So I know that this topic has a lot of mixed opinions, and I’m not trying to start a fight, nor do I know if this is something which has been discussed before but I thought I’d put my ideas out there and see what others are thinking.

(Not trying to seem like an apologist, just trying to examine the character.)

So Dream was not always like the way he is now, obviously he was always intelligent and enjoyed being in charge or at the very least being able to direct things to a certain extent, but he was never a tyrant. He had close friends, he loved new people coming to the smp, and he was happy having fun.

But then Tommy came along, and all of the sudden things were just going out of control. Griefings left and right, a whole ass war, and then a new nation? You can understand why he was confused, and when after just trying to make the smp a fun place for people to build he’d react to extreme circumstances in an extreme way.

Then he lost. He was forced to allow them their independence. After being the best, after conditioning himself to never accept defeat for so long, he had lost in something. And that created the obsession. He looked at Tommy as the catalyst, the point where it changed. He begins to associate Tommy with everything going wrong. And from that comes fury. So he hides his time. There are others worthy of his wrath as well but Tommy? Oh, he has plans for Tommy.

After more war, more death and more struggles for power, he finally gets his opportunity. Now, everyone has their own trauma, and Dream has been a cause of much of that, yes. But he himself is not unscathed. He has been broken, consumed by his obsession with coming out on top, his need to get revenge on those who he sees as responsible for making him do the things he did, thinking he had no choice (he just can’t acknowledge that he do, and he chose wrong). He tortures a child, continues to torment others, and slowly drifts away from those he is closest to.

Then comes doomsday, the final battle for the discs, and his imprisonment. Again, he has lost. And this time it wasn’t just a battle or his pride. He has lost everything. Locked in a cage of his own design. Told by one of his best friends hat he won’t hesitate to kill him. And that’s when it’s done. He breaks fully. He never accepts defeat, and knows he will get out and that people will suffer for it, but he has stopped pretending to be what he isn’t.

He is a monster.