i have GOT to get weirder

We've been noting the uncomfortable way Asgore conducts himself since Ch1, each relating to archetypes of toxic men in media but also, crucially, in our lives that we may all have encountered personally. He is the father that pushes too much and does not respect the boundaries of his children and (ex)wife and covers it up under layers of good cheer and love for his family. ['I can't remember if you liked hugs.' 'Give these flowers to your mother'] He is the well-liked 'nice guy' around town who is respected enough that no one really calls him out on his stalking even though on-lookers can see there's something off about the interaction. ['Weird weird weird family. Your family.' Sans turning away when Asgore enters and trying to deflect when directly asked how to get Toriel back] He is the guy whose heart you broke who won't take no for an answer but keeps pestering you in ostensibly soft and loving and devoted ways that would make you look like the aggressor for pushing him away too harshly. [Toriel always being mild in her responses to him when he backs her into a corner in public, trying to politely escape, lighting candles for him at church, even though she is clearly still angered when you talk to her about the flowers in the safety of her own home]

He is the dark crusader stuck in the past when everyone else has moved forward, who can only define himself against how things were and thinks of returning to that as a universal good. [Obsession with having everything be just like old times, the whole family back together, thinking what HE wants and what's good for him will obviously set things right for everyone else too] He is the authority figure in your life so obsessed with the status quo, he will ignore all signs of distress to not rock the boat [Doing nothing to intervene when Carol is clearly scaring two kids in the room where he is the only other adult. Laughing it off afterwards and telling Kris she's not that bad.]

And chapter 5 adds extremely worrying but very fitting archetypes to that growing list.

Asgore was a cop.

How far your engagement has been with discussions of copaganda and outside of media criticism with politics around policing might affect how that fact is viewed. But it gets swept under the rug easy enough. After all, it's not like Toby is trying to say anything particular and important about cops, right? He even goes out of his way to establish that the police force in hometown is just eyecandy because there's no crime under Mayor Holiday. It's just superficial, right?

I may have thought so before but here, in Ch5, we engage with two particular tropes in cop shows and films that the story does engage with that I want to draw your attention to.

First, the rogue cop. The cop who was right all along, went too far, destroyed his relationships with others over his obsession with a case, and got removed from having any official capacity over the situation. But being rid of those restrictions is incidentally exactly what he needs and the ends justify the means so all the abuses carried out in the process are retroactively justified. His authority is restored to him, and his friends and family guiltily forgive him, because whatever justice he was pursuing was bigger than any personal issues between them and by ignoring him when he was right, they have wronged him too. The rogue cop thus appropriates victimhood while also getting to play the hero who saves the day (and is thus owed the reward of restoration).

In Asgore's case, it's quite obvious he is a cop gone rogue, not working in an official capacity but still chasing the answers, and his theories are correct. And interestingly in the flashbacks it seems that he alienated everyone around him over those theories and he believes everyone and everything he wants and loves will be returned to him once he can prove himself to be right. Nevermind the personal wrongs carried out to his loved ones - they will HAVE to see it and take him back right? They will HAVE to forgive him. He is RIGHT after all. And the most damning part of how self-absorbed this whole approach is, is how Dess, the ACTUAL victim, becomes less than an afterthought in it all, not worthy of mention.

The Second trope, the justifiably violent family protector. This is a male power fantasy that does go beyond just cops. Others have said it better how men (especially right wing USAmerican men but not exclusively by a far shot) will often talk about the lengths they would go to to protect their family - usually to the effect of how they would kill some hypothetical threat to their peaceful idyllic suburban life. (Note how Hometown plays into the idyllic town with something rotten in its core as a setting in general too) But those threats aren't actually waiting. These aren't men who would show up for their loved ones, who would nurture them into feeling safe around them, and often they are men who continue to be raging misogynists and bigots to anyone in their family that steps out of line. The family isn't protected because it's loved, it is protected as property - and the fantasy only uses them as a cudgel to dream up situations where senseless violence would be not only justified, but celebrated a la zombie apocalypse daydreams.

This is the one that's particularly concerning to me with the side of Asgore we see in Ch5, talking not only about finding the culprit responsible for the tragedy he is trying to solve, but actively fantasising about a public execution and desecration of this imagined threat. Couple it with the glimpse of unrestrained anger we see from him when he throws Kris and Susie out of the Dark World. It paints a picture of a man who has been harbouring these violent fantasies of vengeance and seething in them while alienating the very people he is supposedly protecting by enacting that violence. The irony of it all comes together in a neat bow with Kris being, unbeknownst to him and other characters, the very person he is threatening when he says that.

And that IS such a shocking moment, such a tonally jarring piece of dialogue, to you as an audience who knows Asgore is unwittingly threatening his own child in gruesome ways.

Now importantly, this ISN'T copaganda because these ideas aren't presented as correct, which is where Asgore's entire character arc lies. He is made to learn that his behaviours are not justified, that he has been acting in coercive ways and hurting people and he has to grow out of it. *Here is where I feel a little iffy about how it was handled in the chapter, not an ideological gripe necessarily but more on the writing front. Asgore delivers all the varied lessons he is supposed to take away one after the other, listing them out right at the end, and we are expected to understand that he has changed his mind. However, all of this development happens off-screen. It's all quite rushed and handwavy, like the redemption is suddenly dropped onto us unceremoniously before any fallout from it is ripped away too as Asgore gets kidnapped. People have suggested that we are supposed to glean the arc from the flowers instead but honestly, it does not feel satisfying for me at all after everything, to have Asgore TELL us he has now learned his lesson rather than seeing him forced to confront it and struggle towards that redemption. That is my one big issue with the writing this chapter, but this is already quite long so I'll leave with a final thought.

I may have thought Kris has some manner of care and concern for their father that drives them to put the egg in his fridge (although are the egg placements something that Kris has control over? we do not know for sure yet), but they clearly have ambivalent feelings at best, as noted in them looking at Toriel's wallpaper of Kris on Asgore's lap watching cowboy shows - described as "someone", showing a distance there. Not to mention they seem to be in on the kidnapping plans and though Toriel may have been a fakeout to actually get to Undyne,they are on board with Asgore being taken? Keeping that aside though, Kris is still just a kid, and there's easily a residual concern and attachment they would have towards their parent, possibly expressed in the egg. I do not think that should detract from how we view the detrimental effects of Asgore's actions on Kris, and they shouldn't be downplayed, for all the reasons listed above.