/dsmp /rp I’ve Been Rewatching A Lot Of Lore Streams Lately, And There’s A Few Things I’ve Noticed

/dsmp /rp I’ve been rewatching a lot of lore streams lately, and there’s a few things I’ve noticed about Dream’s reaction to being called evil, a villain, the bad guy, a monster, a psychopath, etc.

I’ve compiled all relevant clips in the video below, but I’ve also linked to each individual stream for additional context.

Firstly, there’s Dream’s own view on evil. He tells Sam that people who do bad things for no reason, or who just do them because they like them, are the people who are actually evil. Having no reason is what’s truly evil. Dream repeats this during the snake monologue as well. The snake that just bites without reason is pure evil.

Dream doesn’t see himself as evil because he believes he has good reasons for everything he does. During Tommy’s second prison visit, Dream says that he did bad things but that he did them for good reasons. He later admits to Sam that he doesn’t think he’s a good guy, but that he isn’t evil because he had his reasons.

And not only that, but one of Dream’s strongest convictions is that morality is a matter of perspective. Everyone is a good person in their own story, even when other people don’t see them that way. He brought this up during the staged disc finale, where he says that evil is in the eye of the beholder. He says it again when Tommy gets trapped with him in prison, then when Sam finds him after Techno’s escape, after Sam gets locked in prison, and lastly while speaking to Foolish. This is something that Dream deeply believes in.

What frustrates Dream is that nobody else has this view on morality. Nobody wonders whether Dream has any reasons for what he did and nobody sees their own part in conflicts. They just label Dream as evil and that’s it. This is most clear in the snake monologue:

“Oh, Dream exiled you, Dream blew up your country, Dream built a prison… And… we were just walking down a path. He’s evil.”

Sam says that he believes Dream just does bad things because he enjoys them, which Dream adamantly denies. Right before killing Tommy in prison, Dream gets angry about how Tommy is “annoying and disrespectful” only to then complain to Dream and accuse him of being a liar and of being manipulative.

Even before Doomsday, Dream is already getting irritated that many people portray him as the villain without seeing their own part. After George’s dethronement, George, Sapnap, and Quackity try to do a hostile takeover to reinstate George as king. In the discussion following this, Dream points out how George acts like Dream is a bad guy in that situation. When Tommy gets exiled, Dream thinks that Ghostbur is saying that Dream is the bad guy even though Tommy threatened Dream with burning Spirit’s remains. He also calls out Mexican L’Manberg for trying to paint him as the bad guy and a tyrant after they griefed Eret’s castle and set off TNT. 

Dream sincerely dislikes it when others call him evil or a psychopath. Tommy says this to him many, many times. Sometimes, Dream doesn’t react at all. After the Manberg vs Pogtopia war, Tommy calls Dream, “the villain”. Dream does and says nothing, while Punz goes and attacks Tommy. During Doomsday, Tommy says that Dream is a monster; Dream just replies with “okay.”

Other times, Dream does defend himself. In the staged disc finale, before going down the attachment vault, Tommy calls Dream a psychopath. Dream then says he “wouldn’t say that.” Inside the vault, Tommy says that Dream is a psycho again, prompting Dream to say that he is not a psycho and that everything he does is deliberate. Tubbo also calls Dream and Punz psychos when he and Tommy are taken to the prison, and Dream replies that it’s Tubbo and Tommy who are psychos for breaking in and murdering him in his own house.

Tommy calls Dream evil after he gets locked in prison with him. Dream then asks how he is any more evil than Tommy is. While explaining the staged disc finale, Dream is particularly angry that Tommy made the server turn against him by telling everyone that he was an “evil maniac” who was ruining everyone’s lives. He derisively says that he and Punz can’t test a selfless death limbo because they are “evil”, they are “so bad”, they’re “murderers”, and “blah, blah, blah, who cares.”

But despite all of Dream’s contempt for being labeled evil and a villain, he does seem to have internalized this idea somewhat. He jokes with Techno after the Green Festival that it’s “an evil villain thing” to give their enemies time to prepare. When Sam is locked in prison, Dream calls himself “the evil that was released from Pandora’s Box” and questions whether Sam even considers him a person. In the snake monologue, he compares himself to the “pure evil” snake that bites without reason until it gets put down.

And when Tommy finally realizes that Dream is not a villain, Dream immediately says that he is. The main instigator of the server’s hatred recognizes Dream’s humanity at long last, but Dream can’t seem to let go of the villain label just yet.