Lord of the Rings fanart! I watched for the first time recently and loved it
A list of some bits of Dream SMP character perspective lore that I remember sometimes, and they hit me like a train:
-Both Tommy and Tubbo (as well as possibly a lot of the Pogtopia members) still believe that Wilbur placed the buttons all over the base in an act of insanity, instead of it being Fundyâs prank.
-Everyone believes that Dream blew up the community house, not Ranboo, with some of the people that werenât in the Season 2 finale probably still thinking it was Tommy (like Fundy).
-Tommy never found out that the disc he and Tubbo nearly died fighting for was, for a while, in the possession of Ranboo, somebody he trusted.
-Schlatt died believing that Quackity placed the TNT under Manberg, and probably still thinks he did.
-Almost nobody knows the full extent of what happened to Tommy in exile
-Niki doesnât know Ghostbur exists (she thinks he was a hallucination, or just a figment of Fundyâs imagination), and might never find out about him.
-A lot of the members that joined post-original Lâmanberg, like HBomb and Ranboo, have a relatively negative opinion about it because all they know about the original era was that it started from a drug van, and they donât know about the police brutality, the independence stuff, or really any of the true reasoning for founding Lâmanberg.
-Judging from the fact that both Quackity and Karl were extremely surprised to find out about it and didnât know previously, a lot of people donât know that Tommy gave up his discs for Lâmanberg and therefore falsely believe that he has only ever sacrificed things FOR the discs.
-Wilbur never found out that Eret was truly sorry for betraying Lâmanberg and actually wanted redemption, and he also never found out that people like Fundy or Tubbo, never actually were against him or wanted to betray him.
Some of the character perspectives are really interesting. A lot of characters have completely different ideas of events that happened due to lack of information, with some of them still holding these beliefs. Itâs a really interesting form of storytelling, because it makes everyone an unreliable narrator in at least some way.
⌠No, What Tommy Did Factually Was COMPLETELY Insignificant Compared To Dream
Tommy:
Caused chaos when he joined the server, but non maliciously. He wasnât the only one to do so, however, and was often joined by other characters. He also wasnât the first- Ponkâs tree had gotten attacked at one point before he even joined.
Killed Dream⌠along with Sapnap, which resulted in Tommy getting punished and Sapnap not even getting a slap on the wrist. Dream doesnât even mention that Tommy didnât do this alone, placing all the blame on Tommy when he wasnât all to blame.
Engaged in the disc war.
Sold drugs with Wilbur- namely, these drugs were potions (so, not anything addictive or harmful), however he DID try and scam people with them, which is probably the greater crime here.
Helped found LâManberg, out of a genuine belief in its peaceful nature and words over weapons and because he trusted Wilbur. Regardless of your thoughts on LâManberg, at worst Tommy was naive here, not malicious. That doesnât mean that Dreamâs feelings over this are invalid, obviously, but it does mean absolutely no serious harm was intended.
Continued to engage in conflicts with Dream after LâManberg was founded, though again this was clearly non-malicious- he and Dream genuinely were friends, and hung out together, and Tommy seemed to think they were in good fun.
Stole Spiritâs leather during one of these conflicts.
Accidentally burnt down Georgeâs house trying to grief it with Ranboo. While he was technically VP, he had tried to turn down the role to avoid this exact situation.
Tried to use Spiritâs leather in an attempt to get Dream to leave him alone.
Tried to keep items in hidden chests in Exile- keep in mind, the fact there was a rule against this wasnât communicated to Tommy until after he broke it, and most of what was in there was shit like pictures of Tubbo.
Left Exile- however, Tommy wasnât even breaking the rules here, he wasnât barred from Technoâs house.
Tried to fight back against Doomsday, though this amounted to nothing.
Killed him in the Disc Finale - something Dream had staged, so itâs unclear if this was even a slight or something Dream wanted.
Upon visiting him in prison, killing Pussboi (the prison cat- yes, thatâs technically her name, Tommy calls her that and while Dream says he named her he never explicitly says what he did name her. Itâs funny call her that more).
Doubting the Revive Book worked.
Indirectly being the one of the causes of his torture- however, this was because Dream murdered him, and Tommy was horrified visibly when Dream told him at Logstedshire, meaning this would be something ridiculously unfair to assign blame onto Tommy for.
Broke into his house with Wilbur, though Tommy didnât realise that Dream lived there until much later and wanted to leave as soon as Dream showed up.
Trying and failing to kill Dream.
Trying and failing to kill Dream again. Well, technically he succeeded for like ten minutes, but still.
Committing murder suicide with Dream- this was out of a genuine belief it was the only way to save his friends.
Dream:
Stole Tommyâs discs as a punishment for Tommy stealing his stuff.
Engaged in the disc war, escalating much faster than Tommy did in a lot of ways, including downright stalking.
Built tunnels under Tommyâs base, something he was uncomfortable and surprised with.
Attacked LâManberg, which regardless of whether it was right or not was incredibly distressing to Tommy.
Blew up Tommyâs house specifically.
Killed Tommy in the Final Control Room- this is canonically the event that gave Tommy PTSD. This was a war crime.
Killed Tommy again in a duel- one Tommy lost fair and square, and one suggested by Tommy. This, unlike the previous death, wasnât a war crime as well.
Continued to engage in conflict with Tommy after LâManberg was founded. Again, the two of them remained friends during this time, so this also was presumably not intended as anything specifically harmful.
Gave Wilbur TNT on his self destructive path, though itâs likely this didnât end up affecting too much.
Betraying Pogtopia for the revive book, when Tommy trusted him and thought of him as a friend.
Framed Tommy for griefings he didnât do in the weeks leading up to Exile, and while the exact reasoning is obviously unclear in hindsight it seems likely that it was to get Tommy exiled no matter what- he had plans for it explicitly after all.
Built walls around LâManberg and threatened Tommy and Tubbo. He also said he didnât care about anything but control over Tommy (and then by proxy the server), and regardless of whether Dream was telling the truth that doesnât change the mental impact it might have.
While Tubbo obviously was the one who got Tommy exiled, Dream deliberately pushed him into it and later would tell Tommy that he was the one who did that.
What he did do was himself exile Tommy from the Greater Dream SMP, leaving him stuck only in the wilderness.
Blew up Tommyâs summer house and made him watch.
Forced Tommy to give up and destroy his items.
Hit Tommy with weaponry until he cooperated. This nearly killed him on several occasions, and Tommy explicitly called it very painful.
Would constantly insist that Tommyâs feelings that he expressed werenât real, and he was just exaggerating (for instance, insisting that he was just messing around when he said he hated him).
Insulted and berated Tommy on several occasions, to the point of distress.
Insisted he and Tommy were friends, despite Tommy being uncomfortable with it, and conditioning Tommy into believing it through love-bombing and isolation.
Deliberately lying about how his friends didnât care about him to keep him isolated and dependant, and making him feel like any visitors were just there to gawp at him.
Hit Tommy with his fists whenever he displeased him, to the point Tommy stopped reacting to it at all (Tommy in later streams would confirm this was almost certainly intended to be physical abuse, and not just general Minecraft body language).
Kept the rules Tommy had to follow inconsistent and didnât ever fully explain them to Tommy, leading to him getting punished for things he didnât even realise he wasnât meant to do (or was).
Forced Tommy to hear his friends having fun in the Greater Dream SMP seeing the Christmas tree while he was forbidden from even looking under pain of death.
Showed no concern to Tommy self harming or barely eating, and only seemed to be upset by him attempting suicide because itâd interrupt his conditioning.
Gave Tommy meaningless gifts often in an attempt to lovebomb him, something  that has lead to Tommy interpreting gifts as a sign of aggression later on.
Forced Tommy to destroy his own stuff on occasion, under threat of further physical abuse.
Conditioned Tommy into seeing a lack of abusive behaviours as something deserving of thanks.
Let Tommy throw a party, then deliberately sabotaged the invites so Tommy would think he was alone, and spent the evening alternating between lovebombing him and telling him no one cared about him (except, implicitly, himself).
Killed Mexican Dream in front of Tommy for seemingly no reason other than him interrupting his manipulation and abuse.
Tried to gaslight Tommy into believing Mexican Dream died of an overdose, and tried to convince Drista that Tommy murdered him.
Conditioned Tommy into seeing certain parts of the abuse as bonding rituals he should be thankful for.
Did all of the above in an attempt to force Tommy to help him in some way- in hindsight, it seems likely that this involved the experiments with the revive book some way.
When finding Tommy had hidden chests, threatening to leave him alone despite him being Tommyâs only human source of contact at this point and banning him from the Nether, something he had no authority over.
Refused to let Tommy apologise and try and fix things in favour of punishing him.
Destroyed everything Tommy had built, leaving him with little food and nowhere to sleep, and making him watch.
Killing Mushroom Henry, the only other living being Tommy had with him, and making him watch.
Forcing Tommy to give up everything- including innocent items such as his pictures of Tubbo- and blowing them up, making him watch.
Repeatedly hunting down and watching Tommy after he left to Technoâs, despite the fact Tommy wasnât breaking the rules of exile nor was Dream actually in charge of enforcing them.
Mocking Tommy at the community house and using him as a scapegoat.
Blowing up Tommyâs home, which heâd explicitly tell Tommy was because it entertained him (again, regardless of whether this was true it has the same effect on Tommyâs psyche).
The whole Disc Finale, regardless of being staged, was intentionally intensely traumatic and distressing for Tommy. He was threatened with a return to the same abuse he was under before, and forced to say goodbye to his friend in Tubboâs mock execution.
Had Tommy trapped in the prison with him, something that caused him intense distress, and declared it was going to be like exile- essentially, threatening to abuse him again.
Murdering him for a third time because he questioned the Revive Book, despite Tommy begging for him to stop, in his own words to prove a point.
Leaving Tommy in Limbo- something he knows from personal experience is distressing- for the equivalent of two months. (This, effectively, means that Dream used it as another punishment method in his abuse!)
Needled Tommy on information he already knew, seemingly just to distress him further, and asked Tommy to basically become his personal experiment- regardless of whether this was a genuine attempt to get Tommy to join the revival experiments and become essentially a God with him or not, it still greatly distressed Tommy.
Revived Wilbur, something he knew deeply distressed and would be torture for Tommy regardless of whether the intentions were to do so or it was just a byproduct.
Almost immediately after breaking out of prison, going to physically and psychologically torment a terrified Tommy.
Threatening Tommy with not only repeated killing and revival- something Tommy feared more than anything- but also with making him immortal SOLELY to torture for eternity, leading to Tommy to feel like (and I directly quote) his toy, puppet, and plaything.
Psychologically torturing Tommy by putting a disc of his torment under his house and trapping him there, along with leaving threatening signs.
Destroying his discs- they were fake, but Dream didnât know that. This was, however, to prevent Wilbur from committing suicide again.
âSparingâ Clingyduo only because they desperately begged only to force them into a twisted experiment where one of them had to sacrifice themselves. While this only resulted in the destruction of the discs, Dream couldnât know that.
Threatened to kill everyone on the server- itâs unclear if this was true or not, since this contradicts what he says later on (which Iâll get to), but this broke Tommy completely and left him suicidal again.
Laughed at Tommy talking about his attempted suicide.
Continued to torture Tommy even during the final stream- killing and reviving him, and then downright dismissing his agony immediately after.
Continued to blame Tommy for everything up until his very last moments, and never actually apologising once.
Potentially completely lied about his motive and plans to change. Making the server immortal like he suggested in this stream contradicts what he said in the previous one, where that would destroy the End and the server itself so he needed to kill everyone to balance it out, so in one stream or the other he had to be lying.
(The only things listed here is what effected each other, but I think itâd be unfair to bring in anything else. What Tommy and Dream did to, like, Jack Manifold or someone doesnât effect the otherâs feelings on them)
Dreamâs list also has a lot of ââprobablyâsââ just because on most cases we havenât gotten a direct explanation of why they did it like in Tommyâs case, or theyâre in an unreliable circumstance, which unfortunately makes his exact motives unclear. We know broad strokes, but not every reasoning like we do with Tommy in a lot of cases. This isnât something I can fix without even more wild speculation, sorry!
As you can see, while Tommy isnât perfect, what Dream did to him is the equivalent of hitting someone who slaps you in the face with a hammer, and then insisting it was their fault and continuing to hit them with said hammer while they try to apologise. Dream is an unreliable narrator himself, and needs a scapegoat to explain how him driving away all his friends couldnât possibly be his fault (I might make something expanding on this later).
The tragedy isnât that Tommy and Dream were equally bad for each other. The tragedy is that Dream is so lost at this point he canât see the difference. His attempts at making the server closer lead to him losing sight of what was okay, leading to him seeing torture as equivalent to being a troublemaker, and this means his plans were ultimately futile because who would want to be friends with someone like that?
The closure Tommy got wasnât that he was bad too, or that Dream was misunderstood. Hell, it wasnât even that Dream wasnât a villain, not exactly. Itâs that he was a pathetic man instead of a God. One with immature and childish goals who blamed others for his own faults. Dream was a human, a fucked up one, and not some sort of unstoppable force that would haunt him forever.
And, most importantly, it was proof that he didnât deserve what happened to him. Because, yâknow, doing all this in the name of not wanting to be alone is completely insane and unjustifiable. Hell, itâs proof that makes his exile and the repeated threats of immortality worse, because if that was the exact intention behind them, it fully means that Dream didnât even do this out of hatred, despite his claims to the contrary, and how could any pain caused be justified then?
Tommy and Dream are not equal in terms of suffering. Not even close. But theyâre human, and time and again Tommy has tried to appeal to the part of him that doesnât deny it. He can acknowledge where he fucked up and try to fix it⌠and thatâs the difference between him and Dream. Thatâs why his list is so much smaller. And thatâs why it was always too late.