Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-28554555-20160525232229/@comment-27620479-20160610153448

Flowey isn't stupid. He can pull off the friendliness pellet trick most of the time, unless already you know what's going on. He can follow up with his plan to get the souls. He learned not to let Sans find out about him. He can manipulate Papyrus as he pleases. Deciding not to attack the protagonist is actually a pretty smart move. He only has to lose once, while his opponent can save and load endlessly. These are not favorable terms. Sure, he isn't so smart as to be above making mistakes, but no other monster or human is.

He is also a hedonist. He places having fun above being efficient. He is in fact playing. Even if we assume that his unavoidable attack is powerful enough to kill the protagonist in one shot (which doesn't seem to be the case), they will just reset, and he will remember that they did. After a few dozen times, it really gets pretty boring.

So, I think the smartest move for him is is to get the souls, and with them, regain his determination-based powers. Then he can do anything he wants. It is really lucky that he wants to play, and not just kill. He is a bit careless, but is actually trying to do the only thing that gives meaning to his life. It's pretty much the equivalent of doing extra work so you can afford some kind of luxury or indulgence.

As for the souls, he is numb, not dumb. It isn't really a matter of intelligence. He simply can't understand feelings any longer. He can experience them, but won't be able to interpret them more, than say, parallel universe Alpha Centauri meta-quantum-technology explained in martian hieroglyphs. He has zero empathy. He can make guesses based on logic and past experience, but having control over a soulless body that absorbed six souls is doubly unprecedented.