Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-26905610-20160225224529/@comment-27701762-20160226212903

SilentClimber wrote:

I hope I don't get banned for this or anything, but here is the page where I saw it. I appreciate the link, but it gets at what I was trying to say earlier. It only says that the attacks get harder, but not that the attack power increases (i.e. that Asgore does more damage per hit over the course of the battle). Like I said, I don't think it's a good idea to use this as an indication of Asgore's personality, as the choice for Toby is to have Asgore's attacks become tougher, or make the battle trivial. If we want to use a battle mechanic to indicate something about the personality, it's the damage limitation once you hit low HP.

SilentClimber wrote:

But as I kept playing, learning the story, connecting the dots and finally facing him as Chara I ended up deeply disappointed with this guy. No other character had my sympathy like him, so I guess that's why my judgement on him is so harsh.

I don't know if I'm being simplistic, but... I do admit I kinda have the disposition for seeing the world in black and white. However, I try my best to be fair and reasonable. So this explanation gives me a bit of a better understanding of your position. I can understand the disappointment. The fact that Asgore is flawed will inevitably lead to disappointment from what that original position.

Perhaps I can get at the thrust of my argument in this way. A while back I was watching a playthrough of Undertale, and I happened to scroll through some of the comments (because I do that for some reason). Someone was expressing disbelief that everyone loved Toriel so much. They said they really disliked Toriel, as she exhibited the telltale signs of abusing Frisk: refusing to let Frisk make their own decisions, attacking Frisk when they disobey, and even being so careless as to kill Frisk.

Now we could defend Toriel's actions by pointing to the context for why she is doing these things, since she has good reason to believe that if Frisk leaves the Ruins they will be killed by Asgore. Many other commenters defender her actions in this way, and perhaps you are inclined to do the same (or maybe you buy or bought the argument, and so you now or already disliked Toriel). But if you were to defend Toriel, then you would be engaged in the exact same thing I was trying to do before: to pull you away from describing Asgore in terms of an isolated set of actions by reintroducing the context that explains and motivates those actions. In other words, describing Asgore's actions as killing a little kid and refusing to stand up and fight against a cold-blooded killer is the exact same as denouncing Toriel for being abusive.

So I return to the description of Asgore as a tragic character. A tragic character is forced into a situation, usually through a flaw of their own that they do not foresee, and in turn demands sympathy not because we endorse the situation they are in or their flaw, but because we recognize the possibility for the same thing (broadly speaking) to happen to us. From acknowledging that sympathy, we can then cast judgment by way of liking or disliking the character. And disliking the character and feeling sympathy for them are not exclusive categories. But from your earlier posts, you appeared to be leaping into the judgment without acknowledging the tragic nature. I'm still a bit uncertain about denouncing his response to Genocide Frisk, since it feels a bit like "this is what I would do in this situation, so not doing it must be bad."

Anyway, you haven't done anything to antagonize me. I was, and still am to some extent, worried about projecting my anger at other people for a completely removed yet slightly similar set of circumstances onto you, and letting that get in the way of a civil discussion.