#aaah watch me go on tangents about power and the struggle to reamin true to one's self

[zeta-in-de-walls]

I've seen a couple of posts about c!tommy that are saying that his arc is getting bad because he doesn't really heal and it's just more trauma. Imo, I do feel like he is learning to move on from the trauma and grow and that his arc is actually getting better, but I wanted to know your opinion on this! :D

Hey, cheers for the ask! I won’t lie, I’m a huge fan of Tommy and his arc seriously appeals to me so I totally don’t think it’s getting bad at all! Heh, this turned out long - is it clear how much I love discussing his character arc?

That said, it does run the risk of having too much suffering with not enough relief. It’s hard to see this character, who’s awesome and trying to be good and get better get continually beaten down by the narrative. It’s why Doomsday was so painful. We want to see him prevail, spreading great messages about how perseverance is worth it, that you can escape your abusers, you can heal and that there is hope for you. It’s a great and encouraging sort of story and so we don’t want excessive suffering. I don’t believe its gone too far myself, while bad things continue to happen, I don’t get the impression that its a bleak world and that Tommy won’t find happiness. It is a worry though, especially with how dark the prison visit was. And people who have less of a threshold for angsty story lines than me might already feel like its too much.

But yeah, outside of the worry of his storyline itself becoming too bleak, I never got the impression that his character arc was bad. Yes, he has lots of trauma. Yes he’s also had tons of development. They’re not mutually exclusive! 

If anything, I love seeing Tommy’s development through the suffering. To compare his exile with the prison arc, you can see how much better Tommy has learned to handle things. After some time in exile, he began to see Dream as his friend and believed everyone else no longer cared about him where Tommy never let himself trust Dream for a moment during his prison stay and upon getting out was way better about opening up to people. like he sees Tubbo and Ranboo and feels like he’s been replaced but avoids lashing out about it and a day later talks to them both about his worries and Tubbo tells him he’s being ridiculous and that of course he’s not being replaced. And writes a cry for help in Puffy’s therapy office and is overjoyed when she responds offering him help and support. Even with Jack, he was so clearly wishing to avoid an argument, he hadn’t been looking to antagonise him but had wanted to see his old friend be happy to see him. 

Tommy’s a character who gets hurt a lot by people he trusts and he has dark moments but its so good seeing him continue to care about things and open up to others. And its also fascinating to see the effects all the trauma has had on him, like how he’s afraid of caring about things as he fears Dream will destroy the things he loves. How he seems afraid to be himself at times, because he’s somewhat internalised the idea that people don’t like him being himself eg how afraid he was to build a tower out of his favourite blocks and how odd he acts about stealing. Him not wanting to destroy the egg because he’s afraid of being the cause of another war. How he wants to make amends with others like Techno, such as sending him a hotel invitation rather than holding a grudge once more.

Tommy has had such an interesting mixture of responses to trauma and each new traumatic incident affects him in a different way. Like his response to Henry’s death being to focus his emotions on being angry at Dream. Sam’s failure to protect him from Dream being to want to find a new warden for the prison because he can’t trust Sam to do his job anymore. 

Tommy wanting to destroy the knowledge of revival because he feels no one should ever possess that sort of power. Tommy’s thoughts on power are super-interesting as he’s been a victim in a game of powerful figures and yet doesn’t really seek power for himself, rather believing that no person should have power over another. Tommy doesn’t even want to seem powerful, hiding away his resources rather than flaunting them. Tommy is one of those characters who has never been powerful in his own right - his strength having always come from drawing on others. It’s fitting therefore that he has such a fear of loneliness and others not caring about him. It’s a great strength and flaw, his longing for inclusion. And absolutely devastating how in his exile he developed such a lack of self-worth. 

Tommy’s trauma has brought out some of his worse traits - the way he can lash out at others, the darker more jealous side to his clingyness, the way he can be driven by emotions and fixates on certain goals - but we’ve also seen him dealing with them in interesting ways. 

I remember seeing a post saying something like, ‘Tommy has trauma instead of character development’ and I responded something along the lines of how Tommy has character development in spite of his trauma. I stand by that but also, I hate the way it implies that Tommy’s character arc is invalidated because it involves trauma. Like it’s not just angst, there’s so much to dig into, and some interesting character traits have been shown and revealed with Trauma and explored in an interesting way. Not all of it is positive - trauma is bad for a person and Tommy’s arc has made that clear. But there’s so much interesting stuff being shown that simplifying it to trauma is so reductive. 

There’s trauma and suffering for sure, but that's not all it is and it fails to mention what an awesome job Tommy’s done of portraying the trauma and how it impacts his character. He doesn’t hold back on showing his character’s struggle but also makes it clear that it’s still Tommy, he’s still a funny guy who is looking for fun and has a host of problems but is far more than merely his bad experiences. It’s impacted him, but it’s far from all he is and all that motivates his character.