#also the whole ‘bad doesn’t want to kill’ thing does NOT apply to quackity

[petrichormore]

AND ONE MORE THING: DRAMATRIO IS FINE

(Also to be clear: I like analyzing these things. I enjoy “arguing” over these characters - it’s like enrichment to me, it’s fun, I’m never actually mad I just like writing long posts. And yeah the following is about the characters, not the CCs.)

I see a lot of people talking about how the election is tearing apart friendships - specifically the dramatrio and how Bad and Baghera don’t trust Forever anymore and yadda yadda

And to that I say: Are you sure?

(loooooong analysis below cut)

Are you sure? Because last I checked all three of them greet each other warmly. All three of them care deeply about each other and get along well. All three of them have repeatedly stated that they wouldn’t mind if one of the others became president - and that’s still true. They are at odds politically, maybe, but I think people are overestimating exactly how much they disagree. They argue about politics and they criticize each other’s points, yes, but that doesn’t mean they don’t trust each other or that they think anyone would “become a dictator.”

And I’m seeing that a lot too, on twitter and on tumblr: this idea that Bad and Baghera are convinced Forever and Cellbit will become dictators. And while I think it’s interesting… it isn’t true. I can only imagine this came from the debate where Bad and Baghera criticized insaneduo’s perceived embracing of centralized power? (So did Gegg/Slimecicle, btw) But once again, it’s not Forever and Cellbit that they distrust (well Cellbit maybe a little), it’s a position of centralized power that technically only has to listen to the Federation. Which is a valid ground on which to criticize an opponent’s platform, at least in my opinion. (I agree far more with socio-anarchy aka Bad’s position than a centralized government of any kind so I’m aware I’m biased on that.) But I’m not biased in saying that Bad and Baghera definitely don’t think Forever and Cellbit would become dictators, they’re simply wary of what the Federation could do, and also aware that absolutely power corrupts absolutely.

And before I get to how Bad and Forever are still clearly besties, I do want to hesitantly broach the idea that the position of president - as it’s presented by the federation - is not inherently democratic. In fact, I’d argue it’s kind of more similar to a dictator role, or maybe that of a monarch. The president is not required to listen to anyone, the president does not have to have the peoples’ agreement. The only force the president is actually required to answer to is that of the federation. Just because the president is called “the president” and the federation is making people vote for it doesn’t mean the position itself is democratic in nature - just the process by which the position is decided. You could call the president “king” or “ruler” and it would fit just as well.

Anyway.

Bad said just today that he thinks Forever would make a great president; his problem is not with Forever, his problem is with the Federation. In fact, Bad is still completely okay with Forever entering his and Dapper’s home, and if Bad really felt like Forever was a threat? I assure you that permission would be immediately revoked. And yet it hasn’t been.

Bad and Forever literally spent time with each other on stream today, and neither of them discussed politics because politics doesn’t matter in regards to their friendship. This has always been the case, and nothing has really changed. People claim Bad got more distrusting of his friends due to the election and I’d say he didn’t get more distrusting of his friends in particular - he just got more distrusting in general, because people were being secretive. He’s paranoid, and he’s right to be. Also I know Bad told Etoiles that he might (MIGHT) help Foolish kill other candidates (besides Gegg and Baghera) and I’m saying: He’s not serious. He’s not being serious. He’s a silly guy. Like try and picture Bad genuinely trying to help Foolish kill Forever. You can’t. I know you can’t. Because he’s not serious. If anything, he’d probably just want to watch Foolish get killed trying. This is the same guy who proposed a whale pit of death as a viable assassination method - he’s not actually out to kill anyone (except elquackity) he’s just messing around. He thinks it would be funny, and he’s right. If Bad actually kills a candidate (that’s not Elquackity) unprovoked I will be so so proud of him.

Because if Bad wanted Forever dead - if he truly thought he needed to kill Forever or Cellbit to save the island - they would be dead. And Bad would do it himself; he would do anything to protect the island’s inhabitants, and he’s fully capable of it (I recall Baghera getting upset with him specifically because he refused to promise not to, under any circumstances, kill her.) Bad will kill if he feels like he has to - he just honestly doesn’t really want to. It’s that shrimple.

#it’s not actually that shrimple #I’m leaving out a couple things but it’s long enough already #also the whole ‘bad doesn’t want to kill’ thing does NOT apply to quackity #either one of them actually #tldr the dramatrio is still going strong #also like honestly bad and forever didn’t sit together on a bench to watch the sunset because they don’t trust each other #they did that because they’re in lo #i mean what who said that #qsmp #qsmp character analysis #q!bbh character analysis #q!badboyhalo #q!forever #q!baghera #qsmp elections #qsmp politics #qsmp thoughts #additionally the whale death pit is based as fuck

[simplepotatofarmer]

technoblade: a takedown - pt. 1

(not clickbait)

aka i go over every argument people make against c!techno one by one and determine whether they’re valid, false, or a mixture of both. i rewatched every single stream/video, including those on his alt channel, so i could approach this with the most information possible. i’ll be breaking this up into parts because there’s just too much otherwise. all about the characters unless stated.

techno believes in a ‘dog eat dog’ world - false

this is an argument i see used a lot when people discuss techno so i wanted to address it first. luckily, the stream in which he says this is only his fifth stream on the server. there’s one major reason why this argument falls apart and one minor reason that isn’t objective like the first.

first and most importantly: techno has never acted on this. even at the beginning - which is when this comment was made - he was helping his allies, from building railings to keep them from falling, making a potato farm, and all the gear he grinded for to equip his allies in pogtopia with. moving forward, he’s also helped out plenty of people: giving tommy a place to stay and items, telling phil to reach out to ranboo after doomsday, as well as giving both tommy and ranboo food when asked. there’s more, of course, but the point is he’s never once followed up on this statement. he teamed up with quackity to stop the egg. he spoke to niki about how he was giving anarchy a bad reputation because of the violence and wanted to take a different approach which he has.

when people use this argument to insist that techno is the villain, it doesn’t hold up because it’s merely taking one statement he made and upholding it as a main part of his character when his actions and later statements have shown that he doesn’t actually believe in this randian view point. objectively, i can’t see how this argument can extend beyond ‘well, he said it’. regardless of what he said during the pogtopia arc, he’s said the opposite later - wanting everyone to live free with no oppression or imperialism - and has never acted on it nor brought it up later. this take honestly seems disingenuous and was in fact the driving factor of this post.

second and not as critical, techno mentions multiple times during each of his first streams that he’s not sure who all is on his side. this is a reoccurring point for him. he makes the comment about wanting a dog eat dog world during the red festival stream, while speaking to bad and sam. the first part of the conversation is techno asking about state secrets since they’re (as far as techno knows) on manberg’s side. bad mentions schlatt killing cats and techno launches into a spiel about massive anarchy and the weak being huddled in fear, asking them how does that sound. bad says as long as there’s no cat murder, perhaps. bad then asks techno what his ‘single issue’ is and techno responds that he wants to destroy the government. to me, the context of the conversation, who he’s speaking to and what his opinion of those people is, is an important thing to consider.

techno’s ‘we’ll burn that bridge when we get to it’ comment means he was always going to betray pogtopia/l’manberg - valid but not how you think it is

i’ve seen people say that techno saying ‘we’ll burn that bridge when we get to it’ is a clear sign that he was always intending to betray pogtopia/l’manberg which, yeah? 

but i wouldn’t call it a betrayal. 

he says the ‘we’ll burn that bridge when we get to it’ line at the end of the ‘eve of revolution’ stream while he’s talking to quackity, ponk, and sam. the conversation is as follows:

techno, to quackity: i’m glad we could get to know each other. i heard you’re on our side now. i heard you betrayed schlatt.

quackity: yeah, that’s right. are you betraying anyone?

techno: no. i would never betray my personal ideals.

[some chatter from ponk and quackity]

sam: what does that mean? what if the people you’re fighting along [sic] have different ideals than you, though? doesn’t that mean you’d betray them?

techno: listen... we’ll burn that bridge when we get to it.

then techno states that he ‘said what he said’ when sam questions him about his choice of metaphor.

he actually uses the same malaphor at the beginning of the ‘revolution’ stream when they (quackity and tubbo) question him again and in that case techno definitely avoids the subject which isn’t a good thing but considering everyone was so worked up about the possible traitor, i can completely understand.

overall, techno is extremely upfront about his intentions. yes, there is definitely some miscommunication between all the parties because none of them were on the same page but that doesn’t make techno the bad guy here nor does it mean he betrayed anyone. he was upfront about his intentions from the start.

in his first two streams, he makes a joke that if they happen to set up a new government/president that he would just take that one down and it would be a never-ending cycle. over and over, he says that he wants to do destroy the government/manberg. when tommy mentions taking it back, techno says, ‘what do you mean, take it back?’ though this kind of gets lost in the middle of everything else - dsmp (lack of) communication strikes again. 

the takeaway that i see here a lot is that techno always intended to betray them because he knew tommy wanted to take back l’manberg and knew that he would go against them if they set up a new government. and this is true to an extent! he did know that tommy wanted l’manberg back and he did know that he would go against them if they set up a new government. but wilbur was also telling techno that he was on board with the whole anarchy thing. 

none of them were on the same page and that surely led to a big chunk of what happened and hurt feelings on both sides but that doesn’t mean techno betrayed anyone or that he was the bad guy for doing exactly what he said he would do from day one.

techno destroying (l’)manberg was wrong - it’s complicated

the first thing to address here is that for most anarchists, destroying a government isn’t a bad thing. in fact, taking down the government/state is basically our goal. now, i don’t speak for all anarchists, of course, but overall the general feeling is that violence in the name of overthrowing an oppressive government is not inherently bad. there’s no way to do a one-for-one here because it’s minecraft but the general sentiment remains. so while violence enacted against the state is a bad thing for people who aren’t anarchists, techno has no reason to and would not view it as inherently bad.  

but it did hurt people and techno himself acknowledges that fact. he’s acknowledged what he’s done when confronted about it. he hasn’t said he was wrong because understanding that it was hurtful doesn’t mean he believes he was wrong. to him, he wasn’t. destroying what he viewed as an oppressive system was the right thing to do, even if it hurt people.

(also this isn’t any kind of meta but i think it needs to be pointed out that wilbur had already set off the tnt and techno summoned two killable mobs which did plenty of damage but he didn’t say wilbur was the great who came before them for no reason.)

again, this is going to be the most controversial part of this post because i don’t believe destroying government is a bad thing and i don’t believe techno is wrong for believing that as well. there are better ways to address the problem and techno is adjusting his tactics but if another government was to be established, i don’t believe he would be in the wrong to destroy it because he’s an anarchist.

the tl;dr of this section honestly could just be summed up with ‘watch less marvel, read more ursula k. le guin’.

‘techno is the villain because he called tommy the hero’ - so very false 

this is a take i’ve seen that to this day i don’t understand.

techno calling tommy the hero does not mean he was setting himself up as the villain in any capacity. it was merely pointing out tommy’s habit of putting himself at the forefront of almost every conflict, trying to shoulder everything, no matter how it hurts tommy himself. the speech was directed at that and nothing else. it doesn’t mean techno is the villain, it doesn’t even mean there is a villain; there are more stories to be told than the classic hero-villain and the hero-villain narrative doesn’t always apply to stories. (i’d certainly argue that it doesn’t apply to the dream smp but that’s a different conversation.)

techno is to blame for tubbo’s death - false

i think this one has been done to death but what would a techno post be without it?

no, techno is not to blame.

he said over and over that he was outnumbered and believed that if he had done anything, everyone would’ve turned on him and ‘torn him to shreds’. even if that wasn’t the case, it is what techno believed. he had no reason to think that he could take the entire crowd out until he actually fired the rocket launcher. and remember, he tested the rocket launcher earlier during the festival on niki (who volunteered) and it didn’t kill her. when he realized the amount of splash damage it did, he gives a surprised laugh and then begins firing into the crowd. 

as for saying he was under ‘mild’ amounts of peer pressure, techno has a habit of minimizing. not just the things he’s done, but often situations that he’s been in that were stressful. he stated that he deals poorly with high stress situations and one of the cognitive distortions that can come with anxiety is minimization. techno doesn’t actually believe it was ‘mild’ peer pressure - it was a situation that caused him enough distress that he brings it up later at doomsday - but it’s easier to deal with a situation when you downplay it, it’s easier for techno to keep up that calm façade when he’s acting as if whatever happened wasn’t that big of a deal even if it was. again, the way he speaks about it on doomsday was clearly upset and emotional. 

the only person to blame for tubbo’s death is schlatt. he was the one pulling the trigger and techno was the gun.

if you made it this far, thank you for sticking it out! i spent so many hours rewatching all the streams, some of them multiple times, while taking notes to be able to do this. i’m extremely passionate about techno and i feel as if a lot of the arguments against him tend to miss the nuance of his character. this project is on-going and i’ll be going over the butcher army/retirement storylines next. feel free to submit any points you’d like to see addressed! 

#technoblade #dream smp #dsmp analysis #dsmp meta #tommyinnit #tubbo #quackity #dsmpblr #dream smp analysis #loyal does meta #this......is a lot #i spent so much time on it y'all

[businessbois]

I just want to say as a someone studying political therory and politics in uni the dsmp as well as the fan base makes me want to cry lmao. The same ppl who use tommy stealing as a bad factor to his character are also the ones who are the first to defend technos anarchy and gov corrupt so let’s blow it up. I’m just trying to apply social contract to this whole thing and there is literally no consistency. And there’s no way to have a serious conversation with these people cause they read so far into the plot promote specific characters but at every counter argument they go it’s not that deep as a response. God my brain hurts so much. I would pay good money to have, or even just see someone have, a conversation with techno about how his whole anarchism/ libertarianism is any better then establishment when he has never actually come up with an alternative system. As well as his view of the social contract and Hobbes and the justification of working with dream when theoreticaly that goes against his whole thing. I know this makes no sense I’m so sorry I’m just in so much pain trying to make sense of all this and my brain has stopped functioning.

my friend im going to be so honest, i have very little ideas about politics, i’ve got a solid 68% in APUSH rn, but i will attempt to appear intelligent here. yeah i think the whole “tommy steals tommy bad” argument just so does not work. that’s literally the norm on this server. everybody steals. is it morally correct? maybe not but like,, on ranboo and foolish’s first days they were both mugged multiple times by multiple people. hbomb put up a social experiment ancient debris wall and fundy yoinked the entire thing. thats just how it be. people are very momentarily annoyed by the stealing but then they go A) steal whatever was stolen from them from someone else B) go kill the person who stole from them and then continue with their day C) just sigh and replace what was stolen. so the basis for what’s makes someone “bad” or “wrong” on the smp is completely different. but if you’re going to be mad at stealing, you have to be mad at murder and terrorism too. 

i’ve seen a lot of takes about techno and his brand of anarchy that i am not smart enough to speak on but im pretty sure there’s something wrong there. yeah, a lot of people talk about how he destroyed the government and just didn’t give them any other way to function. like instead of being like “here’s an alternative system,” he just decided to throw the whole country away. um, i know he’s got stuff going on with his club or syndicate but i feel like that’s on hold until the egg thing gets squared away?? but yeah, the fandom has a lot of criticisms for techno’s anarchism and methods that don’t get brought up in canon because i don’t think the other creators know how to have that conversation, so if you just wanted to whitelist yourself and discuss w him that’d be poggers. i think tubbo and/or tommy have briefly brought up the flaw of A) saying you’re fighting against oppressive power while also being the most powerful person on the server and B.) teaming up with the other most oppressive power on the server. tubbo asked something along the lines of “doesn’t this make you kind of like a tyrant too?” to which techno responded “the ends justify the means” which is like ? okay mr blade?? and then tommy i think said something in the boat ride pre-festival about going against dream and techno was like “dream’s just an individual” and yeah idk my brain hurts too

please don’t stress yourself out thinking about this. take a break. take a nap. have a cup of tea. *hands you a picture of alex quackity* we’re gonna be okay

#/rp #long post #dsmp analysis