I mean I do see the logic in speculating, like, if Queen is obviously meant to be a parallel of Carol
And Tenna is kind of a parallel to Asgore…
Does that mean that King is also a parallel to someone from Susie’s life? What would that say about her parents? ... Something very bad, probably.
Especially since we do have some red flags about Susie’s home-life already. Like the fact she never told her parents about her sleepover at Kris’ despite Toriel specifically telling her to do so.
And just… generally acting and talking about her past in a way that makes it clear she never really had an emotional support system before Toriel and Kris. At the best case scenario, Susie's parental figures seem to be pretty negligent. So it’s not really a leap to speculate that King’s terribleness is also a reflection of their behavior.
But… it’s important to remember that… we don’t need to just speculate. There is a very important person in Susie’s life that is already clearly reflected in King’s behavior and personality. And that’s Susie herself.
Like, some of these parallels were kinda obvious from the get-go. The quotes, the hidden eyes, the embrace of violence and total disdain for friendship and pacifism… but I think the more we got to know Susie, the deeper the comparison goes.
King’s whole motivation and his anger at the Lightners is based on the fact he was, like the other Darkners of Card Castle, a toy whose Purpose was to be played with, but they all ended being abandoned and unwanted in an unused classroom. His feelings of rejection, grief and failure metamorphosing into a desire to lash out at the world and fully embrace a self-image of villainy.
And that’s… literally all of Susie’s Deal in Chapter One. She was the lonely kid that no one wanted to play with, she was in her own words…
She says this when she’s empathizing with Tenna’s situation, but both in the imagery of the broken toy and her coping mechanism (lashing out and being always on-guard rather than clinging and cloying) she’s a lot more similar to King.
It’s just a matter of both Susie herself being less open to empathy and retrospection back in Chapter 1 and King actively rejecting any attempt at a connection by being a Huge Fucking Bastard (unlike Tenna, who was very clearly trying to honestly explain his emotions). But in retrospect, the comparison is definitely there…
Like, the thing about "Quiet people piss me off" is not just the echo of the sentence, it's also a very similar context.
Susie realized that Kris saw her eating chalk and immediately assumed the worst of them. That they hate her, that everyone hates her and is just waiting for an excuse to kick her out. With Hometown School being where both Toriel and Noelle are, the only people who have ever been nice to Susie at this point in the story... Even if she's trying to play it up like she's Scary and Edgy, I think she's legitimately afraid of the possibility.
She's just projecting all of her abandonment trauma and paranoia and distrust, all of the past times she's been hurt, on Kris' silence. Quiet people piss her off... because they act as a mirror to the frustrations she's stewing in anyways.
And this is just the same with King. Due to his own trauma of being abandoned and cast aside, he assumes the worst of the Lightners, assumes the worst of Kris. That they will never care for Darkners, that they will never care for him. That they are no different than the Lightners who locked them away in the Classroom in the first place. That they are as gleeful about the idea of abandoning all of Card Castle once again as Susie thought they were about the idea of getting her expelled.
He took advantage of Ralsei's kindness because he couldn't believe the Lightners he's working with will ever care enough to give him a future, and he is projecting all of the neglect and abandonment he has experienced, the way he thinks all Lightners must feel about him, unto Kris' silence.
I think you can also draw a parallel with how King is actually uniquely rebellious for a Darkner (especially as a Not-Shadow-Boss), trying to to actively reject his Purpose for a new one, inspired by the Knight but actually created by himself.
In retrospect, having more Darkners to compare him to, that’s an act of Freedom that can’t be taken for granted. I think you can compare it to Susie’s constant assertions of her free will and her constant rebellion against the control of the Player, the Plot and the Prophecy itself.
You can maybe also say something about King’s strong ties with Jevil and the fact that Susie is the one who can equip the Devilknife and has unique interactions with the Jeviltail?
You can also kinda rope Lancer into the metaphor. As, like a representation of Susie’s inner child who just wants to goof-off and have friends. Susie watching Lancer try and defend her from King is both her seeing the value of her friendship and trust in in real time and also metaphorically her desire for fun and friendship piercing through the toxic coping mechanism she’s been trapped in until now.
Of course, that doesn’t mean King can't have any inspiration from Susie’s home life. Darkners aren’t just, like, a one-to-one representation of one specific person all the time. Sometimes there are multiple parallels with multiple people. Queen is like a goofy funhouse mirror of Carol, but she’s also a lot like Berdly
And Tenna isn’t just a mirror of Asgore, he also reflects Toriel’s own melancholy about her children growing up
(And if you wanna lean into the whole separation-anxiety-ridden child of divorce thing, probably Kris’ feelings as well. I… think Tenna might just be a whole slew of Divorce Angst from a bunch of different angles and the comparison to Asgore is just the most obvious because he’s the Multiverse’s Most Divorced Man.)
So yeah, it’s not unlikely that King’s treatment of Lancer might be also a reflection of Susie’s probably-shitty parental figure(s). It feels probable, but even if we never get any farther detail about Susie's home life... I still think it’s important to remember the clear King-Susie parallels, I feel a lot of people kinda overlook them...
