This is just thinly veiled CYL propaganda

This is actually a nice detail

Suffered more than Rhea, Dimitri and Edelgard combined

Also, can Steph and Cassandra just fuck already? The sexual tension is insane

The last 4 are especially egrigeous.

What if the cosmic rays made the Fantastic 4 weird, what if the X-Men were vampires, what if Spider-Man had a fucked up tatoo.

3 of the retainers look like experienced warrior who would rip my head off for looking at them funny and there's also this teenage highschooler.

Deltarune Chapter 5 came out not so long ago, but considering the motion Toby Fox has across the internet you probably already know about that. In an interesting way, Chapter 5 feels largely disconnected from the rest of the Undertale/Deltarune franchise by looking fucking amazing. Seriously, this is by far the best any of his games have ever looked. Along with that the new gameplay gimmicks are significantly better than the ones in Chapter 3 and serve to shake up the gameplay nicely, with also the currently best boss fight of all the chapters.

Really, Chapter 5 feels like a huge jump in quality in every way, aside from arguably the most important part of the entire game, the Story. Chapter 5 introduces a lot of problems in the overall story of the game that makes me nervous for the next two chapters, but I'm not going to focus on those today.

No, instead I'll be focusing on how Deltarune poorly handeled the most divorced dad in the multiverse, Asgore Dreemur.

The setup

Asgore Dreemur has always had a fairly minor role in both Undertale and Deltarune despite being very important to the larger plot. Being the penultimate boss of a first neutral playthrough, Asgore is mostly used as a looming threat the player is eventually going to have to face and is mostly just a cool boss fight. Asgore also doesn't really have any major role in the Pacifist or Genocide playthroughs as he's mostly just a boss fight. Despite his minor role, Asgore works decently well in Undertale as a morally gray antagonist with a tragic backstory. Especially with his intro of destroying the "SPARE" button and amazing theme.

Deltarune flips this on it head by making it so that instead of a final boss type character, Asgore is just the friendly local flower shop owner. Considering that he's Kris's dad, he is extremely friendly towards them and is mostly used as comedic relief being a broke, divorced, middle aged dad whose trying to get back together with his ex-wife whose moved on. He is also shown to be inept in taking care of himself as Carol has to remind him to actually sell his flowers instead of giving them away and apparently purely lives off of the free pickles his wife's boyfriend donates to him. Not just satisfied of leaching off of others, he also has a tendency to stalk his wife, waiting for her to come into public spaces in order to make her uncomfortable.

However, as Chapters 3 & 4 released, we actually found out new information about Asgore beyond just being a loser. He used to be the police chief of Hometown, but due to some unknown incident he was taken off of the force. He talks to a Black Shard (the same weapon the Knight uses in Chapter 4) about uncovering the conspiracy he's been investigating, you can also notice a conspiracy board in the back entrance of his flower shop and he is also shown in the prophecy, implying that he will be important in the future. Along with all that, Susie needs the 3 Shelter codes in order to enter the Shelter and Asgore is obviously a holder of one of the codes considering his past as a police chief.

With all of this, there was significant buildup towards Asgore being a major player in the next chapter of the game, with everybody guessing that the Chapter 5 Dark World would take place in the Flower King shop. So, how does Chapter 5 use this interesting character? Well, it doesn't.

A minor character

Despite all the buildup and importance Asgore has he's almost a non-entity during all of Chapter 5. He's the ruler of the Dark World who all the Flowers are subservient towards, he quickly figures out that something strange is happening, he aggresively kicks Susie and Kris out of the Dark World, he ignores all of the affection from the flowers, he raves like a lunatic about how he's going to not only kill the person whose been making the Dark Fountains, but also parade their corpse around hometown. Asgore has clearly gone off the deep end in Chapter 5 as even Susie points out that Asgore is acting nuts.

And as you're climbing up to the top of the castle you're bombarded with scenes of Asgore being neglectful towards the flowers, likely mirroring how Asgore englected Kris and Asriel due to his investigations and that's the last we get of him before the last 30 minutes of the entire chapter.

Yeah, we get so much buildup towards Asgore's obsession, how he's gone so crazy he's seriously considering murder and how he's neglectful towards others. But then we get a subversion as Asgore realises ALL his faults after seeing Kris hurt and vows to be better. And afterwards he gets easily kidnapped by the Knight meaning that we aren't going to see any meaningful resolution coming from all this character development.

So, in a Chapter that revolves around his dark world and about how the flowers are affected by him and why they want to desperately keep the Fountain open, Asgore barely plays any part in the overall story.

Offscreen character development

Asgore's epiphany comes from seeing Kris being hurt after their fight with Flowery and how because of his obsession he failed to protect Kris and he also learns that stalking his ex-wife is bad because of all the unwanted love and pestering he gets from Flowery.

And that doesn't make any sense. Like I said earlier Asgore saw Kris and Susie in the Dark World and immediately kicked them out. He didn't even waste a second and shockingly, that's absolutely the correct decision. Kris and Susie are teenagers in a dangerous location which Asgore suspects is also being inhabited by a dangerous individual. And he is completely correct, from his perspective Kris has no reason why to be in the Dark World.

Along with that the Dark Worlds are essntially crime scenes. Asgore has been trying to make sense of this whole mysterious incident and he can't because the incident is supernatural and now he finally has the opportunity to make sense of this supernatural location and find the answers he's been looking for.

Asgore actually acts extremely responisbly in Chapter 5 as he kicks out other people from this location and locks the door. But I hear you saying "Yes, but due to his obsession he didn't check if Susie and Kris actually went back home as he ordered, which shows how he failed to protect Kris properly." except he did. He even asked Flowery, who essentially knows everything about the Dark World, if Kris went back home. So, in actuality Flowery straight up lied to Asgore as if Asgore knew the truth he would immediately change priorities.

Now, I like that Asgore is heartbroken seeing Kris hurt, showing that he truly does care about his child and it makes sense that in grief he would blame himself. However, it isn't a satisfying character arc due to Asgore's lack of screentime. Toby was so obsessed with keeping Asgore mysterious that he barely plays any part in the entire chapter and instead all the focus is relegated to the 7 flower Darkners. And that would be fine, if Asgore's entire character development didn't happen offscreen.

As a reminder, he goes from being completely insane and talking about how he's going to parade a person's corpse around town, to acting like a reasonable adult. It feels so ridiculously rushed and the reasoning isn't strong enough to explain such a drastic change. Imagine if at the start of Book 3 of ATLA Zuko saw Uncle Iroh in prison and immediately changed alliegances. That would obviously be unsatisfying, but that's essentially how Asgore acts in Chapter 5 before being turned into a plot device by being kidnapped by the Roaring Knight.

And there's another problem with his overall obsession.

The conspiracy

The reason why Asgore is divorced and treated like a nutjob in Deltarune is because he couldn't let go of uncovering the mystery behind an old case. And we know why he couldn't ever find definitive proof, the Dark Worlds were a part of the incident which he couldn't prove. And his investigations haven't stopped as he even uncovered a Black Shard in the library, something even the main characters didn't find. Ralsei is even confused about Asgore noting that the Knight possibly existed years ago and Ralsei knows all about the prophecy.

So, Asgore actually made some major discoveries and while we don't see all of his notes as they are jumbled up in the Dark World, he seems to have actually made some major discoveries. And therein lies the main problem, Asgore was actually obssesed for a good reason.

Now, imagine if you ever heared IRL somebody you knew say that there's some lunatic going around town opening pocket dimensions and its connected to a disappearance in the town. You would likely think that said person is crazy, but Asgore was actually right in his crazy conspiracy theories. He was correct about something supernatural going on in Hometown, he was correct about some villain opening Dark Fountains, he was right that they are connected with a Dark Fountain that opened years ago and he was right that there's some grand conspiracy going on.

This would be the equivalent of the crazy conspiracy nut on Reddit actually managing to uncover the fact that aliens have visited Earth. The whole point of the chapter is how Asgore is trapped in an asylum of his own making by being obsessed about uncovering a secret conspiracy, but we know that he was actually correct in his theories. So, in a really weird way Agore was 100% justified by the narrative by being obsessed as the rest of Hometown lives in ignorance while he was among the very few to uncover that something that could threaten his friend and family was going on in Hometown. And this goes together with another problem with Asgore in Chapter 5.

No other character flaws mentioned

For whatever reason Chapter 5 only focuses on Asgore being a neglectful dad whose focused on only proving his conspiracy theories. And I agree that its a valied reason to be mad at him for his family, but as I mentioned before he wasn't completely unjustified in his actions. And we don't focus on any of his other character flaws. His obsession with the past, him stalking Toriel, his inability to survive financially by himself, even his violent side only gets mentioned once and the quickly forgotten.

Honestly, Chapter 5 actually paint Asgore in a positive light by ignoring the Flowers and focusing on uncovering the truth because there is actually an apocaliptic event happening soon and the Darkners aren't real. Like, all the Darkner Flowers are essentially how he remembers Rudy, Kris and other important people in his life. Flowery is pretending to be Rudy, his best friend, while actual Rudy is busy dying in the hospital. He should actually ignore Flowery and focus on the events in the Light World. And he didn't actually fail to protect Kris as Kris purpeously put themselves in danger after creating the entire Dark Fountain. And he immeidately overcomes his character flaws after one afternoon in the Dark World. It feels so unsatisfying.

The future

Now, Deltarune isn't finished yet, so we might still get some Asgore action, but there's two things wrong with that premise.

1. This seems extremely unlikely considering that Undyne has been a damsel in distress since being kidnapped in Chapter 3, combined with all the plotlines and questions Deltarune still has to pay off, meaning that getting more major Asgore screentime would feel out of place.
2. Even if he gets additional screentime in the next two chapters, it still doesn't make up for being sideline by out 5 eccentric Darkner in a row, along with a secret boss that doesn't relate to him at all, in a chapter that takes place in his own shop.

How to fix

Fixing Asgore in Chapter 5 is rather easy. You can still have the subversion of him not being a boss fight and him developing as a character and keeping what happened years ago as a mystery, you just need to give him more screentime.

For example, have him make notes about the Dark World and the suddenly get jumped by a Flower Darkner and akwardly try to stay nice while not caring about the attention he's getting. You can even have him remark "Heh, I wonder if Toriel felt the same way when I suprised her yesterday.", just something to build up to his final epiphany.

Another thing is that the whole scene where he talks about murder and parading a corpse, should be removed as its too extreme and makes his sudden character development less believable.

Another optional part is making it so that Asgore doesn't immediately kick Kris out of the Dark World but instead just telling Kris to leave before ignoing them to show how he's acting like a neglectful and irresponsible father and letting his child get hurt being something he's actually somewhat responsible for, unlike the actual chapter.

And that should be that. Its a real shame because I was actually very interested in how Chapter 5 was going to handle Asgore and I was left disappointed. The biggest shame is that its actually very easy to fix all of it, but Toby for whatever reason went the most confusing route possible. Hopefully, the writting in chapters 7 and 6 are better.

Reminder to never tell people you're a member of the X-Men.

All Deadpool references:

1. Tostugeki - May, Guilty Gear
2. Naruto run - Naruto
3. Captain Ginyu pose, Dragon Ball
4. Jack-o crouching pose, Guilty Gear
5. Harakiri - Yoshimitsu, Tekken
6. Nut punch - Johnny Cage, Mortal Kombat
7. Consecutive energy barage - Vegeta, DBFZ
8. Get over here into toasty - Scorpion, Mortal Kombat
9. Ryuujin - Jam, Guilty Gear
10. Footdive - Dr Doom, MvC 3
11. Roman cancel - Guilty Gear
12. Random BS Go - Moon Knight meme panel
13. Condor Spire - Lily, Street Fighter 6
14. Screen crack - Abigail , Street Fighter 5

All Deadpool references:

1. Tostugeki - May, Guilty Gear
2. Naruto run - Naruto
3. Captain Ginyu pose, Dragon Ball
4. Jack-o crouching pose, Guilty Gear
5. Harakiri - Yoshimitsu, Tekken
6. Nut punch - Johnny Cage, Mortal Kombat
7. Consecutive energy barage - Vegeta, DBFZ
8. Get over here into toasty - Scorpion, Mortal Kombat
9. Ryuujin - Jam, Guilty Gear
10. Footdive - Dr Doom, MvC 3
11. Roman cancel - Guilty Gear
12. Random BS Go - Moon Knight meme panel
13. Condor Spire - Lily, Street Fighter 6
14. Screen crack - Abigail , Street Fighter 5