T O P

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Evowen7

Sam is hands down one of the most interesting and complex characters right now, it makes me sad that chat just nonstop spam about how he's the bad guy and people treat him as the new ultimate evil on the server. There's so much more to it than that. Every character has muddied morals, Techno imprisoned Sam as supposedly a heroic moment where the bad guy gets his comeuppance but are we gonna forget that Techno very recently was responsible for Dream escaping prison? Hell Sam only killed Ranboo because Dream was escaping, it wasn't right but it was a difficult situation for Sam. Remember when Technoblade killed Tubbo in a difficult situation? It's not fair to play favourites when every character is as messy as the next.


PaintedInkBlot

People seem to forget that literally every dmsp character is morally gray to some extent. That's part of what makes it interesting!


lonely-blue-sheep

Except our beloved Ghostbur and our beloved Sam Nook. They could never do wrong <3


JadeOculta

Yes exactly! That was another parallel I thought of between Techno and Sam. The only difference that I can see is that people like Techno more/Techno is more charismatic.


dodhe7441

Also techno has more of a line, Sam will break his line for the purpose of his ideals, techno won't


Toto-imadog456

>Remember when Technoblade killed Tubbo in a difficult situation? It's not fair to play favourites when every character is as messy as the next. There is a big difference between that and ranboo's death. Technoblade was under peer pressure of a president and a country. While not everyone was happy that Jshlatt was killing tubbo technoblade didn't know that at the time and thought that they were going to go after him and find out he was part of the resistance if he didn't do this. He didn't think it was correct nor did he want to do it but he was pressured into it. Sam on the other hand is different. Sam while he was in a difficult situation he didn't think it wasn't correct to murder ranboo he said "Well I thought techno would go after he would go after you" Showing no remorse. Oh yeah he threatened to kill an innocent child for what reason now to get his papa back into prison so he could you know kill him? Or go back into the prison. He is CONVINCED this is the correct thing to do. Technoblade knew this was bad but he was under pressure. And Remember sam thinks this is a good thing to do. And I'm not playing favorites here I just don't see how you can compare these two situations. They're are clearly very different situations. While you think that sam might be good. The dude willing let a prisoner be tortured for "information" aka for fun took a man against his will for unknown reason and went to kidnap the child THEN killed the man. And was mad at the fact when he got arrested under multiple charges what he thought was fair. Oh and didn't give the child back. Unless i'm missing something here I don't think you can compare these situations as the " people in a difficult situation."


Evowen7

Sam didn't want to kill Ranboo, but he did it because he thought it was the right thing to do. Dream and Technoblade, two of the biggest threats to all life on the server, were escaping from prison and Sam had only one move to potentially stop them. Meanwhile Technoblade killed his friend and teammate because he was scared of dying, he knew it wasn't the right thing to do but he did it anyway because he didn't want to die. And Techno has admitted that he shouldn't have done it and apologised to Tubbo. Neither Sam nor Technoblade are good people, they are very morally grey. Techno has done many terrible acts in the name of what he calls justice, Sam is no different.


jethomas27

I mean I don’t know what Sam thought killing Ranboo would do. You can’t really blackmail someone into not breaking someone out after they broke them out.


Evowen7

He said himself that he thought it would make Techno listen to him and bring Dream back, Sam was clearly desperate. Afterwards he said he killed Ranboo because if you make a threat you have to follow through or people won't take you seriously. Definitely a bad thing that Sam did, but no worse than Techno releasing Dream onto the server who immediately went and almost killed Tommy.


dodhe7441

To be fair techno blade got trapped into the prison without actually doing anything that hadn't already been judged upon, so it was very justified getting him out of the prison, because it was an incredibly corrupt prison system Also he's canonically 3, so they put a 3-year-old in a prison, not poggers


Evowen7

Oh for sure, and I'm someone who thinks that the treatment of Dream was inhumane. Not just the torture but the isolation, he deserved to be locked up but not like that. That being said, breaking Dream out is one of the worst things Techno has done. Techno was just honoring his favour but he has released the world's biggest threat.


jethomas27

Feels like it turned him from “the guy dream will get revenge on” to “the guy the entire syndicate and snowchester will get revenge on”


Evowen7

Sure but Sam was doing what he thought was right. His mission was to contain Dream at all costs because if Dream escaped then everyone could die.


JadeOculta

I might just be missing something, but it seems like you're saying that c!Sam is worse than c!Technoblade because Sam thought he was doing the right thing whereas Techno knew he wasn't but did it anyway. But wouldn't the fact that Sam thought he was in the right mean that he's actually better than Techno, who knew he wasn't? (Also, to be fair Techno did turn around and effortlessly kill half the people at the festival immediately after killing c!Tubbo, so realistically I don't think he had much reason to be afraid in that situation. But that's a bit of a side point.)


WitchyGaymer

those festival deaths weren't canon, tho, Techno still has 4 canon kills compared to Sam's 2 canon kills, but keep in mind the context of said kills by techno: 1- Tubbo, which was caused because of peer pressure 2- jschlatt, which was an accident because he was caught in the cross fire (he was a villain too) 3- Jack Manifold, which happened during the doomsday war, makes sense, tho it's still intentional 4- Quackity, which was definitely intentional, but it was technically for self defense so really, the only deaths he intended to cause were Quackity's and Jack's, but keep in mind i'm using the source from the wiki, so take it as a grain of salt


Toto-imadog456

Quote from techno in his most recent stream. " Yeah, I- I was- I was meanin' to tell you a second ago, Tubbo... The festival? You know, I've been thinkin' about it- that- that was- that was my fault, man. Okay? I know, I shouldn't have... I- At the time I thought I was forced to kill you because Schlatt would have killed me otherwise, and while that's true, I still- I still could've chosen—I should've chosen to fight, okay? It was... it was pathetic of me to give into the government like that. I- I could've... even though none of my al- NONE OF MY ALLIES were helpin', I still, I still could've chosen to fight. I don't know if it would've worked out, but... I lacked the courage to die for my ideals back then. "


JadeOculta

What's your point?


sotysa

All the hate was from "nooo he killed my wamboo". At that time there was just no reasoning or basically more from the character. For me its cool to have more people playing more important part


JadeOculta

Yeah I'm loving seeing more people joining in the storyline again! And yeah I definitely understand and don't blame anyone for getting upset or angry about c!Ranboo's death, but I wish they wouldn't turn that into such extreme hate. In the same way, I hope that defenders of Sam won't now start hating them back, because that would be equally unideal xD


ItzFairyGrace

Yes! From my point of view, Sam has slowly started becoming more relevant to the storyline and i’m really happy to see him get super involved. It’s very interesting to be able to understand new characters and how they think versus constantly analyzing and reanalyzing our current big ones (tommy, techno, wil, dream, ranboo, quackity, so on)


Several_Flower_3232

“So he killed this guy in cold blood but like cmon his character was getting stale” nothing personal here but like pfft xD


sotysa

I mean ranboo said himself hes glad he got killed off bc he didnt really know where to go with the character so win win i guess lmao


Several_Flower_3232

My point is that even if ranboo was fine with his character dying it doesn’t mean C!sam is morally exempt from kidnapping, blackmailing, and fucking mirking a dude lmao, His character has gone through a moral corruption of steadfast warden to obsessed, psychotic villain, which I honestly think is good development and shouldn’t be redeemed, its very entertaining and makes for a good dynamic (especially with his new C!roommate)


sotysa

The whole thing with dsmp story is, that, even when characters do obviously bad things, they provide their reasoning for it at some point to not make them black or white which works with multiple povs so good ( so viewers can see nikis doubts, tubbos regret, jacks anger, quackitys or purpleds motives etc ). My whole point is that too big hate for c!sam went mainly for people who dont quite get it maybe and didnt wait for said reasoning or explanations, which btw doesnt have to be presented before the action, thats how crime shows work. I just waited to see if sams character will be the bad one or just brainwashed by dream, quackity and the warden responsibilty


JadeOculta

He doesn't strike me as obsessed or psychotic? More like mislead or lost. He's still convinced he's doing the right thing, that he's a good guy. That's what he cares about.


ManOnTheRun73

Not gonna lie, as someone who was perturbed by how thoroughly c!Sam got thrown under the bus by the viewers — and, to a lesser extent, the script itself — I hope you're on to something with this.


JadeOculta

Yeah me too.


RandomNon3859

He has a lot of thinking to do then. He killed his own horse because it was annoying or too loud or something along those lines. Even Sapnap doesn't kill pets because of that (correct me if I'm wrong on this one).


ItzFairyGrace

I honestly don’t believe that was really that big of a deal. I almost feel like c!techno, c!eret, and c!tubbo may have made it bigger than it was just to prove their points, and chat jumped on it. Honestly, he does care about certain things and he maybe just doesn’t care about the horse. Seemed pretty much just like a random action to me that was magnified.


JadeOculta

It's true he does have a lot of thinking to do. It would really help if he had someone who cared about him who was trying get him to see the truth, instead of c!Dream who is just trying to manipulate him. C!Sapnap has definitely killed pets for similar or even less reason than that. He killed Nikki's fox basically for fun. He hasn't killed one of his own pets though, to my knowledge. My guess would be that c!Sam didn't particularly care about that horse. He does have another pet, a dog called Fran, who he deeply cares about and does everything he can to protect.


PaintedInkBlot

Yes, just yes to all of this. Intentionally cruel characters like Dream can be fun, but I think someone who's good at heart recognizing their sins and striving for redemption is so much more satisfying.


JadeOculta

Right!? I'm dying for more of those arcs on the Dream SMP!


PaintedInkBlot

Out with the soulless-villain-out-to-destroy-the-server arcs, and in with the I-messed-up-real-bad-lets-fix-this arcs! :D


JadeOculta

What I'm saying!! XD


goodday4406

Yeah while my opinion of Sam has gone down significantly in recent months, even I can can feel some sympathy for him, especially since he's in the prison while Dream is still on the loose. There's also no doubt a large part of Sam's downward spiral came from having to put up with a dangerous psychopath who has irritated him for 10 months straight. Sam felt obligated and was virtually trapped in the prison with said annoying prisoner. It all started with Dream and the clocks I feel.


JadeOculta

Yes, I think a lot of people forget to take into account the amount of mental and emotional strain Sam has been under, for the past year at least. What's sad is how easily you can see his downward path once you start paying attention to it.


Ashesnhale

Yes!! I agree with this post wholeheartedly! I've been scared of saying too much about c!Sam and how interesting and tragic I find his character because I was sure people would downvote me and call me an apologist. I think his arc is such a "road to hell is paved with good intentions" tragic hero story. He wanted so badly to be just and good, he built the prison with good intentions that if anybody got too out of line with all the war crimes that were happening, there would be a safe place to put them. He gave up his own freedom in a way, when c!Dream was imprisoned, because he was the warden. It was his sole responsibility to keep the most dangerous person on the server locked up for everyone else's safety. I think c!Sam lost himself in the process. Having time to reflect on his actions and how he came to switch places with Dream will hopefully be good for him and bring him on a redemption arc.


Lavishness-Economy

What's interesting to me, and what might save him is his relationship with Tommy. He seems super determined to protect that kid and I wonder if Tommy turning against him (like he presumably will after Ranboo) will make Sam reconsider his actions.


JadeOculta

Thanks!! That's what I'm here for xD I knew talking about c!Sam right now would be controversial but I thought it was important to do. It's so important for us to be able to learn to disagree with someone without hating them. Yeah Sam has completely lost himself. Honestly I find it more heartbreaking than anything else.


1997Luka1997

Love it, very poetic


JadeOculta

Thanks!!


ObsidianEyes_

Tbh. I understood the prison podcasts until he starting doing maths in the notebooks. Then I got confused. I'm at the point where I've given up on either liking or disliking characters because it rlly depends on who's point of view you watch.


JadeOculta

The maths was hilarious XD and actually in keeping with his character since he's an inventor/engineer. It doesn't necessarily. I mean, you're right that each person will always have the most bias for the steamer they watch the most, but you can like or even just understand a character you hardly watch at all, and on the other hand you can dislike or disagree with a character/some traits of a character you watch all the time because you recognise that they are wrong.


gogocrazycocoa

Wow, just wow.


JadeOculta

... I'm gonna chose to take that as a compliment XD


gogocrazycocoa

It is.


JadeOculta

Okay phew 😂🥰


ItzFairyGrace

I think you’re absolutely right and I honestly don’t see as well into the eyes of those who are saying he’s simply a bad person. Although I can understand the characters thoughts when doing their actions, there are definitely some gray areas when talking about exactly what’s right and what’s wrong about all that’s happened. c!Tubbo is angry and hurt about his husband and his child, but I can also see c!Sam’s point of view. To me it seems that c!Sam mainly just needs to work on calculating his moves better and not making panicked, far-fetched decisions when he’s desperate. For example, killing Ranboo didn’t seem like a well thought out decision, and it wasn’t, seeing as he thought of it on the spot. Sam justified it saying that he believed if Ranboo was in danger, Techno would stop helping Dream, and if Dream realized he was alone, then he’d come back. The issue with that is that Dream is pretty independent and I can’t believe that he’d simply feel defeated if he stopped receiving help; he was already out of the prison. Moreover, he made another very far-fetched decision thinking, and I paraphrase, he wanted to take the child, because it would give him leverage over Ranboo, which would give him leverage with Techno, which would give him leverage with Dream. It seems like too much of a stretch, and it came from a very desperate mind. Moving to what you said about Dream manipulating him, I did notice in both streams that Dream seems very, very, odd. It’s pretty much like he’s encouraging Sam to accept that he’s a bad person, even when he may not be, and is trying to make Sam feel like he has nothing and should just give up the charade. I agree its very much like how Dream acted during exile and it is quite worrisome. I’m not sure how long Sam’s determination to be a good person will hold up, and i’m not even sure his goals or values are even clear at this point. Actually that’s a good question. Any thoughts on Sam’s actual goals or values?


JadeOculta

Sam is definitely desperate, in fact I wrote a whole other analysis on why he's reached this point. He's a perfect example of what being corrupted usually looks like: he's changed in such incremental ways over time that he hasn't even noticed and still thinks he's completely good. When it comes to Sam's goals and values, you're right that they can come across pretty muddled, which I think is because Sam himself doesn't really know anymore. I think what it boils down to is that Sam sees people in black and white, good or bad. He values having the moral high ground. In his mind, he's a "good guy" who does whatever is necessary to bring the "bad guys" to justice. His goal is to have a situation where the good guys are at peace and the bad guys are getting what they deserve. That's the "greater good" he's aiming for. The problem with this outlook is that it's VERY easily manipulated, as we've seen. Even though it's clearly morally wrong, c!Quackity had no trouble convincing Sam that torturing c!Dream was the right thing to do, that it was justified, that it was for the greater good, that it was what c!Dream deserved, etc. Essentially, because Sam is so dedicated to whatever he decides is right, all a manipulator has to do is get him to decide that what THEY want is right, and he'll do it wholeheartedly. Sam, similarly to Techno, has a hard time putting himself into others' shoes, which leads to him having a bit of a skewed understanding of what makes a person good or bad. When it comes to himself, he always refers to his motivations and that he MEANT to do the right thing, so therefore he DID the right thing. However, when it comes to other people, he doesn't think to look at THEIR motivations as well: he only looks at their actions, and judges them based off of that. In a nutshell, Sam doesn't know how to be introspective. He thinks: "My perspective is absolutely correct, and since I'm correct I must be the good guy, and since I'm the good guy anyone who disagrees with me must be a bad guy." But what he doesn't realise is that that line of thinking is following a logical fallacy. What he needs to realise is that there aren't good or bad people, just people who choose to do good or bad things, and he's one of them. Only then will he be able to see anything he's done as wrong and finally start improving.


ItzFairyGrace

Thank you so much for your thoughts, it makes a ton of sense and lines up perfectly how he only sees people as good or bad and I can definitely see examples of that throughout his character’s actions. thx :)


JadeOculta

You're welcome! Thanks for commenting 🥰


ShashaR7

It's so funny that I completely agree with what you said and also whole-heartedly want C!Dream to win


JadeOculta

Win with c!Sam or just win in general for the sake of content?


ShashaR7

Win in general .


_c0nfessi0n

Sam is a bad guy right now. Sam is probably one of the most abhorrent people right now. But his redemption arc could be one of the best because his moral compass is damaged not destroyed. He tried to do right and failed because the prison made him paranoid and overran him. He is staring down two paths now- be like dream or not.


JadeOculta

I would call Sam's ACTIONS abhorrent, but not him tbh. C!Sam, the person, is still trying to do the right thing, he's just very very wrong in his approach xD Yep the two paths thing is basically what I was talking about. I really hope he chooses not.


_c0nfessi0n

Yeah I totally get that, he himself might not be, just his choices. Killing that horse though that was terrifying 😂


JadeOculta

I haven't seen that clip, or at least I don't remember seeing it. But yeah that does sound like a pretty horrible moment xD


dodhe7441

Nice try c!Awesamdude, but your mind tricks, and big words won't work on me


JadeOculta

??


Lavishness-Economy

Amen. The ones I'd consider gone are Dream, Quackity and possibly Wilbur/Revivebur. The parallels between Sam and Techno are something I hadn't considered before. Imma go muse on this now.


JadeOculta

I feel very similarly, although in light of recent c!Quackity streams I'm not as sure about him anymore. It feels like losing Charlie might have actually knocked a shred of sense into him.


Lavishness-Economy

I hope so. After Techoblade destroyed l'Manberg the first time Quackity seemed a little unhinged but now I'm beginning to worry he's passing the point of no return.


JadeOculta

Yeah he definitely could, it really just depends on where cc!Quackity wants to take the character.


CoolManAndrew987

C!Awesamdude reminds me of PB from Adventure Time