#also suggesting tubbo be president which is not making his chat cry at all

[tomfrogisblue]

Tubbo and Pac introducing impeachment to Quesadilla Island

[flowerbutton]

so @listentoeight-calmyourself and i were chatting a while back and we read these posts and went into some very In-Depth Analysis about the characters in the Dream SMP’s chess positions, just which they’d be etc. specifically, we came up with some In-Depth Analysis of tubbo and tommy and, while i’ve sort of forgotten it, i think it could be neat to share it so here

as this post says tommy views himself as pawn. in his eyes, he’s unimportant, not really a key player; he just exists and, at first, he aims to exist happily. now he aims just to continue existing. but he’s just tommy, to himself. again, as the post says, dream views tommy as the king in opposition. he constantly views tommy as the ringleader, the most powerful piece on the board. and again, as the post says (it has a lot of very good points, pls read it), tommy changes. he moves to the other side of the board, and he becomes a queen. everything he does now has weight behind it: his decisions concerning the fight with dream, going to the prison for closure, sacrificing the discs for tubbo, meeting with punz, preventing wilbur’s resurrection - all these hold weight for what happens next in the plot.

but, i don’t think tommy wants to face his change into a queen. he seems to as they approach dream during the finale of the disc war but as soon as dream is locked away, tommy is trying to scrape his way back to being, to himself, unimportant. he completes boring tasks for sam nook, he works towards building a hotel, he just exists for a while, even if everything is changing as he does so. and him going to the prison, i think, can be seen as him trying, once and for all, to disavow that he was ever important - the closure tommy is seeking is the ability to go back to the way things were, to return to a pre-queen position, to become unimportant and free again. and when he leaves the prison, after dying, he comes to terms that it isn’t possible. he is unfortunately a key player now, and he cannot ever shift it away, so he’s working to try and take down the other side.

other evidence for tommy being a queen is that, in chess, it’s the queen’s job to defend their king, even at the expense of themselves. when a queen is taken (killed) by the opposing side, there is a moment of sadness - maybe you didn’t realise you’d left the queen open, maybe you’re mourning the loss of a powerful piece - but the game continues, because the king is still alive. we have seen this clearly with how the smp reacted to tommy’s death. when he died, people felt the loss clearly, even those who barely knew him - there was a moment of sadness. but life continued. the game continued, dream made sure it did, and tommy seems to have realised this in his stream after leaving the prison - everything had continued after he died, nothing had stopped. life went on. tommy is important to so many people, but there’s no stopping the game if he is killed.

but - you know what happens when a king is lost in chess? the game ends, there’s no coming back. tommy’s death was impactful and life continued, but if tubbo died? there’s no coming back from that, for so many people on the smp. for so many people, the game would end, and therefore, even though dream thought tommy was the king in opposition, it’s tubbo. tubbo is the server’s king. he’s loved or, at the very least, respected by loads of people, even by those who don’t agree with his opinions. he’s cared about so many people that i don’t think anyone would be unaffected, really, if tubbo died, and for many, i think that could be the point of no return. tubbo is such a prolific figure in so many people’s hearts that it would be, for so many people, game over.

“tommy would fight!” you argue - but we saw how tommy reacted to tubbo going to die in the bunker with dream. that entire scene was about how dream would have full control of tommy if tubbo died, because tommy wouldn’t have any drive left any more. to tommy, tubbo is the most important person / concept on the server. in fact, tubbo is one of the only people whose orders tommy follows (the other being wilbur). when he’s exiled by schlatt, how much does tommy actually listen to those exile orders? but when he’s exiled by tubbo? he steers clear. during the confrontation with dream, tommy doesn’t hesitate to continue fighting, until tubbo tells him it’s over. tubbo sees that it’s checkmate - i think he even says it, at one point - and it’s only when he explicitly accepts his fate, to die, that tommy even considers the idea of defeat. tommy is the one who suggests running, tommy is the one who asks repeatedly if tubbo is accepting this - “we don’t accept this!” he says. but tubbo is tactical, and he points out that there is no escape. there’s no way out. he’s seen that they’re in check and he’s willing to sacrifice himself (to resign). “who am i without you?”, as moving as it is, makes clear that tommy is accepting tubbo’s willingness to die; he’s following what tubbo wants because tommy follows tubbo. tommy says that he always thought of tubbo as a sidekick, but that actually, he’s tubbo’s sidekick, and to some extent, that’s wrong (they’re both individuals etc), but in some sense, a queen will always follow the word of a king. tommy will always follow tubbo (or, well, maybe not post-death, but that’s another topic).

another example is ranboo - ranboo would die to avenge tubbo! except, ranboo probably wouldn’t; he’d be overcome with grief, he’s got a son to look out for, and he’s already terrified he’s working on dream’s orders. ranboo wouldn’t have the self-confidence to continue after tubbo’s death, at least not in a way that could constitute as a drive to continue. ranboo is not weak, he’s exceptionally strong, but a large part of his strength comes from his relationship with tubbo. their friendship and supportiveness is what gives ranboo is sense of security. i can’t find the clip but doesn’t ranboo admit to tubbo, after his spying on l’manberg, that he didn’t know whether he intended to cause harm or not to l’manberg and to tubbo? (this is the post i found the information from, would love the clip!) and then tubbo forgives him. it’s tubbo’s forgiveness, tubbo’s understanding of ranboo, his support, that gives ranboo more confidence in himself. if tubbo died, if ranboo lost his support network, there likely wouldn’t be the drive to continue.

jack manifold - wanted to kill tommy with the excuse that he thought tubbo would be better off without tommy (also personal reasons, but he did indeed say that). niki nihachu adored tubbo, even if he doesn’t trust her now. puffy, sam, foolish, even technoblade and philza - all are people who, to some extent, respect tubbo. eret and tubbo were some of the first people to reconcile after eret’s betrayal, if i remember rightly, and quackity thinks he’s fantastic. so many people have been touched by having tubbo in their lives - he’s pivotal to how the server is.

the amount of people who show up to the bunker with punz are an example of this. punz came because tommy asked him to, but all those people? niki and jack hated tommy. hbomb hated tommy. at least three key players in that army were not there for tommy - they were there for tubbo. they’d said goodbye to tubbo on that prime path just as much as they had said goodbye to tommy. tommy has negatively affected almost everyone on the server, even by accident - but tubbo? tubbo has made bridges, he’s joined hands, he’s coveted friendships.

and tubbo recognises that he’s important. he gives the speech to rally people against dream, even if it fails somewhat. he’s tommy’s right-hand-man in the final disc battle. dream even says that tubbo is the only way to control tommy - and then dream calls him a pawn. tubbo realises this, and he plays into it. “he called me a pawn? this is checkmate,” he says - but you can’t checkmate a pawn. dream sees tommy as the king, he thinks he’s checkmate-ing tommy - but tommy isn’t the piece about to be taken, tubbo is. tubbo is about to die, at that moment - and tubbo realises this. tubbo, with his tactical skills, with his understanding of powerplays, makes the decision to continue to hide what piece he is from dream. dream thinks he is a pawn, but tubbo is the king. i don’t know why - but it’s usually tactical to hide as much information as you can from your enemy, right?

speaking of tactics, tubbo ends up as the one with the most strength in the game - just like the king. he has people willing to defend him (ranboo, tommy, jack - to name a few); he’s the most tactically-minded of the bench trio, let alone snowchester (lied about what it was to the syndicate, takes ranboo spying on the egg (know thy enemy, information gathering), isn’t afraid to retreat when necessary), and he’s developed freaking nukes as a defence mechanism.

“but his presidency!” you cry - i agree; but the reason he floundered in his presidency? he didn’t trust himself to do a good job. the role models for presidents of l’manberg both ruined the country, and tubbo had absolutely no idea how to properly run a nation. he listened to quackity (butcher army) and to dream (tommy’s exile) because he lacked the confidence to follow through with his own beliefs. except - he develops it, when unconditional support is thrown his way. quackity and dream both were playing their own games, but tommy’s unconditional support during the scene at the ruins of the community house? when tommy stood down, when he remained by tubbo’s side, even after tubbo handed over the discs? that gave tubbo the confidence he needed. they were in their worst time yet, but tommy forgave him for his actions, and so tubbo had the strength to refuse quackity’s plea to kill ranboo. he had the strength to rally the troops. he had the strength to forgive ranboo. because a king is only as strong as those who stand behind him, and tommy was tubbo’s strength.

tommy clings to tubbo because tubbo is his stability, and tubbo clings to tommy because tommy is his strength. tommy will always stand by tubbo in the end, will always defend tubbo for as long as tubbo will let him - tommy is tubbo’s queen, the opposition to dream’s queen. and tubbo will always stand tall in the end because tommy is there supporting him and believing in him - tubbo is tommy’s king, and potentially the true king of the smp.

the real danger is that dream can’t see this - but i bet you a fiver that wilbur might.

tl;dr: dream thinks tommy is the king and tommy used to think he was a pawn, but in actuality, tubbo is the king and tommy is his queen. dream cannot see this. this is all /rp obvs