#no ones redeemed in that game theyre all still acting in their own self interest

[twipsai]

while im sharing my ahit hot takes, i also wanna add that i think ppl give Mu a little too much slack

like yeah, she IS a child, she WAS traumatized and had her home essentially colonized for no reason. its implied her family was killed and she spend at least a solid year completely alone, homeless, and scared

but like she also used time pieces to reverse the world 4 billion years back and killed everyone she thought was "bad" based on a short description they gave of their own life (if they were lucky enough to even get to the throne room and not die from the lava inside the castle). ppl act like the entire cast were horrible people for telling her to go away when she literally destroyed the earth???? like no one in ahit is a good person guys theyre all assholes lmao

[frenchphobic]

long fucking post on why a c!dream is a shitty person and probably should not have a redemption because it is unpog

honestly i just want to refute dream apologists thats why im making this post. i think that dream as a villain is interesting but i think that trying to make him out to be secretly a good guy is just bad ngl. also /roleplay and all

tw for abuse and mentions of suicide

dream as a villain

dream is a villain. he is chaotic evil according to wilbur, deliberately does not stream to appear less sympathetic (and yet), and is set up as an antagonist to tommy who bears the title ‘hero’. dream is not a good person, no matter how you look at it or try to justify his actions.

‘but he wants to unite everyone to be a big family :((’ the ends dont justify the means believe it or not. having a vaguely positive goal does not excuse the actions you’ve done. it also goes hand and hand with saying dream is correct for punishing tommy the way he did because he acted up. if i socked you across the face and then suddenly said ‘sorry there was a roach on ur face’ does that make it okay? probably not i still punched you, enacting an unnecessary amount of violence. thats a very simple analogy i will admit and there are more complex comparisons. another example off the top of my head is say a child just scribbled all over you walls with crayons. would hitting them be a justified answer? if u said hes thats really fucked of u go seek help u loon. violence as a punishment is very toxic, just because it gets the job done does not mean it is okay. at the end of the day, you still committed this act and the harm you caused is real, having a good motive doesnt suddenly make it okay.

‘but tommy causes all of the conflict’ the disk war wasnt even caused by tommy, it was sapnap and then tommy got involved. and the reason why tommy even caused conflict was because of the discs, because he wanted them back. and most of the time there was a level of antagonism from another party, such as schlatt exiling him, dream taking the disks in the first place, dream threatening l’manberg. and if dream wanted to end the conflict so badly, why didnt he just give tommy back his disks? tommy upfront said everything started with the disks, so he wants them back so he could end the conflict. notice how after tommy got his disks back he has been staying out of conflict, apologizing to everyone, and the only bad thing hes done is try to scam people but everyone does that. this would have been the most peaceful option, yet dream chose the path that would further antagonize tommy which then draws everyone else into conflict. why did dream need to have leverage over tommy so badly? why did he want to hold power over tommy so badly? its because of control, and that’s ultimately dreams end goal. sure he wants a big server family, but would said family have a free will?

‘but dream is sad’ the thing is dream is completely at fault for everything that happened to him. he pushed away sapnap (and george ig). he tried to take control over the server and their possessions. literally everything that happened to tommy. literally everything involving ranboo. villains can be sympathetic, i am not arguing against that. but it does not mean that they should be left off the hook. that doesnt mean u should ignore the shit theyve done because ‘oh no theyre sad’ because it doesnt make anything better. dream had this shit coming for him.

now people also skirt around calling dream an abuser. which is fair ig, its a very loaded word. its much easier to say manipulated. that being said, dream can classify as abusive. and no, tommy is not abusive. abuse is about control and a power imbalance. dream has power over tommy, but tommy does not have power over dream, at least not in the way dream does. he’s taking back power to stand up for himself, dream uses power to control.

the reasons i listed for why dream is from the Domestic Abuse Intervention Project so if u want a source on that, there you go.

using coercion or threats: dream often threatened tommy, such as the pit thing and often employed violence on him. while normally this could be attributed to Normal Minecraft Player Go Smack. minecraft mechanics cannot always translate to real world since violence is pretty normal in minecraft however we also need to consider the context of the scene. dream gave an order, tommy refused, dream applies violence, tommy submitted. thats why its a threat, it has tangible effects that can correlate to real life.

using intimidation: dream blew up logsteadshire as a punishment. dream also destroyed tommys items anytime he visited. dream also hit tommy with his axe i believe. he killed mushroom henry, one of tommys pets.

Using Emotional Abuse: dream guiltripped the shit out of tommy for just hiding things and pinning the blame on tommy for just wanting his own private items. he definitely played mind games on tommy, pretending to be his friend. honestly i probably dont even need to go as in depth because it was so obvious.

Using Isolation: putting him in exile in the first place. destroying the bether portal so no one could visit tommy anymore. i really dont think i need to expand upon that.

Minimizing, Denying, and Blaming: dream in tommys stream when he got trapped said that exile wasnt that bad. he does shift the blame onto tommy for logsteadshire being blown up, even though dreams reaction was entirely unjustified for not listening and hiding.

Using Economic Abuse: see this is where i attempt to parallel minecraft mechanics to real life. obviously, there is no monetary system in place, so when i mean economic, i will use valuables such as armor, food, etc in place of currency. the idea behind economic abuse is to limit the victim’s resources so that they are dependent on the abuser and cannot escape. dream only really allowed tommy to have the armor he gave him while not giving access to armor so he does not regain a sense of power, and in the prison stream, dream holds all the potatoes which puts him in a position of power over tommy. this argument is more ambiguous i feel cause the whole minecraft mechanics thing is kinda weird so u don’t necessarily have to take this part in.

i feel like i need to emphasize this very strongly because dream is not a good person. abuse cannot and should not be a response to someone. its an awful mentality to have. i just want to prove the point that dream is not a good person, his reasons absolutely do not justify his actions.

what makes a good redemption

redemption arcs are tricky. when done right they are great. when done poorly, its a slap in the face. rn im going to establish a formula to what makes a good redemption with an example.

the most well known example of a good redemption is zuko from atla. first, its the magnitude of what theyve done and why. zuko did commit some shitty actions, since he was in a position of power in the fire nation but its because he is a child being abused and wanted to regain honor. zukos real awful acts was season 1 and the whole betrayal thing. thats not to say that zukos actions suddenly are okay, he did shitty things. but its something that can be traced to a higher entity or seem less malicious then the other villains. the thing also about the magnitude of actions is that there is a certain point of atrocities that there is no redemption. some people simply cannot be redeemed because the actions they commit are so ingrained in their character or the action itself has serious moral issues that it would just be wrong.

the next is acknowleding what they did was wrong. a genuine reflection on the self and analyzing what they did and why it was not okay. zuko realized what he did to uncle iroh was bad for example. he turned his back on his father, realizing he didnt and shouldnt seek acknowledgment from someone as heinous as him. its pointing out your actions and going ‘hey, this wasnt right i should not have done this’ and not even excusing ur actions. its also going straight for the root of the problem and figuring out to stamp it from the source. just because a character is sad does not mean they are reflecting, sometimes they are attempting to garner pity. it has to be direct and clear acknowledgement of the injustice.

and finally, an important part about redemption arcs is the actual redemption part. its when you make amends. zuko made amends with katara by trying to help her get revenge, he fought against the fire nation and tried to make things more peaceful in his rule. he apologized to iroh. an important part of the amends section is that it does have to be a genuine desire to change and become a better person, not to change a person’s perception of you. the thing is u cant expect a person youve hurt to forgive you. you cant expect people to be sympathetic towards you nor should u attempt to make urself sympathetic. u shouldnt be expecting a pat on the back or an award. redemption is about internal and character change.

why dream should not be redeemed

ive already established the key points to a good redemption (imo) but heres where dream falls short. his actions are extremely heavy so redemption may not even really be possible. abuse is not something you can wave off so it does cross to the point of fucked up. acknowledgement of what he did was wrong? all he said was that he changed, yet never explained why he changed or was too vague. he needed to label specifically what he did and bring it up. attempting to make amends? he’s been doing the exact opposite in fact he continues to manipulate tommy and ranboo. its not a genuine change. he is still repeating the cycle and has given no indication of ceasing. at the moment he does not have any signs of redemption.

and the thing is most of the attention around a dream redemption comes from either justifying his motives (which i do want to emphasize does not make anything suddenly okay) and because he is sad in prison sad face. these are not good reasons. its gonna pain me severely to bring this up but snape from harry potter does have some form of sad character ig yet he very much abused his authority to bully children as old as 11 just because he said ‘aight gonna die’ doesnt suddenly make his general bigotry and abuse suddenly okay there is a threshold. again im so sorry for using harry potter as an example none were coming to mind and i needed a popular one i do not like harry potter please dont say i do i would pass away.

and the last thing to consider is the audience. keep in mind that the audience is composed of minors and while yes there are adults, minors are the main component of the fandom. keep in mind that there are quite a few people who can relate to tommys character because they might be in the same position or have gone through his experiences. tell me what kind of message does it send to that audience that abusers can be redeemed. this is not a narrative u should push to this audience in these situations and the writers are seemingly aware of it. remember how in exile tommy spiraled into a suicidal mentality? consider how fucked of a message it would be if he just committed suicide instead of escaping abuse and attempting to recover from his experiences. tommy did an excellent job in not going that route and having a message of ‘it will not get better’. its the same thing here. victims are not obligated to care for or forgive their abuser, and portraying an abuser as sympathetic might fuck with the message a lot, even change their perception in that ‘oh, maybe my abuser was right, maybe they had a reason for treating me the way they did’. this is not to say that every victim watching this will internalize this message, but people also look up to these characters. there can be a degree of influence from the story onto oneself and thats the dangerous part.

conclusion

all in all dream is a shitbag asshole and probably shouldnt get a redemption because it would not be pog thanks for coming to my ted talk.

[kendrixtermina]

Thoughts re: antagonists

Fair warning: I will be treating “Rhea is an antagonist” as an axiom here to base further discussion on it, if you disagree with that premise then this post isnt for you but im not gonna go into details about proving/arguing it here. 

So on the surface Fodlan appears like your standards issue medieval fantasy setting governed by the rulers of the three countries, but it’s actually a sort of post-apocalyptic leftover of a world where advanced technology once existed, a bit like those legends or pseudoscientific theories about a grand, but sinful civilization before the biblical great flood or Atlantis. Man Grey Proud, wiped out by divine punishment yadda yadda resulting in a setting with two main antagonistic forces that have control and shaped the current state of Fodlans politics through the centuries and have been locked in a costly eternal war:

There’s the remaining Agarthans who want to destroy the surface dwelling civilization AND the Nabateans to rule the surface themselves (which makes them enemies of the church) and there’s Rhea who effectively rules Fodlan from the shadows to the extent that she’s basically arranged the three countries so that her base is in the middle, since the ruling class takes its legitimacy from the church and she makes sure to indoctrinate them when theyre young. 

The result is a world thats rife with instability, inequality, xenophobia caused by isolationism, obsession with bloodlines etc. all side effects of maintaining church power, none of which is doing much to keep the Agarthans in check - they deposed the last emperor and assasinated the last king, have agents in Rhea’s own base and Rhea’s too busy lashing out against random revolts brought on by her incompetent rule to investigate and weed out the real enemy

You have Rhea representing “nothing changes”/ eternal stagnation of Fodlan’s sucky state as it is, Lawful Evil or a “rule the world” villain whereas you have the Agarthans who just plain want to destroy the order of Fodlan so they can rule it,  Chaotic Evil or “destroy the world” villains - We see what Cornelia and Arundel do in the territories they get a hold of, they just squeeze the peasants for their last tax dollar, do forced labor, institute tyrannical and capricious rule... etc suggesting that if they won the people would basically end up as livestock. 

Clearly that’s worse; Rhea’s world sucks but you can still kinda live in it and she will be nice to you if you stay on her good side. But she doesn’t see humans as capable or deserving of governing themselves either. (whereas all three lords basically end up giving the commoners varying degrees of political participation)

They’re even represented as Black (Liberation Army with Agarthan stragglers) and White (Church under rhea) on the map for the chapter introductions whereas the other factions get colors (Empire - Red, Kingdom - Blue, Alliance - yellow, resistance army/reformed church - silver/purple)

The Agarthans are fun conceptually in what they imply for the setting but as characters they don’t get much dimensionality but I don’t think they need to be _ I too used to think pure evil was boring, then I lived through 2016 et al and due to endless frustration with the remaining politicians got to appreciate that the revelant thing about pure evil isn’t the evildoers themselves but how you manage dealing with them in a world with complex webs and balances of power, conflicting self interests etc basically no unambiguos “pure good” everyone can agree on . Pure evil is ultimately an abstraction every evil person likely got evil somehow and could theoretically turn good - but many of them won’t and we still have to deal with it. And that’s the point here - what will the good and neutral people do about it? Will they fall for the traps play the games and be turned against each other? 

Often dysfunctional systems happen not so much because there are evil people (there are always evil people) but because the good and neutral people are too busy bickering to stop them even though the good want to do good and the neutral should at least want to protect their own interests from the villains.

Generally Chaotic Evil tends to be sorta more interesting because it’s the cooler villains/creatures or it’s someone lashing out, whereas lawful evil tends to be crotchery old men and kind of pathetic (See Harry Potter for example) and are often engaged with as sorta younger person rebelling against crotchery old people.

But that also comes with the idea that Lawful Evil is Not You. You can easily see your capacity for destruction as you all get mad and have negative emotions but we all like to think we wouldn’t fall prey to blindly following authority... though studies repeatedly show that ppl overestimate themselves. 

So Rhea is interesting in that she and her most uncompromising followers are semi sympathetic thoroughly examined version of Lawful Evil. (Sympathetic enough that they let you subject her to “love redeems” if you want to, though her S support still acknowledges that she used to be a villain, deceive everyone and used to care nothing for byleth until very recently - You don’t need to marry, say,  Dimitri so that he starts acting responsibly. heck, you could run off with any of his best friends!)  Ppl who are especially susceptible to authority often do so because they feel scared,  view the world as dangerous and sort of never fully made that transition from child to adolescent and subsequently young adult where you stop doing what your parents tell you and start making your own experiences. They’re scared of the unfamiliar and want a strong parent figure to swoop in and protect them and tell them what to think. 

Rhea describes herself as the “last” Child of Sothis meaning she was the youngest, she might’ve been relatively young when the massacre happened (at least by Nabatean standards). She probably survived only cause she hid in fear or because her brothers protected her. 

Eventually she raised an army, got allies and dethroned Nemesis and his ilk, effectively ending up as one of the leaders of her country. The people probably loved her alot after all she got rid of the murdery bandit king - seeing as he has a general might makes right attitude and wasnt above massacring a whole clans worth of innocents for power, he was prolly not a good ruler to live under. 

 She felt she had to live up to the mission left behind by their mother (as Seteth said they view themselves as the protectors of Fodlan) but she still acts as if she were that scared helpless little girl.  She never got the memo that she’s in power and privilege now because sometimes that’s kinda how the mind works. So as she started getting increasingly tyranical she saw it all as “protecting herself” or “doing the will of her mother”. You can see how she got to be that way and follow that progression on an emotional level

She views herself not as the leader that she is, but solely as Sothis’ representative holding down the fort till she returns, and doesn’t enjoy being a leader indeed many things like tea quotes, advice box letters, higher order supports etc. imply that she kinda hates it and finds it lonesome. 

Which also makes her a contrast for the main characters but in different ways - Claude and Edelgard (incidentally the ones who actively oppose her and find out at least some of what her deal is) are very independent, self-reliant and self-determined even at a young age, and even though they have experienced comparable crap, especially Edelgard. Meanwhile Dimitri actually had a lot in common with her in terms of backstory and character flaws and going overboard/hitting the wrong target in pursuit of initially justified revenge and tending toward black and white thinking. You kinda see why they join up in CF -  though he has tons more responsibility, empathy and self-awareness even as his very worst and in his own route he eventually winds up doing pretty much the exact opposite as hes strictly against imposing anything on people and ends up letting them have some say in how he governs them