#but yeahhhh c!dreamisms. C!DREAMISMS

[cdroloisms]

on c!dream and the revolution

(aka: holy shit this is going to be a bit of a mess but hopefully something in here is coherent) 

c!Dream and the L’manburg Revolution has weeeeeell kind of been talked to death, but that’s not for no reason. The L’manburg Revolution has a huge impact on the entire story for the rest of the timeline and a huge impact on c!Dream in particular--he himself references the final deal for the discs quite a few times just on his own in later parts of the timeline, not to mention the entirety of inconsolable differences being a callback to the revolution (and to vassal, but everything’s a callback to vassal when you have dream, tommy, and wilbur in a room.) The Revolution is what forms the foundation of the L’manburg mythos which then forms the foundation of so many conflicts in the server--especially involving c!Dream, as L’manburg’s villain-tyrant-monster-lizard-snake-thing in particular. 

Even so, a lot of people tend to have a lot of different opinions on c!Dream’s motivations during the Revolution. This post is meant to be an exploration of my thoughts on the matter (forgive me for the lack of actual timestamped sources I’m lazy) especially regarding three main points:

1. c!Dream had specific in-universe reasons for going against L’manburg that are referenced before the revolution and after it 

 2. c!Dream went to war with L’manburg because he largely thought that it was inevitable 

 3. c!Dream went into the war with L’manburg knowing that he would concede to c!Wilbur in the end and give them what they wanted

To start with point 1), I’ve seen it pretty commonly asserted that c!Dream didn’t actually have a particular reason to fight in the Revolution in-universe and his actions can be explained away by the ccs/actors knowing that an actual war would be the best For Content. And while I agree that the “for content” angle is an important angle to consider when we speak about this conflict, especially considering the roleplay as it would come to exist wasn’t really as established of a construct yet, to say that c!Dream had no in-universe motivations at all is...a gross oversimplification, especially when these people are often the same ones that I see taking L’manburg’s stated motivations of Peace and Freedom and Liberation at face value. 

I think there's a lot of debate on a lot of different factors surrounding the revolution, but I also think it's important to consider that like, while obviously the rp wasn't quite as developed at that point in time, that doesn't mean that c!Dream was played as a character without any motivation at all. For example, in that first conversation between c!Dream and c!Wilbur [x], I think it's important to note that c!Dream 1. expresses doubt abt c!Wilbur's whole schtick with L’manburg and DOES seem genuinely peeved by c!Wilbur's arbitrary rule setting and whole "we're doing this against tyranny" deal, even though he does make a pretty deliberate point of FOLLOWING the rules that wilbur sets (until he breaks one (1) leaf block as an expression of rebellion, which is in itself very interesting) and 2. very deliberately calls out c!Wilbur's whole L’manburg deal as something he's unsure of as being something that the people in L’manburg actually want and agree with--see his asking c!Tommy and c!Tubbo if they actually want to “totally break off from the SMP and are okay with L’manburg and never leaving L’manburg again”, as c!Wilbur had just stated (paraphrased, but anyway), and then obviously taking note of both c!Tommy and c!Tubbo's doubt afterwards.

From the very beginning of L’manburg's conception, I think it's fair to say that c!Dream has Visible Doubts about c!Wilbur's whole schtick that served as a foundation of its creation. Were those ideological differences the sole driving force behind his decision to go to war? No, absolutely not. c!Dream was not fighting the revolution just in an effort to idk, ~save~ the L’manburgians or anything I’m not trying to say that. but c!Dream does, from the very beginning, take issue with the specific division that c!Wilbur created. He prods at c!Wilbur's claims about a separate server with separate rules. He specifically asks if c!Tommy and c!Tubbo are okay with "L’manburg and only L’manburg" as c!Wilbur seemed to be implying was all they needed. He STARTS the conversation considerably more lighthearted than at its end--the first thing he says about L’manburg is a fucking dick joke, for god's sake. There's even something you can say about c!Wilbur making rules and then SHOWING dream that the rules are arbitrary, because before dream makes a deliberate Point of breaking the leaf block to symbolize his irritation with L’manburg's rule setting and the whole idea of L’manburg in the first place, c!Wilbur states that they really respect the foliage of the place and want not a single block out of place while breaking leaves himself! 

And of course, we all know about the table speech. There are arguments to be made about server ownership and entitlement that have been discussed before and could be touched on here, but once again--c!Dream's issue was about the division created. Not the usage of the table (or, on the server, the land) but the claiming of it as someplace “Separate.” When he expresses that everyone can use the table, he's not against the idea of individual or community ownership in itself, as can be clearly seen by the amount of properties on the server that belonged to one or more people. However, what he WAS against was the idea of people claiming a piece of land as their as in, their server, which meant that they could set whatever rules they wanted on it no matter the detriment to other people on the server. which is exactly what was done in L’manburg. It wasn't about the ownership, it was about claiming a part of a house As Their Own House because by stating that L’manburg was a "separate" server, they could also come up with whatever rules they wanted. such as pvp-is-off-so-take-off-your-armor, and you're-not-in-the-whitelist, etc. 

And like, again. I think people can have different perspectives and opinions on the table speech and how right he was and whatever, but like the table speech was NOT long after the revolution, and dream made it plenty clear that people could use the land at will before L’manburg’s creation. Hell, AFTER the revolution people could still y’know, kinda use the land at will, when he could've (according to c!Wilbur's original plans and words) restricted L’manburgians from leaving L’manburg. And again this is explicit--c!Dream says it himself to c!Skeppy in the table speech, and we see how everyone was using the land however they wanted at this point in time as well. 

And i think like, later on, when the characters are more established, every time c!Dream talks abt L’manburg makes it pretty clear that he was fighting abt it for more reasons than just "well he felt like fighting shit." He clearly dislikes L’manburg and disagreed with the division it created fundamentally. Obviously, the way you interpret all of this can be pretty different ,, but I think it's always been pretty clear that c!Dream does like. Disagree with L’manburg from the very beginning at the very least, and that goes into his decision to eventually go to war with the place.

Still, though, I don’t think these ideological differences are the most important reasoning behind his decision to fight in the Revolution in the first place. Which brings me to point 2), which is to say...from c!Dream’s perspective, honestly, war felt pretty goddamn inevitable?

From c!Dream’s perspective, he had no reason to believe that L’manburg wasn’t gunning for war. Honestly, he has every reason to believe the opposite? The FIRST time he interacted with L’manburg it was to c!Wilbur goading c!Tommy to shout “war words” at him. They were dressed in army uniforms. The entire side of L’manburg was allegedly built on a foundation of opposing c!Dream. They clearly didn’t shy away from conflict, considering their actions the day before had been basically trying their best to scam the shit out of people on the server and ending up chased down for their efforts. The ideals of L’manburg being this idea of like, Injustice and Freedom and Liberation From Oppression does not paint the idea of them being like willing to patiently come to a compromise or engage c!Dream in good faith like, at all. When c!Dream actually comes to L’manburg to try and have a discussion, c!Wilbur makes it plenty clear that compromise isn’t going to be an option, acts like L’manburg’s legitimacy is an assured thing, uses his act of legitimacy to impose on c!Dream’s behavior (mostly by inventing all kinds of arbitrary rules for him to follow until the ‘don’t touch our foliage’ makes him lose his patience and leave). None of this suggests any willingness for L’manburg to actually make concessions or compromise. 

And that, in itself, limits c!Dream’s options. If he concedes, then he’s folding to external pressure without putting up a fight, which sets a precedent. Again, from his perspective, c!Wilbur is a total stranger! He’s this guy that he’s literally never met before that managed to turn half of c!Dream’s server--as in, friends and acquaintances and neighbors--against him in a “country” that is explicitly founded in opposition against c!Dream by someone he knows nothing about. A country that has framed itself as existing directly against what c!Dream wants, has referred to him as a tyrant, and has turned this idea of fighting against him into a moral issue--limiting their willingness to backdown or compromise in any way whatsoever. No matter whether or not c!Wilbur was actually gunning for war, c!Dream had every reason to think that that was the intention--they wrote a Declaration of Independ(a)nce, for god’s sake. Obviously this is getting meta but if they’re making relentless comparisons to Hamilton Act I which is...entirely about a war, that’s hardly a point in favor for them actually just wanting to sit down at a table with some tea to talk things out. (Not to mention how they run onto DreamSMP land to attack c!Alyssa as a unit like, right after all of this.) 

As far as c!Dream is concerned, giving L’manburg what they want at this point without putting up a fight, just rolling over and showing his belly to their every demand is...dangerous? He’s facing a group of people that include people that, again, he’s lived with for months who have suddenly decided that standing against him is some kind of moral statement, who are slandering him and calling him a tyrant. He’s being talked about like some kind of dragon to slay--of course he’s not particularly inclined to just give them what they want. The Revolution establishes DreamSMP as people you don’t want to fight. c!Dream establishes himself as someone that you should think twice about antagonizing. And we know this works because c!Wilbur does get more cautious after the Revolution--he’s not quite as willing to go against c!Dream as directly as he was when he literally showed up out of nowhere to call c!Dream a tyrant. Through the Revolution, c!Dream successfully discourages another war in the future by making it too costly for L’manburg to pursue the next time they want something out of DreamSMP (which wouldn’t necessarily be the case if he just conceded the first time around, considering as far as c!Dream is concerned, L’manburg’s initial reaction to wanting something w/ their whole “independence” schtick was to make war preparations). Instead of seeming like a pushover, which in his mind possibly could’ve emboldened c!Wilbur further, he establishes himself as someone fair (see: his insisting on listening to L’manburg’s rules even during the literal war, not entering into L’manburg’s borders to plant the TNT, something they both concede, as well as during the intimidation campaign w/ c!Sapnap) but intimidating as an opponent. 

All of that being said, though, it’s worth considering that c!Dream does, in effect, give L’manburg what they want in the end. Which is part of what I want to consider with my final point here: c!Dream always knew that he was going to give L’manburg independence. 

And this is a fact! We know this because during the preparations for the war, in Punz’s L’manburg Revolution videos, we see c!Dream stating that he will give L’manburg technical independence before the war even begins. Which i find. Fascinating. Because like obviously given c!Dream's strategic ability (final control room + just general preparation wise), obviously Dream SMP was at a great advantage. (Interestingly enough, I will NOT actually argue that PVPwise they actually outranked L’manburg by THAT much. When the war was declared, it was actually a 3v5, considering c!Eret had not yet defected and c!George had not yet joined DreamSMP's side. This was at the same general time where c!Fundy and c!Sapnap, who would later be a formidable opponent against Dream and Technoblade alike, were about evenly matched in a PVP duel! Like DreamSMP would've still likely panned out on top in terms of straight up PVP, but it would've been a much closer battle with a much higher chance of loss of life on the DreamSMP side.)

On that same note, i think it's interesting to note (if you watch Punz's pov of the revolution videos) HOW CONCERNED c!dream was the ENTIRE time for any losses on his side. Like this guy was freaking out if someone on the DreamSMP like got hit by an arrow kind of concerned. He was worried about c!Eret in the crossfire of the final control room. Honestly speaking, he probably lost more hearts from that goddamn poison pot than like the entirety of the DreamSMP side during the war. L’manburg was during a time where Tubbo and Tommy could reasonably defeat Dream in a 1v2, given certain situations, and there was that whole Dream versus Tommy, Tubbo, and Sapnap 1v3--but that's when Dream way outgeared them and he WAS worn down and DID lose.

(Compare to like much later on where Dream could like 50/50 1v3 people in full diamond with nothing but an axe and shield.)

And whether or not L’manburg actually like, could’ve outgeared or outpvped DreamSMP (which. I mean. Like, c!Tubbo had villagers--from experience, it really doesn’t take that long to get decent enchants + gear from villagers even if you’re just one person, just go to town on a bunch of trees for a couple hours), the idea of L’manburg as a threat doesn’t even matter as much as whether or not c!Dream saw them as a threat. I feel like I’ve seen a lot of opinions on this matter that boil down to “well clearly L’manburg wasn’t a threat so clearly c!Dream didn’t see them as one so clearly fighting L’manburg was just about killing people for his own ego” which...absolutely contradicts how c!Dream himself faces this conflict. I think it's fair to say that based on his words and actions, c!Dream did see them as a significant threat to his/his friends' safety in the war. He has backup plans upon backup plans, he's very anxious about the DreamSMP side’s health bars throughout the revolution, he specifically worries about them losing health and dying in the final control room like. Many times.

All of that being said, c!Dream goes into the Revolution knowing that he'll have to grant L’manburg independence, specifically because he knows they wont give up. He says this very explicitly. And like, I think it's like. again. Important to note that c!Dream could've like forced L’manburg into a corner by like idk repeatedly spawnkilling them, or sieging them, until they give into his commands or whatever right. Like it was a war. He definitely could've forced them to surrender on his terms.

HOWEVER, what we actually see is c!Dream repeatedly calling them to surrender at like every possible turn. Before the war, during it, whatever. White flags was an obvious attempt to intimidate, but at the same time you can only demand someone to surrender so many times before you're showing your hand.

And it’s like--war, when you boil it down a Lot, is basically an extended game of chicken. This is very oversimplified, but at the end of the day what matters is that you have to decide how far you're willing to go and how far the other side is willing to go and figure out if you're willing to accept the necessary losses. And it's also important to note that from c!Dream's perspective, L’manburg was never going to give up.

Whether or not that is true is once again, debatable. But from c!Dream's perspective WE CAN SEE that c!Dream thinks that c!Wilbur + co. were never going to give up. With the retroactive addition of canon lives then yeah you could probably state that c!dream thought that they were going to keep going even if it permakilled them. c!Wilbur makes the "we would rather die" speech after the final control room. Obviously retroactively applying things like canon lives gets finicky (and believe me, I DONT LIKE IT EITHER,) but if you're going to retroactively apply the final control room as killing all of L’manburg in order to essentially end the conflict in one blow instead of simply removing their gear as was the explicit goal of that ambush, then yeah, I think it's fair to apply the same statement of canon lives and their full ramifications on what c!Wilbur says here as well. c!Dream enters a war he knows that he will, by a matter of speaking, lose--because at the end of the day, he wasn't willing to go as far as L’manburg., From his point of view. he was not willing to keep the war going when lmanburg was, because L’manburg stated that they wouldn't give up (and he PREDICTED they would state that they wouldn't give up) no matter what the cost. 

So he very literally puts his life on the line (when doing so shouldn't have been necessary otherwise because like, he was winning the war) because he was willing to end the conflict at a great personal cost to himself. Why? Why would c!Dream decide to risk his life to participate in a duel that could literally nullify EVERYTHING he did so far in an instant in the war by literally granting L’manburg independence? And then, after winning the duel, why grant L’manburg independence anyway? If tommy won that duel (which he EASILY could've -- it was a 1v1 bow duel when both people were one-shot), then L’manburg would've won the war. Hell, EVEN AFTER THEY LOST THE DUEL, they stated they won the war for a long time. c!Dream could've fucking annihilated them!! They had no supplies. Why grant them "technical independence" ??

Like, what, all of this for the discs? The discs really did not matter that much at that point in time--the disc war had been over, for god’s sake-- and c!Tommy would literally blackmail him to steal ‘em back like less than a month later. And, like, there was really nothing stopping him from demanding the discs as reparations for the war anyway. What was L’manburg gonna do if he just enforced the borders and kept killing them unless they gave him shit yk? L’manburg got soundly beat in a war! c!Dream had no reason to put his own goddamn life on the line to give them A POTENTIAL SHOT AT VICTORY. 

The only reasoning that makes sense for c!Dream here is the reasoning he himself gives for basically every decision he makes in this war, from the demands to surrender to the Final Control Room to the agreeing to the duel to the granting them technical independence for the discs even after c!Tommy lost the duel. And that’s that he knew that they wouldn’t give up. Before the war began, c!Dream knew that he would have to give them independence. At the time, the justification was likely along the lines of well, he couldn’t permanently kill them because it’s MINECRAFT, so they would’ve just kept dragging the conflict out until he gave in. With the retroactive addition of canon lives, though, his hesitance reads much more along the lines of being generally unwilling to go through with killing L’manburg entirely during the war, which demanded that he make the concession of giving them what they wanted. 

And, again, this is all from c!Dream's perspective. Whether or not all of this is like, True objectively is a different matter. Would L’manburg have surrendered if he didn't give them a way out and kept pressing? Would c!Wilbur have stopped before everyone on his side lost all their canon lives? Maybe. But from c!Dream's perspective, the only way to end it was to grant them the independence they wanted (even you know, in the bastardized form that it was, not that it mattered because L’manburg ended up being treated as an entirely independent and separate entity ANYWAY but I digress).

So that's what he did.

And, of course, this paved the way for the rest of the story. The mythos of L’manburg was established. It all goes back to these decisions on both sides, in a lot of ways--the discs, c!Tommy and c!Dream and the duel on the path, c!Wilbur overseeing, heroes and villains and revolutions and tyrants. In a lot of ways, this is where things began to unravel, this is the story that would take until the (c!discduo) Finale to address and dismantle. c!Dream’s reasonings behind his decisions in the Revolution are logical, complex, and consistent with his character and motivations--and they’re also, in a lot of ways, his undoing. 

[cdroloisms]

On the note of c!Dream and the Revolution and L’manburg in particular, I actually wanted to touch on another argument that I see sometimes that I’ve been thinking about lately re. L’manburg’s legitimacy. Because among some groups that are more L’manburg-positive, one take that I feel is decently common is the idea that L’manburg couldn’t be a government because it was only four, five, six people, that the size of the group meant that it was functionally incapable of the power attributed to it. In this, the assertion tends to be that because L’manburg is small, the power it holds is meaningless; it doesn’t have the power and provisions backing it that a regular “government” has, so L’manburg is fundamentally no different from a group of friends that believe in the same thing and therefore work together. The argument, here, seems to be that because the power of L’manburg as a government is manufactured, the power doesn’t actually exist in any meaningful way. 

And the thing about L’manburg to me is that, well, the power being manufactured is...the point? Like. The whole point is that L’manburg doesn’t actually have jack shit to base itself off of, the whole point is that L’manburg is founded on a lie and writes itself into being treated as a legitimate entity through scapegoating other people in a story. That’s the reason why the mythos exists! The mythos needs to exist because it’s the foundation of L’manburg’s existence. Why does L’manburg exist? Because they were ~fighting against oppression~. Why does c!Wilbur have the power to do X, Y, and Z? Because if you’re opposing him you’re on the side of traitors and tyrants and enemies and get out of his fucking country. Just because L’manburg’s existing as a nation and government and what have you is illogical doesn’t prevent it from being treated as a legitimate country and government etc, because in the end people treated it as legitimate and therefore it had real power not only over its own land, but later on over how the entire server operated--see everyone being swept up in the elections, Manberg vs. Pogtopia, etc. 

(What’s especially funny to me about this take is that in a lot of ways, it really reminds me of c!Dream’s opinion of L’manburg during the Revolution. Because while c!Dream definitely saw L’manburg as a threat in terms of the people who were declaring war against him, in terms of the...actual ideology? The whole government thing, “we’re going to be a separate server”? It’s pretty clear that c!Dream thinks that all of that makes NO SENSE WHATSOEVER. He calls L’manburg a “delusional small part” of the server because from his perspective, what the fuck do you MEAN you’re a government now? What do you mean you’re a separate country--scratch that, what do you mean you’re a separate SERVER? Game rules? Whitelist? What the fuck?? You’re a group of people threatening violence because you have a grudge against me, not revolutionaries fighting a nonexistent oppressive rulership like holy shit I’ve NEVER EVEN MET YOU BEFORE? c!Dream approaches L’manburg’s shit as illegitimate and ridiculous and nonsensical from the get go, because yeah, I mean--they’re literally just a small group of people, not the government they claim to be or that they claim they want to form, or whatever. But things...don’t stay that way.) 

Like the whole point is that in the end, it doesn’t matter that c!Wilbur shouldn’t have been able to stick a flag in a piece of land, declare it as his own, make all these arbitrary rules about who could or couldn’t go inside and what they had to do and declare himself leader over these people and leverage joining his little club to keep them from opposing him and use all of that to threaten conflict against a guy he literally never even met before. Because...he did! And with the mythos established, no one challenged that. L’manburg’s policies and power and legitimacy and leadership and what the leader could and couldn’t do were all based in literally nothing and that didn’t matter because people acted like it was a real thing, so it became real. c!Dream fighting against L’manburg and discrediting its legitimacy at the beginning is part of what gives L’manburg legitimacy because the revolution ends up being used as the foundational story that made L’manburg a Real Thing. The elections and c!Quackity challenging c!Wilbur by running against him when the elections were originally rigged ends up reinforcing L’manburg’s legitimacy as the elections become a Real Thing and the leader of L’manburg as established by the elections are a Real Thing, etc. As long as people buy into L’manburg, as long as it’s TREATED as a real entity, then it remains real because that’s what people believe (which is part of why doomsday and L’manburg like, dying required the people within it to become disillusioned w/ the country so they didn’t feel inclined to rebuild it again.) 

People treated L’manburg as a real entity with real power, which gave it real power over people. Nothing should’ve been in place that allowed c!Wilbur to declare a rigged election, or c!Schlatt to execute the Red Festival, or c!Tubbo to create an extrajudicial army that put c!Phil under house arrest and would extend its influence outside of its own land to kidnap c!Techno’s pet and execute him. The reality of the consequences of L’manburg do not depend on whether or not it should’ve logistically had the power to back up what it was trying to do but whether or not people actually treated it like it did, and they did. Just because L’manburg shouldn’t have been capable of acting like a government doesn’t mean that people didn’t treat it as a government the entire time--from its conception to its death, L’manburg was given a lot of power and influence comparable to that of a government because of what was granted to it that allowed the leader of the faction to do a lot of things without challenge or argument “for the country” both to people within the country’s borders and outside of it, and this very real power and influence wasn’t challenged or disturbed because people believed that it had a right to exist. 

YES L’manburg was manufactured! YES that power didn’t make any sense! YES the legitimacy that L’manburg had as a government entity was basically a fucking crapshoot based on jack shit, and yes it had real power anyway. At the end of the day L’manburg was always treated w/ a level of power and legitimacy beyond just being a Group Of People, and therefore that power and legitimacy became real. L’manburg was a government because people treated it as one. L’manburg was powerful and legitimate and free and independent because that’s what the story said, and everyone believed the story, and that’s what’s important moreso than the logic of whether or not it had enough people to actually “be” a government in the first place.