I created a survey on character!Dream, asking what fans thought of him, because at the moment the fandom’s opinions are so divided and I find that incredibly fascinating. I spent far too long analysing the results, working out who was more likely to vote for what, so with each question I'll tell you the patterns I found, and why I think they're like that. This is a rather long post, and you don't have to read it all, however I think it's important if you want a better understanding of the people in this fandom.
You can look at the summery of responces here. This one is formatted clearer, though there are a few responses that it doesn't show. You can see all of the results in spreadsheet form here. Keep in mind the quiz was still rather active at the time of writing this, so the percentages may be slightly off from screenshots I have, which I took when there were about 350 responses. There are now over 700 response.
A few things to note:
Be aware that there are quite a few character!critical responses from people in the results, particularly towards c!Dream, c!Quackity and c!Sam.
The pie charts will have a ton of smaller sections where people have written more nuanced/alternative answers to the questions. I've gone through most of them, so I'll tell you of they follow a trend. There are quite a few longer, more in depth ones that I might post individually sometime, but if you're curious you should be able to see them in the data.
These results were taken around the 22th of March, 2021, and any of these opinions could change over time as more c!Dream content is released and the fandom evolves.
From here on out, unless I wright cc!Dream or cc!Quackity, I'm talking about their characters. That goes with any other character as well.
Anyway, lets get into the responses:
The first thing to note is that the majority of people like c!Dream, finding his character compelling/interesting. Also, you can see that the people who dislike dream very often tend to have much stronger feelings than those who like him.
This graph has the highest amount of alternative answers out of all of them. The majority of them are saying that they do indeed like c!dream, though then clarifying that they don't condone the immoral things he's done. I find that interesting, because this question wasn't about if they agree with his morals or not, and if the question said another character, say Technoblade or Wilbur, I think the people who like that character wouldn't so often feel the need to clarify that they don't condone all the bad things he's done. In other shows/media as well, if someone really likes the villain, they don't tend to find it necessary to clarify that they don't agree with the villains actions. It would just be assumed that they don't.
Why is that different for Dream fans? Well, it's because many people - typically those who dislike/hate c!Dream - often assume people who do like him/simpathise with him also tend to justify and excuse his actions. They often express distain towards Dream sympathisers. You can see that if you scroll through the results of the fifteenth question.
Are they right, though? Do c!Dream sympathisers condone his actions?
Well, as you can see here in the blue segment, about 1% of people say that they find that most of his actions either justifiable or reasonable. That works out as less than 4% of enthusiasts/apologists who feel that way. And keep in mind that those people are saying most of his actions are either justifiable or reasonable, not all of them. Those people also often say in later questions that they still believe he deserves punishment/to be in prison. Currently None of the 600 people said in the alternate answers that they believed that the worst of Dream's actions were justifiable/reasonable (specifically what he did to c!Tommy).
I repeat, there was not a single person I could find, who said they believe what c!Dream did to c!Tommy is justified.
If you are someone who believes that many c!Dream sympathisers excuse the worst of his actions, here is the evidence that shows that is very much not the case. The spread of this misconception has led to many times where people's incorrect views on dream sympathisers have caused them to be unjustly cruel and scrutinising, and I've personally seen many dream sympathisers feel excluded, unwelcome and even hated. Even constantly bringing up the tiniest minority when talking about dream sympathisers often implies that most of them are like that, which only furthers the harmful misconception.
Going back to analysis: 58% of people think that c!Dream probably thinks his actions are justifiable, however 38% think he knew his actions were unjustifiable. I reviewed fifty answers of those who said they like/love dream, and fifty of those who said they dislike/hate him, and I found that people who don't like him are about three times more likely to assume he knows that he was in the wrong, compared to those who like him. It is hard to know for sure what he thinks of his actions, as we don't see his POV and can only look at clues in other's streams. There were a few notable points people made on whether he thinks his actions were justified/reasonable or not:
"Considering he asked if people thought it was cool he killed Tommy and revived him his idea of reasonable seems extremely skewed, so he might know or not, but his actions are still abhorrent and unjustifiable from and outside perspective and I think to an extent he is aware of that."
"I think he thinks his actions are reasonable, but knows that everyone else thinks they aren't. Kind of an "the ends justify the means" sort of thing"
It doesn't show on the image, but the third option says that dream needs to be in pandoras vault to keep other's safe (53%), and the fifth option says that he deserves punishment, but the prison is too inhumain (48.7%). There are a lot of more nuanced alternative answers talking about Dream being in prison that get cut off on the summary chart, so if you're interested in those, they're on the spreadsheet, though here are a couple that I found interesting:
"If this were a real life situation, I'd totally be onboard with prison reform; however, this is fictional and I think there is something super narratively compelling about Dream being trapped in an inescapable box that he commissioned and helped create."
"treating someone as less than human and starving isolating and (implied) hurting them over a long period of time is inhumane and will never allow dream to recover if anything he will end up even worse because of what he went through and how it changes his view of the world"
Going back to the hundred responses I analysed, I found people who hate/dislike Dream are about 32% more likely to say he deserves to be in pandoras vault, and 26% less likely to see the conditions of the prison as too inhumane for him.
About 70% of c!Dream fans voted that Dream does not deserve to be tortured, mainly saying that torture is always immoral, 16% said that he kind of deserves it, but only slightly, and 2% said it's just karma.
However, out of the people who don't like Dream, only 30% said that he doesn't deserve torture, with 60% of them saying that he does, (26% saying he kind of deserves it, 28% saying its simply karma, and 6% saying that he deserves even worse). This doesn't surprise me all that that much, mainly because those who have negative feeling on c!Dream almost always strongly hate him, so if they have more extreme feelings there, it would be fair to expect them to have more extreme feelings on how they want him to be treated. It is notable, of course, how it tends to be the same people who accuse sympathisers of excusing his immoral actions, but they tend to want other characters to commit immoral actions against c!Dream.
Do I think this means c!Dream haters condone torturing bad people IRL? Not necessarily, as the alternate answers that those people submitted often explained how they obviously didn't condone IRL torture, and while I don't have the stats to back up this claim, I do believe that is how the majority of them feel. Just like how if someone thinks many of c!Dream's actions are justifiable/can be forgiven, it doesn't mean they would think the same way about an IRL person who's done similar things to what c!Dream has.
I find that particularly in this fandom, there are a lot of people who conflate people believing something should happen in fiction, with them believing the same should happen in real life, and that is simply not true. The most common alternative answers throughout this whole survey actually were people feeling the need to clarify that their opinions regarding fiction are not indicative of their opinions regarding real life. I don't think they should have to clarify that position, and instead it should just be assumed, because it is the position of pretty much everyone I've ever seen/met who wanted a morally questionable thing to happen in fiction.
Of course, if you are someone who thinks c!Dream should be tortured for whatever reason, you should be wary how you phrase that and who you discuss it with, as what you say can hurt people, mainly those who like his character/sympathise with him. And while in most cases there's a disconnect between IRL beliefs and what you want to see in fiction, there is a difference between wanting a fictional character to suffer because it's narratively satisfying/cathartic, and saying "this person deserves cruel and immoral things to happen to them because they are immoral/ because they did x and y". Even if those aren't your IRL beliefs, justifying them in that kind of way often makes it seem like they are.
The main negative affect trying to ethically justify fictional torture/physical abuse of a character is that it very often leads to real people feeling hurt/upset. I've seen this happen quite a lot, where c!Dream haters will tell sympathisers, whether directly or indirectly, that their favorite character sucks and deserves to be tortured/dehumanized, and that can be very upsetting and disheartening, especially for those who hear it often.
This one's pretty standard, it shows how most people are glad about c!Dream's fall into villainy, with a few thinking it was a shame (mainly c!Dream fans).
This question did prove a suspicion of mine though: about 4% c!Dream fans didn't know about his character arc, while about 26% of people who hate/dislike him didn't know about it. I figured this would be the case, as often those who hate c!Dream express that they don't understand why people like him or find his character compelling. The alternate answers they give also often indicate that they know less about his negative character arc, often believing that either he used to always be as bad as he is in cannon currently, or expressing that they found his change from normal guy/antagonist to an evil villain extremely sudden and unpredictable.
I honestly understand why they tend to think this way, because cc!Dream doesn't stream his perspective, we are not explicitly told his character's though process like we are with most other characters. We only see him from the perspective of other characters, and that's rather infrequent, so unless you're paying attention to his character in those streams/actively looking for moments that show his character, his arc is really quite easy to miss. Thinking back to Wilbur's fall into villainy, we could tell how he got from point A to B because we saw his POV, however if you were to only watch someone like Fundy or Niki during that time, you would only know as much about him as they do, making it much harder to understand his arc. That exact thing has happened with c!Dream, but with no option to watch his POV.
When posed with the question of whether Dream should get a redemption arc, those who like c!Dream were somewhat split, with 40% saying it would be ok, 24% on the fence and 32% against it, while out of the people who dislike/hate c!Dream 16% wanted it, 6% were unsure and 74% were against it. A common reason people didn't want him to have a redemption arc is because they weren't keen on the idea of c!Tommy and other's Dream's hurt forgiving him.
Now, redemption arcs don't have to involve forgiveness, the main criteria is that the once bad/immoral character changes into a better person and feels remorse for their previous actions. With that in mind, I asked what people would think of a redemption arc that only focused on Dream changing for the better, not on him getting forgiveness from other characters. The results were much more in favour of that, rising to 65% of all the voters who would want that kind of redemption arc, 21% who are unsure, and only 14% who wouldn't want it.
You can read through the answers people gave on question 7, though here are some responses I found insightful:
"Yes. I think it would be really interesting to see the cc’s tackle the fact that becoming a better person doesn’t require someone’s forgiveness and that no one is under any obligation to forgive Dream either. Improvement is personal. I also think it could send the inspiring message that no matter what you’ve done or who you’ve been you can become better. Not to mention that Quackity falls into a villain arc it would make for an amazing narrative contrast."
"Yes, other characters have no obligation to forgive him for hurting them, but i would like to see him become a better person and maybe deal with that trauma and aversion to attachments he's been dealing with."
"Yes, I would like for his redemption arc to be focused on his own recovery from what I see as some serious mental illness"
"Yes, but I think it would have to stem from other characters pushing him in the right direction, whether they forgive him or not. As it is now I don’t think he’d feel any remorse just on his own."
"I can't think of anything else they'd be able to do with his character, at this point I think a redemption arc is the only thing that will help people feel satisfied with the end of his arc. He's been evil for so long that if they killed him off after all that it would be... eh..."
Kinda, but it would be uncomfortable to me unless they played it very very well
This one did surprise me, as I didn't expect 12% of people to think that Quackity's reasons for torturing Dream were justifiable or even good. This question is set up the exact same way as the second question about Dream, with two options saying his actions are unjustifiable, and one saying they are justifiable, and I even used more morally weighted language here, as well as specifically talking about the worst of Quackity's actions, which I didn't do for Dream, yet there are still over 10x the amount of people who feel comfortable saying Quackity's actions are justifiable or even good.
Remember, not even in the second question's alternate answers did anyone think the worst of c!Dream's actions were good or justifiable, yet here there are so many people voting to say that the worst of Quackity's actions are good or justifiable, even a few the alternate answers clarified that this is specifically what they thought.
What I think is important to point out, is that even though there are less of them in total, those who hate c!Dream made up about two thirds of the votes that justify torture, yet it's those same people who often condemn/don't like of c!Dream sympathisers, claiming that they're the ones who are more likely to excuse immoral actions. Often times when c!Dream haters talk about c!Dream sympathisers, they imply that trying to justify/downplay what he's done to c!Tommy is the same as justifying IRL emotional abuse, yet with that same logic applied to them, about 22% of people who hate c!Dream must condone IRL physical abuse, right? Well, no, of course not. Going back to the point I made before, people's beliefs about immoral things that should happen in fiction do not tell you what their IRL beliefs on similar topics actually are, and you cannot reasonably or fairly assume that is the case.
Back to analysis, I do wish I could explain why there seems to often be this double standard among those who hate c!Dream, but I honestly don't know why it's like this. There are probably reasons that explain why a fair few of them think this way and what others think compared to them, although I just don't have data on it. Perhaps I'll do more research on this topic in the future.
Regarding the other two main options, 40% of people believe that Quackity thinks his actions are justifiable, while 34% believe that he knows his actions are unjustifiable. Here are a few more nuanced answers people gave on this question:
"I reckon it's too early in his arc to determine just how selfish his actions are. Torture in of itself isn't morally justifiable (understandably, this is a Minecraft Roleplay™. But the fear in Dream's voice and the severity of the situation was just so visceral this time around. Particularly with the blood on his shirt afterwards). I think attempting to fully justify his character simplifies the moral complexity that makes his character so compelling."
"His reasonings are mixed. Part of it is selfish but there is another part that is getting “justice” for Tommy"
"his reasons for doing it are justifiable, and morally, no, i don't think he should, but it's a minecraft roleplay and morals went to hell ages ago and yeah i'm gonna cheer him on"
multiple people said quackity's simply being a girlboss and I found that amusing
About a third of the fanbase would say Quackity's a villain, half would say he's an anti-hero and a few believe him to be a morally grey good guy. The fact that 48% of people voted that he was an anti-hero might surprise some people, yet it might be totally reasonable to others. This is because the term "anti-hero" actually covers a wide variety of character types, and it is hard to agree on one set definition. The term is typically defined as a hero/protagonist who is lacking in heroic qualities/has unheroic qualities, but that's not really that precise. This video explains the range of character's people may call an anti-hero. You can probably see why it was an oversight on my part to use this term. If I were to do something like this again in the future, I would add a more nuanced, better defined option here instead.
Surprisingly, there was no real difference in what c!Dream fans and those who dislike him voted here. I expected c!Dream fans to more often say Quackity is a villain, yet that was not the case.
I have my own opinions on if Quackity is a villain or not, but of course this post is supposed to be focusing on the fandom's responses, not mine, so here are a few points that people made, and you can check out the rest on the summary or spreadsheet linked at the top:
"He's going down a villain arc but he's always been a decent guy, he's just trying to survive (and get power but often, especially earlier, he would sacrifice power for morals)"
"narratively i don't think he's a villain as is, but he could easily become one and probably will if he succeeds in getting the revival power. i'm not talking about his morals so much as his role in the story here"
"A villain to who? I definitely see him as a character who has only ever knew power struggles in the smp and perhaps sees gaining power as the only method to keeping himself safe/allowing him to live a good life"
"Once again, I feel like this is difficult to tell this early in the arc. In season 1 and 2, I'd definitely consider him a morally grey good guy (his actions were most certainly morally ambiguous, but this was in conjunction with a constant care and dedication to his friends and country. Might be biased as I was watching from his perspective though.), but at the end of season 2 it was quite obvious just how utterly destroyed his character was mentally. Since that point, with the most recent stream, there is a more overt darkness to his character; without his country and friends, his actions appear more self serving and villainous. Basically, I'm not sure and I'd like to see where he goes from here."
"Personally i don't think he fits any basic character "types" he's morally grey but all dream smp characters are. Do i think his actions make him a bad person though? Yes, it doesn’t matter what your intentions are torture is not okay. But i don't think it makes him a villain or an anti-hero.
"He’s similar to Dream in MANY ways and that’s all I’m really going to say about it."
I asked this question mainly because I had a suspicion that people who dislike/hate c!Dream would like c!Tommy more, and I was proven right:
Out of those who like c!Dream, 64% have positive feelings regarding c!Tommy, with 20% being neutral and 12% having negative opinions on him.
Out of the people who hate/dislike c!Dream, 86% have positive feelings towards c!Tommy, typically being stronger ones, with only 4% being neutral, and only 4% disliking him.
Why did I think this would be the case? Well, when an antagonist is cruel/evil towards the protagonist or a beloved character, the viewer is more likely to hate that antagonist compared to the other bad guys, even if those other bad guys have done objectively worse things. Take for example the character Professor Umbridge, from Harry Potter. Fans of the series pretty unanimously despise her more than the main villain, who's done objectively worse things than she has, because what she's done has been far more personally cruel towards the characters. What I'm saying here, is that when those who really like c!Tommyinnit see characters being cruel/villainous towards him, like c!Dream was, they are more likely to form strong negative opinions on Dream.
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Those are the main questions on the survey that I wanted to analyse, though I'll go over the others here quickly:
"Do you think Sam is a moral character after Quackity's recent stream?"
I asked this question after I'd already gotten half the results, so it would be hard for me to analyse. The answers seemed pretty split, and I suggest you check them out yourself if your curious. Here are a few answers people gave:
"I think he's crumbling under the burden he gave himself when he became the Warden. i believe ultimately he is moral but he's going through a Rough Patch"
"I think c!sam has a lot of guilt, and he wants to do the right thing, but he’s sure how to anymore. C!Quackity guilt tripping him to get into the prison just to torture Dream definitely made him even more confused from a moral standpoint."
i don’t think there are any villains/heroes, just diff levels of morality. I think sam's morals are in the right place or he tries for them to be but he’s blinded by his own weaknesses and fear, which fucks with them leaving him with dark morals
"When did you start watching the SMP?"
I do have a hypothesis that people who started watching the SMP earlier would be more likely to like c!Dream, as they would probably have a better understanding of his character arc, and while the data I have does seem to support that, I also feel like this data set in specific would need far more than the hundred answers I analysed for me to come to a safe conclusion, and atm I don't think I can spend another five hours looking through the results. Perhaps if I do something like this in the future I'll try to find out if I'm right.
"Who's your favorite dsmp character?" and "Who's perspective do you watch the most?"
I asked these two mainly because a few people were interested. If you want to look through these ones on the summary/spreadsheet you can.
"If you don't like c!Dream, tell me what you think of others in the fandom who like him/find his character compelling or interesting?"
This is the question I referenced earlier, when talking about how some people who hate c!Dream view Dream sympathisers and apologists. There are a few misinformed negative comments in this section, though hopefully this analysis of the fandom will inform people who previously had misconceptions about them.
What's your age/gender?
While there was no notable difference in the genders of people who like c!Dream and people who dislike him, there was a notable difference in age, with c!Dream haters tending to be younger (63% younger than 18 years old, and 34% over 18), and those with more positive feelings towards c!Dream tended to be older (40% below 18, and 54% over 18). I wish I could tell you why this is, but I honestly don't know why there's this trend. Perhaps someone else could make a better guess than me.
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That's it. That's my analysis of the fandom and their opinions on c!Dream. If you liked it please reblog/share. You don't have to, but it'd be cool of you :)
This legit took me over 16 hours, but I loved doing it, and definitely want to do something like this again in the future. Here's another link to the results in case you don't want to scroll all the way up to find them. If you have anything to say about this or any questions, you're more than welcome to send me an ask, or if you want you can message me about it.
Thanks for reading this, I hope you liked it, and be kind.
my friend and i are interested to see how the fandom shares some opinions. it’d be really cool if you could both take this quiz and reblog it to spread it around! thank you.
i think cc!tommy made a great decision by suddenly sending us to eret.
yesterday i was sitting there scrolling tumblr. at about 1 am (8 hours ago) i refreshed the dash and saw them all panicking. "oh well," i thought, "i wasn't sleeping anyways."
now keep in mind that i haven't watched lore streams and vods for a while, and i didn't even try to since the time when i had a nap because "the doomsday won't start for another hour, will it?" and woke up to... well,,, l'manberg certainly didn't exist anymore.
when i opened tommy's stream, i immediately started ‘beatboxing’ with both hands and shaking. then, a bit later, i started screaming in dms - y'know, couldn't start that instantly, for one cannot scream and beatbox at the same time, both irl and via text :) - and the first message, "TOMMY LORE Stream", was sent at 1:03.
"DID HE JUST????????? ***STOP????????????***" was sent at 1:06.
it was three minutes.
it felt like an eternity.
and then at 1:36, half an hour later, i noticed i was calm.
there is a decent chance that i wouldn't be able to sleep tonight, if tommy didn't host eret.
Headcanon that the only scars that stay on a persons body are the ones from canon deaths on the dream smp
Tommy has one through on his chest and another through his nose. Both from dream. He wears a bandaid to cover up the latter but escaping exile and confronting his killer, he let it burn in the lava that could have taken his last life. He was done letting that man have any semblance of control over him.
Tubbo has a scar through his back, and then a large one that starts at his heart and crawls up to his face and down to his hands. He wears the latter uncovered as a reminder to everyone, including himself of what to not become.
Quackity carries a smaller version of tubbos scar above wear his lungs would be. And another on his jaw. He tried and failed to cover up another sign of his own weakness.
Jack mantifold was surprised to find no scars left after escaping the void. His body a slate wiped clean of all dealth, free to be painted anew.
Ghostbur wonders if when he returns his body will be the same. The three perpetually bleeding wounds closing and fading into oblivion. Or would the one through his heart instead remain as a scar. A reminder of the death of a ghost who just wished for peace.
Edit: I imagine this is the only way of knowing you’ve lost a canon life.
