#bridge-talks

Because despite the fact that this is the saga of a man outnumbered six to one by people who are all trying their damnedest to kill him, it is still somehow, NOT an underdog story. Technically it might be, but lets be honest, no one really thinks of it like that. Just look at the way manhunt!Dream is depicted. The majority of the time he is bullying the hunters, making fun of them, killing them, going serial killer crazy on them. MH!Dream may be the main character of this series, but more often than not he is also the antagonist.

And it's honestly such a brilliant little bit of manipulation of the truth, because it makes for a much more engaging story. Dream loses the majority of runs that they do. We know this, though we don't see it, and if manhunt was just a showcase of skill, if it was just the technical aspect of the game, we would be subjected to a hundred different runs of Dream dying within the first 30mins of the game. It would be boring and no one would want to watch it —not as a video series— but it would be authentic and real, which i guess matters more to some people. Underdog stories aren't fun if the underdog doesn't win. in fact, that's not an underdog story, that's just losing. (though i really enjoy the titantakedown series, but that's because it's fun to see Dream so far on the backfoot for once)

Whittling down the series to only the runs that reach a certain quota of interest makes a better product. I've said it before, but they are entertainers before they're minecraft players. Somehow, Dream has managed to create a scenario in which one person going against six (and going down the number list) seems relatively fair. Which means that when you go into a new manhunt video, you don't know how it's going to end. Being outnumbered should be an automatic loss, but it isn't. (I used to not be super into manhunt because the outcome felt too predictable. The hunter won pretty much always, and I remember when I saw the 2hunters video I was surprised because historically Dream could barely manage one. The 1v1 directly before he won, and I think the one before that as well, but manhunt(+it's variants) is and was the longest running series they've done and I'm pretty sure the speedrunner had never won before those last few times. I remember thinking that the speedrunner was a majorly disadvantaged role and it wasn't fair. Now here we are in 2026, and Dream is on a 6 win streak (not including any from the og series) and 6 hunters. Wild.)

And with the relative fairness, it doesn't feel like a beatdown when the hunters win. Sometimes, you even root for them (like right now, I'm preying on Dream's downfall. I want a hunter win, he's won too many in a row) It doesn't feel extremely unfair like it probably should.

Another aspect of manhunts that I really like, is the way that Dream allows the viewers to learn the manhunt crew as characters and as people. Dream's character is easy to see because we're set in his perspective, so we can see all his mishaps and mistake right in front of us. We get to see him in danger, scared, panicking, and it really humanizes him, especially in videos where he almost doesn't talk. (the comparison of his pov and Sapnap's pov for 6hunters is crazy. He is the terrifying monster villain in that story)

Similarly, having the same set of hunters, with the occasional additions, means that we get to know the hunters as well. We don't see their povs for the most part, but Dream leaves in the banter, he leaves in the jokes, he leaves in and highlights their mess ups and fails. The hunters make stupid choices and irrational decisions, they get things wrong and have emotional outbursts, be it fear or anger or frustration or joy. It all works to endear the audience to what is technically the enemy. They become competitors and fellow game player, not just obstacles