This is also why, despite doing stuff like killing six children, people like Asgore are not treated narratively as evil
Okay I know they murdered 6 innocent children but if you look at the narrative…
I agree with your interpretation generally but fuck do most of the monsters deserve to be beaten up if not killed from a purely game play perspective. Do their souls disappear if they die of old age? Why not give them a happy life underground, use that one soul to travel to the human world, kill 6 landlords, and then go back to free everyone like Toriel explained.
Asgore not only deserves to be beaten up but like canonically is in the pacifist ending (burnt but same difference)
Edit: In reference to the other monsters, I think it’s sort of a situation where what they’re doing is 100% wrong and suboptimal but, again, it’s treated with some narrative leniency because they’re an oppressed group. It’s also worth noting that their policy WAS originally raising humans underground, but it changed massively AFTER their prince got mercilessly slaughtered for taking their adoptive sibling’s corpse out of the barrier to be buried by their own species.
It’s also worth noting that their policy WAS originally raising humans underground, but it changed massively AFTER their prince got mercilessly slaughtered for taking their adoptive sibling’s corpse out of the barrier to be buried by their own species.
Adults murdered my son so I must slaughter unrelated children. I will also not use my power upon the death of the first child to go and collect the other souls from more deserving people. Instead I will sit around waiting, condemning the first 7 children who show up to death. Nor will I decide to stay underground and let the children go if that was my goal in the first place.
Even in context Asgore is objectively evil. If Asgore went out in anger and slaughtered 6 humans in retaliation then that’d be wrong but still understandable. The comparison to the IRA is absolutely shit because they never decided to target unrelated children of British people at the expense of their own goals. If the IRA had a choose between bombing a daycare center or Margaret Thatcher then they’d be evil if they decided to bomb the daycare.
Y’know, Toriel was right that Asgore was cowardly but he wasn’t necessarily wrong. It was emphasized multiple times that a single human soul could theoretically rival the power of every single monster in existence, and Asgore the people Asgore killed were children. Do you think he would have survived a single second outside the barrier, just trying to pick off randos? (Ignore those, lore brain fart)
And yeah, the monsters are definitely a lot more morally… sus, than the IRA or any real life resistance movement, but I think that’s because part of the point is to show how it’s not justifiable to just start killing oppressed people because they respond to their oppression badly. It’s a hyperbole, and shows how even in a situation where you grant reactionaries all the conspiracies and horrific fake accusations they make against freedom movements, they’re still wrong
But, let’s just make an assumption that Asgore was entirely in the wrong (which to be fair, he probably was, I forgot that he would have had an extra soul in him by this point, so he could easily take multiple humans in combat given how creatures like that are described and depicted). This is mostly handled in the narrative. As previously mentioned, Toriel literally divorced him and fucked off to the other side of the Underground to get away from him, and treats him with distaste for the entirety of the game. And, while Asgore is wrong, the interpretation still works, because it’s still a horrific act of oppression for a timebender with nearly unlimited power to kill people in cold blood.
I will concede the comparison to the IRA is very offensive to the IRA, and the IRA (and practically any real life freedom movement) is basically morally flawless in comparison to Asgore and Monsterkind’s shittery, but I’m not the one making the comparison- The person in the video is. And I think it works as a metaphor when you take it as hyperbole for the sake of making a point. The point being, the fact that many of the monsters are not only fucked up but basically evil doesn’t justify continuing the oppression, and it’s still fundamentally the responsibility of those with immense privilege to use it correctly, even when those who don’t have it are reacting to it wrong. The fact that you can instead choose to basically act like an impromptu therapist, and that fixes basically everything, highlights this point perfectly. If you commit yourself to actually helping them work through their issues, rather than murder them indiscriminately or abandon their cause because you don’t like their leader, it ends well.
I agree with your interpretation generally but fuck do most of the monsters deserve to be beaten up if not killed from a purely game play perspective. Do their souls disappear if they die of old age? Why not give them a happy life underground, use that one soul to travel to the human world, kill 6 landlords, and then go back to free everyone like Toriel explained.
Asgore not only deserves to be beaten up but like canonically is in the pacifist ending (burnt but same difference)
Edit: In reference to the other monsters, I think it’s sort of a situation where what they’re doing is 100% wrong and suboptimal but, again, it’s treated with some narrative leniency because they’re an oppressed group. It’s also worth noting that their policy WAS originally raising humans underground, but it changed massively AFTER their prince got mercilessly slaughtered for taking their adoptive sibling’s corpse out of the barrier to be buried by their own species.
Adults murdered my son so I must slaughter unrelated children. I will also not use my power upon the death of the first child to go and collect the other souls from more deserving people. Instead I will sit around waiting, condemning the first 7 children who show up to death. Nor will I decide to stay underground and let the children go if that was my goal in the first place.
Even in context Asgore is objectively evil. If Asgore went out in anger and slaughtered 6 humans in retaliation then that’d be wrong but still understandable. The comparison to the IRA is absolutely shit because they never decided to target unrelated children of British people at the expense of their own goals. If the IRA had a choose between bombing a daycare center or Margaret Thatcher then they’d be evil if they decided to bomb the daycare.
Y’know, Toriel was right that Asgore was cowardly but he wasn’t necessarily wrong. It was emphasized multiple times that a single human soul could theoretically rival the power of every single monster in existence, and Asgore the people Asgore killed were children. Do you think he would have survived a single second outside the barrier, just trying to pick off randos?(Ignore those, lore brain fart)And yeah, the monsters are definitely a lot more morally… sus, than the IRA or any real life resistance movement, but I think that’s because part of the point is to show how it’s not justifiable to just start killing oppressed people because they respond to their oppression badly. It’s a hyperbole, and shows how even in a situation where you grant reactionaries all the conspiracies and horrific fake accusations they make against freedom movements, they’re still wrong
https://youtu.be/XjGIimOuGnc?si=vHyvb8KkHZLtcbfo
But, let’s just make an assumption that Asgore was entirely in the wrong (which to be fair, he probably was, I forgot that he would have had an extra soul in him by this point, so he could easily take multiple humans in combat given how creatures like that are described and depicted). This is mostly handled in the narrative. As previously mentioned, Toriel literally divorced him and fucked off to the other side of the Underground to get away from him, and treats him with distaste for the entirety of the game. And, while Asgore is wrong, the interpretation still works, because it’s still a horrific act of oppression for a timebender with nearly unlimited power to kill people in cold blood.
I will concede the comparison to the IRA is very offensive to the IRA, and the IRA (and practically any real life freedom movement) is basically morally flawless in comparison to Asgore and Monsterkind’s shittery, but I’m not the one making the comparison- The person in the video is. And I think it works as a metaphor when you take it as hyperbole for the sake of making a point. The point being, the fact that many of the monsters are not only fucked up but basically evil doesn’t justify continuing the oppression, and it’s still fundamentally the responsibility of those with immense privilege to use it correctly, even when those who don’t have it are reacting to it wrong. The fact that you can instead choose to basically act like an impromptu therapist, and that fixes basically everything, highlights this point perfectly. If you commit yourself to actually helping them work through their issues, rather than murder them indiscriminately or abandon their cause because you don’t like their leader, it ends well.
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy: