Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-26006155-20160613103837

Hello folks, I've been talking Undertale on the FNAF wiki, and thought I should move some of it to a more on-theme place :)

First, Asriel's monster SOUL may have dissipated when he died and returned as Flowey, but he's going to get it back over time.

In the True Pacifist Epilogue, if you stop by Gerson the Turtle on the way back to the beginning, and ask him "Is Asgore a Goat?" he'll tell you how Boss Monsters work. The parents gradually transfer their own SOUL energy into their children as they age, and the children get stronger. Toriel and Asgore haven't been aging for ages because they didn't technically have a Boss Monster child, and Flowey didn't count. However, once Asriel regained his Boss Monster form, he does qualify now, and in the sequel we're going to see Toriel and Asgore slowly aging as Asriel regains his monster SOUL.

Second, Asriel only changes back to Flowey when you restart the game, because despite even what Asriel himself believes, he already has a SOUL. And not only that, it's a human SOUL!

Remember how human SOULs can presist after death, while those of monsters quickly vanish? In their doomed adventure back to the surface, Asriel absorbed Chara's human SOUL, and proved that even though human souls were stronger than monster's souls, he was able to win the struggle for control with Chara when she wanted to destroy the human village, and retreated back behind the barrier to the garden, where he died.

If Flowey was truly souless, he wouldn't have any emotions at all. Yet we see him happy, sad, frustrated, surprised, devious, angry, and even terrified during the various playthroughs of the game. Also, both Flowey and Asriel both tell you they were missing one specific thing: Compassion. Not even Toriel and Asgore could make Flowey feel loved, because the SOUL he possessed had no Compassion in it.

And Compassion is how Frisk defeats Asriel, The Absolute God of Hyperdeath. After SAVEing his six friends, Frisk detects another SOUL deep within Asriel, and reaches out to SAVE it, calling out a name. Asriel immedately reacts with surprise "What are you DOING?!", fear and confusion and anger meeting the growing feeling of Compassion being restored within him "NO! I Don't need ANYONE!" Yet his resolve wavers as he starts to remember love, and family, and his attacks weaken, until, after one last desperate attempt to destroy Frisk, Asriel is overcome by the realization of how horrible he's been acting, and finally gives up fighting, determined to do the right thing.

The seventh name Frisk calls out during the fight is CHARA. She takes far longer to save than any of the others, but eventually, even she can be saved.

After breaking the Barrier and releasing all of the souls he captured as Flowey, Asriel, still in Boss Monster form, believes he's doomed to change back into a flower, and begs Frisk not to tell his parents or the others that he's alive, not wanting them to go through the pain of losing him again.

Asriel is thinking of the wellbeing of his family. This shows Compassion :) Even though he still doesn't know it, Asriel still has Chara's healed soul, which now, finally, has Compassion inside it.

So not only is Asriel getting back his own monster soul, he has Chara's soul with him already, truly best friends again, for the first time.

Asriel isn't going to fade, he's definitely going to be in Undertale 2, and he's going to be Badass :)

Thanks for reading! 