous, and they were likely involved in the single greatest tragedy in his entire life. In his friends' and familys' entire lives.
Asgore is also, of course, motivated by wanting things to go back to the way they were. He wants to be with Toriel again, to be with his family again. Not just to show he was right, but to protect them. Why else would he be freaking out over Kris being in the Dark World?
This is what this Chapter sets up, throughout the entire thing. Then, we get to his turnaround. Upon seeing Kris sprawled out on the ground, weak from battle, being yelled at by Flowery (More on him in a bit)... he runs over, clearly scared and infuriated at the situation... but then, right after Blue heals them, he just... calms down right away, and goes onto Vaguedump about The Incident. As shown in the first image here, he even blames HIMSELF for Kris getting hurt here, when... I mean yeah, I guess in a way it was but like... Flowery is RIGHT behind you, dude!
Kris didn't just 'get hurt.' They got hurt from Flowery. They got hurt in a Dark World. The EXACT thing he's been worrying about this entire time! And the thing is, he DID do everything in his power to stop that from happening, by kicking Kris out. The only reason he failed at that was because FLOWERY was keeping Asgore in the dark the entire time. Something that Asgore... begrudgingly tolerates WAY more than he has any right to, especially right after he fucking BEATS UP HIS CHILD.
Now granted, we don't know exactly how much Asgore knows here (for some reason.) We don't know if Asgore knows that Flowery only exists like this because of the Dark World (Though idk what other conclusion he'd come to, really...) but that really shouldn't matter when everything this chapter was building up to with Asgore just, went away. Because it was time for the End of Chapter monologue. Asgore's anger towards Flowery just disappears. Nothing comes from his slowly growing disdain besides... a calm rejection.
Idk, I want to feel stronger about this let down, but I just... can't. I wasn't that excited for Asgore really but I expected more than this. He's a bystander in his own standout Chapter. We don't learn anything new from him, only just droplets of the past. He HAD an interesting arc being built up, perhaps letting us see a side to him we had only learned in passing in UT, but... that just ends in a wet fart. There's nothing. He's just a bystander.
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