a theory about Ranboo and the “he is in control (of me)” message from last Monday’s lore stream: (/rp /dsmp)

As we know, Ranboo left a message in his inventory (and potentially though the order of his tasks) that spelled out “He is in control of me”.

Many initially pointed to this as evidence that Ranboo was the one who set off the TNT at the prison, and it attributed it to Dream’s control over Ranboo.

However, this doesn’t really add up. There were other details in the stream that pointed to Ranboo doing the TNT (his shovel durability, noting that he didn’t know what he had done earlier in the day, being online when it happens),

And it doesn’t line up with Ranboo’s storytelling style, either. We already knew Dream has control of the Enderwalk state. Something so deliberate and different has to be more significant than re-confirming prior knowledge, right?

My thought is, this message is not about Dream and the Enderwalker. It’s about the Enderwalker’s influence on “waking” Ranboo.

Ranboo was acting deliberately but questioning his actions, asking “why am i doing this?” but continuing to do it on purpose.

It was almost as if his subconscious was trying to send a message to his waking self, that he was being controlled.

We’ve seen this sort of subconscious, influenced action once before—he was compulsively mining coal and wondering why, then off stream it went missing.

So, then, the question is... why now? Why is Enderwalk Ranboo’s influence over Ranboo growing?

The last major lore Ranboo did before this was outlining his plan to reach out for help. He finally decided he wanted to get help with the enderwalk situation.

After the second stream he mentioned it, over two weeks ago, it stopped coming up. He stopped pursuing that entirely—and along with that, his Plans board had been cleared (by the enderwalker).

That goal, reaching out, was the motivation to exert this influence/control.

Ranboo reaching out for help, confiding in someone, especially someone who won’t rat him out, is incredibly dangerous for both Dream and the Enderwalk. Everything Ranboo finds out about the enderwalk is deliberate, and a third party meddling would make that much harder to control

So he is being controlled. Guided away from that line of action. Guided away from looking into the weird discrepancies in his memory and tools. Guided away from looking into what got Tommy trapped in the prison. Guided away from helping Tommy.

The Enderwalker—and, by extension, Dream—are stopping Ranboo from taking action and figuring out what is going on.

So how does this tie into the lore from today (3/2/2021)? Today is actually what clued me into this! This is the third time we’ve heard Ranboo act (or in this case, not act), and repeatedly comment on not knowing why he was (or wasn’t) doing what he was doing.

He made several comments throughout the first half of the stream about not understanding why he *didn’t* help Tommy.

On the first night of this week, he had a list of tasks that he did instead of investigating the weird discrepancies.

The rest of the week, he was distracted with other plans. (and hey, technically the marriage and hotel are canon, so...)

He hardly acknowledged Tommy was in the prison... which is HIGHLY unusual for someone as high-strung as Ranboo.

Doesn’t it make sense that this “control” he was under was stopping him from taking action that would reveal the Enderwalker’s actions/Dream’s plans? It wouldn’t take much critical thought to put together the TNT at the prison and Ranboo’s actions.

When Ranboo has found out about things the enderwalker has done, it’s been intentional. Now it’s being hidden from him intentionally. He’s being subconsciously held back from doing what he needs to do to fix all this mess.