azzy's home today! just in time for the festival. whether or not he'll be important this chapter is totally up in the air, but i'm sure he'll be important at some point.

snowgrave or not, noelle is in this dark world with kris and susie. maybe they go to visit flower king and darkness starts spilling out. maybe noelle thinks it's smoke, and they have to take her with them so she doesn't run to get help and make more people aware of the dark world.

asgore is familiar with dark worlds already. there's no convincing him he's dreaming.

kris wasn't involved in the creation of this fountain. it was either made by the knight, or by asgore himself. i think i would prefer it be asgore.

the dark world will be peaceful at first, almost off-puttingly so. with asgore as the king rather than a darkner, and with kris being asgore's child, the heroes won't start getting attacked until later on. the seven flowers in the basement are going to be important, and are going to serve as parallels for the six human souls in undertale ;; with the golden flower being either a stand in for chara, asriel, or another flowey. my money's on chara.

believer in the secret boss being vaguely 'friend inside me' adjacent <3 or friend itself! lord of the hammer's chapter 5 being titled "the field of pink and gold" makes me highly suspicious of friend activity. that, and flower king being pink and gold, and asgore wearing pink and having gold hair. yeah.

i need kris and their dad to have a heart-to-heart PLEASE

like susie slowly learning healing magic, i think ralsei will start learning damaging magic! and i think asgore "do you want to know how to beat me?" dreemurr is the man for the job ;; especially because they have very similar mindsets. fighting is largely unnecessary, but protecting yourself and the people you care about comes first.

asgore universal father figure momence. go full papa bear on some enemy trying to hurt the heroes. scoop them up into a big hug and tell them how proud he is of them all. embarrassing kris and noelle.

asgore mentions talking to his plants in the hometown section of chapter 2, so i think it very likely they reveal some of his secrets throughout the chapter. the bombshells are saved for the final boss fight, possibly including whatever plan he's helping carol with.

the only universe in which asgore would EVER attack his own child and their friends is if he were forced against his will. between that, and the prophecy describing him as "trapped in asylum," and the prophecy sprite being named boss 3 ( with queen and tenna being 1 and 2 respectively ) i'm fairly certain this is going to be the case. the seven flowers are the reason for this.

asgore is injured at the end of the fight. severity depends on recruits. snowgrave is the only route in which he gets out of the dark world unscathed, as freezing all the darkners aborts the final boss battle in some way, like in chapter 2.

in the end, asgore is the one that has to kill the flower darkners, and does so with his fire magic. symbolic of both his actions in undertale, AND him finally letting go of his and toriel's past relationship, for kris's sake.

"the vast garden is charred in an inferno of jealousy." flower king burns down at the end. the 'jealousy' part is something i'm going to assume was changed for the sake of lord of the hammer, just because i do think a lot of asgore's growth is going to be in learning to move on, and he doesn't much seem like the jealous type anyway. but with asgore likely utilizing fire magic in a plant-based dark world, i think "scorched in an inferno" are the key words in gerson's description. maybe him destroying the rainbow flowers is the start of it. maybe if the knight is around and we have to do the titan shit again, they neglect to stop the fire.

that empty space between tenna and ralsei's rooms in the castle is for asgore's room, as ralsei had no way of knowing "the flower man" was a lightner before this point. but with the shop burning down, it all works out as nice as it can.