i think Eretâs betrayal was really the turning point of the SMP, and it deserves more credit. like, before that we had conflict (of course) but it was all fairly standard. hell, the Revolution was one of the most vanilla stories you can possibly tell; a group of underdogs rise up against the tyranny of rulers and establish their independence. itâs such a basic conflict, and was defined by very clearly established good guys and bad guys: LâManburg good, Dream SMP bad. this is exemplified by the LâManburg national anthem, which is a fantastic piece of propaganda that idealises LâManburg as a âspecial placeâ, free from the âtyranny and bloodlustâ of the Dream SMP. this was a narrative that the audience never really challenged, and the streamers didnât either.
but Eretâs betrayal began the spiral into moral relativity and clashing ideologies that defines the SMP today. suddenly, those good guys and bad guys werenât so clearly defined. suddenly, motivations went deeper than just âfighting for our countryâ, and the pursuit of power became a common theme. it took some time for those ideas to take root (for example, the second version of the anthem dismissed Eret entirely: âfuck Eretâ. heâs a bad guy, now. weâre still the good guys). but the ideas were there, both for the audience and the streamers. people began to question the narrative they had been fed, the notions of right and wrong, leading to an election arc where Wilbur and Tommy - our initial heroes - were very openly undermining the democratic process. even as the audience was overwhelmingly on Pogtopiaâs side, questions were raised as to the fact that they were staging a coup against a democratically elected leader simply because they felt entitled to it, because they were the heroes. the story began to embrace this: Wilbur wondering if they were the âvillainsâ. it culminated, of course, in Technoâs bid for anarchy and rejection of systemic power structures, his assertion that power corrupts, and that LâManburg was never the paradigm of goodness that it painted itself as, and perhaps never will be.
and thatâs just on a meta level; in character, i honestly believe the effects of Eretâs betrayal can be felt in practically every major LâManburg character decision since. itâs most obvious in Wilbur, of course. the dude never recovered, never quite learnt to trust again. Eretâs betrayal was the first crack in his image of a perfect LâManburg - the LâManburg from the anthem - a crack that would spread after Schlattâs rise to power, and eventually shatter in his corruption arc. in the culmination of this arc - the destruction of Manburg - he purposefully mirrors Eretâs âIt was never meant to beâ, thus returning to the first moment he realised that good and evil werenât quite so black and white.
but Wilburâs not the only one: all of the original LâManburg boys struggle with trust nowadays, and all of them have strayed from the vanilla perception of morality that the LâManburg revolution represented. Fundyâs very existence conflates Wilbur and LâManburg into one being; Fundy is the first child of LâManburg, and thus is Wilburâs son. as he grows to acknowledge Wilburâs flaws as a father, then, heâs also rejecting LâManburg. heâs revealing, retroactively, that the perfect LâManburg from the early days never existed, or could only exist in the simplified perspective of a child. Tubbo, meanwhile, is the third president of LâManburg, and Wilbur has already lampshaded the fact that things donât usually go so well for the president. Tubbo has begun to make dubious decisions in the name of his country, the power leading him towards increasingly out of character actions. heâs (arguably) turning into the very tyrannical ruler the anthem condemned, making weapons a bigger and bigger part of the supposedly peaceful nation. and Tommy, the one who secured LâManburgâs independence. he was the protagonist, the force for good. he was supposed to be the paragon of what LâManburg stood for, giving up his selfish desires (the discs) for the good of the nation. now, heâs prioritising those discs over everything. heâs been exiled from LâManburg, unable to align with their morality anymore, and is working alongside their number 1 enemy in pursuit of his goals.
even Eret themself, after a brief attempt at redemption arc, has embraced their place of power despite it putting him at odds with the âfriendsâ he tried to prioritise on November 16th.
look, moral of the story is that Eretâs betrayal began the steer the story away from the typical good vs bad narrative it initially mirrored; began the turn away from Hamilton, to the slightly more morally grey Heathers, to bloody Greek mythology (home to some of the most morally complex stories around). it shattered the characterâs perception of the world around them and what they fought for, and resulted in all of them turning away from the idealistic LâManburg they once fought to establish. it even made them realise that said idealistic LâManburg may have never existed in the first place. thatâs why Eretâs betrayal continues to be such a prominent feature in fan material, and the most memorable part of the Revolution; it changed something fundamentally in the moral framework of the narrative, and broke something that can never truly be fixed
