So after the entirety of tumblr decided to add their own two cents to the first post I made on this blog (thank you though guys I actually do appreciate the interaction <3) I’ve decided I want to expand Dream’s fear into a deeper part of his character.
I still do think that Dream is largely motivated by fear, but I should have specified what exactly he is scared of because being scared of different things results in different actions.
I like to think of Dream’s fear as his motivator in action i.e. he reframes all of his goals as a fear-based response in his mind. I don’t want to lose this server and have everyone split apart —> I am going to attempt to control everyone because I am scared of that outcome.
I believe this way of interacting with his surroundings is very different from how for example Tommy frames his goals, which, in contrast to Dream being reductive as in wanting to prevent an outcome, Tommy is productive as in he wants to bring an outcome about. I want L’manberg to exist —> I am going to fight for it because that outcome brings me joy.
So with that reframe I do still believe that Dream as a character is very much fear incarnate since the view he has on his goals and actions are almost entirely reductive.
But what outcome exactly is he scared of?
Okay to be honest I feel like if you don’t understand the underlying motive behind his actions you kind of need to have not watched the DSMP at all because he states it multiple time with zero contrary subtext during some of the most important events that happened:
He wants to unite the entire server so there’s no more conflict, war, division and suffering. Which, to credit him, there is a lot of.
But I do think it’s interesting that he considers it to be his personal duty to bring this unity about. There can be multiple reasons for that.
For one, it could be that he simply believes that if he’s not the one to do it, nobody will. Which, fair, he has much reason to believe that given that everyone else on the server seems to be out for conflict and blood to some extend. But then, why not just gather the people that agree with his philosophy and run somewhere far away? One, that would be a boring plot and two, given that Dream is the first member of the server, plus the entire part about god and him sharing a face, I do believe he has developed a sort of mother complex in relation to the server.
I know that the whole “dream has a god complex” joke is barely a joke these days but rather something the fandom assumes to be a fact. I could actually go forever on about how NPD coded Dream is and how the narc abuse rhetoric has made people villainise characters with his traits without giving them a second thought, but I don’t think people talk a lot about how this “god complex” of his is actually a saviour complex.
Not that either of them are recognised medically, so for the sake of this analysis I’ll differentiate them as follows: a god complex is someone who believes themselves to have much more ability, privilege or infallibility in comparison to other people and a saviour complex is someone who believes themselves to be both capable and responsible for fixing people according to their own definition of what it means to be fixed.
Both complexes share the fact that they find themselves dogmatically infallible, believing that their world view is more correct than that of anybody else and that everyone who disagrees with them is misguided in some way. But a saviour complex doesn’t require the belief of being especially capable, privileged or infallible, and a god complex doesn’t require feeling responsible for other people.
Now there’s an extremely good argument to be made to say that Dream has both, but I would actually say he leans a lot more on the saviour complex side, if only because his paranoia keeps him from seriously underestimating people around him. He does not feel like a cult leader to me, someone who thinks of himself capable of directly controlling people, matter of fact I don’t even think he thinks of himself capable of more than the average member of the server.
I’ve always found there to be a very fascinating aspect to him as a character where he lets himself get into suicidal situations that he knows can result in his death or severe injury and most importantly, he doesn’t deny that possibility. He knows there is a huge gap between the reputation he has acquired and his actual person and he exploits this gap again and again to manipulate himself and acquire a confidence he normally wouldn’t have.
With a god complex, I feel like he’d seriously believe in his own superiority, but in the lore, it becomes evident that he doesn’t. He’s willing to learn and to let himself be corrected in favour of his goals. He’s ready to be humiliated, beaten, tortured, in order to advance.
So that leaves us with his desire to save everyone, prevent all conflict and usher them into an era of peace, prosperity and unity.
But why does he want that? I personally believe that all character motivations can be traced back to some form of love, and simply wanting to save everyone hasn’t reached that step yet.
There’s multiple reasons for why someone might have a saviour complex. It might be out of a religious motive (not applicable in his case), out of guilt or an inherent feeling of owing people something (I’ll just go ahead and say not applicable in his case), a genuine, mortal fear of the alternative outcome (he fears the outcome of failing his mission but that is not what motivates it inherently).
I’d say the reason for his saviour complex is something that becomes awfully evident throughout all of his interactions with the server members when you consider that he as the admin can just threaten to kick people out until they bend to his will:
He loves them with all his heart.
As the first member of the server, he considers all of the members his responsibility not because of some overarching mission ordained to him, but simply because they are his family. I keep going back to the line that he told Punz in front of Pandora’s Vault:
“I’m gonna do something that nobody will like me for.”
Notice how he didn’t say “hate”, or “dislike”? I think it’s because in his mind, the server members won’t truly hate him. Because he believes all of the hatred, detachment, spite and pain is temporary. He’s scared of his plan failing and so he keeps telling himself that it’ll be okay, that alienating everyone and everything is for the greater good.
There’s the juxtaposition of him detaching himself from others because he fears them ruining his plans, while these plans in the very end is for the good of the people around him, at least in his head.
Remember how I said that Dream’s always been willing to put his life on the line for his goals? I think that extends to everything he has control over. I think he’s always been willing to put it all on the line, his reputation, his attachments, his hopes, his guilt and shame, because his love for any of these things don’t come close to the love he has for the server and its members.
This of course, is not to say that any part of his plan was viable, healthy, sensible or not morally bankrupt. But when I see characters like him I cannot help but to think of those very particular types of abusive parents, that give up everything they have to send their kids to the strictest education and harshest schools, all in the names of providing them a better life.
And during the nuke ending I think of what Dream said, what Dream could have said and still didn’t. His last wishes were that the server be united, peaceful, like a big family again.
Notice how he didn’t center himself? He centered his own ideologies, yes, but he didn’t centre himself. He could have asked for gratitude, be frustrated at the treatment everyone has given him, made up excuses for his behaviour or tried to paint himself as having some kind of moral high ground.
He did none of that. Because none of that truly mattered to him- what did matter he named, clearly and without hesitation.
Dream is willing to give up everything, even himself and the joy of his “children”, so they may one day have a brighter future.
What a desperate, tired , but ever loving mother, painfully aware of his own inadequacies yet forcing himself to endure the pain it causes anyways.
