Asriel's a sweet boy, despite everything he's been through. He's not always as good as he'd like to be, but at least on an ideological level, he doesn't want to hurt anyone. In fact, he may be prone to being a bit extreme. He doesn't have a lot of experience with having friends, nor did his coddled childhood really prepare him for the kind of harshness the world can be capable of. He tends to be a little bit on the clingy side; Asriel has a lot of trouble letting go of people, and he sort of expects that being good friends means you never disagree with or doubt someone you like. As you can expect, this overzealous devotion has worked out in less-than-healthy ways for him in the past, but clinging to it has been the only thing he had for a very long time. He doesn't yet know how to be friends with people without expecting that he should live for their every whim and they should live for his. Throughout his time knowing Frisk, he became downright abusive and manipulative in his efforts to make sure they stayed around - it didn't matter if they wanted to or not, it just mattered that he wanted to keep someone around with him. When he was with Chara, he agreed to their plan, even if it scared him and he knew full well that it involved Chara hurting themselves, up until the very end.
Honestly, Asriel has a tendency to be a little afraid of conflict. As a flower, he swung to the farthest possible extreme - he stood up for himself and disagreed, but in a way that was so selfish and aggressive and cruel that it was downright bullying. He's doing his best to do the right thing and be good, with whatever precious little time he has left, but he feels like he has a lot of atrocious behaviour to make up for and very little idea exactly how to be good enough to make up for it. He worries about turning into that cruel person, to the point where he's willing to isolate himself instead of risk a confrontation where he has to put his foot down and just ends up hurting someone because of it.
The kid's got a lot of guilt in general, though. He's been through some really hard things, stuff that no child should have to endure, and he didn't really have the benefit of anyone who could help him make sense of and cope with his trauma. He spent a lot of time blaming himself for everything he lost and everything that happened as a result of his choices. While he has gained enough maturity to say you can't spend forever regretting the hard choices, he also might have been trying to wrap everything up as neatly as possible so Frisk wouldn't have to worry anymore - for all the cruelty he showed to them, he did try to make sure his last moments were spent comforting them and telling them that they were a good person.
Despite his zealous extremes, his loyalty could certainly be considered admirable (though it, uh, might be healthier to tone it down a bit). For years and years after Chara died, he still held onto the thought of them. Even when he was unable to truly care about anyone, he still considered the two of them inseparable and regarded them as someone who could understand them. He made the choice to watch over their grave for the rest of his remaining days - though hard experience had shown him that it wasn't right to build them up as someone incapable of being or doing wrong ever, his love for them hasn't wavered. He knows what it is to be lonely - he doesn't think they should have to be, either.
That said, he's certainly not perfect. Being a child, he does still see things in somewhat unrealistic, simplified terms. He tries to pass off the ending as being perfectly happy and much better than the plan that he almost committed to, expecting that because nobody died this time around, the six dead children in the background don't count and humanity won't react with violence or horror at monsters appearing among them this time. As a child, he tried, in a way, to make himself entirely responsible for Chara's wellbeing, rather than expecting Chara themself to do that: he pledged to never doubt them, to believe in them so hard that he never disagreed, to love them so hard that his love cured every problem. He sort of does to Frisk what he did to Chara: he seems to expect that someone else can be the saviour who will fix him. At first, he turned to his parents for this, expecting they would make him feel better. Then, when they failed to make his emptiness go away, he built Chara up as the one person who could make him feel complete. When he accepted that Chara was dead and it was someone else he'd been talking to, he sort of set Frisk into that spotlight instead, setting someone he barely knew up as the kind of friend he wished he always had. But then... they were someone who could show him that the world wasn't as painful and cruel as he thought, and they were someone who could tell him that sometimes being a good friend did mean saying "no," keeping a person from what they wanted if it was self-destructive, and even learning to leave behind something you want to hold on to.
Asriel, for whatever wisdom and kindness he may have, is still a child. When he feels comfortable enough with someone to not be a perfectly docile prince, he does have something of a sassy streak; he used to love playing tricks, and he certainly made Frisk put up with their fair share of smart-ass remarks and tricks during their time Underground. Sometimes, too, all the anger and sorrow and grief that he's spent so long not knowing how to process rear their head in unpleasant ways. He's prone to projecting and lashing out at people, and can be downright vicious in how he mocks people sometimes.
He's trying, though. Anyone can be a good a person if they just try, right? Even people who aren't really capable of feeling love or compassion!
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timeasmymeasure
revised personality
Date: 2016-11-11 01:35 am (UTC)Honestly, Asriel has a tendency to be a little afraid of conflict. As a flower, he swung to the farthest possible extreme - he stood up for himself and disagreed, but in a way that was so selfish and aggressive and cruel that it was downright bullying. He's doing his best to do the right thing and be good, with whatever precious little time he has left, but he feels like he has a lot of atrocious behaviour to make up for and very little idea exactly how to be good enough to make up for it. He worries about turning into that cruel person, to the point where he's willing to isolate himself instead of risk a confrontation where he has to put his foot down and just ends up hurting someone because of it.
The kid's got a lot of guilt in general, though. He's been through some really hard things, stuff that no child should have to endure, and he didn't really have the benefit of anyone who could help him make sense of and cope with his trauma. He spent a lot of time blaming himself for everything he lost and everything that happened as a result of his choices. While he has gained enough maturity to say you can't spend forever regretting the hard choices, he also might have been trying to wrap everything up as neatly as possible so Frisk wouldn't have to worry anymore - for all the cruelty he showed to them, he did try to make sure his last moments were spent comforting them and telling them that they were a good person.
Despite his zealous extremes, his loyalty could certainly be considered admirable (though it, uh, might be healthier to tone it down a bit). For years and years after Chara died, he still held onto the thought of them. Even when he was unable to truly care about anyone, he still considered the two of them inseparable and regarded them as someone who could understand them. He made the choice to watch over their grave for the rest of his remaining days - though hard experience had shown him that it wasn't right to build them up as someone incapable of being or doing wrong ever, his love for them hasn't wavered. He knows what it is to be lonely - he doesn't think they should have to be, either.
That said, he's certainly not perfect. Being a child, he does still see things in somewhat unrealistic, simplified terms. He tries to pass off the ending as being perfectly happy and much better than the plan that he almost committed to, expecting that because nobody died this time around, the six dead children in the background don't count and humanity won't react with violence or horror at monsters appearing among them this time. As a child, he tried, in a way, to make himself entirely responsible for Chara's wellbeing, rather than expecting Chara themself to do that: he pledged to never doubt them, to believe in them so hard that he never disagreed, to love them so hard that his love cured every problem. He sort of does to Frisk what he did to Chara: he seems to expect that someone else can be the saviour who will fix him. At first, he turned to his parents for this, expecting they would make him feel better. Then, when they failed to make his emptiness go away, he built Chara up as the one person who could make him feel complete. When he accepted that Chara was dead and it was someone else he'd been talking to, he sort of set Frisk into that spotlight instead, setting someone he barely knew up as the kind of friend he wished he always had. But then... they were someone who could show him that the world wasn't as painful and cruel as he thought, and they were someone who could tell him that sometimes being a good friend did mean saying "no," keeping a person from what they wanted if it was self-destructive, and even learning to leave behind something you want to hold on to.
Asriel, for whatever wisdom and kindness he may have, is still a child. When he feels comfortable enough with someone to not be a perfectly docile prince, he does have something of a sassy streak; he used to love playing tricks, and he certainly made Frisk put up with their fair share of smart-ass remarks and tricks during their time Underground. Sometimes, too, all the anger and sorrow and grief that he's spent so long not knowing how to process rear their head in unpleasant ways. He's prone to projecting and lashing out at people, and can be downright vicious in how he mocks people sometimes.
He's trying, though. Anyone can be a good a person if they just try, right? Even people who aren't really capable of feeling love or compassion!
...Hopefully.