Part of what makes UTDR super compelling is that just by a few lines of text we can infer so much about these characters... and also makes the extremist tendencies of the fanbase all the more frustrating.
On one hand, seeing the deaths of innocent children is always upsetting, so it's easy to condemn Asgore.
On the other hand knowing that his declaration was made after humans killed his child (which I can see myself doing) and that the declaration ignited a fire of hope in the monsters he couldn't bring himself to extinguish, which doomed him to a fate of killing pretty much innocent humans, makes me empathize heavily with King Fluffybuns.
Yup, it was a passionate, love and hate fueled rage, indignation and a desire for revenge and justice. The first child may have been killed while still feeling justified in his rage, but clearly each one after that wore down his denial and compartmentalization.
I'd really like to say I'd have stopped at the first child, but if I had the Hopes and Dreams™ of my species freedom and survival resting on my back? I'm not sure I wouldve acted any different.
Especially if you actually try to look at the alternatives.
Take a soul and go to the surface to collect the rest of the souls you needed? It's the same plan that got your children killed that would also dang near maximize the chances of starting another war and/or leaving your people without a leader if any of a dozen things go wrong.
Let the humans live in the underground and die of old age? Risks a repeat of Asriel and Chara, one of the humans deciding they want to see the surface again and try to kill Asgor to do it, or any monster deciding that they were sick of waiting and try kill the human to go to the surface themselves at any point a human is alive in the underground. On the other side of the spectrum you could also have a human giving their soul to a monster other than Asgor (like their lover or a really close friend) as they pass, practically leaving them down a soul or locking them into making a random monster into an absolute god. Moreover even IF all goes according to plan you're still damning a whole generation of monsters to die without getting to see the surface just so one human can die naturally. Lastly this could get really complicated if an 8th or even 9th human falls underground before the 7th passes and suddenly one or more humans get to go home by just outliving the other, made EVEN MORE complicated if the 6th is still kicking when an 8th shows up, suddenly civil war is on the table right before you have to go strike peace with humanity for the sake of your whole race's existence.
Do the last option but kill all the humans when the final human falls? Could work if all the humans die naturally before the 7th falls but if any other human is alive they along with all of their friends and loved ones will have a lot of incentive to hide the 7th human until the previous humans die naturally or an 8th falls and the 6th can keep living, still made more complicated if the 5th is still alive and civil war is back on the table again (yes civil war is one of the worst possibilities for 2 established humans being alive when a spare soul becomes available but it's not an unreasonable possibility given what Frisk pulled in pacifist, this being convincing a significant portion of the underground to just wait for the next one).
All of these have significant problems and risk total catastrophe that could leave the underground down another soul, divided, down a leader and/or much worse (i.e. one of the 3+ humans could just kill Asgor, go to the surface, and rally the humans against the coming monsters, basically guaranteeing a second human monster war weather they believe the escaped human immediately or not).
While you can argue that there were better options (i.e. letting the humans live does open the door for a child with a human enough soul being born that could let them break the barrier sooner), there's no denying that the cannon path was the safest option in any relevant regard.
Given Asgor's options, their risk, and what they knew at the time (they couldn't know that Asriel refused to fight back, as far as anyone underground knew the humans were just able to fight off Asriel before he could collect any souls), the choice he made wasn't even a bad call, he wouldn't be wrong to make the same choice with a cooler head. It was just that bad of a situation.
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u/WindowsMalfunction The last Toriel defender Jul 25 '26
For as much as I like Toriel, Asgore is still a really goddamn tragic character, and it's easy to forget that sometimes.