I want to bring up a part of exile and something Dream did against Tommy that isn’t brought up often.
We know Dream abused Tommy mentally, emotionally, and physically. There’s dozens of examples of this. But there’s one I don’t see brought up often.
Dream was actively starving Tommy.
Tommy hardly had food on the exile cove of Logsteadshire. There were no farms, hardly any animals nearby, and it didn’t matter. When Dream made Tommy throw all items into a hole to be blown up, he’d be clear he meant everything. From armor to wood to food.
And he’d make a point of saying that Tommy could just get more. Mine more, hunt more- but as exile goes on, he does this less and less, and that includes gathering food.
Dream even offers Tommy food at times as a show of ‘good faith’, and during the party scene they eat cake together.
Dream turns food into a reward on Tommy’s good behavior.
Tommy had depression, struggled with suicidal thoughts, hallucinations, dangerous sleep walking, and even various forms of self harm, and one of those was starving himself.
Even when he had a steady source of food, Mushroom Henry, where he had plenty of bowls to make soup…he didn’t. He didn’t eat.
In fact, he’d purposefully not eat- making statements on how he was too tired to do it, or that he didn’t deserve it. He wouldn’t eat, he wouldn’t regenerate health. I know I wasn’t the only one who’d sit there and watch him walk around at night or in the nether on two hearts and less than half hunger with pure fear that he’d die any moment.
And it’s interesting, when Tommy does finally escape his exile, when he runs to Techno, he eats…he eats a lot, but what does he eat?
Golden apples, which has some of the worst saturation in game.
It doesn’t fill you much or long, and he had food. Techno would give him steak all the time. Not to mention he had golden carrots and baked potatoes off hand too.
Golden apples do one thing that the other food doesn’t, it’s potion effects. When eating them Tommy always had resistence and regeneration. Plus, he could eat them even when full- he could over eat them. He’d gone through stacks of them.
But I think it plays a part of Tommy and his issues with food during exile. He didn’t eat, whether it was because Dream wouldn’t let him or conditioned him into seeing food as a luxury, or because he didn’t feel up to eating due to his plethora of reasons, this carried over. He ate golden apples, plenty of them, but they wouldn’t fill as much as steak, they wouldn’t be as filling or nutritious, but Tommy’s goals weren’t to eat, it was to keep up those effects. It made him feel safe- he didn’t get as hurt as easy when having them.
And I think, although a stretch, it plays into how Tommy is now. He doesn’t really eat to stay full. He has foods that are homey rather than filling (bread and carrots vs. cooked food), and he only eats when he can no longer regenerate or if he’s lost health. If he’s running around and loses hunger? He doesn’t eat until it gets low. (On a meta note, its just how Tommy plays the game).
But anyways, yeah. That’s another long term effect Dream and Exile had on Tommy- his relationship with food and eating habits, and how for such a long time he was quite literally starving to death.
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