“Creatures like us”

doge-w-a-bloge:

thefloweryfanclub:

I was looking at some of things Flowey says when you beat Asgore repeatedly on the same save file, and I found some interesting stuff that corroborates your Chara analysis and might help with your future Asriel/Flowey analysis, since it sheds some light on how Flowey views himself and others.

When you beat Asgore the 2nd time, Flowey says this:

And when you beat Asgore for the fifth time, he’ll say this:

I think this pretty much confirms that the reason Flowey “recognized” Chara isn’t because he saw Frisk’s actions in the genocide run and thought “this person’s a violent, abusive jerk? That sounds like the Chara I know and love!”

The dialogue above will appear even during an (incomplete) pacifist run, yet Flowey will still remark how Frisk is “just like me,” despite Frisk going out of their way to not harm a single soul. I think it’s evident that Flowey isn’t projecting his sadism and violent tendencies onto Frisk here, or at least not primarily.

In Flowey’s own summation, a person who’s “just like” him is someone who’s bored and detached from those around them, either as a result of soullessness or save abuse (or a combination of both). In other words killing is just a potential symptom of those two things, but it is not the cause. This is backed up by Flowey’s story in New Home, where he points out that he initially tried to use his powers for good in spite of his own soullessness. Speaking of which…

It’s important to remember that this line comes after Flowey mentions that killing has “grown tiring” for him, and immediately after that he says “You understand, Chara. I’ve done everything this world has to offer,” implying that he thinks Chara feels the same way and has gone through a similar experience with their soullessness and save-scumming. Think of the implications of that–Chara, who hated humanity and who gave up their life to kill six humans, eventually grew bored of killing, at least in Flowey’s estimation. Apparently violence and nastiness weren’t high on their priorities list, according to Flowey.

The main takeaway from the “creatures like us” line isn’t how violent or abusive Flowey and Chara are (or were), but rather how unique the two of them are from everybody else because of how detached they’ve become. Flowey’s obviously not saying “we should totes kill each other right now because we sure do love violence, don’t we?”

The reason Flowey “recognizes” Chara so early in the genocide run wasn’t because of the slaughter itself, but rather how methodical and illogical it was. From Flowey’s perspective, the boredom resulting from soullessness was the only explanation for it, and there’s only one other person he knew who could be in that same situation. Again, he recognized this behavior as the symptom of Chara’s current condition, not the cause (i.e. Chara wasn’t like that from the beginning).

You’ve pointed out that Chara clearly had a soul at one point (otherwise the Asriel fusion would’ve been impossible), and Chara more than likely didn’t abuse the save function when they were alive (given the weight they place on “consequences” and their refusal to undo their own mistakes). I think it’s also evident that Chara didn’t go around slaughtering monsters in life, nor did they use them and throw them away like broken toys without caring (otherwise I doubt monsters and their history books would’ve remembered Chara so fondly). Conversely, Flowey did do all of these things, but only after he became soulless–if such a stark reversal happened to Asriel, then it’d be no stretch for him to assume that the same thing happened to Chara after they lost their soul.

Flowey does not identify with Chara because of any sort of hatred, abusiveness, or violence on their part, nor does he ever imply that they were ever like that in life. Flowey can identify with Frisk on a pacifist run despite Frisk never displaying those qualities, even before he mistakes Frisk for Chara. What Flowey, a soulless Chara, and a save-abusing Frisk all have in common is boredom and an increasing detachment from the world around them, not a mean streak or a tendency towards violence.

If a relentless, knife-wielding killer was the only thing Flowey was looking for then I can think of at least one other person he could’ve latched onto

But Flowey’s attitude toward people with souls is pretty apparent

#there it is! #(I don’t know how to add comments on submissions rip) #but Flowey projects hard on the new anomaly #always thinking they’re like him #someone who resets just to see what people do #no matter the cost #it’s why he thinks Chara after an aborted NM is just ‘trying to see what other routes is like’ #rather than regretting their actions because that would mean what flowey did was wrong #rather than something anyone would do if they too were an anomaly #submission #brilliant vgm!