Unstable Universe post from me what??? It's also the length of a novella so be warned. No hard spoilers but subtle ones. Also not entirely positive.
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When Spoke posted <Finding 1000 Missing Minecraft Players>, his latest video, glowing praises flooded this subreddit. People were excitedly discussing every detail, trying to predict where the story will go next. Incredible suspense, they say. Superb acting. Possibly the best Unstable episode ever made.Ā
When Wemmbu, Flame, and Parrot posted theirs, there were... still some praise. Afterall, the fundamental Unstable formula for success is still there; aura-farming, dramatic speeches, funny moments. But the overall feedback is far less unanimously positive. Too much plot armour. Hypocritical actions. Baffling decisions (cough cough Lomedy).
So what happened? A mere month ago, the general consensus seemed to be that Wemmbu is the most appealing POV and Parrot the most polished, with Flame on a classic hero's journey and Spoke an acquired taste. What happened? What changed?
In my opinion, what we are seeing here is not anything new, but the consequences of a writing decision made long, long ago: how each protagonist decided to address the fundamental limitation of Minecraft gameplay as a storytelling medium.
Everything within the Unstable Universe happens in Minecraft, and that fact carries significant advantages and disadvantages. On one hand, Minecraft gameplay is fun to watch, inherently relatable, and you can achieve some genuinely good cinematics with builds and advanced shader options. On the other, it is also extremely limiting in certain areas, such as setting and character design; once you reach a certain point, it is almost impossible to produce anything visually new. Most importantly, however, is how your audience (conciously or sub-conciously) perceives stakes, aka what is at risk. Murder is not this horrific unforgivable act, it is just banning someone from a server. Losing all your items is not a life-changing event like losing all your posesssions IRL would be; you can get it back, and quite easily too, since this is scripted afterall. Nothing inherently matters.
The limitations imposed by the particularities of Minecraft is not apparent early on. Afterall,Ā when everything is new, everything is interesting. The Invisible Mafia, for example, is very clever. it takes advantage of Minecraft mechanics to create this genuinely terrifying looming prescence: absolute anonymity achieved through invisibility potions, inspiring paranoia; menacing, glimmering dark purple armour that the audience instinctively knows to respect, because we know the rarity of Netherite; absolute strength through absolute numbers, a sight that would be impossibly expensive to achieve IRL, brought to life through Minecraft. The Invis Mafia were an incredible antagonist faction design-wise, and their enduring popularity makes perfect sense.Ā
A nameless, faceless, inhuman and therefore invincible army is a villainous aesthetic that can be very effectively achieved in Minecraft, but it's also pretty much the only villainous aesthetic that can be achieved in Minecraft. The video game medium does not have the capacity for diversity. Compare and contrat the MCU, for example. Minecraft (The Invis Mafia) can do the Chitauri invasion of New York very well, but it cannot do Thanos. And no matter how cool something is, the more of it we see, the less cool it becomes. So what now?
This is point at which I think Spoke and the other three protagonists diverged in their approaches: Spoke hard-commited to long-term character-driven storytelling, while the other three stayed more or less within the confines of Minecraft SMP.
The key question to answer is <why should the audience care>. Spoke answers this with, because you care about the characters.
So, over the span of multiple arcs and many, many episodes, Spoke carefully curated his cast. Rose, a symbol of his willingness to sacrifice the innocent to save his own skin and goals, forever haunting his narrative. Rose's family, representation of his desperate attempts to ease his conscience. Leo and Jumper, his comeuppance given form, one who he manages to triumph over and one who he successfully lulls with lies, for now. He himself, a charismatic yet compulsively manipulative mastermind, whose genuine affection for those around him will never outweigh his own greed, ambition, and refusal to take responsibility for his actions.Ā And Mapicc! His best friend since the very beginning, who goes with him, wrongly or rightly, through thick and thin. The person who Spoke thinks about when he has trouble falling asleep at night; is he really that bad? Does it really matter? Whatever happens, at least he's still got Mapicc.
All of this is genuinely impressive character work. Why should the audience care? Well, initially, the audience cares because of Beckytron's devastating performance and Spoke's obvious horror at what he himself is capable of, ensuring that even if no other deaths matter, Rose's does. The event proposes a very interesting fundamental premise. Subsequently, every single episode builds nuance into exactly the kind of person Spoke is. Why does he keep BAT's armour with Rose's family despite knowing that this will endanger them? Because his desire to protect them and make amends does not outweigh his greed. Why does he trick an innocent player to die by Leo's hands in <I Got Hunted by Minecraft's Deadliest Stalkers>, despite clearly feeling guilt for murdering Rose, another innocent? Because his guilt does not outweigh his sense of self-preservation.
Why does he attack Mapicc as Leo, just to stop him from living a peaceful life with Jamato? Because Spoke would rather kill the consequences of his actions rather than accept them, and he needs Mapicc with him to make it okay. Ā
Character-driven writing takes a lot of effort, and even more time. Not every episode from Spoke is as interesting as the last. But what Spoke has managed to create is a story with genuine stakes. His murder of Leo has weight, because his chance at turning over a new leaf is at risk. His lies to Mapicc has weight, because their relationship is at risk. And his loss of Mapicc has weight, because his sanity is at risk. It takes a lot of work to make your audience believe this.
What this approach also does is that it frees Spoke from the confines of Minecraft. The breaking of his chestplate is a deeply moving moment, but what matters is that the chestplate is critical to Spoke's identity, a reminder of his promise to Jamato to eliminate exploits, and the fact that Mapicc is the one doing the breaking, not that the item is a chestplate itself. Sure, a whole bunch of Null soliders hunting Spoke and Co down is scary, but the most important confrontation would have worked just as well if it's just Jamato by himself. Spoke is telling a good story; it just happens to take place in a Minecraft SMP.
So, what did the other protagonists do?Ā
Well, they told Minecraft smp stories, and sometimes they are good.
As snide as that sounds, Wemmbu, Parrot, and Flame all produced incredible pieces of media. Wemmbu's <I Secretly Joined My Enemy's Minecraft Team> is one of my all-time favorites, because I find it very compelling how Wemmbu was able to build such a sweet and respectable relationship with Jaden, as long as he keeps the lie he founded the dynamic on going. Very fun stuff.Ā
Nonetheless, the vast majority of the arcs for the other protagonists is heavily reliant on Minecraft-specific things for stakes. Parrot's treasure hunts matter because Minecraft loot is at risk. Wemmbu's Farlands adventures matter because Minecraft orbital strike canons are at risk. Flame's fights matter because whether or not certain Minecraft weapons are dishonorable is at risk. I am not saying that there is no character-work put into these narratives, because that is just untrue. But the fact that remains is that instead of a long build-up towards one incredibly emotionally-charged moment of broken friendship, we see the the stakes in the form of talking to Minecraft players. And Minecraft explosions. And victories over a nameless faceless army of 1000 chungies. And more talking. More explosions. Victories over a nameless faceless army of 2000 chungies. And so on. Murder does not matter. Getting to one heart does not matter. Items do not matter, distance does not matter. Nothing permanent happens, so nothing matters.
By the time the Kings' Arc has ended, the fatigue is really starting to set in. I've previously posted about my thoughts on the Law and LettuceK, and how the story really suffers because it is unwilling to even entertain the idea that they might have a valid point. And this unwillingness to add nuance really hurt the Law's ability to distinguish itself from the Invisible Mafia, because visually they are the exact same, being a swarming mass of netherite players, and story-wise they're basically the exact same too, being unreasonable tyrants and their worker ants who the protagonists can happily murder without compromising their Good Guys status.
It definitely wasn't the booming success the Invisible Mafia was, but at least it's over. So, what's next?
Well, that is the problem isn't it.
The key question to answer is still <why should the audience care>, but the 'easy' answer, because we have really awesome fights where we decimate 10000 little worker ants cannot be expected to work for the third time. Even if it does, what will you do for the fourth time? The fifth? Is Unstable Universe nothing except recycled scripted aura-farming? No. This cannot be.Ā
Parrot tries kingship as his angle. You care about my story because you care about the kingdom, and me as its king. But the issue with inviting your audience to think critically is that your audience will start critiqueing you. Your solution to solving the food issues with chickens kind of sucks. Why do new players matter? Isn't Lettuce kind of right about Wemmbu and Flame being mass murderers? Parrot is trying to present this arc as a new perspective, but the stories he tells of overcoming impossible odds with wit or convincing the idiotic masses with simple speeches are fundamentally unchanged from his non-Kings days, and it's clearly not a deliberate decision to highlight his inexperience because it somehow still works. Why would the audience care, if it's just the same thing we've seen before? Why would the audience care, if we kow you cannot fail?
Wemmbu is dealing with a similar issue. Eggchan is immensely popular, so theoretically threatening his well-being is a good way to get your audience to care. And hey, it's 1 scary guy instead of 1000 not-scary guys this time! Aren't you entertained? But realistically, Eggchan is way too popular to actually be killed off, and we kind of already established that nothing except permanent death really matters. Wemmbu went from filthy rich to dirt poor in a matter of a day and barely seemed to care, after all. Besides, his friendship with Eggchan has been Wemmbu's defining character trait for a really long time. Killing Egg off would permanently change the tone of Wemmbu's story from the light-hearted, funny one he's so popular for, and possibly ruin his career.
So what's left for stakes?
Well, you can pit the protagonists against eachother. If everyone has plot armour, no one has.Ā
And so the current arc begins. Not because it makes sense in-universe or follow natural progression of the protagonists' character arcs, but because the IRL writers are running out of options, and unfortunately it really shows. Forcing a protagonist to fight for you by taking their best friend hostage is Villain 101, and frankly not all that interesting. Again, Eggchan can't really die, Wemmbu's character is not developing at all because 1) he has no agency in this matter and 2) murder does not matter. Someone will save Eggchan sooner or later, we truly are just going through the motions. But Wemmbu's part of the story is straight-up Shakespeare compared to Flame, because Lomedy's very well-established and consistent character had to be completely butchered to provide Flame a reason to join Cindercrest. It is such a baffling writing decision people are coming up with conspiracy theories that Lomedy has been replaced by a doppelganger! Do you know how badly you have to screw a story up for that to happen???
But none of this means that the Unstable writing cannot improve.Ā
I have talked a lot (heh) about how the limits of Minecraft cause stories to become repetitive, or become far-fechted in an desperate attempt to not become repetitive. But its strengths are still very real, and very present. And I genuinely believe that all the writers are skilled at their craft, and each protagonist can carry storylines. It is so much easier to criticize than it is to create, so for the sake of not being a hypocrite, I will put my quick suggestions below:
I want to see Parrot fail. Like many others, I consider the Director Arc Parrot's best, and it is in large part due to how infallible Wifies felt as an obstacle. The difficulties with being a king is a great way to achieve a similar effect. Let two equally sympathetic groups come to Parrot for help, but he only has the resources for one, and must make a difficult decision. Let him make a decision with good intentions, only to have it fail, because he's not used to leading at such a large scale. Let him be desperate, and messy, and defeated. Let someone call him out for not being as capable as he thought, and have them be correct. Parrot has commited himself to always try to do good, and part of that is continuing to do so even when your best is not good enough. Since the very beginning, Parrot has been a trickster-type folk hero, Robin Hood-esque, and folk heroes never fail. Well, he's not a folk hero anymore. He's a king, and it's okay if he isn't a very good one.Ā
I want to see Wemmbu develop meaningful relationships outside of Eggchan. Right now, his story lacks stakes because as established Eggchan can't die, and Wemmbu really doesn't seem to care about much else. He feels invulnerable, but in a very apathetic way. A deeper friendship with Jaden would be cool to see. Let them actually talk about things, such as how Wemmbu try to trap Jaden in that civilization forever that one time. Maybe Wemmbu can help rebuild Pirate city again, and actually grow to care for them. Alternatively, give Minutetech an arc! Everyone loves Minute. Let them go explore the remnants of the Mafia together. Or rebuild the End. Discuss why Minute became so protective of the average player, and how his philosophy rubbed off on Wemmbu. If we're feeling really brave, we can let Wemmbu meet some new players who settle around him, and make him have crazy flashbacks to the Zam empire. Has Wemmbu grown strong enough to dare to care again?
I want to see Flame have a long-term arc. Just in general. I am much fonder of Lettuce than the average viewer, so I'd love to see him pair up with Flame. A central theme in Flame's story has been dehumanisation; everyone sees him as a weapon, even himself, and Lettuce spearheaded it as the King's Arc villain. So let Flame prove to Lettuce, and by extension the audience, how this isn't true. Or let Flame become attached to and try to defend a small group / place on his own. He can have a nice moment where he realises that fighting for a cause rather than survival or fame is how you achieve true strength. His character arc is still incredibly flexible as to where it can go.
As a final note: this monster of an essay is written purely out of love. I enjoy writing, I enjoy Unstable, and I want to discuss it with people. Please don't take this as an attack on anyone or anything; I promise it is the furthest thing from that.Ā
