People were mad at Toriel cause of how ridiculous the situation was. Toriel, ma'am, I did not spend hours walking through an enemy-infested church, climbing a tower while being attacked at every turn and fighting a TITAN just to get home to a mother so drunk she made me and my friend feel awkward and to make it worse, kept me up at night with her bs. Oh, and then the next day I had to feed her cause she was hung over.
Toriel either wouldn't have found Kris or she would've gotten in the way if she went to the church, so Sans (knowingly or unknowingly) helped her. Toriel was irresponsible as a parent and that's what pissed everyone off.
You’re barking up the wrong blog anon 😅
After chapter 4 released, people were going on long rants about how Toriel was a “terrible mother” because of this one incident. Claiming that she knew the kids were locked out and just didn’t care about them—which we learn in chapter 5 was untrue.
Or that she didn’t bother calling Kris or looking for them. Again, we found out that was untrue—she called when it got late, but Sans claimed he had seen them safe and hanging out, and encouraged her to give them space. Which is fair, given they are teenagers.
Was it good for Toriel to get super drunk? Of course not. Personally I don’t think it’s ever a great idea to get too drunk to think straight. But after everything that’s happened (the divorce, asriel moving away, and Asgore stalking Toriel), she was encouraged by Sans to have a fun night and made the mistake of going too hard.
What’s most annoying about the situation isn’t people criticizing Toriel, but the sheer anger people expressed over it and the assumption that she didn’t care for Kris! When I didn’t see similar anger at the time for male characters making bad choices.
The real source of the anger comes from people expecting mothers to be perfect. But the reality is none of them can be. Not one mother on the whole planet. You can be a great mother and still have things to learn (which is how Toby Fox has said he writes Toriel).
