#oh goodness this is just the tip of the iceberg about how awesome Flowey is

[lefthanded-sans]

I agree about the Genocide Run and how the player distances themselves. I haven't completed any attempts at the genocide run, but I've /felt/ the distance. I've /noticed/ when monsters become numbers, and it honestly scared me. (1/2)

(2/2) and it just went to show me that the player becomes exactly like flowey. After going through the Genocide Run, we’re even able to sort of sympathize with Flowey- specifically early flowey because noticing tge emotional distance is /terrifying/.

I think I’m probably going to scream for eternity about how awesome Undertale is in this area. It’s not quite the concept of “You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain,” but it definitely harps upon the idea that we all within us have the capability to be good. We all within us have the capability to be bad. And we have the capacity to lose our heroic, kindhearted notions and turn into the very villain we once tried to defeat.

We can become a Flowey.

While there are of course many parallels between Chara and Frisk to draw from, it’s really the parallels between Flowey and Frisk that get expanded upon in the game routes. Flowey and Frisk are so much the same. Once upon a time, Asriel was trying to be a hero to break the barrier, and he was quite the kindhearted and sympathetic little goat. But Asriel is thrown into an unwanted circumstance against his desire and must make sense of his new environment as a flower. He learns about the SAVE function, and first uses it to do good. Over time, and over many resets, however, he turns callous and even encourages Frisk/Chara to commit genocide with him. He and Frisk share a lot in common experientially.

Now, it’s not guaranteed that Frisk will follow Flowey’s path of doing good routes first and then descending into evil. There are many UT game players who lead Frisk through a single Pacifist Route and that is that. Nevertheless, it is also the case that, for those who do commit to the Genocide Route, it is usually done after Pacifist. While game players often do this because the community says it’s bigger impact to play Pacifist first… I believe Fox predicted that this is how it would go. The Genocide Route gameplay function is harder to trigger, and the dialogue from all the monsters encourages the player to lead Frisk in a peaceful route. It makes sense that, statistically, more players would lead Frisk as Flowey so acted. Players would follow the game’s hints and do the more peaceful routes first. Maybe their Frisk would make some mistakes, but correct them in a reset. But then players would start to get curious about screwing around with the game. Frisk gets bored and starts screwing around… eventually plodding into the darkest route of all. Exactly like Flowey.

One will notice that if Frisk gets an incredibly high LV, Sans will make a comment suggesting that it’s likely the human is turning down a dark route, this isn’t the first time they’ve done wrong, and it’s not likely they’re going to change:

hmmm… lv9, huh. that’s over halfway to lv20, the maximum. but don’t think that means you’re still 50- percent good. 50-percent, 20-percent. those are both still failing grades. besides. chances are… i’ve already tried to steer you in the right direction. so what can i say? what can i say that will change the mind of a being like you…?

It’s sort of a hint that Frisk, the more unfeeling they go, the more likely they might fall down a path like Flowey’s.

And even if Frisk just goes into a Genocide Route first time through, they’re still paralleling Flowey. As you say, it’s that psychological distancing. Frisk, Flowey, and the game player share this experience. It’s starting to see monsters as numbers. It’s starting to see their actions as predictable programmable lines of text. As Flowey says, they become “Sets of numbers. Lines of dialogue.” Chara talks about that feeling of statistics like LV and EXP increasing. That power… that drive… that’s what the human and we the player “care about” in the Genocide Route. The stats. Not the emotions of the characters we just killed.

As a player who starts to feel the stats take priority and for us to lose that emotional sensitivity towards the characters… it’s creepy. When we sit back and reflect upon how distanced we’ve become, it’s wholly disconcerting. We went around, killing for sport, not even caring when the lives of everyone in the underground crumbled beneath our dusty hands.

We became just as terrible as Flowey.

We perhaps thought of Flowey as the juxtaposition to Frisk when we played the Pacifist Route. They seemed to be opposites - one good, one bad. Although both Flowey and Frisk have experienced the power of the SAVE, Flowey concluded that no one would come and that it was a kill or be kill world. Frisk, by contrast, pursued through the underground with mercy, building friendships. People came for Frisk - the monsters of the underground, the other six human SOULs. Flowey was the corruption, the perversion, the anti-friendship and anti-mercy perspective. Frisk was able to purify that. By being kind, Frisk could even offer mercy to Asriel. The hero saved the day from the countering villain.

But. We learn Flowey had good routes too, back in the day. Flowey was just as good as Frisk. And Frisk can go forward to just as terrible routes as Flowey. They have the potential to be not foils, but parallels.

The human joins Flowey in a genocidal conquest.

We the player feel distancing. 

We the player realize that we have made Frisk exactly the same as Flowey.

And we feel the same horrible emotionlessness Flowey does toward the characters in the game.

I see this subtle Flowey mentality even sneak into commentary of how people talk about character choices made in the Genocide Route. It’s so, so easy for our minds to take Flowey’s side and not realize how much it’s affected our perceptions.

The biggest example of this is Papyrus (I could also talk about MTT NEO fandom discussion, but anyway). Lots of people say that Papyrus was naive to not fight the human in the Genocide Route. Papyrus was foolish to stand without defense, choosing not to fight, even though he knew that the person advancing toward him wanted him to die. He should have known that this choice of his was leading to his own demise. Of course things turned out poorly for him, right?

Well… check out this quote you might be familiar with.

I hope you like your choice. After all, it’s not as if you can go back and change fate. In this world, it’s kill or be killed. That old hag thought she could break the rules. She tried so hard to save you humans. But when it came down to it… Hee hee… SHE COULDN’T EVEN SAVE HERSELF.

Mhm, yeah. Flowey uses the exact same reasoning to mock Toriel for trying to be peaceful. Let me repeat: Flowey’s thought process - if you choose to kill Toriel in a Neutral Route - is the exact same reasoning many people have about Papyrus’ “bad” choice to not fight the human.

Here’s the thing…

Breaking the rules? Not killing monsters? Being merciful and refusing to fight?

That’s sort of how you win the game and free the monsters from the underground!

We look at Papyrus and think he was naive for offering mercy… when it is Papyrus’ very philosophy of mercy we need to adopt to win the Pacifist Route and find the True Ending.

But Flowey’s sort of mentality creeps into our minds nevertheless. People look at Papyrus and all his failed attempts. Of course Papyrus dies 100% of the times you play a Genocide Route. But he survives for all those people who can’t finish the route and abort it. It’s the exact same sort of logic that Flowey gives - oh look, they couldn’t save themselves, they were trying to break the rules by being merciful. 

Genocide Route psychological effects? You start accidentally sounding like Flowey in more subtle ways than you realize, sometimes.

I think one of the most incredible things about the Genocide Route is that it leads you into that frightening distancing. You don’t feel anything when you’re playing the Genocide Route. As soon as you step back, though, and realize I just became Flowey… well…

You feel your sins crawling on your back.