Something I’ve come back to many times while doing Undertale Analysis is that Flowey is in many ways a reflection of the Player. What a Player and their behavior might look like from the perspective of the characters of the Game World. After all, he was the resident Unkillable Time God until the Player Character fell into the Underground.
The Neutral Route emphasizes his Kill or Be Killed mentality, which is likely the reasoning a Player might have for killing some but not all Monsters, the Murder Route details how he has basically 100% the Underground and the mindset that led him into wanting to do his own ‘Murder Route’ in the first place, and in the Pacifist Route his plan is basically to trap the Player in a Time Loop, taking away their happy ending so they can play together forever and Flowey/Asriel never has to say goodbye - just like what a Player is doing if they replay the Pacifist Route.
And this is also why Post-Pacifist content like the little chat he has with us right after restarting the Game and the Alarm Clock Dialogue keeps bringing up the possibility that Flowey can be redeemed. Can Flowey regain the capability to care about the other people around him as if they were real people again? Well, does the Player have the capability to care about the Game characters as if they were real people? The Player can ‘prove’ that care by not Restarting the Game after True Pacifist, so therefore in a timeline where True Pacifist was not Restarted, Flowey also starts redeeming himself in his own way as well.
Now, with Deltarune we have the Obvious Flowey parallel Flowery, who, although he has some level of Flowey’s meta-awareness and Fourth-Wall Breaking and his obsession with Stats can certainly call to mind powergaming and cheats… Flowery, I think, is more of a reflection of what a Player Character of an RPG might look like to the ‘NPCs’/normal people of their world. On the level where he’s kinda obnoxiously perfect and the world revolves around him (like Games can use the Player Character as a way to flatter the Player) and thinks that every challenge the world throws at him is one that he can handle just fine on his own (after all, a Video Game is designed to be beaten), and the way he conceive of a potential peaceful solution only in terms of him using the Power of Friendship to win the Player Characters over to his side.
And the whole ‘flattering the Player’ thing is also an element of Video Game Satire/Deconstruction that Undertale touched on in its own way, with Frisk and Chara. The Route of the Game that is most complimentary towards the Player Character is also the one that separates them most explicitly from the Player, gives them their own name. There’s several levels of intent and meaning here, but one of them is absolutely to draw a distinction and emphasize the distance between the Heroic Human who is friends with everyone, Frisk, and the Unkillable Unknowable Time God Player.
Meanwhile, it is on the Murder Route that the Player Character goes by your name and then also basically looks at the screen and tells you “It’s all because of you, you did this”. Deliberately inverting a Player’s desire to be Complimented by the Game while also being distanced from 'bad' actions.
Like, well, I do feel like I should clarify that there’s nothing inherently wrong about Games generally designing their protagonists in a way that makes a Player feel flattered or empowered, nor do all games that do it are quite on Flowery’s simplistic parodic level. Exploring and subverting these concepts doesn’t mean exactly the same thing as condemning them. But it is pointing out that this is the common convention with these kinds of games, something most Players just kinda take for granted, and then taking it away from us for various reasons. To play up the horror of being disempowered or ‘shamed’ rather than empowered or congratulated, to help the Player draw a clearer difference between themself and the character(s) they’re playing...
And then also the way Flowery reflects Susie specifically, the way he exhibits a very similar mindset and motivations to her at times, but this time, instead of being a badass positive motivator for us and the Fun Gang, it’s these motivations that make him an annoyance, hindrance and/or opposition to us/the other Main Characters. His attempt to deny and defy the way he and his loved ones have been Doomed by the Narrative by the Metaphysical Laws governing his existence, his misplaced confidence that he could beat the Knight, his desire to keep his ‘Fantasy World’ which has become the only real ‘Home’ for him and his loved ones.
It’s definitely not condemning these attitudes just because Flowery is kinda annoying sometimes, but seeing them come from an ‘opposite’ team is supposed to make one ask a whole slew of different questions. Why can’t Flowery just will himself into being the Hero of the story? Why is Ralsei inspired by Susie but just fucking hates Flowery’s guts? Where is the line drawn between Hope and Delusion, between defiance and overconfidence? Is being allowed the Agency to even be able to demand Agency a ‘privilege’ only allowed to the Main CharactersTM? Do we only want to rebel against the Narrative when it harms us but okay with following it when benefits us personally? Like having Predestined Friends or being ‘allowed’ to keep Castle Town? How can we know that Susie won’t just end up like Flowery did?
But also, there is also something here about how Flowery playing certain JRPG Protagonist/Player Character Tropes very conventionally while the actual Player Character, Kris, is very unconventional, may help one one play Compare and Contrast. Maybe not in terms of their relationship with the SOUL/Player. Maybe here Pink is a better example to what one could compare Kris to (A willing host representing an idealized and desired version of the Self versus ‘no one can choose who they are in this world’ for both us and Kris)? But definitely in terms of how much he more directly and uncomplicatedly invokes the Power of Friendship and General Inspiring Heroic Speeches compared to Kris’s difficulty with expressing their emotions, Flowery’s direct and honest loyalty to Asgore and the other Flowers versus Kris’s conflicted double-agent status, how much he chooses to be the Hero of his own story despite what fate had decreed for him against Kris having so little agency.
And yeah, the whole ‘Chosen One JRPG Hero designed to Flatter the Player’ thing also loops into the Kris comparison somewhat. How much Flowery deliberately designed himself to be his own Wish-Fulfillment Power Fantasy versus Kris’s entire narrative being based around them being robbed of agency in every possible way, Kris not really having the kind of wholesome straightforward interpersonal relationships Flowery seems to have with the other Flowers. Susie is their closest one but it's still complicated by both the recent implications they might be jealous of Suselle on some level and the whole, well, Double Agent thing.
And, hmm… Okay, if we’re talking about Video Games as empowering fantasies meant to flatter the Player, one obvious angle is Romance Subplots. Pre-scripted ones and Romantic Routes and, especially in this Chapter, Dating Sims. Kris’s relationship arcs through the Game so far has been filled with exploration and subversions of the conventions of Romance in Video Games, Ralsei being seemingly custom-designed to be an appealing Designated Love Interest (or at least Designated Best Friend) to a level that made Players initially wary and didn’t really seem to win Kris over either. And then exploring how unhealthy it is for Ralsei to believe they only live for the sake of Lightners, and Kris’s relationship with them only developing when they stop trying so hard to be someone appealing and lovable.
And at the same time, Kris, regardless of our choices, regardless of their choices, always ending up as the Awkward Third Wheel in Susie and Noelle’s relationship by the start of this Chapter.
The only way to change that is for the Player to create their own horribly manipulative and cruel and immoral just plain Wrong ‘Romance Route’ with Noelle, the Weird Route. Something that’s obviously and clearly much worse for Kris than just being kinda bummed out and maybe jealous of their best friends’ Awesome Lesbian Romance. Making another dark twist on ‘Video Game Romance as a way to Flatter the Player’, to what lengths are you, as an Amoral Time God, willing to go just to be the Most Important Person in this girl’s life? And Noelle even makes it clear that she is choosing the New Kris, the Kris that is a vessel for the Player, and not the ‘Old Kris', the actual character.
And back in the Normal Route, Kris, as the main ACTing Hero, as a ‘Lightner Player’ in the Dark World, that seems to basically give them Supernaturally Good Flirting Skills that can charm many enemies, but these ‘gameplay skills’ are of no use when it comes to the actual relationship troubles they find themself in. Or maybe they really are that always that good at Flirting when it’s just a silly way to win battles in the Dark World, but with people they actually know and have Emotional Baggage with, their instinct to put people at arm’s length, to be a Kris who always does Kris Things and isolates themself. And even when they do try to break out of their shell, Flirting Skills is not exactly the one deciding factor that can ‘give’ them the kind of relationships they want.
And Flowery is actually in pretty much that exact same situation, with Max Stats in everything, including his made-up romance related stats, he is fawned over and admired by all the Darkners of the Flower Kingdom. But none of it, nor is any other of the many skills and all the knowledge he possesses, is any help in trying to win the love if the one person he wishes would ‘choose’ him.
Even if Flowery plays up the whole idea of Player Character Wish Fulfilment so much more directly than Kris does, Relationship and jealousy is one aspect in which the two of them are equally powerless.
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