timeisamanysplendoredthing:

me before i played undertale: i dunno about that big goat monster he seems kind of gross and he killed children?? nope i Do Not care for him.

me after i played undertale: it’s actually really interesting to see how asgore handled his grief over losing his children, especially compared to toriel. while she fled the kingdom and her responsibilities, he clung tighter to them, as though he wanted and needed something to love, defend, and watch over. it’s apparent that he essentially became a father figure to all of the underground, and they looked to him for love and support. it’s easy to understand why he declared war on humanity too since it was humans who drove monsters underground in the first place, leading to some deep-seated bitterness, and adding that to his son being murdered by humans would just tip the pot over. what’s really interesting though is that while he did declare war on humanity, he realized that that was wrong, and didn’t want to do it- but renouncing his declaration would have caused all the monsters of the Underground to lose hope, so he simply went about this war in the slowest possible way he could think of: by collecting souls one at a time instead of simply taking the first one, crossing the barrier, and wreaking havoc. admittedly it was the coward’s way out, but i understand why he did it and i really appreciate the large goat dad.

I can’t help wondering if he also blamed Chara’s loss on humanity. He and Toriel seem to have loved them like their own. The fact that nobody recognized the symptoms of buttercup poisoning despite Asgore having been poisoned with buttercups not that long before suggests that it may be different for humans and monsters- and this makes sense, since the physical bodies of humans and monsters are made of entirely different things, nevermind working differently. For all they knew this was some common, easily treated childhood human illness. If human doctors had been on hand, or even any adult human who might have been able to tell them what was happening… but there wasn’t. There couldn’t be. There was no way to even contact anyone who could have helped their beloved, but alien, child.

Because of the barrier.

Because of the war.

Because of the rest of humanity.