I FORGOT THINGS COULD BE BEAUTIFUL.

For example, one year my grandfather left the birthday card he got me at home and promptly forgot about it. My memory doesn’t really let me forget most things so when I saw him next I knew I should remind him. After all he put forth the effort to do it and I know he was disappointed he forgot and wanted to see my reaction to the funny card he picked (this is not an assumption btw he looked adamantly upset at the birthday dinner that he left it at home). But yea I also wanted to see and read my card, right? So inherently, asking or reminding him of it seems kinda rude or comes across like some selfish and greedy child, which wasn’t how I wanted to come across because like I said he also was sad I didn’t get to read it. So during our conversation at some point I referenced something I got for my birthday in a story and he was all like - oh yea that reminds me I forgot to give you this. He came to it on his own, I just had to prompt the subject a little. So yes I technically used manipulation tactics, but I don’t think that is inherently malicious.

That’s not to say manipulation cannot be used for more malevolent intentions, but it in itself is not, nor does it require abuse, lying or cruelty. I think it’s fair to say that you can use the truth to manipulate someone. Not to mention that lying does often contain partial truths anyways (well if you’re good at it ;). )

In daedalus, in my opinion there is some manipulation going by Dream, but there is also some genuine feelings going on as well. For me (I think I’ve talked about before) there is a change in Dream from the first initial response to Sam’s imprisonment to the next stream (therapy type session). Initially he is all about revenge, making Sam feel bad, rubbing in the karma and punishing Sam and Quackity. He used a lot of threats and thinks through ideas on how to make them suffer and I think the surprise and joy overcame him emotionally here. In the second stream though, his conversation was more tactical, he realized he needed Sam’s access to the prison. So he changed his approach and following actions. Instead of murder, torture and imprisonment for a year, he would get Sam to open the prison so he can use it to achieve his overall plans. This switch is intentional, if he simply wanted to talk about how he felt then there are other ways he could have done that.

Having said that, he was definitely dual tasking because if he can convince Sam that he was wrong in torturing anyone and treating people like Sam did, then it would both be some semblance of satisfaction and help him in his goal to bring Sam off his high horse down to equal levels so Sam’s more willing to help. In his conversations he switches between truth and half truths as well as tactful and emotional with him having the attitude that he’s fine but also deeply hurt. So yes, his emotions were certainly at play and while he does hide them behind other motives and goals that doesn’t mean that those goals weren’t also true. He’s multitasking, using his feelings to achieve an agenda as protection. And this is a tendency with him, his monologues do tend to show truths just not the whole picture.

And part of that frustration and hurt is the simple fact that torture as a form of interrogation tends to be a very ineffective method. More than anything at this point it’s mostly used as cruelty and punishment then to gain intel. Which is part of Dream’s point - you weren’t doing it for the book, you did it because you enjoyed punishing me. To drive his point home, he uses his manipulation to further prove that he didn’t have to lay a hand on Sam for him to get what he wanted. In other words, the torture was ineffective, pointless, bound to fail, and cruel for the sake of it and using a book as part of the intial motivation does not erase those facts.

Here’s how I think some of Dream’s actions were used to manipulate Sam. (Well firstly, again I’d say that you mostly have to ignore the first day, because I think Dream was not yet in his plan to get the book because he didn’t know he needed it.) But by feeding Sam he is creating dependency, he is not playing into what Sam thinks of him as the evil villain, and he’s proving his point. He does all this by giving food which is a generous thing to do since he didn’t even put him there to starve in the first place. One of the other things he does is leave for one day, which furthers that dependency, his point, and his satisfying karma. Dream also plays counselor to Sam, which both highlights the truth (in Sam’s own opinion) attempting to answer Dream’s deep question of - Why? What is wrong with you that said this made sense?…etc - but also allows Dream the opportunity to point out the flaws and bullshit of his mindset. But while this is somewhat cathartic for Dream, it is still part of his manipulation ploy. Notice how he lies about not having tested out the book before killing Tommy and using that to justify his actions. But he also offer’s information he didn’t have to. So yea, he lies and he abandons but he also tells the truth and brings food, good food all in part to convince Sam that he isn’t the ‘big bad’ Sam thinks he is. He does this to change Sam’s view of him in order to partly bring Sam down to his level of “badness” so they are on equal footing, which creates an opportunity for ally ship and unity against a “Greater Evil.” He’s trying to convince Sam that he doesn’t have ill intentions for the prison besides making it his home and as a fail safe against true evil otherwise Sam’s morals would have a hard time giving Dream the key card. - I fed you, I didn’t harm you, I kept you company, I listened to you, this is what you could have done. Am I not a good warden?… etc -

Anyways, lots of things are going on in daedalus for sure, but I’d say there is manipulation going here in more angles then one. Dream doesn’t just bring a cake to someone who tortured and had him tortured for nearly a year just to prove a point. There are far less extreme ways highlight the injustice of his treatment. Hell, giving him steak was enough he didn’t have to give him golden applies and cake, he didn’t have to agree with Sam nor share a less than honest part of his side. But he did because he needed Sam to trust him, to give him access to the prison.

But while I could write an essay about it (ok yea I did…but) instead I want to shift the focus a bit, away from the same debates we keep having year after year. Because I think we’ve become too focused on the characters themselves over the audience's perception of them and too focused on morality, justification, and right and wrong in a story where everyone is morally questionable. Because at the end of the day it isn’t whether c!Dream or c!Tommy were actually right or justified, it is about - Who you root for and why. It is about (you) the audience's perception of the characters, not the characters’ perceptions of each other. Sure, c!Tommy himself feels justified in hurting c!Dream but do you believe he was.

With that thought in mind I found myself reading a 24 page research paper last night on a psychological study that looked at: What an audience defines as the hero and villain, Why they are naturally pulled to like certain characters and hate others, and What is the audience’s classification of morality in regard to the characters of fiction, where the conditions of morality are often not defined. One of the things shown in the data and line up to real life is that at the end of the day, heroes and villains are not defined on true purity and morality itself. If they were, action heroes and anti-heroes wouldn’t be successful and enticing. And yet, anti-heroes are some of the most beloved characters. In fact, I for one am typically drawn to violent anti-heroes, some of which are the heroes despite being perhaps sadistic murderers and torturers. But if the audience doesn’t simply define hero and villain as ‘good’ and ‘evil’ then what is pulling us toward taking one side over the other?

thing thats bad: aww

thing that has both genuinely amazing pieces of storytelling and abysmal dogshit slop both happening like entirely interchangably: