obligatory "watsonian discussion of a broader doylistic issue" disclaimer here, but i keep thinking about how awful asgore is and it keeps resulting in me coming to see the sympathetic side of flowery more. it really does seem upon replaying the chapter that asgore is content enough with the flower friends when they're inanimate, but as soon as they start asking things of him and acting like people, he suddenly sees them as imposing on him and what he wants to do. it's ironic, in a sense, because the flowers have so little in the way of wants that don't concern asgore as is. it makes it all the worse when asgore rebukes them at the end of the chapter, only deciding to take care of them again for his own sake. and it reflects poorly on his treatment of the other lightners in his life; dess, who he seems to only preoccupy himself with for his own sake, and who he does not even give the honor of naming in discussing his role in her past; and toriel, who he cannot identify as someone he has treated in a misogynistic manner, as someone he has treated with nothing but entitlement.