“WHAT MAKES A MONSTER?” - a c!dream analysis about monstrosity, humanity, and the difference between them

(3/?)

wc: 4980

PART ONE: https://twitter.com/dreamsdisk/status/1384999901755543552?s=21

PART TWO: https://twitter.com/dreamsdisk/status/1385002686983069710?s=21

GUYS I’M SO SORRY FOR HOW LONG THIS IS THIS IS EMBARRASSING ,,,, someone tell me to get a hobby pls /lh i’m just very self conscious suddenly dhdkdb

While CC!Dream has confirmed his character wears a mask, and also that he prefers human fanart (but likes either!), whether or not he is human is WIDELY debated, and indeed it’s a source of argument for two reasons: a) debating whether he is possessed by something (a dreamon) +

or b) whether he is inhuman for another reason. Fanart of Dream is perhaps the most varied in terms of depictions of him, ranging from a human, to a demon/dreamon, to a straight up dude with an orb head (orb head Dream my beloved LMAO). With very little confirmed by CC!Dream +

himself or his skin (,,a green blob), the fandom is left to theorise, which falls into that monstrous, frightening category of Unknown and Other. While there are other non-human characters on the SMP, we at least KNOW of them - Dream is an unknown, of unknown species and +

unknown origin, someone who refuses to “participate in the classincatory "order of things", “a form suspended between forms that threatens to smash distinctions”. Dream is different from the other species and characters on the server, whether he is possessed, dreamon, +

entirely human, something else, and it is this unknown that leads a lot of people to say he is a monster, in that he hurts humans because he isn’t one, that he can’t experience human feelings, that he is immortal, et cetera.

5. THE MONSTER POLICIES THE BORDERS OF THE POSSIBLE.

(ngl i fell asleep reading this one so had to google a one sentence summary of it so this one might be shady LMAOO)

Cohen’s fifth thesis talks about those who are considered monsters often BECOME them because of this rejection of their humanity - they embrace the “monstrous” and claim it as their identity despite it being assigned by others. +

I could talk about this forever LMAO: right from the start, we see Dream being cast into the role of the villain - in the L’Manburg War, in the Manburg-Pogtopia War, in every skirmish and every conflict, and by the time season two rolls around, he is undeniably what most +

would consider to be a “monster”. Dream constructs his personality around what others think of him - going from “I’m NOT god” in the dethronement scene to “I’m basically a GOD!” after bringing Tommy back to life, accepting Tommy’s “you’re a monster” with a simple “okay”, +

calling himself a “puppetmaster” after dozens of characters, and thousands of fans, have called him one… I am not trying to argue Dream became a monster through entirely the actions of others, but he definitely took the monster part to heart - how many names along those lines +

has he given himself?? How many “evil” lines has he hit out with (“I’m just toying with you, I’m playing with my food” “every hero needs an origin story (...) You can have Tubbo” “if you can’t kill me, what does that make me? Some kind of God?”) over season two? It’s very +

hard to argue that he hasn’t constructed an identity for himself out of other people’s presumptions of him, regardless of whether they were right or not - and even harder to argue that he hasn’t at least picked up on some of the dehumanising language he has been referred to as.

6. FEAR OF THE MONSTER IS REALLY A KIND OF DESIRE

Oscar Wilde (my beloved) argued in his defence of his book The Picture of Dorian Gray that the only sin committed in the book is that which the audience reads into it or sees within themselves. In the same way, the monster, Cohen continues in his sixth thesis, acts as a +

buffer through which we can live out desires and wants that are socially unacceptable for us to admit, but can be projected instead at the monster. This is something I think we see a lot of in terms of monstrosity for the SMP, and I’ll be talking about Ranboo as well as Dream!

So first, a quick example from our man Cohen - he argues it’s possible that sea serpents and monsters were invented to sit along the edges of medieval merchants’ trade routes to discourage exploration and ensure they had power over trading oils and such.

In the same way, Dream and Enderwalk Ranboo are created monsters, because certain other characters have desires or wants they see as “unfitting” of them as a person or “morally wrong”, so they project it onto Dream and Enderwalk Ranboo.

We’ll start with Dream.

The person who first begins to turn him into something monstrous is Wilbur back in the L’Manburg War, when he claims Dream is a tyrant, and then in the Manburg-Pogtopia war, where he has not yet fully admitted to himself or to Tommy that he is hellbent on blowing Manburg up +

no matter the cost. In his mind, and in Tommy’s, it is easier to present Dream as the one who wants chaos rather than Wilbur himself - Dream, who very clearly only ever wanted order and peace rather than what Wilbur suggests he does. It could be argued Quackity in season two +

does the exact same with Dream in his (discontinued) El Rapids arc: he paints Dream as the tyrant when taking power when really it is QUACKITY who wants to be the one taking power, which he soon goes on to do !! Quackity views Techno and Dream as enemies not because he +

necessarily disagrees with them, but because he wants what they have — power — and arguably projects his own fears/desires of tyranny on to them.

And now for Enderwalk Ranboo!!

stay tuned for part four oh my god why is this thread so long god