Flowey

Flowey ( Wikipedia:Help:IPA [ˈflaʊ iː], FLOU-ee ) is a flower monster and is the first character the player meets in Undertale. Although he shows the basics of encounters by "sharing" LV/LOVE by use of "friendliness pellets," these are actually harmful bullets that aim to kill the player. In truth, Flowey is one of the major antagonists behind Undertale.

Appearance
Flowey appears as a large flower in the ground with six golden yellow petals around his head. His face changes dramatically depending on his emotions. Sometimes, he is shown with leaves.

Personality
Flowey wears a mask of friendliness and politeness. He has a habit of greeting you with "Howdy!" calling himself "your best friend," and, like his father, appending polite words such as "gosh" and "golly" to the ends of his sentences. Whenever he drops this facade, he also has a habit of calling you an "idiot." His central philosophy is that of Chara: that the meaning of the world is "kill or be killed."

His facade first drops entirely during his "tutorial", the moment the player foolishly runs into his bullets, and he announces his "kill or be killed" attitude to the player. Alternatively, the player can dodge his bullets up to three times, which causes his act to gradually slip, until he hypocritically snaps at the player for toying with him. Either way, he then surrounds the player in an inescapable ring of bullets which close in on the player. His assassination attempt is halted by the timely arrival of Toriel.

At the exit to the Ruins, Flowey reappears to judge the player's actions up to that point, including whether they have killed or spared Toriel in the current run, as well as whether they've reloaded the game to get different results. If the player spared Toriel but killed other monsters, he calls the player a selfish brat and lists all the monsters that the player killed. Flowey will also specifically call the player out if they killed Toriel, then restarted before saving the game and spared Toriel afterward. The only circumstance in which he doesn't mock the player is if they have met the requirements to begin the Genocide Route; instead, he sees a kindred spirit in them.

As shown throughout the game, Flowey has a generally malevolent and cruel disposition, regularly berating a pacifist player for ignoring his kill-or-be-killed advice and generally talking about his desire to destroy the world. He is a cunning planner and subtle if the circumstances require it, even manipulating the player into bringing him as many monster SOULs as they can find in the neutral ending. He is notably able to retain his memories between SAVEs (having once had the ability to do so himself). He also possesses a disturbing sense of humor, as shown in his boss fight, in which he turns into what is referred to as "Photoshop Flowey".

For all of his cruelty and generally evil actions, however, it is hinted he genuinely regards the player as something of a friend. As revealed in the Pacifist Ending and Genocide Ending, he lacks a SOUL, and with it, the ability to feel love or most other emotions—his evil may be an attempt by him to feel anything at all, even self-loathing.

Main Story

 * See Asriel Dreemurr

Attacks
In his regular form as a mere flower, Flowey uses only two attacks, consisting of a five-bullet spread that slightly home in on the player's SOUL, and a large ring of bullets which surround the SOUL and cannot be dodged. He is able to speed up the spread, though the limits of his attacks and speed are unknown. Getting hit by his five-bullet spread leaves the player's SOUL at 1 HP.

Photoshop Flowey
If, during the boss battle with Asgore on the neutral/first pacifist run, Asgore is weakened and then spared, Flowey will appear and kill Asgore himself, absorbing the six bottled human SOULs and increasing his own strength. Otherwise, Flowey steals the six human SOULs after the player kills Asgore. He thanks the player for weakening Asgore, claiming he never could have gotten past Asgore otherwise.

The game will then crash. Upon reloading the game, your SAVE file appears to be gone and the game's title, Undertale, is replaced with FloweyTale. The protagonist's name is Flowey, who's LV is listed as being 9999. The location is titled "My World". Flowey's Determination is now overriding Frisk's, allowing him once again to manipulate the game, its data, and its timelines.

After opening this SAVE, Flowey will gloat that because of your idiocy, Asgore is dead, he has absorbed the six bottled human SOULs, and he has permanently deleted your SAVE file. He states that once he absorbs his seventh SOUL—your SOUL—and becomes godlike, he will teach monsters, humans, and everyone else the "true meaning of this world": kill or be killed.

A boss battle then begins with Flowey, who has now taken on a terrifying visage: a grotesque flower-shaped hybrid of plant tissue, human organs, and machine. This form called Photoshop Flowey  in the Neutral Credits, although it is often called Omega Flowey by fans.

Photoshop Flowey's new body also strongly resembles that of The DT Extraction Machine's structure, albeit now filled with teeth, gums, and eyes. This machine was created by Alphys to extract Determination from the six previously captured human SOULs, the same SOULs that Photoshop Flowey would use to power himself.

This battle is not RPG-oriented, but instead based entirely as a bullet-hell encounter. Flowey saves and loads during his attacks to disorient the player. These include firing star-shaped projectiles from his eyes, launching numerous vines, flamethrowers, finger guns, pulling in flies, dropping bombs, lasers, and using the weapons of the Six Humans. When Flowey activates the powers of one of his six human SOULs—indicated by a warning on his screen and the glowing of one of his six metal petals—that human SOUL will give an attack based on their associated objects and concepts.

During the attacks of the Six Humans, there will be an "ACT" button that can be activated using the "Z" key. The protagonist will then call for help, and the attacks of the SOULs will turn into green attacks shortly after, healing the player. Once dealt with, the six SOULs will all encourage you to finish Flowey, by healing you and dropping his defense to zero. The player will then be given a "FIGHT" button which shows up every few seconds until Flowey's health drops to zero.

The first two times the player dies during this battle, Flowey will taunt them in the Game Over screen before crashing the game. After that, the game crashes immediately upon death. When reloading, Flowey will continue taunting you. Each death brings a new taunt (up to 9), and quitting provokes a special reaction of its own.

The player must dodge Flowey's attacks to move towards and activate the FIGHT/ACT buttons. In order to lower Flowey's high Defense, the player must ask for help from each of the human SOULs—the game remembers which SOULs have been asked for help, even if the game is closed during the battle. This data is stored in the undertale.ini file, under the Incremental named "P".

When Flowey's HP is depleted, it is possible to kill (FIGHT) or SPARE him. Upon SPARING him, Flowey will be very confused as to why you are nice to him and give you several opportunities to change your mind, telling the player that he hasn't changed at all and will kill them and everyone they love if he is allowed to survive. Upon showing mercy multiple times after his threat, he will express frustration that he can not understand why you spared him, before running away.

After this, one of the Neutral Endings will occur. Then, Flowey will reappear, and advise the player on how to get a better ending. If you had gone through the game killing enemies, Flowey, believing his "kill or be killed" philosophy may be meaningless, will ask you to prove it to him by playing the game again without killing anyone; he then promises not to kill the king and will give you your "happy ending." If you then reset the game, Flowey will remind you to make friends with everyone, skipping the tutorial "fight", and Flowey's post-Toriel dialogue entirely.

If you had spared every single enemy, yet you have not met all the requirements for the True Pacifist Route, he mentions that maybe you could get closer to Papyrus, Undyne, or Alphys depending on whether or not you had completed their side quest to become friends. Flowey then allows you to recover your previous save file and follow his advice.

If the player kills Flowey, he will acknowledge you successfully finishing him off, before seemingly becoming a regular flower. He will not leave a message for the player after credits' close, and after a reset will not appear at all until the fight with Asgore, where they will berate the player for thinking that killing them solved anything, and he will explain that he was brought back when the player loaded their SAVE file, and that they still cannot achieve their happy ending. He then destroys Asgore Dreemurr's soul. This time around, the player is not able to fight Flowey, as the game leads straight to Sans' phone call.

Relationships

 * See Asriel Dreemurr

Trivia

 * During an early stage of Undertale, "UnderBound 2", it was revealed that Flowey was planned to be the reincarnation of "FACE" from the EarthBound hack, UnderBound.
 * Flowey's laugh is not an entirely new asset and can be recognized in other media such as the PlayStation title, Tomba!, by a flower-like enemy in Mushroom Forest. It is also heard in "The Lordling" which is another track that Toby Fox composed for the Homestuck album, Cherubim.
 * Flowey is one of the two Undertale characters to have a "canon" voice (the other being Mettaton), at least in his flower form. Near the beginning of a Genocide run of the game in which the player kills every enemy they encounter (including Toriel), Flowey will recognize you as the original fallen human and propose to "destroy everything in this wretched world." After this, an audible voice clip can be heard as Flowey's overworld sprite "talks", saying "Hmm, that's a wonderful idea!"
 * At the end of the demo, Flowey's face disappears from the flower in the first image in the "instructions" folder. In addition to this, the final image will change to a note that reads: "A Note From Your Friend - Don't get too cocky."
 * However, if this is a genocide run, the first image in the "instructions" folder will remain the same as it was when the game was started, but all the other images will be replaced with the demo's Genocide Route ending screen, and the last image will be replaced with a faceless Flowey.
 * If "Flowey" is inputted for the fallen human's name, the response becomes "I already CHOSE that name" and prevents the name from being used.
 * There are several moments throughout the game where if the player backtracks, Flowey can be seen at the edge of the screen, before he rapidly disappears into the ground. Some examples of this can be seen when walking backwards after Toriel's inventory space call in the Ruins, after meeting Sans and Papyrus, Papyrus' bridge "trap," near Waterfall, Mettaton's cooking "show," and Mettaton's bomb "death report."
 * If the player kills Toriel, then immediately restarts or resets the game, Flowey will appear in the chamber after battling her. He still remembers the player had murdered her, then goes on to taunt them saying they went back because they regretted it. Vice versa for sparing and then reloading to kill her, he calls the player repulsive and accuses them of doing so out of boredom. If the player kills her, reloads the game, and then kills her again, Flowey calls the player a "disgusting animal" for not even trying to spare her. In all these scenes, he informs the player he previously had the power to SAVE, reset, and play as the world's god before the player's arrival superseded his. Repeated kills will have him question how many times the player will continue to do this.
 * If the player resets the game while on a Genocide Route, Flowey says "Really, [name]? Well, do what you will. I'll be waiting for you." implying some disappointment or sense of betrayal. Additionally, this will skip the tutorial "fight," and Flowey's post-Toriel dialogue entirely.
 * Likewise, if the player completes the Neutral Route after aborting the Genocide Route, and did not kill Flowey, he will scold the player about quitting before achieving true victory, before realizing that perhaps the player wanted to see everything before they destroyed it.
 * After completing the True Pacifist Route, at the end of Flowey's talk with the player in which he begs the player not to restart the game, as everyone is now happy. He then chuckles and nods his head, and comments that the player has probably heard his speech several times. Before disappearing, he gives the player a smug look and tells them that he'll "See you around, [NAME]."
 * Sans mentions that Papyrus has heard a flower talking to him in his sleep. It is heavily implied that this is Flowey's doing.
 * This is proven during one of the Neutral Route endings where Flowey says Papyrus started a "Flowey Fan Club" in multiple timelines. Additionally, in the end of the True Pacifist Route when Alphys asks Papyrus, who called all of them to meet up at The Barrier, how he knew about this when he wasn't the first to show up. He replies that a flower told him before Flowey ensnares them all.
 * In the Neutral Route Credits, Flowey's boss form is entitled Photoshop Flowey, although most fans of the game refer to his boss fight form as "Omega Flowey."
 * In the game's code, Photoshop Flowey is referred to as Flowey X.
 * Near the end of the Genocide Route, Flowey will mention that some people are watching gameplay rather than playing the game near the end of a Genocide Route, talking about "those pathetic people that want to see it, but are too weak to do it themselves" and claiming that "I bet someone like that's watching right now, aren't they...?". This is also a possible reference to W.D. Gaster, who is supposedly watching the player from within the game's code.
 * When starting a new game, if the player closes the game during the initial event with Flowey, and then go back, the dialogue you get after Flowey introduces himself differs from the original; he will question if introducing himself was necessary, implying the player already knew about him, and will proceed to teach them "proper manners" and start the tutorial. Doing this again will cause Flowey to say "Don't you have anything better to do?" before starting the tutorial, which will loop if the player restarts the game any further.
 * If the player quits and relaunches the game during the Photoshop Flowey battle, Flowey says "Hee hee hee, you thought you could run away?"
 * The text in Photoshop Flowey's GAME OVER screen is a reference to Toby Fox's EarthBound Halloween Hack if the player loses to Dr. Andonuts, who is also the final boss of that game. The text says "Oh, [player name], it's all just a dream! Just kidding, you're dead forever." which is then followed by infinite looping "ha."