#flawed parenting

i just had the worst day of my life, and you are not helping.

um so yeah. this scene.

hey hi toriel i love you but did you notice your child coming back home at night probably soaking wet from the rain? did you notice their friend feeling uncomfortable and leaving quickly? did you notice kris going straight to bed without eating dinner?

OUAGH this scene makes me feel SO MANY emotions. when i think about it for more than two seconds, i get the deep pit in my stomach that says it wasn’t really that funny at all.

kris just was going around saving the world, witnessing their friend have a mental breakdown, and is having a being beyond their comprehension controlling their every move. they also endured much physical and emotional pain from their journey, ESPECIALLY if they came back from the weird route. they come back home to see that mom brought home, for all they know, some random guy that lives in hometown who’s also the convenience store cashier that just moved in to their neighborhood. susie leaves with discomfort. they back up as their mom literally falls over completely wasted, giggling, a mess on the floor. (without backing up, they would’ve actually been crushed.) their mom doesn’t ask them where they’ve been, doesn’t offer to dry them, nothing. when kris goes to head to their room, toriel tells them that there’s pancakes in the fridge. a stranger’s ketchup bottle is already in there. sans, completely sober, is ignorant to how incredibly strange this mother-child interaction is, and doesn’t bother to tell toriel to check up on her kid. he even initiates the continuation of it, turning on the music again. kris goes to bed after ripping out their soul, but can’t sleep because of the constant chattering downstairs.

this event, in addition to asriel being away from college meaning he might have to come home to a broken family, could deeply impact kris regarding their home life.

to be clear, this is not toriel, sans, or soriel bashing. this is kind of a showing of how truly terrible this entire day and situation was for kris. toriel can and should definitely move on with other people, but i think introductions could have been done so much better. kris already seemed to have a neutral-annoyed view of sans, and toriel didn’t even ask her child’s opinion of this new man. i’ve seen many people reject this negative view of the ending of this chapter, saying we are looking too deep into it, but i really think otherwise. i think kris tossing and turning in their sleep because of sans and toriel’s voices downstairs had some gravity to it. i also think this would be a perfect way to present sans and toriel’s flaws as people, and what they need to overcome moving forward.

asgore is also to blame for making kris become the mailman between him and toriel, making kris possibly less welcoming of a new partner of their mother. asgore, whether intentionally or not, puts a lot of pressure on his child by voicing his concerns about asriel’s return from college and his need to be back together with toriel before then. both parents are at fault here, leaving kris with nowhere to go.