prefacing this by saying i'm not sure how much of this was intentional given how asgore is coddled by the writing in this chapter; but flowery's dynamic with asgore does interest me somewhat. i don't think it's a stretch to say that just as the other flowers are clearly invoking the idea of their counterparts from undertale, so too is flowery invoking flowey, but even within deltarune itself he is very clearly evoking asriel; he is the popular, "charismatic" golden boy, informed by all the reminders of asriel's feelings for dess kris encountered that morning. he tries to do things with asgore that asgore did or wanted to do with asriel; going to the diner together, skateboarding, and so on. but he also reads metaphorically as asgore's neglected child on his own merits; begging asgore to forget about the past he's obsessed over and play with him and his friends only to be sternly rebuked in a way that seems to evoke how he may have acted towards asriel and kris as chief of police. in spite of claiming to be nothing like ralsei, flowery is exactly like them; a flowerner whose only concern is asgore and making asgore happy. he wants asgore to move on from the past and spend time in the darkness with him, but as long as he unwittingly clings to his purpose, things will always go back to the sun-lit way they used to be, and he will never become more than a flower. he's his own person, but his identity is strangled by his fate and by the person he owes his life to.
i do think it's interesting, all that said, that flowery also kind of models himself after rudy. it seems like rudy is one of the few people that asgore still pays attention to; asgore clearly has romantic feelings for rudy, but moreover, rudy supports his schemes while toriel does not, rudy was asgore's friend from long ago, and i don't doubt that rudy may have taken precedence over asgore's light-world children in occasion if his neglectful behavior is anything to go off of. flowery seems to have learned a lot of his misogynistic perspective on asgore and toriel's situation from asgore, as well (recall that flowery is, while a living thing, not alive the way a lightner is, and would be just as unaware of the specifics of things as queen and tenna; this isn't to make excuses for him, but rather to inform the situation at large;) i can easily see why he would form a more favorable opinion of rudy, and why he would see acting like the rudy of asgore's stories as the best way to get asgore's attention in spite of the fact that he primarily sees asgore as something like to a father figure. the rudyisms are largely a façade, gestures and words mimicked hollowly in a bid to gain approval from asgore, and they're a lot more downplayed when he's not around. around the party, he acts more like kris' popular, snarky, pompous older brother instead.
it really, really hurts to see asgore see this extremely concerning behavior and go "ah, this must be how my ex-wife felt when i harassed her!" because, well, asgore's treatment of toriel is misogynistic, intentionally or not. flowery's treatment of asgore in particular doesn't carry any of the same implications that asgore's treatment of toriel does, as i've discussed here before. it only strengthens, at least in my eyes, the reading of asgore as a neglectful father or father-like figure (since obviously the flower friends aren't all related to one another); even when met with a group of children and young adults who see his care for them as something they owe him recompense for, all he can think of is how it inconveniences him. all flowery can do is beg at his feet for asgore to look at him, just once, and even when he dresses up like the person asgore used to look at all the time, all asgore can see is his own reflection. he can't see flowery for what he really is; an obnoxious, pompous young man, certainly, but a young man who relies on him nonetheless.
titsay
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