#Dream SMP essay

[meteor752]

The god hierarchy of the Dream SMP

So yeah I got thinking again.

The canon gods of the SMP are XD, god of quote unquote “Everything”, and Kristin the goddess of death. But, there’s also foolish, and other deities like the egg, so what is going on here? Well, here’s my little theory.

—-

So just like in many other mythologies, there’s a large pantheon of gods in the DSMP universe. Some minor ones include The Blood god, Drista goddess of chaos, and Philza, The Angel of death. These are all sub-species of the great quartet, or the big four if you will, and don’t really have any greater power over the world as a whole.

The big four consists of XD, god of creation, The Lady, goddess of death, Foolish, god of life, and [Redacted], god of destruction.

As you see, these four all exist in harmony, creating a circle. XD creates, Foolish gives life, [Redacted] destroys and The Lady takes care of their souls after their demise. They’re all one happy family.

Until Foolish leaves the great pantheon to become mortal, throwing everything into turmoil. It is unclear why Foolish gave up on his godhood, some ancient historians theories that he wanted peace, some say he wanted war, and some say he just wanted to build.

With a piece of their family missing, the system is in chaos. XD is forced to take on Foolish’ old duties of giving creatures and beings life, something that greatly upsets [Redacted]. Why should XD be gives more power than them and The Lady? The Lady has no qualms about this fact, she’s too busy breaking every rule possible to keep Foolish from entering her realm, just to give him eternal peace. Plus, this was when The Angel of Death was created and she’s a bit busy with that if ya know what I mean.

So [Redacted] is left to their own devices, to scheme and think to their hearts fullest content. They know that they’re not as powerful as the other two, with XD taking up two of the roles and The Lady having her own realm and billions of souls under her belt. But [Redacted] isn’t stupid, they’re the fucking god of destruction, and they know that they can take control if needed to.

So, they gain a new sort of power. The power to manipulate, and the power to control. Everyone who looks upon them immediately falls to their knees in awe, a willingness to devote and die for their god fining a place in their heart. The only people immune to their thrall is the creatures of there other gods, like XD’s Dreamons, The Lady’s undead, and Foolish’ villagers. Also yea I headcanon that they’re people of his creation, because come on. Dudes with big noses being obsessed with emeralds and peace?

And so [Redacted] spreads their destruction across the server, slowly taking soul after soul, block after block, until nothing remains but a barren blood red wasteland filled with brainwashed cultists. The Lady and XD are forced to act, but they can’t find themselves to kill [Redacted]. They’re like a sibling, a part of their holy quartet, and after loosing Foolish it would be too much to loose another.

So they encase [Redacted] in a vessel to conceal their destruction. A cocoon of sorts, or an egg if you will. [Redacted] is hidden deep underground, and they’re forever forgotten in history.

The Lady and XD can’t remove the destruction that The Egg caused, so they create a new realm to keep it all from spreading more. The mortals call it The Nether. All of the brainwashed people are sent there as well, as they can’t find a way to cure them. Overtime they evolve to adjust to the environment more, becoming creatures like Piglins, and Blazes, and Ghasts and Wither Skeletons. Some more powerful individuals evolve into Demons, terrifying creatures that are almost impossible to kill.

And life goes on. More people join the SMP. War is started, some are won and some are lost. The Lady’s Angel creates a family that all die off one by one. Some creature start to leave The Nether, such as a certain young and positive demon.

Foolish finds a place to live, permanently. XD checks in on him as often as he can, talking to him and entertaining him. Foolish has started to remember who he was, fragments and pieces only, and he demands of XD to be given his powers and godhood back. XD refuses, per Foolish own wishes from a long time ago, but after a while it becomes too hard to resist. He’s always been soft when it comes to Foolish sparkling green eyes and toothy shark grin.

And then a Demon finds The Egg. A descendant of one it their most loyal followers, taking up the role his ancestor played perfectly. Some other creatures, like a cat or a human get perused just as easily thanks to the Destruction blood flowing through their veins, while some take their time like a flower nymph, a creature of life.

And Foolish is killed. No one understands why, he’s supposed to be a god right? Why can some cat influenced by an egg take one of his lives?

Because the Egg is a god. Not just a god, it’s one of The Gods. The Big four are unkillable, to everyone but each other.

But because of his decision on mortality, Foolish is given a second chance. In fact, he’s gives a third chance as well, something to save for the future. Every god and deity are gives only one life, but Foolish is no longer a god, now is he?

—-

Yeah that ending sucked lol

Anyways, to summarize some things that didn’t fit here, in the beginning there were four sets of people, people of life, death, creation, and destruction. Over time the people have bred amongst each other, so most people of the SMP are mixes and hybrids, but there are some Purebloods. Dream is pure creation for example, as is George which is why XD is drawn to him. Every Nether person, such as Techno, Tina, Sapnap and Bad are pure destruction. Hannah and Purpled are pure life, giving them incredible survival skills, and Eret and Wilbur are both pure death. Sally was also pure life, giving Fundy and even 50/50 between life and death. Ranboo is similar, but with 50/50 of Creation and Destruction. Every revived person also become pure death, so while Tommy used to be mostly creation and Jack mostly destruction, they’re now 100% creatures of death.

Drista is a deity of XD, Philza a deity of The Lady, The Blood God a deity of [Redacted] and Prime a deity of Foolish.

Also I have no answer for The End, so after The Nether was created I guess XD just wanted his own realm to fuck around with. The Lady’s realm is Limbo, if that wasn’t obvious.

[liauditore]

do NOT watch "x-life" whatever you do do NOT watch "x-life"

[sootsz]

the cwilbur moment of all time that i think about So Much is after the red festival, after tubbo was kapowed by techno, schlatt started threatening niki and That was the thing that made wilbur "i totally dont care who lives and dies today" soot reveal himself and run through the crowd to protect her and say "if youre going to kill anybody else, kill me", he offered his own life for hers and for everybody there and he was Desperate and techno came with him and blocked arrows with his shield and wilbur refused to leave until niki was running and safe and then he offered himself up Again as a distraction because he will always offer all of himself to others until theres nothing left of him oh i am unwell

[pinkelotjeart]

I think at this point I go through a cycle of not caring to missing the dream smp to such a massive extent it hurts. I genuinely can't put it to words. I wish it was just a normal story, normal fiction that I could seperate from real life- Those characters are MY little guys, and I don't think I'll ever experience something like that again.

I've seen beter fiction, I will see beter fiction. But it won't be the same, I won't feel the same excitement. That fandom was important, and I'm tired of pretending it's not.

[bleue-flora]

So, if in the finale c!Dream’s helmet, that he takes off for c!Tommy, represents his mask, does that mean that when c!Sapnap puts on c!Dream’s armor, Nightmare, he is putting on and stealing c!Dream’s mask? - Because I’m not gonna lie that really puts a new perspective on that betrayal… Furthermore, when c!Techno brings c!Dream armor in prison, did he make him a mask and bring it to him… and then take away the mask later? - If so, again that’s kinda screwed up. Though you could argue that perhaps he made c!Dream a mask for the jailbreak so he had one to face the server with and then because they were trying to not seem like allies he took it back, knowing that c!Dream would get another one. Which also begs the question, did c!Punz make c!Dream a mask for after prison or is he simply handing over one of c!Dream’s masks?… When c!Tommy in the minecart skirmish stole c!Dream’s armor, was he taunting him with his own mask? - Because oof that’s some serious violation and disrespect…

In other words, if you think that c!Dream’s helmet in the finale represents the mask (which I’d say is implied by c!Tommy) does that same logic apply across the board or is it just for that moment? And if it does apply to rest of the lore, wow does that have some implications…

[bluesky42]

MINECRAFT SMP FANS!!! I am calling on you!

I’m working on a video essay about Minecraft SMP’s and there effects on people and am looking for more insight. I’ve made a google form for this and would be incredibly pleased if people would fill it out.

It would also be super helpful if this could be spread to non-Minecraft communities as well. I would like a bigger sample size then just people who know they like Minecraft.

Here it is! Thank you so much for your help.

EDIT: So it’s not letting me see who wrote what answer, so just know that if you write a written answer that will be shared anonymously.

[same-picture-of-benson-every-day]

Follow if you want the same picture of Benson every day

[kiitoskiitos]

power imbalance.

explanation/rumination under cut:

(note: in my design quackity uses a speech device which can overheat under intense stress.)

In short I love the dynamic between these two because .. to be completely unnormal about blockmen: to me quackity represent the plight of man and foolish the tranquility yet simplicity of divinity. They are literally a man whose life is nothing but struggling against the constant, quite frankly biblical, misfortune he faces and an actual, somewhat all powerful, god.  

Foolish is so kind. And i see that as a rare priviledge granted to him by the fact that he cant be hurt and destroyed like a mere mortal because he is too powerful, to him, at least when considering his own feeling of security, the world is a playground (but ofc foolish is not naive nor free of pain and hardship). 

Where as in contrast Quackity is not physically powerful and has been smacked around to hell and back both mentally and physically. To him the world is cruel and dangerous. And since he does not want to die (more so he’s dead afraid of it) life is in its core a violent fight to survive. 

Imagine you’re quackity. you’ve been killed, humiliated and betrayed constantly in your life, you have no one you trust fully anymore now that your romantic partners, allies and even some random kids you called your friend have left you on your own. you spend your days torturing a man whose screams tear your soul to pieces but who never confesses and allows it to stop, use all your energy on trying to keep people under you in control but every day you can feel those thin manipulation strings loosening. you haven’t allowed yourself to be vulnerable ever during all this time nor been able to actually rest. 

now imagine a literal god you somehow have on your payroll breaks your bones by just turning around. You are instantly in insane pain, body going into emergency mode, but that isn’t the worst part. The worst part is realising that to him it was just a breeze brushing his hand. You think you control him but he’s standing above you right now, he’s pitying you like you’re a kid who got hurt. It’s so unfair. it’s so unfair you have fought all this time and destroyed everything in you, yet you aren’t close to even a fraction of what he was given on birth. it’s dark jealousy. And Quackity’s speech device doesn’t overheat because of the pain itself but because pain, especially to his face, triggers ptsd. His brain is going feral and animalistic. It takes all his power to pull himself together enough to reassert that he’s in control and make Foolish leave. So that he can’t see him fall apart again. because showing weakness means someone can hurt you, that’s something he has learned well. When he breaks down finally it’s frustration, fatigue, pain, jealousy, unfairness, self-pity but most of all shame and fear.

[em-allay]

“Tommy will understand. Tommy will understand- I- I know- he’s going to take a bit of time to understand. You know what- we’ve had our differences recently, but I know- I KNOW he will be a good helper for this, he will really. I’ve seen, I’ve seen how he acts . He’ll come around, He’ll come around”  --Wilbur Soot

So I found this quote while I was trying to fact check something during the Pogtopia era, and in case anyone is wondering, he says this at the end of cc!Wilbur’s video Am I the Bad Guy? For further context, c!Wilbur says this right after he makes the deal with Dream to rig up Manberg with TNT and blow it up during the Red Festival.

Now what I found so interesting about this quote is how well I think it could fit into Wilbur’s recent lore Inconsolable Differences. I could see Wilbur thinking this as he takes Tommy to the prison, as Wilbur knowingly traps Tommy with him and Dream, as he threatens to kill himself, as he gives Dream the discs and tells him to burn them in lava. I can see Wilbur thinking this as they head to the community house while Tommy is crying how Wilbur betrayed him again, while Wilbur reveals he didn’t actually burn the discs, while Wilbur calmly and patiently tells Tommy that he did it so Tommy could be free from Dream. This quote alone, and how well it can still fit within recent lore, goes to show how Wilbur’s perception of Tommy hasn’t changed one bit. While I 100 percent believe Wilbur would do anything, would give anything, to make sure Tommy is safe and sound, he fails to think about how his actions can negatively affect Tommy.

Wilbur thinks he understands Tommy, because he knows him, he knows that Tommy will understand him. Yet, even as Wilbur tries to calmly tell Tommy that he did this for him, that now Tommy is free from Dream and he can do whatever he wants, Tommy is quiet. Tommy is quiet as he holds his discs, looking away from Wilbur, and when Wilbur asks Tommy if he understands him, Tommy only nods quietly. As he turns towards Wilbur, Tommy can only glance at him briefly before turning his gaze back towards the floor. Through his body language, Tommy is clearly showing how much these events have upset him- he can’t even maintain eye contact with Wilbur for longer than a split second. So even as the conversation ends with Tommy thanking him, I doubt Tommy truly forgives him.

Tommy thanking Wilbur doesn’t stop the hurt Tommy felt during the events of the prison, and when Tommy voices his frustrations by saying “every time you make whats mine about you. You make whats completely mine and you take it away from me and you strip it and make it about you” , though said in upset anger, I do believe he means it. Just because Tommy can technically understand Wilbur in this situation, because he most defiantly doesn’t always understand Wilbur’s reasoning for everything, doesn’t make what Wilbur did okay. You can argue that Wilbur was right that if Tommy didn’t fully believe they were his discs, that his plan wouldn’t have worked, but the means don’t always justify the end. Wilbur relies heavily on believing Tommy will always come around as long as Tommy can understand him and his logic. However, Tommy is a character that is completely driven by feelings and emotions. The only reason as to why Tommy always comes around is because of his love for Wilbur, his brother, and Tommy knows this, he knows he always ends up siding with Wilbur regardless of his better judgement.

Tommy has disagreed with Wilbur many times, but continues to follow him because he feels like Wilbur needs him, and he needs Wilbur, and in a sense, they do need each other. They both want the best for each other and will do anything to get that for one another. However, this leads to a continuous cycle. Wilbur will continue to make decisions without thinking about how it can emotionally hurt Tommy, while Tommy will continue to support Wilbur even to the determent of himself. Cause even though Tommy loves and cares about Wilbur, he doesn’t trust him, or as he says, “Wilbur makes me feel safe in the same way two guns pointing at each other feels safe.”

On some level, I believe Wilbur is aware of this based on how he keeps thanking Tommy for trusting him as they make their way through the nether towards the community house. This could also be one of the reasons as to why Wilbur hasn’t apologized to Tommy yet, because he subconsciously knows all of this. He knows he has hurt Tommy, even as he tries to justify it, he understands that Tommy will keep coming around and continuing to follow him. Maybe Wilbur doesn’t want to admit that Tommy is one of the people most deserving of his apology, because if he does, he also has to admit how much pain he has caused him, even if that wasn’t at all his intentions. Maybe Wilbur is scared that if he asks Tommy for forgiveness, Tommy won’t give him the forgiveness he desperately wants. Maybe yet, what Wilbur is truly scared of most, is that Tommy will forgive him.

[snailsnfriends]

I think ccwilbur's comment on utah being an allegory for death was said too casually for me to really believe it. but if we want to play devil's advocate and believe that it's an allegory for death, it's a failed one, because his finale goes directly against that allegory.

for starters, the whole "gotcha!" of the stream was that wilbur wasn't going to kill himself, so if utah is an allegory for death, it defeats the point of the "gotcha!" and removes the absurdity of the finale. secondly, tommy would have never let him leave if he truly and honestly believed that utah was just another way of saying "I'm going to kill myself." it was the entire reason why they even began fighting in the first place; tommy was deathly afraid of wilbur taking his own life again, and even resorted to psychical violence to intimidate him into staying, something that's very out of character for him. wilbur consoled him by promising tommy that he was actually going to utah, and that there was a possibility of him returning. other than the closure tommy received, these are the only reasons why tommy didn't throw an even bigger fit over wilbur leaving. at this point in the story, I don't believe that wilbur was capable of lying to tommy at this point; he wanted to leave everyone on good terms with less guilt than what he was already burdened with. lying to tommy would only add to this guilt. wilbur was being far too vulnerable and honest with tommy for him to lie about this giant thing. utah as an allegory for death fails here because all signs pointed to him not killing himself by the midpoint of the stream. there is no reference to this allegory in the tone, the dialogue, the cinematics, or the title of the stream. literally nothing here shows that utah was an allegory for death. his arc as a whole also cannot be an allegory for death because of how it ends; wilbur may have wanted to kill himself, but decided to take a different path, which was even established before the finale.

all in all, utah as an allegory for death fails if ccwilbur actually intended for it to be that way. there is too much genuineness and themes of hope and rebirth in his finale for the allegory to function. either ccwilbur fucked up with his execution of the finale, or he was just talking out of his ass when he called utah an allegory for death.

[dawnlotus-draws]

Acorn and the Oak

[brightest-star2]

c!dream /gen scared me sometimes and that's honestly just proof to how impressive of an actor Dream is and makes me like the character more

I like him! as an evil villain!

normalize liking characters while strongly disagreeing with their actions without the need to justify it

yes I am able to perceive c!dream as a deep and traumatized and complicated character but on the other hand consider this. Evil unhinged mastermind villain c!dream is FUN

and I geniuely believed cc!dream had just as much fun playing his character like this

[mosscloakenthusiast]

jack manifold perfectly uses the multi-pov format of the dream smp to create a villain who’s motives are clear and who you can genuinely root for while understanding what he’s doing is Bad in this essay i will-

[theenderwalker]

Ranboo’s Relationships (and how they change between states) An exploration and an explanation of Ranboo’s People Skills

OR

“TommyInnit is to the Enderwalk State as Dream is to Ranboo’s Waking State”

Wait, what? Stick with me here--I promise I’ll explain exactly what that means, and why it matters. I’m gonna spend some time looking at the differences between Ranboo’s “awake” and enderwalking states, and then the similarities, and how this impacts his social dynamics in either state. (spoiler alert, it’s almost entirely differences within or because of social dynamics!) From this, I’ll explore exactly how his opinions of people tend to stay the same between states, despite the differences in relationships (and why those differences are deliberate). And then, we can look at the exceptions to this--that is to say, Tommy and Dream-- and why those exceptions are significant.

TLDR AT THE END – WC: 5431

Differences-

One of the major points of conversation when it comes to Ranboo is just how his Enderwalk state acts and feels, how different he is from “awake” Ranboo, and what circumstances caused those differences between states. Philosophies range wildly, because of just how little we’ve seen of Ranboo enderwalking, but I genuinely don’t think he’s very different from “awake” Ranboo at all. 

The key differences come down to a few specific ideas:

Ranboo can’t talk to people or form meaningful relationships while enderwalking. This is not because of any psychological or emotional differences, it’s out of necessity. Neither awake nor enderwalking Ranboo want people to find out about the enderwalk’s existence, for one because it would make people distrust him/is linked to people finding out about the Crimes He’s Done, and for the other because it would compromise his ability to work with Dream, and pursue his goals.

If someone were to ask Ranboo about something he had told them/a conversation they had had while Enderwalking, it wouldn’t be hard to figure out Something was up very quickly. There’s a couple distinct examples of this that I’ll explore more later.

Ranboo is arguably more forward/goal driven, which is at least in part driven by his partnership with Dream, and in part driven by the idea that he doesn’t have to reconcile with the social repercussions of being forward in pursuing his goals, because the WHOLE POINT of the Enderwalk state in this situation is not being perceived.

He has a weird relationship with his idea of self, and struggles to reconcile his actions in the enderwalk/while awake as his own, in both directions. This isn’t so much of a difference as it is a thing that makes the states distinct. We haven’t seen exactly how he feels about this while Enderwalking, but his waking opinion of the Enderwalk state has changed over time as he comes closer to realizing it’s all just him.

The most specifically different opinions of people are actually.. Quite limited. It’s Dream, which is obvious, and Tommy. This is something that gets lost when we draw harsh divisions between awake and the enderwalk state--we don’t really think about how his goals line up with his general opinion of people, and from there, how Tommy Specifically doesn’t fit that mold. His goals in the enderwalk are still with the best interests of the people as a whole in mind, just. With a bit more of a “the ends justify the means” approach.

Most of these key differences are specifically situational--they’re the result of the circumstances the Enderwalk functions within, of keeping his existence secret. They’re the distinction between Ranboo existing within and without social frameworks. And the exception, the namesake of this post, is specifically his dynamics with Dream (who he hates while “awake”), and his dynamics with Tommy (who he repeatedly indirectly threatens and puts in danger while enderwalking). His different interactions with people are specifically rooted in the situational distinctions as noted above. Except for Dream and Tommy.

Those are actually the product of a key similarity between states--the result of wanting to stop conflict, needing somewhere to pin that conflict, and a propensity for avoiding the actual root of the issue (the systems that perpetuate conflict in the first place). 

Similarities-

These fundamental similarities between states are also important to understanding Ranboo as a whole character, simply because without them it’s easy to lose sight of why he does what he does while Enderwalking, and write him off as exclusively being manipulated, not understanding what he does, or (god forbid) even not having control over his own actions. 

The cores of these similarities are:

His overarching “goal”--This is something that’s seen by quite a bit of cross-referencing specific moments. Nominally, he wants to stop conflict ahead of anything else. The ways he goes about this are specifically defined by the social contexts he works within in each state, as I alluded to earlier, but it is ideologically consistent between the states.

The most clear examples of this are Ranboo, awake, echoing Dream’s “one happy family” rhetoric while talking about wanting to stop conflict, his response to his own question of “what am I?” (I am someone who stops conflict…,) and the plan board, which Ranboo wrote while awake, including “figure out how to stop conflict”, and then changed while Enderwalking, leaving it mostly empty, but “stop conflict” remained.

His general care for people, when he can connect with them and see them as a whole person, and as a product of their circumstances. 

This is a touch more of an extrapolation on my part, but something about how willing he was to work with Wilbur after vehemently insisting he was a villain, as soon as he actually talked to him doesn’t exactly parallel but runs adjacent to the idea of him deciding to work with Dream upon recognizing they share a goal, even though Ranboo was in L’manberg, amongst people who on principle disliked Dream. 

The generalized idea that he knows better than other people--it comes from a place of goodwill, but is still one of his deepest rooted flaws. 

Working with Dream in general is an expression of this sentiment, but it’s something we see while he’s “awake” too, in his response to Tommy’s death (calling others hypocrites for not doing anything while simultaneously also not doing anything (which is another idea I’ll talk more about later!)), his speech before Doomsday (and general reception of others post-doomsday, like Fundy), among other moments. 

He’s really not as different as he seems, when it comes down to it. The vast majority of the differences noted above are specifically the result of his social contexts, moreso than any actual difference in personality.

Relationships/Interactions-

Outside of these two lists, I think a lot of the perceived differences are specifically mischaracterized as a difference in motivation or a difference in opinion. He is seen as being much quieter, or antisocial, or disliking people more generally than he actually does because he doesn’t interact with them. This is less of an outright indicator of disdain than it is a strategic decision. He doesn’t talk to people because having interactions & forming dynamics with them distinct from his waking relationships would make it glaringly apparent that the two distinct states exist outside of simply Ranboo’s memory loss, which would be understandably bad when his ability to act relies on people not knowing about his partnership with Dream, or that he has a separate “state” to begin with. 

To corroborate this idea, we have to look at the concrete examples we have of him interacting with people while Enderwalking, how the interactions frame his relationships with them, and why. The examples that come to mind are Sam, Foolish, and Philza. 

While we haven’t seen Ranboo interact with Sam while Enderwalking on stream, as far as we can tell, its one of the dynamics we’ve gotten the most information about. Essentially, we know that Ranboo visited the prison at the very least three times (Ranboo visited the most, Tommy visited twice, we know of at least two confirmed times, etc), and it’s implied he was visiting regularly--if not daily. We know that Sam was friendly and familiar with Ranboo when he visited while awake, and we know that until Ranboo visited while awake he had no suspicion of any weirdness or difference going on. In the prison nightmare, Sam expressed the same friendliness towards Ranboo we see at the start of his waking visit a couple days later. At the very least, before there was any suspicion, the two had an amicable dynamic indistinguishable from their dynamic while Ranboo was “awake”, in his enderwalk.

Ironically enough, we have less of a frame of reference of how Sam and Ranboo interacted while Ranboo wasn’t enderwalking before that dynamic was complicated by virtue of Ranboo not knowing he had been talking to Sam while enderwalking. However, Ranboo was given a tour of the prison before it was finished, and as far as I can gather they had at least a passing positive dynamic that seems to be consistent between states.

Foolish is a fun one to look at here because we have seen Ranboo interact with Foolish while enderwalking on stream, AND Ranboo’s dynamics with him aren’t exclusively friendship in either state. In the waking state, Ranboo commissioned Foolish to build the mansion for him. And he ripped him off, functioning on an ambiguous promise that he would pay him more later, that he did not follow up on. He essentially took advantage of Foolish’s kindness and naivete. He was friendly, sure, but it’s a business relationship and he made a deal with Foolish that he gets much more out of than Foolish did. By extension, our onscreen interaction of Ranboo and Foolish while Ranboo is enderwalking is the Shulker Box deal, wherein Foolish ascribes the cost of a threat against him to the box--a risk that notably does not carry over to Ranboo when he has possession of it--and Ranboo talks his way into getting an open-ended favor from a GOD, with one limitation. This favor is granted because of the risk Foolish ascribes to ownership of the shulker box. Ranboo doesn’t suffer this risk owning it--and in getting official ownership of the box AND the deal, he gets a lot more out of the deal than Foolish does, even though Foolish assuages his own anxieties linked to ownership of the shulker box. 

I had originally been examining this to show that Ranboo was treating Foolish differently than how he would while “awake”, but upon looking back at the implications of the Mansion project, it really does all line up--the shulker deal was just more of a strategic move, as guided by the lessons. The actual character dynamics, and Ranboo choosing to take advantage of Foolish’s, well.. foolishness to get more out of a deal than he puts into it, is a consistency in Ranboo’s character, not something unique to the enderwalk state.

Phil is another fun case, because he’s probably the closest anyone has come to finding out about the Enderwalk state existing, just by way of observation, and Ranboo has had to do damage control, ultimately defusing Phil’s suspicions (in that direction, mostly due to just how much Phil trusts Ranboo). Most importantly, though, Ranboo has talked directly to Phil while enderwalking--in chat. 

“Don’t mind me Phil! Just working on some stuff!” “I just remembered you probably wouldn’t understand Ender, well this is certainly awkward!”

“Very far away! I am just mining :]”

The most interesting thing about these interactions, aside from the fact that he’s speaking in Ender (before realizing that this was probably a bad idea), is just how similar his voice is to Ranboo’s, and the friendliness he expresses. Before Ranboo stops interacting with anyone except people it’s advantageous and semi-safe to talk to (Foolish, notably), he has the exact same fondness for Phil while “awake” and while Enderwalking. We also have an ooc confirmation that Ranboo would not hurt Tubbo or Michael while Enderwalking, implying that he does not actively dislike either of them. While we don’t know his thoughts exactly, this insight implies that his overall care carries over, even though he doesn’t have the same relationship (by virtue of it not being necessarily safe to talk to Tubbo while Enderwalking, for reasons listed above.)

The Exceptions-

So we’ve laid down a baseline for why Ranboo has different relationships with people between states, how this doesn’t necessarily mean he thinks differently of them or dislikes them in one state or the other… but then there’s the exceptions: Dream, who he hates while “awake” but works with while he Enderwalks, and Tommy, who he is on good terms with, even arguably friends with while “awake”, but has repeatedly put into danger and targeted specifically while Enderwalking. 

DREAM

Dream is probably the reason why people think Ranboo has wildly different opinions of people. I think it’s easy to get that impression when you think about how Ranboo seems to only regularly interact with Dream while enderwalking, and consider being friends with Dream as mutually exclusive from liking other people, since Dream was, through December and January, distancing himself from others, cutting off those relationships, and actively antagonizing some others. But then, you have to keep in mind the goal, and how that overlaps between states. It’s one of Ranboo’s greatest consistencies. 

His dislike of Dream while “awake” is distinct because it is an exception from people not sides. While he tends to give individual people the benefit of the doubt, and professes to not want sides, he also insists that everyone should be united “against dream”, essentially insinuating (in January, at least), that Dream was the root of all the problems on the server. He was vitriolic towards Dream, considering the possibility of outright killing him, and generally Dream was the exception to most of his ideologies that centered the goodness of people and the fact that no one is inherently evil--essentially, his belief that people can change. 

I think Ranboo’s opinions on Dream are very much informed by his circumstances. He joins the server and is immediately recruited into L’manberg. Exile happens, which Ranboo has no context for the external motivations for, only what he can see in front of him, and this is the first impressions of Dream Ranboo gets. He then sees the butcher army, and exile from Tommy’s POV. He’s introduced into a group that immediately shows him all the ways in which Dream is the root of their problems, and none of the context of why. Whether or not you think they’re right is irrelevant here--these ideas firmly impacted “awake” Ranboo’s perceptions of Dream. Combined with the fact that while “awake”, Ranboo has never gotten the opportunity to talk to Dream, this all adds up to explaining how Dream functions as the exception, and why Ranboo is okay with him while enderwalking.

That is to say--the circumstances surrounding Dream and Ranboo’s partnership are very… up in the air. However, when we look at the patterns of how Ranboo interacts with people, he’s infinitely more likely to empathize with someone when he can talk to them, which he does in the enderwalk state.We don’t know exactly when they started working together, but I think there’s a strong parallel between Dream cutting his attachments to further his goals, and arguably to protect himself, and Ranboo, while enderwalking, intentionally keeping himself distanced from everyone, aside from specific strategic moments. This lends itself to my preferred interpretation of the Green Festival for Ranboo, being an agreement to try to cut Ranboo’s ties, to make people distrust him so he could help Dream easier, and hurt himself and others less in the process.

 Additionally, the circumstances of their shared goals and Ranboo’s propensity for singling out one person as the root of all problems make it easy to see how they would work together--with two different perspectives to approach it from. One approach would be, of course, the idea of turning everyone against Dream--which was Dream’s own plan, too. The other, though, is the idea of Ranboo framing Tommy as the root of problems on the server. Neither of these perspectives are limited by state, either, as they ultimately all serve Ranboo’s bigger goal: we just see him act towards both ideas more in the Enderwalk state.  This also lines up with Dream’s actions, Ranboo’s actions while he was still working with Dream, and Ranboo’s actions after Dream was put into the prison, as well. It leads to a lot of really interesting parallel themes and specific moments.

TOMMY

I’ve established all the ways Ranboo’s opinions of others stay the same between his “waking” and enderwalk states, and explored why his relationships themselves are different. From there, I’ve explored how Dream breaks that mold, and why--which brings me to the whole point of why I wrote this post in the first place. Tommy doesn’t fit this mold, in very specific and deliberate ways. If it were only things done while Dream was still working directly with Ranboo, it would be easy to brush off these distinctions as simply Ranboo following Dream’s plans, but there's at least one major incident of Ranboo endangering Tommy while enderwalking completely independent of any input from Dream.

The specific moments that make me think Ranboo views Tommy negatively while Enderwalking are:

The destruction of the community house--and the fact that it was destroyed with the intent of framing it on Tommy. This is probably the loosest one here, but I’ll come back to it later--it’s definitely relevant, even if it was Dream’s plan in the first place.

When the note was left telling Tommy where his discs were, establishing the date and time of the Final Disc Confrontation was going to be, Tommy’s house had also been completely destroyed, replaced with netherrack, and set aflame. This was gently implied to be Ranboo, as onstream that same night, several stacks of netherrack and an almost broken flint and steel were in his chest, organized. There were also 3 stacks in his inventory. He commented on the fact that he never organizes his chests, and didn’t know how that got there, intentionally drawing attention to it but not outright making the connection. Which he does…. a lot. Again, this one could have been Dream’s idea, but it was never addressed as such and while it’s almost certain Dream had Ranboo leave the note, the flair could have been either one of their ideas. (side note: this was the same day Foolish joined the server, and the griefing was leaked in the background of his first stream before Tommy had a chance to see it, then later entirely repaired before ranboo streamed that night, so he never saw it on fire on stream.)

It’s been heavily implied EXPLICITLY CONFIRMED Ranboo was the one who set off the TNT that trapped Tommy in the prison. This one is the kicker, honestly, because there’s no way this was on Dream’s instruction, and even if it was, Ranboo had every opportunity to just… not do it once Dream was in the prison, if he didn’t think this was a beneficial course of action. A potential thought process here is the idea that since conflict didn’t stop when Dream was put into the prison, and Tommy had been the other “source” (and, depending on which ideas you ascribe to, the person intended to be in the prison in the first place)--so Ranboo decided to continue trying to stop conflict at the “source” (a single person), so, putting Tommy in the prison. 

Ranboo’s “awake” response to Tommy’s imprisonment and death is also notable. I go more into depth about it here, but TLDR: this is when Ranboo gets the “he is in control of me” message, and proceeds to not only ignore any suspicious circumstances around his.. potential involvement in the TNT at the prison, but also spends the whole week distracted, and then when Tommy dies wonders why he didn’t/couldn’t do anything to help him. Essentially, this fits the pattern of several other times Ranboo has interfered with his own ability to do something that would get in the way of executing his plans (most notably, trying to tell Sam about the community house outside the prison). If this is indeed the case here, Ranboo, in his Enderwalk state, believed that if he were to find out he were responsible in his “awake” state, it could be nigh disastrous. 

This essentially implies that in his Enderwalk state, Ranboo believed that interfering with this in one way or another would be bad. This could be trying to get Tommy out interfering with why he locked Tommy in in the first place, or participating in any sort of investigation could reveal his role in setting off the TNT. 

I honestly feel like either or both of these are widely applicable to the situation. Either way, it makes Tommy being locked in the prison feel like a deliberate and independent decision made by Ranboo while enderwalking--supporting this idea of action opposed to Tommy specifically.

(I feel the need to clarify that this idea regarding Ranboo’s response to Tommy’s time in the prison is one I have held since March, and was not a new idea formulated to fit the concept I’m presenting in this analysis.)

These establish Tommy as Ranboo’s most explicitly and distinctly negative relationship in the Enderwalk state. But why..? 

I’ve referenced in passing the idea of the “root of conflict on the server”, mostly in reference to Dream from the perspective of “awake” Ranboo. But I’ve also referenced it about Tommy, sort of implying a conclusion I’ve danced around: Ranboo while enderwalking sees Tommy as a major cause of the conflict on the server. 

Above, I’ve outlined the major evidence to why I think he thinks this. But I haven’t outlined how he would have come to that conclusion, or why it doesn’t carry over into his “waking” state. Why does he feel so differently, despite having more (if not all) of his memories at his disposal? His negativity towards Dream makes sense because he doesn’t have the whole picture, he hasn’t talked to Dream while “awake”, and he gained most of his information about Dream from L’manbergians, who were decidedly biased against him. I think there’s several potential answers to this question, but any solid answer to “why” requires information we just don’t have about the early days of Ranboo on the server: how and when he started working with Dream, and what he did while enderwalking before we knew what enderwalking was.

The strongest impulse I have here is the Exile Trial. 

Let me lay the scene: You’ve just joined this server full of people you have never met and know very little, if nothing about. You do not know their history, conflicts, interpersonal relations, nothing. One of these new people convinces you to help him grief a house. After doing this, Dream, who you have been told is a Bad Guy, reacts very poorly, putting you and the guy who just tricked you into committing a crime that is apparently a BIG DEAL on trial. He ends up taking the fall for you, when you cite your poor memory (which you do have but has not made you forget doing this) to escape taking blame. Over the next couple days, Dream and the nation this guy was apparently the Vice President of negotiate how to react to this--whether Tommy should be put on probation, made to do community service, or even be exiled. And through this, this guy is being a huge dick. He’s being inflammatory, starting fights, yelling at Dream, etc. This continues even after everyone has come to and finalized a decision, which hinges on Tommy not being an asshole (which he has been through the whole meeting). But not even 5 minutes after the meeting, he’s already throwing a fit at Dream again, leading to exile, proposed as the last option during the meeting, being back on the table.  And let me remind you, you have no idea of their past, you don’t know why he’s being like this, just that he’s only aggravating the issue, and actively making things worse for himself by antagonizing Dream. Oh! And that guy’s house you griefed together? THE KING! THAT WAS THE KING! And Tommy knew that! Dream, who you’ve been told is a bad dude, and also messed with you when you first joined (killing you twice, but not doing anything with lasting consequences), is maybe overreacting, but again. You don’t have any context to why he’s reacting the way he is.

Ranboo takes a neutral stance here, painting both Dream and Tommy in a negative light in the meeting notes (titled Agreement 2/12). He still doesn’t have the full context. He’s seen Dream overreacting to the house being griefed, and he’s seen Tommy go out of his way to get under Dream’s skin, even to his own detriment. He thinks Tommy can’t be selfish, because he took the fall for him, but he also recognizes Tommy’s intentionally inflammatory tendencies.

I think this is the key branching off point between “Enderwalk” and “waking” Ranboo’s opinions of people. He has been stuck into the middle of this situation, with no context, and his ultimate opinions on the situation rely heavily on who he talks to when. When around the L’manbergians, he pities Tommy, believes he doesn’t deserve exile, but also empathizes with Tubbo’s decision to exile Tommy for the good of the nation. Y’know, to stop conflict. It’s really easy to see, then, how that translates to a hypothetical conversation with Dream, around the start of exile. Here, Dream would explain that he wants to exile Tommy because this troublemaking is a pattern of behaviors that are disruptive to the peace of the server. Or he would point out that Tommy was trying to get him in trouble too, or Ranboo would, in this conversation, make that realization himself. Either way, he would come to the conclusion that Tommy is a vast part of why these conflicts happen in the first place. This frankly isn’t a stretch, given Ranboo’s limited perspective, even if it isn’t entirely true on a larger scale. 

We do need to take into consideration the meta perspective that the Enderwalk did not exist yet and so this logic would be applied retroactively, but because of how the Enderwalk was canonized, Dream and Ranboo had a working relationship before it was conceptualized, so this has to be applied retroactively, it just becomes a question of how far back? This answer above is what makes the most sense to me, though it’s certainly not the only option. 

THE PARALLEL

TommyInnit is to the Enderwalk State as Dream is to Ranboo’s Waking State

Given Ranboo’s consistencies in social interactions, the distinctions he makes with Tommy and Dream, and how those still fit into his broader patterns of behavior, I don’t think this is a stretch. Time and time again Ranboo singles out Tommy, time and time again he singles out Dream. Both of these strikingly different opinions between states are informed by Ranboo’s overarching goal, and who he gets his information and perspective from. The parallels are STRIKING.

With a defined (potential) divergence point, and the open ended possibility for countless more over the next weeks on the SMP, this dichotomy as Tommy and Dream as foils specifically around Ranboo emerges. It allows us to further codify patterns in Ranboo’s behaviors as reflective of this parallel, and lets us explore some strikingly similar moments from a new angle. 

Consider George’s house and the Community house. Consider Tommy enlisting Ranboo’s help in destroying it, in order to get back at Dream and try to get his disc back. Consider Dream enlisting Ranboo’s help in destroying it in order to frame Tommy, to get the disc from Tubbo. Ranboo gets caught up in the middle: he’s on trial for the griefing, he’s being exposed as a traitor. He has to talk his way out of it, has to convince people  he didn’t grief Tommy’s house (and if he did, he didn’t remember it), he has to convince people of “people not sides”, that he never betrayed them. Both times, there’s a moment where it would be so easy for Tommy or Dream to make him the scapegoat, to rat him out, to throw him under the bus, and both times they don’t. And Tommy is exiled, and Dream is put in the prison, and Ranboo just barely escapes this fate, by Tommy and Dream both taking the fall. In the moments after the Green festival, Ranboo is adamant that “Dream is the reason”. And early on, after the exile trial, after his second day on the server, he could see that Tommy is a troublemaker, he could realize that Tommy was trying to drag him down with him. No matter how true either these sentiments actually are, they situationally parallel each other incredibly, and they fit the social frameworks Ranboo has built since joining the server.

I made a post vaguely outlining a potential parallel between Ranboo visiting Tommy in exile and Dream in the prison  ̶a̶ ̶c̶o̶u̶p̶l̶e̶ ̶m̶o̶n̶t̶h̶s̶ like a year ago, and then didn’t think much of it past that, but I think it’s incredibly apt here. It switches the “states” involved--Ranboo (presumably) visits Tommy while “waking” and he visits Dream while enderwalking--but it highlights the other end of this parallel: his kinship with, and pity for each person respectively.

When Ranboo is in the panic room after Doomsday, during one of his spirals, after insisting Dream is the reason, he makes a comment that it’s “all just happening again”. People are choosing sides, conflict is ramping up, and he’s pinpointed the center of the conflict, the one person who is to blame for everything happening. But the way he uses “again” refers to something happening beforehand--this same situation happening beforehand. I can’t help but to think of the exile trial here. A house has been destroyed, that he had a part in destroying. He’s managed to get out of it unscathed, but conflict is brewing, and he can pinpoint one person at it’s core. The options are either neutralizing said center of conflict, or letting it continue escalating. Of course, it’s nowhere near this simple, but in exiling Tommy you could say that war with L’manberg was avoided. And later, when Dream is the reason, the battle is not avoided. The parallels are striking, and this could definitely be what Ranboo was referring to by “again”.

What it is, in both instances, is an exception to the core of Ranboo’s moral system, a single person blamed for everything. A single person that a side must be created against. It’s a betrayal of “people not sides”, it’s “everyone here against Dream”. It’s singling out one person as the root of the problem, rather than tackling the systems that perpetuate the conflict over and over again. It’s a flawed worldview, and like everything about him it seems to contradict itself but when you dig a little deeper, and look at why Ranboo acts how he does, the contradiction makes sense. These contradictions and hypocrisies are core to Ranboo’s character, and they’re a huge part of what makes him so interesting. Even the things that make him hypocritical, that seem to break from his moral framework, parallel between states. There’s still so many things we don’t know about Ranboo, but breaking down the things we do know gives us a pretty good idea about what may be yet to come. 

TLDR:

-Ranboo doesn’t actually have different opinions of most people while enderwalking versus not, and the vast majority of the discrepancies between states can be explained by social context and Ranboo’s extreme compartmentalization. -There are two distinct exceptions to this: Tommy, who Ranboo is friends with outside of the enderwalk, but antagonistic towards while enderwalking, and Dream, who Ranboo claims is the root of all conflict on the server while “awake”, but works with towards a common goal while enderwalking. -There are infinitely many possibilities for how Ranboo and Dream’s partnership began, but they are necessarily rooted in Ranboo gaining information he does not otherwise have, and a connection with Dream characteristic of his propensity for sympathizing with people as soon as he actually talks to them, rather than get information about them secondhand.    -When Tommy and Dream are analyzed as the exceptions, some interesting thematic parallels between Ranboo’s interactions with each of them emerge.

[bleue-flora]

There has been a lot of discussion regarding c!Quackity, c!Tommy and c!Dream recently, a good portion stemming from the recent video circling around, where it is depicted that c!Tommy not only knew of c!Quackity’s torture but approved.

But while I could write an essay about it (ok yea I did…but) instead I want to shift the focus a bit, away from the same debates we keep having year after year. Because I think we’ve become too focused on the characters themselves over the audience's perception of them and too focused on morality, justification, and right and wrong in a story where everyone is morally questionable. Because at the end of the day it isn’t whether c!Dream or c!Tommy were actually right or justified, it is about - Who you root for and why. It is about (you) the audience's perception of the characters, not the characters’ perceptions of each other. Sure, c!Tommy himself feels justified in hurting c!Dream but do you believe he was.

With that thought in mind I found myself reading a 24 page research paper last night on a psychological study that looked at what an audience defines as the hero and villain. Why they are naturally pulled to like certain characters and hate others. What the audience’s classification of morality in regard to the characters of fiction where the conditions of morality are often not defined. One of the things shown in the data and line up to real life is that at the end of the day, heroes and villains are not defined on true purity and morality itself. If they were, action heroes and anti-heroes wouldn’t be successful and enticing. And yet, anti-heroes are some of the most beloved characters. In fact, I for one am typically drawn to violent anti-heroes, some of which are the heroes despite being perhaps sadistic murderers and torturers. But if the audience doesn’t simply define hero and villain as ‘good’ and ‘evil’ then what is pulling us toward taking one side over the other.

The answer is actually more complex than you might think. According to this paper, the first thing taken into consideration in a viewer’s appeal or unappeal of a character has to do with what the viewer considers “appropriate behavior.” Simply put, “appropriateness” is basically a social judgment which serves to approve or disapprove of a character’s behavior. This can be based on many things, such as cultural norms, societal code of conduct, your personal morals or experiences. And I think this is key, because I for one see stealing and griefing when I play Minecraft as seriously hurtful things to do (even though you can always rebuild). To the point that if you blow up the house I spent hours building or take my items it can ruin the fun for me entirely. So my definition of the appropriateness of such behavior might differ from people who take those things much more light-heartedly, causing me to disapprove of c!Tommy more than they would for that behavior.

Even further, when it comes to determining their appropriateness of behavior as in whether we tend to approve or disapprove of them we can look at moral domains, which spark our moral intuition instead of simply categorizing everything into ‘good’ or ‘bad’ since not even our subconscious brain is always so black and white. In the research I read, they looked at two sets of domains (aka sets of relating attributes used to measure and compare): The person-perception domains of Warmth (tolerant, friendly, warm, polite, gentle, trustworthy), Competence (intelligence, cleverness, opposite of stupidity, efficiency) and Duplicity (mad, tormented, violent, and tragic), which help to measure our perception of morality in characters as well as the five moral domains of MFT - harm/care (concerned with the suffering of others and empathy), fairness/reciprocity (related to justice), authority/respect (related to hierarchy and dominance), ingroup/loyalty (common good and punitiveness toward outsiders), purity/sanctity (concerned with contamination). According to the research behind these domains, we, the viewer, evaluate characters immediately and without cognitive deliberation. In other words, when characters fulfill domains it sticks with us and when they violate domains it can send out major red flags to us as soon as it happens without us thinking about it, not later in more considerate retrospect. So then, it makes sense that now as we debate we struggle to find common ground because our judgment was made ages ago and it's hard to reason with our already defined moral intuition.

As such, since I started getting into the dsmp first by watching all of the recordings of previous streams in order in this one playlist then going onto watching all of the blueberrytv videos (at the time of course), which edit the streams to allow you to see things from multiple perspectives. Therefore, I watched things from the very beginning, back when it was just c!George and c!Dream goofing off and dying in the nether. So, my intuitive judgment of c!Dream involves him building the community house, always trying to keep the peace between his friends, exploring the world so he can bring back all the types for wood for people to build with, building the prime path to connect everyone's houses together to make for easier travel, rebuilding Tubbo’s house after c!Tommy burned it down, helping c!Ponk when people kept burning down his house. These are just some of the moments I suspect helped to form my evaluation of him. Showing him as being very empathetic and caring, being loyal to his friends and accepting of new people, being a mediator and trying to keep things fair between his friends, fulfilling at least 3 (since he kinda is the authority that is hard to classify) of the moral domains. The streams also depicted the characteristics with warmth as well as competence and intelligence. So immediately my perceptive moral intuition deemed him the hero. As he fulfilled the warmth and competence domains of the one method and most of the domains of the other method without violating them in an obvious enough manner for me to remember at this moment (These are by no means the only reasons why I’d be inclined to root for c!Dream but that's beside the point).

On the other hand, my introduction to c!Tommy was him immediately breaking the three rules, by going around taking down donator’s signs, griefing, stealing, claiming things and property as his, trying to kill people until he ends up being banned. So he hurt others and causes harm, he is invited to join and have fun but fails to reciprocate that by going about and messing things up, he immediately disrespects everyone and defies authority by breaking the rules, hard to say on loyalty though (as mentioned above) him burning down c!Tubbo’s, his best friend, house doesn’t give me the impression of loyalty, concerning purity he scams and lies, is obsessed (though hardly the only one) with male genitalia (which I personally find unsavory) and is disrespectful towards women so definitely failing in the purity and sanctity domain as well. In regards to warmth, I wouldn’t say so, nor particularly competent, though certainly meeting the more violent and aggressive elements of duplicity. So in other words, in just his first few streams he has violated every moral domain, while also not meeting the warmth or competence but meeting duplicity. So immediately my impression of him is to dislike and disprove as my moral intuition labels him as a villain.

In other words, perhaps our affinity for characters and perception of their morality has less to do with actual legal or other measurements of morality but more of what our initial impression was that formed our judgment from the very start. Because at the end of the day, I feel like the discussion needs to be less about whether this character or that character is ‘good’ or ‘bad’ because their motivation or trauma justifies their behavior and more about what qualities do you appreciate about the character. At the end of the day, it's fiction and you should be able to love or hate whatever character you want regardless of morality or right & wrong. It’s your opinion and I don’t see other fandoms shaming and bashing other people for liking a certain character that others dislike and/or the protagonist dislikes meaning therefore they are bad so how can you like them. But in the same way, I should also be able to hate a character without being bashed for not being empathetic to their trauma… Anyways I think the idea that we all see characters as justified and innocent in our own way is cool, especially in respect to the dsmp which is told from all angles, and that’s what I set out to learn more about and share with you. Hopefully, you have enjoyed my findings and I made sense (…..and if it didn’t, you are always welcome to ask or add on :D), sorry for the length I’m beginning to realize conciseness is not my strong suit…

I hope with this interesting angle, we can lean away from discussions on legal, moral, crime, trauma and more towards questions of preference and characteristics and personal perception - Why do you root for them? What was your introduction to the characters? How do you think that impacted your viewpoint on the story? Has your viewpoint ever changed? What do you think helped define your definition of ‘appropriateness’?… etc <3 <3

[ariapmdeol]

actually im posting this as a separate analysis bc i think im onto something here

an argument could be made that this ending counts as metafiction. cwilbur has left behind minecraft and thus, by extension, he has left behind the Narrative. he has left behind his audience and he no longer has a performance to play. he doesnt have to wink at the camera or be dramatic at us anymore,,, he can REST and do what he wants!! he can heal! 

Thats why we dont see what was in the book he gave ctommy! because that was JUST for his little brother. It wasn’t for us, the Audience, to see. It was just something for the most important person in his life.

similarly, i wonder if it means anything that the ghostbur part was animated/hand drawn...that was our first VISUAL of limbo, to the best of my knowledge. we’d heard descriptions but... we hadn’t SEEN It. I wonder if this too means that limbo as a space exists outside the realm of ‘minecraft.’

so we have the physical world (Minecraft medium, viewable to the audience), the afterlife/limbo (drawn medium), and Utah (physical medium), The different imagery are so so contrasted that they are like. almost seperate realities/planes? They aren’t MEANT to mix, which is why it was so jarring to see c!wilbur in the real world: we see him AS the little block man, and seeing him in real life felt almost disorienting.