Trope Talk: All A Dream

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Ahh, history's most maligned plot twist. But does it deserve 100% of the vitriol? Maybe a conservative 80%. Anyway, let's discuss!
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"Sneaky Snitch" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
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[@runningcommentary2125]

I read one children's book where at one point the protagonist is in a dangerous situation, then wakes up, perfectly safe. Then it is immediately revealed that the person who just woke up is a completely separate person with the same name miles away, and the protagonist really is still in danger. I always found that funny.

[@user-kw7mr6xt9n]

Sounds like something Lemony Snicket would write

[@kaboomgaming4255]

Sounds like readers either really like it or loathe the author with every bone in their body

[@DParkerNunya]

That is the absolute funniest way to subvert the trope and I need to read it

[@dootdoot3713]

You can’t say that & not tell us the name of the book!

[@zyibesixdouze4863]

drop the book title

[@dynamicworlds1]

"I'm willing to suspend my disbelief. I'm not willing to hang it from the neck until dead."

[@Ramsey276one]

PERFECT PHRASING

[@levigriffin5553]

Love it

[@bimyouna]

Owl Creek Bridge callback on point.

[@fleamarketsnack3280]

The trope can basically be summed up to “this work of fiction is fiction”

[@sirensong3159]

Ah yes the floor is made of floor

[@juanrodriguez9971]

@@sirensong3159 If I only watched the video a day earlier I would be the one replying that xD Anyway, self awareness in fiction is usually a lazy way of saying "I don't know how to fix my messed up story"

[@JustAnotherIdiotWithDepression]

*GHASPETH*

[@comagram1594]

Ah yes, the floor here is made of downstairs ceiling.

[@andrewshearsby8125]

Basically Danganronpa V3....

[@LilypadPanda]

"Was it all a dream?" is a question with only one response: "Give me back the part of my life I wasted on reading this." *- Hirohiko Araki*

[@ashikjaman1940]

The exception is Death 13

[@Tortferngatr]

[Citation needed]

[@LilypadPanda]

@@Tortferngatr It's from his book, 'Manga in Theory and Practice'. It's actually really good, I got a copy for my birthday!

[@Tortferngatr]

@@LilypadPanda I know of said book and am absolutely a Jojo fan, but I’ll have to check it out at some point. I just know there’s a lot of random Jojo misinformation out there and just wanted to be sure.

[@colinkent7281]

Didn’t he make the events of part one to six meaningless?

[@colonelsanders177]

The best dream in fiction is “NO FIRE LORD OZAI, YOU ARE NOT WEARING PANTS!”

[@valentinfranco4528]

Lmoa

[@haldir108]

It's pretty good. I wonder if there is a middle point between "explicitly a dream within the story" and the fake-out "gotcha, it was a dream all along!". Are there any examples of the dream being revealed to be a dream halfway through? Bonus points for it NOT being a "the character is dying" one.

[@mildsatyr3731]

@@haldir108 There is an episode of Ben 10 that does this.

[@jamessloven2204]

@@haldir108 WandaVision, off the top of my head.

[@Omeyrolx_theChessmaster]

@@haldir108 There IS Link's Awakening, which, spoilers... ...is revealed to take place inside the dream of a creature called the Wind Fish by the time you reach halfway through the game. If Link doesn't defeat the Nightmares keeping the Wind Fish asleep, Link won't be able to escape Koholint Island, but if he does, the Wind Fish will wake up and the island will disappear, along with all of its quirky and charming inhabitants including Link's friend Marin and her father. The manga adaptation, non-canon as it is, actually takes this one step further, thanks to Link being able to talk. When Link discovers the truth, he goes through an existential crisis, since he knows that waking up the Wind Fish in order to leave the island will essentially kill everyone on it, or potentially worse (would dreams have an afterlife?). After failing to leave the island by force in sailing away, he decides to stay on the island for the rest of his life, until Marin convinces him to go through with waking up the Wind Fish regardless. All in all, despite it not technically being the main character's dream, it's a really good "all a dream" story, and honestly one of the more depressing Legend of Zelda stories.

[@chitrikala2025]

Whenever we used to write fantasy essays in middle school, our teachers told us NEVER to use dream endings. I see why..

[@AxxLAfriku]

Do you have any idea who is replying to your comment right now? It's the FUNNIEST MAN ALIVE! Me funny (!!!) vids are so extremely funny, if you don't cry tears of laughter, you are allowed to thumb down me XTREMELY FUNNY vids! Do you think me funny (!!!) vids are funny, dear chi

[@Walht]

@@AxxLAfriku rly???!!!

[@monarchschwoop52]

@@AxxLAfrikufor your most recent video, you got a chuckle outta me, and nothing more

[@psychopath682]

@@AxxLAfriku Do you have a stroke? We can call an Ambulance if you need one.

[@blackrapier713]

@@psychopath682 nah, he had a dream where he was funny and now he's back in reality.

[@krazyfan1489]

Remembered this from a post. "“you just successfully wrote a world that feels separate from our own, but got frightened last minute and shoe-horned in normalcy. You showed that you were afraid to commit to something different and interesting.” "people who write coma theories and the like are afraid to accept that the world of the story is separate from our own. They like everything wrapped up in this crazy little realism box where nothing out of the ordinary happens in fiction."

[@sayerglasgow115]

It's a pretty bad mindset in a world where the realm of what's possible is redefined all the time. If you can't even handle when fiction presents a reality unlike your own, how will you handle it when the real world throws something unexpected and abnormal your way?

[@azzzanadra]

Tell that to all the "ash is in a coma" theorists

[@vullord666]

@@sayerglasgow115 yeah you can usually tell when the author does crap like that out of nowhere to play it safe. The worst part is when they manage to craft a fairly brilliant narrative or world that they just invalidate for seemingly no reason.

[@wendychavez5348]

As someone who has actually been in a coma, I can verify that it can be a bizarre experience. All I really remember is sort of a dream within a dream; I was trying to wake up, but "They" kept saying I was asleep and couldn't wake up so They kept me asleep. Finally I decided that They had no right to keep me asleep so I fought Them until I actually did wake up. Trouble was, I couldn't string two moments together in my memory, so reality wasn't nearly as interesting as dreaming that I was asleep and couldn't wake up. Still, my family says that was a reflection of what was actually happening, so I might play with the concept sometime.

[@Lightfire398]

I want to write that kind of story, and then afterwards put something of a Matrix spin on it where the ‘Dream’ is in fact reality, and they’ve managed to peer through for a moment, and them ‘waking up’ is the powers controlling the ‘Dream’ pulling them back inside it

[@OctagonalGolbat]

I'm glad we're finally talking about how the Sherlock writers really primed us for an "it was all fake" reveal and then made fun of us for coming to that conclusion.

[@kiraina25]

(hbomberguy voice) SECRET GOOD FOURTH SHERLOCK EPISODE

[@cheesecakelasagna]

I hate that I delayed watching that season for years for some reason.

[@user-mo6wo2mk9m]

Depending on how it's used it can be really good. In one story I know this guy had a normallish life and some weird stuff started happening and he realized he was living in a simulation and reality was ten times worse, like matrix but with an eldritch being

[@cappertilge8916]

@@user-mo6wo2mk9m why does that sound like a sitcom to me

[@redblushinrose]

@@cappertilge8916 if that's your idea of a sitcom I'm terrified of what your idea of horror is

[@adolhein]

Hope we get "Trope Talk: Crossovers" in the future.

[@StormgemThunder]

And it's a crossover with other writing channels Why not many for the ultimate crossover?

[@rainethemercat8565]

@@StormgemThunder ADD TWA

[@jamesstrabala6154]

@@rainethemercat8565 Yes! After Red and JP argue about everything, she gets fed up and beats him up before dumping him off screen.

[@Mar1aHass4n]

If I dont edit this comment then i have a brain eating worm and im dead …. i rlly hope i can edit this

[@assumjongkey1383]

I want that.

[@Kimosabes2hot]

Ah yes, Schrödinger's Canon. The only way to make everything Canon and Non-Canon at the same time.

[@okaminodin4321]

There's actually other ways! For example, making the narrator be an actual character, who may forget some things, may exaggerate other things etc. An example of this is Call of Juarez: Gunslinger. At the end, u don't know how much of his story is true and how much was an old man's delusions, and I love it

[@Karak-_-]

@@okaminodin4321 Recently finished that game and, oh boy, it was something, especialy during the end I really started to worry. Althrough I think it would be better if in "death screen" he would say something like : "Wait that's not how it happenned." or "Sorry, I lost the thougth, It'll better if I start again."

[@horizonpenblade1288]

Still only partway through the vid but I'm seriously curious as to how life of pi would fit into this. It's not quite the same trope but I feel like the sheer ambiguity of which version story is true is what gives it its impact. Deciding one way or the other cuts a lot of the rug out from under the conclusions pi makes. The fact that it is schrodinger's tiger, so to speak, is in a sense what matters as the imagery gets tied to themes of faith, ambiguity, and the unknown. (I feel like the same thing happens to an extent with like. The ghost and Hamlet's mental state in hamlet. At the end of the day it could be interpreted either way, the audience doesn't know, heck, hamlet himself probably doesn't know whether he can trust his senses. Which leads to the theme of "who can?" And once again... hh I'm rambling but just. Canon Ambiguity done right can hit really hard)

[@horizonpenblade1288]

Rather than "it was all a dream so it doesn't matter", i feel like these stories become "it could have been real, it could have not, and we don't know but what do we know?" And in a way saying that that ambiguity *does* matter,

[@arthurrebello919]

There is also the 40K way

[@nathanielchoi5222]

I remember there was a Phineas and Ferb episode that was just one large nightmare in Perry's head, since the OWCA removes the family from the house and Perry that he will need to be relocated. Right after that's said, Perry wakes up terrified before being reassured by Phineas that he was having a nightmare. It doesn't really disappoint the audience because the whole episode was pretty weird to begin with (for half of it, Candace was tripping balls after touching some weird moss/fungi). I like it because it reaffirms to the audience that Perry genuinely cares about his family, and isn't simply using them as a cover for his spy work.

[@willieoelkers5568]

Actually, the episode where Candace spends half her screen time on a mushroom samba is a different one, but it introduced the recurring “talking zebra who calls Candace ‘Kevin’” bit that was used in the all a dream episode.

[@jessicadecuir5622]

I think another reason it didn’t disappoint is because it is a common stock episodes for cartoons that the whole episode was just a character’s dream, or there’s a dream weaving villain involved. A single episode probably won’t disappoint audiences as much as an entire season or show. Imagine how angry the audience would feel if all of P&F was revealed to be Phineas sitting & thinking under the tree.

[@elizabethshaw7472]

Another reason the audience wasn't disappointed is because of just how hilarious that scene was. The whole episode, Candance finally busts her brothers, regrets it, tries to fix it, and just when everything gets really weird, she wakes up and realizes it's a dream. It's only when she's describing the dream to her family over breakfast that the OWCA breaks in, confiscates the family, and THEN it's revealed that Candace's dream was actually Perry's dream the whole time. The reveal sequence was less than a minute, but it was too hilarious for anyone to be mad.

[@l.tc.5032]

I think you might be remembering two different episodes.

[@Pingwn]

​@@willieoelkers5568 Phineas and Ferb is an episode show, if one or even a few episodes turned out to not be true it doesn't really matter because the plot of the episode itself doesn't really matter outside of its context. When the episode ends it is rarely relevant again. Granted, part of it was because this episode changed the status quo so much that it was an acceptable solution (since Linda finally see the boys making outlandish Inventions), but it wouldn't be as much fine if the story was serialised, since we would expect the things that happened in it to effect the episodes afterwards.

[@nomdeplume9590]

I like the idea of a story that ends with "it was all a dream" that has a sequel where the main character's life enters a downward spiral due to them being convinced the dream was real and trying to get back

[@MouldMadeMind]

The audience won't like it tho.

[@the13thgoogler]

@@MouldMadeMind Depends on type of the audience.

[@kylespevak6781]

That kinda sounds like what some people experience in a coma. There's many stories of people living another life while they're unconscious. I remember my grandmother coming out of one and asking where her friend was, and why we weren't on the island anymore

[@owenvogelgesang7314]

Reverse Inception?

[@pollikosolli1376]

Oh, that reminds me about one Stanley Parable fanfic I've read XD where Stanley wakes up in the real world and it turns out the stuff that happened in game was something he saw while in coma, but he sees himself as the person from that story in a coma, rather than the person he was before the coma

[@matthewdaye5410]

This trope is widely regarded as a middle finger to the audience.

[@zangoon4546]

I don’t mind it but I don’t blame the frustration of it

[@vanroyal244]

It works sometimes, like with Alice in Wonderland, but it is annoying in everything else.

[@chukyuniqul]

Spoilers for two games that are really worth going through, namely silent hill and silent hill shattered memories: So in the first silent hill, the worst ending you can get is that the entire game was all a dying dream of harry's after the car crashed. It's pretty much a non-standard game over for being shit. It's pretty flat, renders the whole game weirdly moot, and honestly idk how many people who play the game would go for it unless speedrunning or It's their first time and they're not paying attention. Then some years later come silent hill shattered memories, which while not a skin-crawling exploration of the inner pains of whomever is a very nice and well written little mystery remaking the first game. And in the last few moments, we learn our man was never alive, the PoV was his daughter he was looking for and the whole game is the manifestation of her trying to navigate the complicated trauma of having lost her dad so young. Yep, it follows on from that bad end and makes it work by hinting multiple times that it is, in fact, all a dream. Also a dude manages to choke himself while rubbing one off, apparently.

[@joyc.e.7511]

Omg, the Dark Pictures Anthology has disappointed me in two of the games because of this. The ending often doesn't make sense when they add this.

[@Void_Dweller7]

Completely agree, it as if the entire story was for nothing.

[@NoctisRegalis]

Feels like red is telling authors “COMMIT YOU COWARDS” 🤣🤣🤣

[@mysticmongrel1289]

Well yeah, writers should commit

[@ThorMan91587]

Deadass

[@mariokarter13]

"Sure is a good thing that was all a dream." "No, you were just in a coma for six months after all that stuff happened."

[@mysticmongrel1289]

@@mariokarter13 That'd honestly be a better ending version

[@jayvhoncalma3458]

@@ThorMan91587 Neckbeard

[@kyleflanagan963]

I love the Doctor Who episode where there were two entirely different scenarios going on simultaneously, and the Doctor kept waking up from one into the other. One was real, one was a dream, both were potentially life threatening, and the goal was to find out which one was real...

[@kyleflanagan963]

@RobotBlue Well, yes, but I was trying not to give away the twist 😂

[@9nikolai]

There's also a whole episode with Capaldi where they slowly find out that the universe is just a simulation but then at the end of the episode the simulated Doctor sends a recording of it to the real Doctor outside the simulation, so even though it wasn't real, it still gave the villains information about the planet and potential outcomes of their invasion and it gave the main character information that there were villains on the way.

[@Timelordvainglorious1]

What about the forest of the dead 2 parter. With donnas dream like reality

[@I_Stole_Your_Toast]

​@@Timelordvainglorious1"This isn't the real me? This isn't my real body? ...But I've been dieting!"

[@tbotalpha8133]

@@Timelordvainglorious1 That has the really nasty version, where Donna has to accept that the family and children that she's so emotionally invested in aren't actually real, and that she needs to let them go...

[@TheDakkaman]

“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?” - Albus Dumbledore

[@343happyspock2]

I always love that line.

[@mayanah.2875]

Yes! I thought of that too!

[@cheesecakelasagna]

Which book is it from please?

[@mirjanbouma]

@@cheesecakelasagna Its the last book in the Harry Potter series, can't think of the title ATM. It's close to the end of the book.

[@cheesecakelasagna]

@@mirjanbouma thanks!

[@Somber_Knight]

when you write an autobiography and end with "but it was all a dream"

[@jamescowan8695]

Oh my god, that would be hilarious and sad xD

[@byulharangforlife]

Lmaoooo i could do this for my boring life

[@visibleconfusion782]

Biggie

[@arempy5836]

Used to read word up magazine

[@XavierTheNeonTiger]

See: That's how I beat shaq by Aaron Carter

[@erp1293]

“Once upon a time, I dreamt I was a butterfly, fluttering hither and thither, to all intents and purposes a butterfly. I was conscious only of my happiness as a butterfly, unaware that I was myself. Soon I awakened, and there I was, veritably myself again. Now I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly, dreaming I am a man.” Zhuangzi

[@grizzlyowlbear3538]

*Persona 1 theme plays*

[@npc6817]

"if you weren't the greatest philosopher of our generation I'd say you sound high as a kite right now" Zhuangzi's attendant

[@Ramsey276one]

Hi, Philemon! XD

[@TazTheYellow]

I wanted to make a comment about the butterfly dream, but forgotten what I wanted to comment about, and find myself relieved to find somebody else commenting on the butterfly dream instead.

[@dededeletethis9940]

Honestly suprised that two seperate people here immediately thought ‘‘oh hey persona 1“, i thought i‘d be the only one

[@tinyetoile5503]

I think the reasons Link's Awakening works really well as an "all just a dream" story is, firstly, because you find out it's a dream in the middle of the story, not just at the ending- so you have time to process that it's a dream, and relating to that, the fact that it's a dream becomes thematically important after you learn that, along with getting the player to consider the moral implications of the fact that it's a dream and that ending the dream will also annihilate the island and all it's inhabitants. Good stuff!

[@rootbourne4454]

Yep! Easily the best example of this trope done right!

[@edgyanole9705]

@@rootbourne4454 *well known

[@django4013]

​@@edgyanole9705 no

[@Merusdraconis]

I think one the reasons it works is because it's arguably not an "all just a dream" story, but a fantasy story with specific rules. Link isn't dreaming, so what's happening is "really" happening to him, and the dream is only used to justify why Link can't leave the island; the story is otherwise internally consistent. And even then, it's a fantasy story, so there's an invitation for elements from the dream to bleed over into the 'real' world.

[@katelynthewhitewerewolf6376]

​@@Merusdraconis I watched that Zelda game in videos about it and we need this idea used for other videogames including Legend of Zelda.

[@coldcovoi5408]

The best example of the “dying dream” I’ve seen was actually a Fanfiction. It started out as a silly AU story, but, slowly, you start to see little hints of reality starting to break. It even gets reset when people die, Wanda-vision style. In reality, it’s purgatory for the protagonist, who died along with their friends and family in a realistic world. Each section of chapters has a different writing style that correlate to the five stages of grief, and it ends with them finally accepting what happens and moving to the afterlife. It was really really good, but it hit like a truck because it started as just a well-written joke story.

[@voidoftheend3853]

What’s the fanfic if you don’t mind sharing? Today want to read it!

[@coldcovoi5408]

@@voidoftheend3853 Tommyinnits Unbeatable Method of Avoiding Sudden Death by enelii on AO3. Hope you enjoy!! 😊

[@aikawaneiru7248]

Oh my god, that story is amazing. I read the story, expecting crack fic , then all of a sudden, it turned into five stage of grief. So good

[@coldcovoi5408]

@@aikawaneiru7248 ikr!!

[@sidney9796]

@@coldcovoi5408 ah embarassingly enough i knew exactly which fic you were talking about immediately lol

[@GrandCatapult]

Enter an additional variant: "I'm telling you a story" as per The Princess Bride.

[@levigriffin5553]

@Choucard the kid cutting in and asking questions made the story better, in it's own charming way. Especially with how the grandpa handled it.

[@jcspoon573]

The best subversion and demonstration of said trope being "The Adventures of Baron Munchausen".

[@BandanaDrummer95]

@@jcspoon573 That sounds even lampshadey

[@jcspoon573]

@@BandanaDrummer95 The movie is a bit of a farce.

[@danielsjohnson]

The Pendragon book series by D.J. MacHale was like that. Except when it wasn't. I liked it.

[@ellendavis9272]

“Or scenes happening in Sherlock s mind palace” it’s ok Red, we’re all bitter its not just you!

[@mudkipqueen920]

good ol' johnlock conspiracy, a wonderful time in history /s

[@NerdySalemSays]

@@mudkipqueen920 I was SO invested in the johnlock conspiracy... nope, instead they somehow made me hate everyone in season 4...

[@CmdrShepard95]

@@NerdySalemSays I guess I’m really glad that I never got around to watching the 4th season

[@SergioPerez-vm8zw]

There's a Spanish play called La Vida es Sueño in which: 1) The king imprisons his son because a prophesy foretold that he'd grow up to be a tyrant 2) when the prince grows up, the king laces his food with sedatives to transport him to the castle while he sleeps 3) the king has him experience the life he deserves by birthright for a day, as a test.(this power immediately goes to his head, he throws a dude out the window, blah, blah) 4) lace his food again, take him back to prison, hit 'im with the 'ole "it was all a dream" thing. Character development happens. 5) peasant uprising frees the prince. Prince does not know what is happening. More character development!. 6) If I can not tell life and dream apart, why not be kind, so that if it is a dream, I have a good story to tell, and if not, I have a new friend? 7) The king is overthrown.

[@WisperWeasel]

that’s a pretty awesome usage of the trope. I doubt I’ve read it but it sounds very familiar

[@toptsun8484]

It's a good story, though a product of its era 😅

[@StormbornDragon]

i like wandavision’s “all a dream/a fake reality” take because it analyzes grief more than anything and dosent need to have happened to everyone for it to be important for wandas character

[@duncanm4061]

Also we knew something was wrong for a while. We saw vision die, so to see him alive again will make people question things.

[@ohno8398]

Absolutely, the world not being really was intrinsically tied to everyone, not something ruining everything at the end

[@mateoremedi4703]

But more importanly, it was never a dream. It was happening in the real world,afecting real people

[@TheGuardDuck]

@@mateoremedi4703 This. This is why it doesn't belong here, IMO.

[@ashikjaman1940]

I love the way Yakuza 7 does it since everything is still happening on some level but the main character is so off his rocker it all looks completely different.

[@player03]

"If we shadows have offended, Think but this, and all is mended- That you have but slumbered here While these visions did appear." As usual, Shakespeare did it first.

[@pirateraider1708]

Translation: If the show made you mad, it'll be okay if you look at it this way. Ya fell asleep on your butt and dreamed the whole thing.

[@BookwormBelle1191]

@@pirateraider1708 I'm so glad I'm not the only one who thought this with A Midsummer Night's Dream

[@finlynham5841]

I thought of Tim Minchin’s storm when I read this

[@charlesbaldwin3166]

I don't think Shakespeare ever did anything first in his life, he just did it with style.

[@Tustin2121]

Pirate Raider - I wish the Animaniacs did more of those translations of Shakespeare. 😂

[@hailghidorah2536]

In my opinion, “It was all a dream” as a story's entire plot line shows a writer’s lack of confidence. Think of it like this: “See guys, I know my story is fiction. I know it’s not real!” Another comment said it best. Paraphrased: “You are writing fiction. We know it is not real. Why are you making it double not real?”

[@augustuzmoon3814]

I really hate the game where you kill all your classmate because a teddy bear made you do it the third games ending

[@notaaronburr3177]

It also feels a tad bit lazy. Like instead of making sense of the plot and this great world you've created you just make it a dream? Really?

[@sandi539]

That's the perfect term. "Double not real". Everything that happened was just a product of imagination of imaginary person, that didn't affect him in any way.

[@fullmoontales1749]

Excellent point. I was going to say "Don't tell them you're lying" but yours is even better

[@vintheguy]

Only time I ever saw it done well was in "Pathologic"

[@blablabla4513]

Honestly, I love how Red doesn't go for obvious examples, but not mentioning Inception ONCE in a video about the "all a dream" trope feels criminal.

[@TomNCatz]

Not entirely sure it actually counts? The point of the trope is at the END you tell them 'it was all a dream.' Inception starts out with that being the premise and the closest it gets to the standard trope is the ending

[@tbotalpha8133]

​@@TomNCatz Inception is fascinating in this context, because the ending leaves the question of "is Cobb in a dream, or reality?" up to interpretation. But it also makes it clear that Cobb no longer cares if it's real or not. He's happy to accept the evidence of his senses at face value, and allow himself to grow attached to the world in front of him, regardless of whether it's real or not. Which raises the question: does it really matter if you're becoming emotionally engaged in fiction? If a lie can tease out your emotions as keenly as reality, how can you declare that reality is more "meaningful" than fiction? How do you even judge what is and isn't "meaningful"?

[@ReblazeGaming]

@@TomNCatz Well yeah, I thought the ending was going to be one of the examples for the ambiguous "was it a dream?" variation.

[@tarquinioprisco8459]

she possibly omitted the ending of inception because it would be a major spoiler and you don't want to riddle your video with spoiler warnings also, she had many other examples so she didn't have to use it

[@SergioPerez-vm8zw]

You didn't mention the bell in Over The Garden Wall. In the seventh episode, Greg's pet frog eats a magic bell that glows when you ring it. Later, in the ending, we're shown that his frog really does glow when shaken.

[@inraser]

This is why I'm firmly on the side of Greg and Wirt not imagining it. The Unknown was absolutely an allegory for Purgatory, but they definitely didn't imagine it. The bell is especially important because some of the other characters even react to it, ruling out the possibility that only Greg and Wirt can see it due to near-death stuff. No time may have passed, but they for sure weren't dreaming.

[@Matthew_Murray]

The only time I like “it was all just a dream” is when it doesn’t negate character growth. If a character in the dream fantasy is a shy kid that gets bullied and over the course of the story learns how to be brave. If when he wakes up he has the confidence to stand up to his bully in the real world then in that case to me it doesn’t matter if the fantasy was real or not.

[@DKMperor]

What about inception?

[@cooltrainervaultboy-39]

Oh God, you just described the plot to Godzilla's Revenge! It's considered to be the worst Godzilla movie ever! It's been described as making the TriStar 98 Godzilla movie look good by comparison.

[@walkingglasses6264]

Speaking about being bullied in a dream, does what happened to Mob in S2 of Mob Psycho 100 count as this?

[@albens5852]

Like Mob Psycho

[@Donnerbalken28]

The only movie (and book) i ever liked that used this trope is "I'm thinking of ending things", because it expolits the fact that it is a dream to the absolute fullest. Also, the ending leaves you absolutely crushed inside.

[@cianoakheart5132]

I particularly like American McGee’s Alice, and Alice: Madness Returns. Wonderland *is* objectively and very clearly not real, but Alice isn’t just dreaming either. She’s undergoing some incredibly vivid trauma-induced hallucinations and getting into a lot of real trouble while wandering through her nightmarishly twisted version of Wonderland.

[@AB-dm1wz]

Yes! Someone else knows those games!!!

[@Starcat5]

@@AB-dm1wz There are more of us than you think. -_^

[@amrilhaziq8114]

there’s plans made to bring that series back right? I think I saw a kickstarter thing or something a few months back

[@AB-dm1wz]

@@Starcat5 There are dozens of us! Dozens!!!

[@BioshadowX]

I was super surprised "dream/hallucination to deal with trauma" wasn't one of the points. Red touched a bit on it during Pan's Labyrinth but things like Sucker Punch or McGee Alice go full throttle with it

[@geoshark12]

I like the “yes this is a dream but the damage you take is real making this world far more dangerous “

[@toptsun8484]

SAO fan spotted >:3

[@geoshark12]

@@toptsun8484 Wait does that happen in sao? I have only seen season 1 and prefer the abridged

[@toptsun8484]

@@geoshark12 you could argue it does in most arcs in a sense, but definitely in Alicization XD Hence the name

[@VisonsofFalseTruths]

@@geoshark12 it also happens in like a billion anime and western media before it. It’s not new. SAO doesn’t really do ANYTHING new, but it does old things fairly well. Even the idea of fulldive VR giving you a full sensory experience as if you were actually in the world was lifted from The Matrix.

[@moonbeamsun9066]

In the original Wizard of Oz book, Dorothy actually went to Oz, and the end of the book she shows back up on her family’s rebuilt farm months after having gone missing to her aunt asking her where she’s been. I like that ending much more than the movie one.

[@luan28martins4]

I like how Young Justice uses "it was a dream all along" trope in that episode where everyone dies in that training session. All those deaths weren't real, but the trauma was. And we have a whole episode exploring each member of the team greatests fears in a very realistc manner.

[@DarthChocolate15]

Yeah, the most important part is that it continues to be a major influence on the characters for the rest of the season(series).

[@Maswartz226]

Wait, does she not talk about that?

[@willieoelkers5568]

That's the most important part of a full-episode "all a dream"; it really needs to have something big carry over, such as a character revelation or someone finally starting to actually address a problem that's been eating at them. Otherwise it's just filler and, as Red said several times, tells the audience they can't trust the story to be internally consistent.

[@jameswest6232]

I forgot about that one. That's a good example, especially the follow up episode with each of the team dealing with what happened* - - (SPOILERS) *except Kid Flash who points out that, since he died first in the exercise, he basically missed out on all the trauma the others are dealing with. Honestly, nice little dose of levity in a pretty serious episode

[@tomwilson5084]

@@jameswest6232 (More Spoilers) No, you're thinking of Artemis. She was the one who died first, and pointed out such to Black Canary. Kid Flash on the other hand had a spectacular breakdown in response to her 'death'.

[@mleppp1546]

Take a shot of water every time Red says the word “dream” in this video. Hydrate.

[@excusezmoi9823]

I did this with vodka. I'm scared.

[@Hunter_VanderMatthews]

Don't dry drown kids.

[@mleppp1546]

@@excusezmoi9823 Please don't die

[@Yohannai]

Don't diedrate

[@lilaboxx]

Me: * takes a small sip of tea every time *

[@calicodavis1511]

I watched the Wizard of Oz several times as a child. Then, many years later, I watched it again and was shocked to find that there *wasn't* a reveal of the ruby slippers being in Dorothy's room. It was just something that my brain had made up because I was disappointed at the "all a dream" reveal.

[@MrTophatter]

my brain made up the exact same thing! i could have sworn for years that at the end of that movie while dorothy was lying on the bed, the camera pans down and shows the ruby slippers still on her feet, i was pretty disapointed when i watched it again, found it was missing, and it was totally a dream the whole time

[@Pandie2828]

I remember having a dream like that... They were under her bed

[@flyingninjafish1558]

One of the best “It was all a dream” moments I’ve seen is from Legend of Zelda Links Awakening, where the entire adventure is revealed towards the end to be a dream by a giant whale that Link has stumbled into. And that waking the whale, as he’s been working towards doing, would cause the dream to end and all the people he’s met and befriended would cease to exist, giving what would have been a fairly standard fantasy adventure a real gut punch of an ending.

[@samt3412]

Also, the dream twist is made more and more obvious to the point where by the end of the later dungeons, you're fully aware that it's a dream. So, it's not just hitting you with the twist out of nowhere at the end.

[@positivelink6961]

I love the existential terror this version of the trope brings.

[@katelynthewhitewerewolf6376]

​@@positivelink6961 I like Link's Awakening and it be cool if it got more to it.

[@AzureIV]

One of the worst of the fanon “dying dream” things I’ve heard of is the one where Ash.Ketchum from Pokémon is on his deathbed (at age ten) and dreaming the whole series, since he never ages. Oh no, it couldn’t be because the writers never want to age him through the series, it is because he is deathbed dreaming. I mean, come on!

[@excusezmoi9823]

That's what they want you to think! WAKE UP SHEEPLE!

[@Gaswafers]

The less dumb version of that theory is "Ash stops aging after he died and got resurrected in the pokemon movie."

[@Rime_in_Retrograde]

I feel like that in particular's a case of some people preferring a watsonian explanation to a doylist one. Like sure, everyone's probably figured out by now the behind-the-scenes reason he doesn't age - but what possible in-universe explanation could there be for it? But I think that's a problem that easily creeps into most long-running forms of storytelling (like comics and animated tv shows like The Simpsons).

[@GerardMenvussa]

@@Gaswafers I wonder if this explanation isn't even creepier. Thanks for the nightmare fuel, Mewtwo 😠

[@KeepCalmContemplateYourChoices]

Or maybs time doesn't pass in the show world at the same pace as the real world, not everything is the MCU where every movie takes place every next year

[@metallicarequiem2936]

This video was just a dream

[@takashi.mizuiro]

lol

[@andressotil4671]

or was it?

[@jacobrobinson9952]

I used to read Word Up! Magazine, Salt-n-Pepa and Heavy D up in the limousine

[@sapouso]

@@jacobrobinson9952 Hangin' pictures on my wall Every Saturday Rap Attack, Mr. Magic, Marley Marl

[@Adrian-fk6sl]

Maybe everything is just a dream

[@rockzyk1291]

I love the mental gymnastics people use to cope with stuff. "This show didn't have a bad ending! There's just a secret good final episode that will be released, and the writers are messing with us!"

[@tbotalpha8133]

Sherlock was legendarily bad about this, though, such that the mental gymnastics were a pretty unique phenomenon.

[@Regeor]

Yeah but that feeling of dissatisfaction from a rubbish ending never really goes away, so I understand people trying to trick themselves into thinking everything’s fine and resolved.

[@greg4587]

OMORI is a game where 60% of the game is a crazy dream full of wacky characters and bizarre adventures, yet reality was much, much more interesting.

[@MariOmor1]

"Bizarre Adventures" Is that a--

[@ferociousmaliciousghost]

​@@MariOmor1Yes, yes it is. You even get to see a donut.

[@MariOmor1]

@@ferociousmaliciousghost only difference is that I hate Swwetheart with every fiber of my being

[@liamwhite3522]

Is it a twist if you figure it out like 10 minutes into the game?

[@valletas]

Its not an all a dream tho The game constantly ping pongs you between the dream world and reality

[@blakethompson-dodd9874]

"It was all a dream" is just "It was all a movie". Especially in every single fan theory.

[@witherblaze]

Amen

[@SanjayMerchant]

Now I want someone to post this as an actual theory and play it like they're completely serious. "It wasn't real, it was a series of images played rapidly, created in an elaborate process by a team of people."

[@oniemployee3437]

But that's just a dream. A fictitious dream!

[@ShadeSlayer1911]

I absolutely dislike it whenever anyone suggests that fan theory. It's so lazy.

[@Eon2641]

And occasionally, it was all a videogame *stares accusingly at the "Squall is dead" folks*.

[@johnnychopsocky]

You missed a variant: You're Inside Something Else's Dream. Are all these characters you're meeting real or dream creations? If your only way out is to wake the dreamer, what happens to everyone else? If the only way for you to get home is to cause an apocalypse only you will remember, is it worth it? It has to be, right? ... Right? Yeah, Link's Awakening got me *good* as a child.

[@animeotaku307]

Alice in Wonderland had something similar, too. Alice along with Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum find the sleeping Red King and the Tweedles insinuate that the three of them may only exist because the Red King is dreaming about them.

[@piculra7441]

The writings of Lovecraft are an interesting example of this. All of existence is just the dream of Azathoth, and its implied that there's basically an orchestra full of gods playing music to keep Azathoth asleep, to preserve the existence of...well, everything.

[@chrisrudolf9839]

Well, she did adress the version that the dream-world bears some reality in his own, as in the dream realms of Morpheus. The version of being caught in the dream of another entity is just a specific variant of the dream on some level IS real and having to wake up / escape the dream is the main plot point. The mere fact that it isn't the protagonists own dream but someone else's dreamworld already makes it more of a parralel world scenario.

[@giraton1]

Was gonn bring this one up myself but you put it way better than I could

[@alucard347]

@@piculra7441 the hilariously depressing thing about azathoth though, is that it doesn't matter. The outer gods are nothing short of figments if his imagination. To compare one of them to azathoth is like comparing an ant to one of them. It is several layers of infinity beyond. Them playing music to keep azathoth asleep is like us humans trying to prey for them not to do us harm. How pointless and ridiculous it is, isn't it? The great old ones and their outer gods, as well as humanity and all the worms of the world are all on the same boat, equally irrelevant and unreal in the face if the dreaming azathoth. So the orchestra can play as long as it wants. It is irrelevant. Azathoth will wake when azathoth will wake, and no figment of its imagination will stop it from happening.

[@meluncholy]

In Over the Garden Wall's last scenes Greg's talking about the unknown to Sahra's group and shakes the frog (aka Jason Funderburker) and we see the bell he swallowed in a past episode...

[@Seshythedemonkitty]

I think Perfect Blue is a great example of using “it was all a dream” effectively. It makes you distrust the narrative but in the best way possible.

[@seanmurphy3430]

Worth noting that old movies like Wizard of Oz were coming out at a time when fantasy and magic in fiction were somewhat frowned on by Good Christian Americans, so the writers may have played the "all a dream" card to avoid that backlash.

[@rubyrangitsch5248]

That would explain a fair bit.

[@TlalocTemporal]

Maybe it's because I'm already familiar with the dream setting, but I think the character metaphor and blunt plot points fit better with a soul-searching dream than straight fantasy. Even when it's referenced in other media, it's often as the importance of dreams.

[@FlawlessiceVA]

Ah, so they didn't want to stop at mythology and moved onto fantasy, truly christians hate fun. (This is a joke, I'm formerly christian and have known a lot of really nice an fun-loving christians)

[@HellecticMojo]

@@FlawlessiceVA yes

[@sayerglasgow115]

@@FlawlessiceVA Weird christains: "Dungeons and dragons promotes devil worship!" Paladins: *Holy music stops *

[@A_Random_W33b]

The only justification for 'All a Dream' trope is if the character actually got development from said dream. Otherwise, the writer deliberately wasted everyone's time, which is the greatest sin any writer should depart onto their audience.

[@SinWeissfell]

Agreed. Whenever I recognize the trope my investment usually goes right out of the window. Favorable exceptions include dreams that are used as foreshadowing and are used to explore an interesting facette of the character. Terry Pratchetts 'Mort' comes to mind simply because I tend to find subtle storytelling through writing font very clever.

[@ariannay766]

agreed!!

[@toxicsugarart2103]

Yeah, a really good example of this is Ghost Stories (the horror movie, not the anime lol). I don’t remember a lot of specifics, but the dream kinda forces the main guy to introspect.

[@vullord666]

Or really themselves. I mean if NOTHING changed as a result of the dream... what was the point? I mean, writing is fairly difficult and takes a good amount of time (of course depending on what's being written). I mean you can write whatever you want and I'm not going to actually get mad reading it unless you straight up lied to me on what it would be, but still (let's say someone one wrote a book and put in the front flap and description that the events are all a dream and gave no impact), even if my time isn't wasted why waste your own? At least it's a fairly simple revision fix. If the dream sequence itself was well written, just reflect character changes in the "real" world (it just feels world referring to a second plane of existence in a fictional story as real).

[@Ake-TL]

Dunno if counts, in young justice there is all a dream episode, which is followed by therapy for traumatised kids episode and both episodes foreshadow a lot

[@vissersixty-nine6246]

I think the best version of this trope comes when writers introduce that you're watching a dream early on, and when the fact that it's a dream doesn't serve to undermine the rest of the narrative. That way, it doesn't feel like the rug has been pulled out from under you; it's a genuine exploration of a character that just happens to be told while they were asleep. OMORI is an absolutely incredible example of this trope. You play as a kid named Omori, who leaves his room (called White Space) to go around having wacky adventures with his friends in a whimsical fantasy land called Headspace. You're having a great time hanging out with them!... and then one of them realizes your sister Mari, who is alive and well in Headspace, is actually dead. And Omori is transported back to White Space. And he stabs himself. And, in his place, a teenager named Sunny wakes up. It turns out, this whole time, you've been playing out a dream world plot. Omori is Sunny's self-insert, a version of him when he was twelve years old and his sister was still alive. His friends have grown apart in the years since her death; one remained mostly the same, one went off to college, one became a delinquent carrying around a nailed bat, and one developed a serious anxiety disorder and has a full-blown panic attack when you tell him you're moving away. The dream world manages to stay engaging because it's an exploration of Sunny's psyche. Every character is a representation of a person or thing in the real world; Captain Spaceboy is a comic character, Berly and Van are real people, and Sweetheart is a blend of the two. The candy-coated world can't hide his guilt and trauma forever, and he is haunted by a horrifying ghost called SOMETHING. There are red footprints leading from area to area. When recovering keys, you can trigger cutscenes or jumpscares. He can only progress to certain areas of the dream world after overcoming fears related to them in real life. You can unlock areas like Black Space that let you more thoroughly explore Sunny's psyche too. But the real world is consistently the more interesting, more dynamic area. The characters have more depth, and there is real catharsis to be had. In any less effective story, the real world would be a distraction from Headspace... and until the second day, it's easy to see it as such. The battles are less fun, everyone's meaner, and everything is much more complex. But you can make bonds with your friends, who aren't just facsimiles of younger versions of themselves. Even your most cheerful friend, Kel, struggles with loneliness and self-consciousness. It's really the ONLY version of this trope I've actually enjoyed; in every other story I've seen, it's cheap.

[@bravegrumpy689]

It is also essential to separate this trope from a dream sequence within a narrative. Percy Jackson, for example, uses dreams as foreshadowing.

[@XSniper74184]

I quite like the dream sequences in Republic of Doyle because all of them are clearly dreams, follow the kind of logic you experience in a dream (characters and objects randomly changing and appearing without anyone questioning it), and they all speak to a very real fear or concern the characters have. They're interesting to watch and also give us insight to the characters.

[@bootyman20]

My favourite twists on “it was all a dream” are -Dreaming about something mundane and waking up in a fantasy world -Dreaming about fantasy and waking up in a different fantasy/sci-fi world It’s just funny.

[@arevalones]

Have you ever read the night face up by julio cortazar ?

[@Klaaism]

Personally I hate every iteration of this trope, especially when it's only announced in the end. Granted I liked the ending of Inception.

[@Klipik12]

-getting hit by a truck and waking up in a fantasy world

[@metaparalysis3441]

@@Klipik12 ono not that one D:

[@purplehaze2358]

I actually didn’t know that _Over The Garden Wall_ had multiple parallels with Dante’s Inferno until you pointed it out. Fun stuff.

[@carlosroo5460]

Great now, I want to read it and watch the show back to back.

[@ellac613]

I'm terribly imbarrased that I didn't notice the Beatrice parallel, since I myself have used it...

[@beyond-journeys-end]

@@ellac613 Will you tell me how you used it?

[@alicebrouillard4483]

And she didn't even list them all. Let's not forget the part where people who fall into despair turn into bleeding trees.

[@jessicadecuir5622]

There’s also the fact they’re rescued from a freezing lake.

[@mirien7277]

It feels like the problem with "All a Dream" is basically the same as the whole "Multiverse Problem", with the exclusion of the "No Universes Matter" option. You can either have one universe that matters (the non-dream), and all the problems that come with; but you can also have the option where all the universes matter, like Over The Garden Wall, where both exist and matter, and stay free of the other problems.

[@cheesecakelasagna]

6:22 My favorite Alice adaptation ever is the game Alice: Madness Returns. It turns the dream sequences into an interesting psychoanalysis of Alice's life with each locations symbolizing representations of her psyche.

[@maxwelldavidson4157]

In my opinion, the hardest hitting "just a dream" type is the one where "when you wake up, you won't remember it". Spirited away is a huge example of this. Chihiro still feels the true love she found, but has to willingly walk away from the fantastical world she was in to be with her family. To an extent Sharkboy and Lavagirl does the same thing, "this was all a dream?! When I wake up, you won't exist?" It's one of the most heartbreaking things for me. Willingly letting go of all of these places and people you knew to fall back into mundane life hits so hard.

[@r3dp9]

That's not how I remembered Spirited Away. 1) It's not a dream. Haku is explicitly a river spirit who saved Chihiro's life when she almost drowned in a river, long before the events of the movie. 2) It wasn't forgotten. Correct me if I'm wrong, but nothing anyone said indicated that Chihiro would forget everything. Humans in general usually forget their encounters, but Chihiro had: 1) eaten the food to become a part of that realm, 2) already proved herself capable of remembering past spirit encounters such as her first meeting with Haku, and 3) showed non signs of forgetting anything as she looked back at the scenery as the family drove away.

[@maxwelldavidson4157]

@@r3dp9 you are right about the not a dream bit, but Miyazaki himself stated that she forgets everything from the spirit world when she leaves. Yeah, she may be able to recall it with a bunch of difficulty (like remembering Haku's true name), but it still would be deeply buried. regardless, the forgetting everything bit, mixed with the nod to Orpheus and Eurydice of not being allowed to look back is really impactful to me

[@joganesha4151]

@@maxwelldavidson4157 if that's the case then it's a literal gut punch to the audience. One similar example I can find is Adventure time's episode about finn and the pillow world. Where the concept is more less similar. Finn wakes up not remembering about the pillow world. There are theories suggesting that Golb destroyed the pillow world just as Finn wakes up, which explains his sudden appearance. In all honesty, I love this twist to the dream trope. Imagine the only way to save the protag or a character is to bring them back to reality, at the cost of the dream reality (basically destroying that world and everyone in it) It's a real knife twister when the person who woke up doesn't remember all of that. It's a whole other level of self sacrifice at the cost of a whole different universe

[@oOochikaraoOo]

@@joganesha4151 FFX and Dream Zanarkand. Don't remember where I got this quote from, but it really fits: "Tidus is not just choosing to sacrifice himself; he's choosing to end the existence of the hundreds or thousands of innocent inhabitants in Dream Zanarkand along with his own. His homeland, where he grew up in, everything about their lives and culture, extinguished from existence forever. That's a whole side to the story that no one but Tidus, Auron, Jecht and the fayth are privy to."

[@SollowP]

Adventure Time had this trope in one of their episodes. FIn is transported to a world made of pillows which he can't find his way out of. He eventually lives an entire life there: building relations, having a family which includes kids and grandkids. He is content, he is happy. Though the episode ends with Fin eventually finding his way out and then completely forgetting everything that happened to him. Forgot that he basically lived an entire lifetime with beloved ones.

[@bennnymiddleton40]

I remember in middle school Mr Mendenhall told us, “your characters can dream, but they can’t dream the whole story”

[@epauletshark3793]

I had an art teacher in middle school: Mrs Mendenhall

[@cooltrainervaultboy-39]

Reminds me of an idea for an episode of a sitcom I had in mind. Like, ordinarily the show is about an actor who, along with some of his buddies, makes a locally syndicated tokusatsu show. But then for one episode, everything changes. The clip of the show he works on that opens every episode is that of a high budget baseball movie, he's married to a celebrity instead of living with his siblings, has a kid with her (who ages throughout the episode like in a real dream), and the mom that's been established to be dead is now coming over to visit! His mom tells him that he's dreaming, to which he reveals that he already knew, because the cookie jar on the counter turned from a mallard duck, to a white and orange polkadot duck, to a white and orange polkadot cat, and finally to a REAL polkadot cat. They hug, and when the mom relies that the hug has gone on for a comedicly long time, she tells him that he can let go now. He responds with, "I don't want to let go," carrying a double meaning to it. The episode ends with the main character and his friend playing baseball with another product group from the network, telling him about the dream he had and tying in with the beginning of the episode.

[@SkyeSkyeArt]

I remember that, as a kid, I ended one of my creative writing stories with, "it was all a dream.. OR WAS IT ??" and I thought I had done the most unique ending ever, not realizing that it was extremely common lmao

[@SkyeSkyeArt]

5:05 it was this type

[@lnt305]

My main issue with that trope is that apparently the authors have never dreamed?! Like, Alice in Wonderland, as you said, does have the exact vibe of a dream, but most stories just do not.

[@Msalazar2011]

The absolute best “It was a dream all along” episode I ever saw was Ouran High School Host Club “Haruhi in Wonderland”. It was purposefully meta in the sense that it was an obvious Alice in Wonderland homage, so we the audience know that nothing is real. But the emotions and character development make it real for Haruhi, and the best version of the trope I’ve ever seen.

[@LoonyTunes]

now I want to rewatch Ouran High School Host Club xD

[@TheGamingShadowCat]

Dammit man why are you making me feel nostalgic for that show!

[@purpleberry3564]

That was I'm thinking it's a good way develop one character

[@sarilchowdhury3955]

Uh yeah I don't think I agree. But respect your opinion. Like the entire episode I was like what the fuck is going on and I feel like it was boring as well. And did it honestly do any character development

[@actualperson1971]

Naw man the best all a dream trope was inception lol

[@artlover6350]

I really hope we get "Trope Talk:Alternate Universes" in the future

[@r3dp9]

I hear Rick & Morty pulls that off well. There are a "limited spectrum" of alternate realities, so although there are MANY copies of everyone, the supply of duplicates is finite. It's somewhere in the low hundred IIRC, so you could totally kill off all versions of a person if you went to enough effort.

[@skzanarchist]

rick and morty does this trope really well

[@thanatos6450]

A chance to write characters in a vastly different way What if Spiderman became the punisher? What if superman became a tyrant and took over the world? What if Shirou Emiya was a trained Magus and won the HGW in one night?

[@tuckernutter]

You just know she'd bring up the mcu and rick and morty as examples

[@readysetgameover9977]

Maybe in an alternative universe.

[@AMNG1994]

Yesterday, I had a dream I was a badass swordsman fighting the Teen Titans. I felt so relieved after waking up because I just realize that if I was fighting the Teen Titans then I must've been a villain in that dream world. My grandma used to always say to me that I have to be a good person.

[@sayerglasgow115]

Eh, I wouldn't sweat it. It could've just been a friendly sparring match or a misunderstanding.

[@AMNG1994]

@@sayerglasgow115 But I'm sure my intent was neither to win nor to learn, but to harm Robin. It happened on a nearby 7/11 haha.

[@sayerglasgow115]

@@AMNG1994 Oh, well, he DOES have a habit of getting in fights with ninja swordsman. He gets it from his dad.

[@anna-flora999]

Or they turned evil. Or you're both good but with some differences in your philosophy

[@sidvid1208]

I just kept thinking of the "Ash is in a coma because of the spearow incident and everything else is just a dream" fan theory

[@redbuck1385]

Never liked "this is a dream/main character is in a coma" fan theories because it can just be applied to any story, and it's sort of unfalsifiable. You could literally apply it to something you had never seen and it would have exactly the same depth as if the most diehard fan tried to apply it.

[@BaronB.BlazikenBaronOfBarons]

Don’t know if you could make a full episode of this, but “Trope Talk: Animal Companions?”

[@timothymclean]

Hm. It's too broad a topic to say much about the trope as a whole, it doesn't have any variants detailed enough to fill a trope talk, and I don't see there being a nice "thesis" to build the video around.

[@fantasy873]

Plus it would probably have mostly Disney princess movies as examples.

[@trishapellis]

Also known as the "every animal is either a dog, a human, or a combination of both" trope.

[@matthewmuir8884]

Great; now I'm remembering the Avatar: The Last Airbender episode "Appa's Lost Days"... Who put this bowl of onions near me?

[@zenvariety9383]

@@timothymclean Not to mention most of the examples would be TTRPGs.

[@schw4rztee502]

I feel like "To the moon" and it's sequel deserve a mention for their interesting subversion of telling you in the beginning "this is the dream of a dying comatose person" and then making you invested in giving that dream a happy ending.

[@herosmith5662]

WAIT, TO THE MOON HAS A SEQUEL?!

[@daanwilmer]

There is "a bird story", which is not really a sequel, and I just found out about "finding paradise" which is a sequel to both. Time to fire up my gaming pc!

[@quincy9908]

If they tell you in the beginning, I am not sure if it'sa "all a dream" story any more. Do to the part you knowing it's a dream instead of finding out afterwards

[@FranNyan]

@@herosmith5662 AND THERE'S A THIRD IN THE WORKS TOO.

[@AzraelSoulHunter]

This game series is one of the most underrated masterpieces.

[@FoxHound-ut1hu]

I always loved the JLA episodes with Ace. She was dying and instead of falling into a dream she brought the dream into reality, making her fantasy a threat to the whole world. Then the moment on the swing with her and Bruce just beautiful writing.

[@machinedramon3532]

This sounds actually sounds like a really cool villain backstory. Have the first one or two episodes/chapters/whatever be the end of a separate fantasy story, only for the protagonist to wake up and find out it was all a dream but refuse to accept it. Suddenly, they develop some kind of psychic abilities, and start generating twisted phantasms of the world they desperately miss but can never return to, forcing the real protagonist to step up to defeat them and help them come to terms with their loss.

[@sayerglasgow115]

That's sort of what happened in Wandavision.

[@machinedramon3532]

@@sayerglasgow115 Almost, but the setup is a bit different. Vision really did exist once, he just didn't anymore. This would be more like if Wanda dreamed up the whole sitcom life beforehand, only to find out Vision was never a real person and Westview was never a real place to begin with.

[@sayerglasgow115]

@@machinedramon3532 I suppose so, though on the other hand, the version of Vision that Wanda dreamed up wasn't exactly the 'real' Vision.

[@machinedramon3532]

@@sayerglasgow115 No, but she created him because the real Vision was dead, not because he was a fake to begin with. I was moreso thinking of awakening from a dream and then forcefully recreating it than just imposing one on other people.

[@sayerglasgow115]

@@machinedramon3532 Yea, I see what you mean. In a way it's actually similar to a lot of naive-hero-versus-harsh-world type stories. Someone believed in one reality, and, finding a different one, decided that the one they'd believed in before was better. The main difference is that a heroic character knows where to draw the line when it comes to imposing their vision on the world. A paragon hero might try to lead people by example into behaving better and becoming better versions of themselves, but they wouldn't mind control them into behaving the way they think a person ought to.

[@owendy274]

I litterally hate this trope, it angers me every time I see it

[@eh9618]

See it...or dreampt it? WooOOooOoOooo

[@Yourmother19849]

Same

[@mewe1717]

Because of twilight? I mean that's my reason

[@matthewpopow6647]

Yeah, its almost never done well. There are so few times its actually good. 3. The Batman TAS ep where Barbara Gordon dies 2. Xcom 2 treating the entire 1st game was a coma simulation 1. The young justice episode. EDIT: I CAN’T BELIEVE I FORGOT "FOR THE MAN WHO HAS EVERYTHING"!

[@mastertofu]

Eh, it can be done well though. Especially stories revolving around dreams like it's an alternate reality. When written well, it's really cool.

[@timothymclean]

If Red got hbomberguy to say the "Secret good fourth Sherlock episode" line, I'd know this was a dream. Good dream, though.

[@acebee46]

Speaking of hbomberguy and this trope, have you seen his pathologic episode? I was hoping red would talk about pathologic in this video

[@mr.cup6yearsago211]

@@acebee46 I kinda figured she wouldn’t, considering she rarely touches on games, but it would’ve been cool, and Pathologic is probably the only example I can think of where a story with an “it was all a dream” plot twist didn’t completely rid me of all investment.

[@acebee46]

@@mr.cup6yearsago211 yeah ur right, and yeah they did something really interesting with that trope

[@devinodriscoll]

@@mr.cup6yearsago211 Well I think the reason it works is because YOU aren’t the one having the dream. The stakes are still real for you, because you exist in this fictional space. It’s the smartest use of that trope for that reason. Because essentially, if you exist in a dream, then the dreamer is just God. It doesn’t remove the stakes because you’re not someone that can escape by just waking up.

[@exammole4545]

I think one of the best way in handling “It was all just a dream” plot device is to tell them before they get invested

[@olivermckowen135]

Two of my favorite variants of "It was in fact a dream, but that doesn't mean it didn't matter" Prophetic Dreams, where the character learns some vital clue to stopping the bad thing from happening, usually couched in a riddle nestled in an allegory hidden in a limerick Message Dreams, where the dream was a message sent to the character by another character, a higher power, or even a bad guy. The dream has meaning because it originates in the "real" world, and contains information relevant to that "real" world

[@marieroberts5458]

Tolkien did that at several points in the LotR, and from both the context within the tale and other writings, (like the Silmarillion) we find out that the Valar use dreams to carry messages to those who need guidance, nothing is ever "just a dream" in Tolkien.

[@xero1134]

This just makes me want to watch Over the Garden Wall for like... The eighth time

[@Flowtail]

**bangs on table** DE-TAIL DI-E-TRIBE! **bangs on table** DE-TAIL DI-E-TRIBE! **bangs on table** DE-TAIL DI-E-TRIBE!

[@Heothbremel]

XD you reminded me, its been 3 months I'm due for another watch through

[@wren_bean]

Or the hundredth 😬

[@xero1134]

@Daniel Ashar bin Mohd Fraziali * short answer: yes A bit longer answer: it's a great little mini series that takes you on a trip with solid themes and a bit of an episodic nature to it that still keeps the characters focused on their goal to go home

[@wren_bean]

@Daniel Ashar bin Mohd Fraziali * literally my favorite piece of media-- and that's counting books, movies, video games, tv shows, plays, the lot. There's so much to love about it whether that's the homages to early animation, the fantastic soundtrack, the careful and methodical use of imagery and symbolism, the beautiful philosophical metaphors, and the references to classical literature.

[@fashioni.star.]

Also point in Over the Garden Wall: Frog Jason Funderburker still has the bell in his stomach we can see it lighting up when Greg shakes him

[@lyinar]

I utterly loathe the fandom-specific "this whole story was just the main character hallucinating while dying" thing, because it is pretty much entirely mean-spirited. It just feels like nothing more than someone saying, "I think the things you like are stupid and you're stupid for liking them, so I'm going to try to crush your hopes and dreams".

[@elizabethlong4164]

I remember the TV show “boy meets world” did this trope to explain and illustrate some inner turmoil the characters were going through. Most of the time each dream sequence involved major character deaths that didn’t make sense given context and tone of the show.

[@blakedavis2447]

It was all a dream story’s: fantastic well written adventures Actual dreams: incoherent chaos

[@omegabet3912]

I sometimes somehow dream of fantastic well written adventres. Wanna hear one of them?

[@blakedavis2447]

@@omegabet3912 yes

[@omegabet3912]

@@blakedavis2447 So basically, I was a vampire hunter, and I and some fellow hunters were storming a ship filled with vampires. I stole a Candelabra and suplexed the captain.

[@blakedavis2447]

@@omegabet3912 epic

[@Bluecho4]

Alice in Wonderland is the only good dream story, because it's the only story that fully grasps the unfiltered surrealist chaos that is dreaming.

[@chalmersmathew4831]

Surprised that Red didn’t mention the story of The Little Match Girl, especially considering she brought up the dying variant for this trope.

[@lilithcrow6675]

It's because that story is the worst story ever written.

[@pastelguts6182]

Yall clearly had a different version of the little match girl than me....

[@Jasonwolf1495]

Way to make me sad....

[@epauletshark3793]

Now I am sad.

[@mrfipp]

I love how in Terry Pratchett's Hogfather, Death, who decides to become Santa for a night, comes across a dying little match girl, and his assistant Albert tells him what's Christmas without a dying little match girl? Death then went TONIGHT I AM NOT DEATH, BUT THE HOGFATHER, AND WHAT BETTER GIFT CAN BE GIVEN THAN A FUTURE? before reversing the sand in her little hour glass. Pratchett was not a fan of The Little Match Girl.

[@annaharrington8397]

I loved undertale’s “take” on this premise, during the “genocide” run. When Noelle wakes up she thinks it was all just a bad dream, but then when her friend(whom she killed in the dream) doesn’t wake up it makes her wonder if he’s really dead. It’s left unclear, at least to me, wether their actions in the dark world did have real world repercussions or not and I think that is terrifying

[@Blueninja-xt4ci]

I think you are thinking of Deltarune. Some creator, different game.

[@jennyevef]

Deltarune, not Undertale, and it's the Weird Route, not genocide run. Also I feel like it almost doesn't count since Chapter 2 where this happens is the same chapter it gets confirmed that the Dark World IS real and not imaginary like Chapter 1 lead us to believe.

[@connortg5]

Well, actions in the dark world definitely have repercussions, your inventory in the light world change depending on what items you have equipped in the dark world (spooky sword and noelle’s watch) and berdly varies between being fine, having a broken arm or outright not waking up (although it’s never outright said whether he died or was just unconscious) and getting hidden in the closet depending on what happens to him in the dark world. Also yeah, it’s deltarune, undertale is Toby’s other game

[@willowwilliams498]

You mean deltarune?

[@MSCDonkeyKong]

it would have had real implications either way; i think its more important that it would have had an effect on both her and on kris. remember, the normal route's secret boss shows kris is an independent thinker regardless of what the player controls from them. he has all the reason to fear not being in control of his own actions.

[@sectoidsupreme3341]

My personal favorite use of this trope was Pathological's unique secret ending. How you can speak to the developers in game and argue about the philosophy behind a fictional story being "just a dream"

[@tatersalad76]

My favorite "it was all a dream" was Young Justice's episode "Failsafe". Because it was supposed to be an inconsequential training exercise that went horribly wrong and needed the characters to all need to go to therapy afterwards

[@herosmith5662]

I love the Failsafe episode, such a good way to explore the characters and send them off on their arcs.

[@JenamDrag0n]

Yes! I was thinking of that episode when I saw this Trope Talk!

[@ianr.navahuber2195]

@@herosmith5662 the next episode had a very interesting take on how they took the experience with the most memorable one being superboy's reaction to the whole "everyone is dying," scenario and why

[@ScottLoganSecurity]

Nightmare on Elm Street; "It's all just a dream. And that's WAY more real."

[@setsuna911maddening]

A game that use this strope without any of those problem is eternal sonata. We know from the start that we are in the dying dream of Chopin, and Chopin suspect it. In fact, the fact that is a dream has a huge impact on the ending (sorry if it's hard to understand but I really don't want to spoil). It made sense and haded to the story.

[@Hardemantv]

Honestly been in love with these trope talks and for an hour or two a day a watch a couple. Thank you for the great content!

[@hakon_helgoy]

Feel like the “it’s all a dream”-trope is best used when the nature of the dream actually reflects the dreamer’s psychology. “Mullholland drive” is a great example of that. Check it out if you haven’t!

[@GeneGear]

He Was A Quiet Man is a movie that does that, and I think that is the only time I was ever genuinely appreciative of the straight all-a-dream trope because of how excellently it was portrayed.

[@CraftsmanOfAwsomenes]

Yes, a story that’s entirely a dream can be good depending on whether or not the creator takes that into account in the execution. Too often creators just make a normal story and say “dream” at the end. I’m less offended when like Silent Hill isn’t 100% real because that game was very clearly dreamlike and full of symbolism from the start.

[@nickkarn8085]

Tony’s coma dream in Sopranos falls into this category too

[@visibleconfusion782]

Expanding on the dreamworlds thing, there’s the indie RPG niche of dreamworlds with Yume Nikki, Omori, Lisa, etc. where the protagonist can interact with their surreal dreamworlds as a way to exploring their psyche.

[@EvilParagon4]

I'd love to write a story where the dream is so obvious so the audience doesn't get blindsided by the twist, but can still feel the gut punch of the character realising it. Like perhaps a guy wakes up to his alarm at 6:26am, a nonsensical time for an alarm. He gets ready for work by brushing his teeth, showering, and eating breakfast. He heads to the kitchen to find his wife has made him breakfast which he eats with her while they talk about how their neighbour was mowing the lawn so loudly last night. He gets up and she takes his cup to the sink, he goes straight down the stairs right to the front door where his wife is waiting to kiss him goodbye, and then he drives down an empty street with no other houses to highschool where his dad tells him to be good today, which he promises he will. Problem is, it'd probably get very tedious and frustrating to read as the audience rereads parts to make sure they got it right. A part of a story like that would probably do way better in a visual format.

[@josephstone4842]

I think season one of Young Justice did a really good “all a dream”. It allowed for casualties without them lasting, but still had consequences because the entire next episode was the characters mentally dealing with the dream and how it impacted them.

[@GuiSmith]

Additionally, it gave us the indication that Meghan was potentially too powerful and impulsive for her own good. The whole dream became “real” when Artemis died in it and the folks overseeing the “dream” became very concerned that she didn’t immediately wake up. We got that impulsive psychic power as a character trait after the time skip when she was insensitively invading people’s minds and decimating them in the process.

[@aceinspace4340]

Yeah! I was about to comment about this too. I especially liked how it played a part in Robin's story arc about his feelings on leadership and Batman. Some of the ramifications can be seen in the later seasons as well.

[@ShadoTempest]

Yesss, this episode scared me so much when it came out when I was a kid because I didn’t understand that it couldn’t possibly be real. Like I literally thought they were just ending DC Comics lmao. I love the impact it has on all the characters

[@chloej1611]

There is one _Doctor_ _Who_ episode that actually does this really well. The whole premise is “which is reality and which is dream,” and even though the dream has no _physical_ consequences, decisions made in the dream are still important in both furthering major themes surrounding the Doctor and setting up a consistent piece of characterization: Amy always chooses Rory over the Doctor.

[@PhoenixAngel429]

11:38 Love your stab at those fan theories

[@excusezmoi9823]

The dying variant: Back in the 90's I was in a very famous tv show.

[@gorimbaud]

A _very_ famous TV show. Though I don't think that quite counts, either, since it's very upfront about the dreaming, though not as upfront about the dying.

[@gorimbaud]

@Joseph Krystek-Walton Personally, I lean towards him actually waking up, because there's a whole episode after, and I think that episode's a better ending.

[@johnmeadow1426]

The 'you are in an insane asylum' trope is very related.

[@caoilfhionndunbar]

That trope is at this point the ‘shutter island ripoff’ trope. That’s like the only time it was ever done well

[@gus9797]

I like the way Deltarune did this since 1. It never explicitly said it, they just showed the room that looked exactly like the dark world 2. It doesn't undermine Susie's character development from the dark world

[@mr.cup6yearsago211]

I mean, that’s just one possible interpretation of Deltarune, which is also proven almost certainly incorrect by the fact that Susie questions whether or not the events of the game were real, which she wouldn’t do if they had been playing some kind of TTRPG or whatever.

[@shadowsableyexd2660]

This aged well

[@matthewwilliams8267]

I would say Berdly would like to talk... but he's still in the hospital.

[@maskedkoopa6252]

@@matthewwilliams8267That's LORD Berdley to you, simpleton!

[@connortg5]

Deltarune also did it good because it’s not a dream, what exactly IS going on is still confusing but we know for a fact that they are really going to another world, as the contents of the light world inventory changes based on the dark world inventory and berdly can have a broken arm or even possibly dead depending on what you do

[@biancagalaxy1338]

The dreaming while dying trope made me think of The View From Halfway Down in Bojack Horseman. Even though the show is generally weird, the previous seasons had established a specific visual language for dreams, hallucinations, and drug trips that the audience can recognize, removing the element of deception. Despite being a dream, it still matters, because by 3/4 of the episode we know that we are seeing into Bojack's psyche while he is dying, and because we are invested in the character, we are invested in the events of his dream as an expression of his viewpoints and internal conflict.

[@hugoribeiro5473]

Mega props to Red for making an “All a Dream” video and not putting the obvious Inception example

[@SanjayMerchant]

But, with the exception of some ambiguity in the final scene, the movie's pretty explicit about what is and isn't a dream and how many layers deep we are (hence why each dream within a dream is a wildly different setting than the previous). If you tell the audience up front "this next bit happens in a dream", I don't know that it's this trope. All Just a Dream is specifically a plot twist. The difference between All Just a Dream and the more mundane Dream Sequence is when you tell the audience: at the end or at the beginning.

[@joshuab3918]

Especially since dreams are the central premise of the story, and the rules are pretty clearly defined. Even if does end in the dream world, the action of the movie still matters

[@catiseith]

@@SanjayMerchant Still, Inception pulls the “it’s all a dream” several times to explain how the dreams work (“do you remember how did you get here?” scene for example) and establishing their purpose for the plot.

[@k.5425]

@@catiseith yes because when we dream isn't it the same thing? We start out in one room/place and end up in another and literally dunno how we got there. And it makes no sense whatsoever *BECAUSE* it's a dream. Like I have dreams where I'm in my house and end up on some school property in the next few secs and in the dream for a while it "makes sense" how I got there till I'm partially or fully awake and realise it's not possible realistically.

[@Banjo_Was_Taken]

The only trope I hate more than the "all a dream" is "time resets to before it all happened". Just a good way to have an end make the reader feel like they wasted their time.

[@magoshighlands4074]

Best way to do that, is force the characters to deal with the butterfly effect when they use the knowledge they already gained

[@ellieofthebeast7952]

Oh, man, let me tell you about Homestuck

[@dralakba-dusk31]

ah yes my favorite, time reset with time jump while undervaluing the whole adventure and the readers time. I'm looking at you Solo Leveling!

[@boobah5643]

I'm looking at you, _Star Trek: Voyager._ It _can_ work if you set up a Peggy Sue type-thing where either someone remembers or leaves a clue from the terminated timeline. Or you can be like _Buffy: The Vampire Slayer_ and use it to introduce a new series regular who never explains the incident involving an alternate timeline.

[@Starmadien2019]

It can be done when mixed with "everything is on a loop." All that has happend has already happend and you need to find a way to break the loop. Groundhog Day, Happy Death Day.

[@Ultravenom1]

"All a dream" is best used as an epiphany moment. Like Scrooge's epiphany on greed could easily be turned into a dream sequence, losing the fairy but gaining the feeling that Scrooge may have always had these thoughts.

[@cgj28ok]

The final episode of Newhart is probably the best way this trope was ever pulled off. Brilliant.

[@artnashjr2500]

Agreed. Especially how they recreated the original Bob Newhart bedroom set and got Susanne Pleshette to return for just that last episode.

[@luthfihar3211]

imagine if OSP made this video unlisted and acted like they didn't actually uploaded a video today, making us feel this video was part of a dream

[@little_ghosty1854]

Oh you magnificent bastard. I like it.

[@FranciscanGypsy]

That… would be gaslighting. 😳😆

[@NinjaGidget]

"This trope breaks an unspoken social contract" is not the hot take I was expecting, but having heard it, I know in my heart it was true all along. Do you think the tendency to "All a Dream" fantasy adventure stories in particular ties back to a general undervaluing of fantasy as a genre or setting that Tolkien was so mad about?

[@LuinTathren]

Good question! I'm always surprised how magical realism is respected yet straight fantasy isn't valued as art. To me, there's very little difference. I can love Haruki Murakami right alongside Anne McCaffrey.

[@griffenspellblade3563]

@@LuinTathren Isn't Pern stright science fiction that same lazy way Darkover is?

[@LuinTathren]

@@griffenspellblade3563 While McCaffrey always considered The Chronicles of Pern as science fiction, I consider most of them to be science fantasy. But, yes, I should have used an author who writes straight fantasy as an example.

[@PS-dm1dq]

Yep.

[@chaosheaven23]

The best use of this, in my opinion, is Bojack Horseman's dream episode. The dramatic irony of course being that the audience knows it's a dream, but you almost think it's somehow really happening on some level. It's fantastic.

[@kiraina25]

Probably my favorite example of a type-5 done actually well comes from a JRPG of all things. Spoilers for the game in question of course follow. . . . . Eternal Sonata follows a motley group of colorful protagonists, including a pair of street rats, a cursed girl, a pair of magical living macguffins, and _Francis Frederick Chopin._ The game makes no secret of this. The interludes discuss various pieces he composed and the events in his own life that influenced the pieces. The entire game is a relatively standard but heartfelt story about plucky protagonists in a fantastical world fighting to stop a crazed would-be emperor named Count Waltz. And then you beat Waltz, and Chopin takes a break from beating up monsters with a conductor's baton to realize something. This world is not real. It's a dream. A dream that _he_ is having. And he realizes, as well, that he is dying. The entire game, its plot, the characters you've come to love because their arcs and interactions were by design the thing you cared about? It's all a dream that Chopin is having as he lays dying. Well, what's a man to do when he realizes that he's locked within a dying dream but to _turn into the final boss?_ Yes. Really. The final boss of Eternal Sonata is the remaining party members fighting Chopin, their comrade throughout the story, in a desperate bid to keep him from ending their world. All while an arrange of Revolutionary Etude plays as the final boss theme. And it even subverts the trope. If you win, Chopin passes on peacefully, still within the dream - much of the story actually involves Chopin finding a sort of coded closure for his frankly wretched life story. But if you lose, if Chopin beats you, he wakes from the dream. And then, his eyes slowly dull and close, and the game instead ends on the somber words, "The dream vanished like smoke, and I was left cold and alone. Is it ever possible to change fate?" ... if you lose to Chopin? If you play to the trope that he himself is trying to invoke? _Chopin dies anyway, mournful, and the game closes on its bad ending._

[@thacc8216]

I think the most depressing use of “it’s all a dream” was in life on Mars, where the protagonist fell into a coma, dreamt he was in the past, wakes up at the end of the series back in his mundane life, then literally kills himself so he can live in the dream world forever.

[@mickey4125]

that absolutely ripped my heart out.

[@mothralord1709]

@@lindales3959 now gotta say ehat movie this is so i can watch it lol

[@dododojo905]

@@lindales3959 What's the name of the movie?

[@zwodder4424]

@@lindales3959 You can't just not tell us the movie name, I'm so interested!

[@ThanesTito]

@@lindales3959 this reminds me of the "Beyond the Aquila Rift" episode of Love, Death and Robots

[@HealthXPotions]

This Trope is just as Infuriating as the "Auugh they were in a coma" theorisers/theories. God I hate the people who pull this card.

[@The_Evening_Sun]

Ah I hate those. I remember all the stupid Ash from pokemon is in coma theories from when I was a kid

[@HealthXPotions]

@@The_Evening_Sun Yeah i know right Honestly, every time I hear it, I just wanna punch the theorisers.

[@kurasuta3715]

Add "this person is actually dead/doesn't exist"

[@starwarsnerd100]

@@HealthXPotions Normally I try not to shit on people’s personal headcanon. But man it boils my blood when people act like they’re the cleverest theorist in the world for trotting out one of the oldest, most irritating tropes.

[@Castersvarog]

Plus, it just ruins basically all the fun of a series. Especially because it always come off as a ‘no fun allow’ theory.

[@santiagovenegas4388]

The covers at the end are really great they’re the bonus awesome at the end of the journey

[@Doughy_in_the_Middle]

I have always been a storyteller, and I was broken of the trope...in kindergarten. I vividly remember using it in a story about a turtle and he woke up realizing it was "all a dream" and without hesitation, my teacher smacked me down. She said there should be a much more believable ending...even for a fantasy story. Funny thing is: she's one of my favorite teachers I ever had throughout my childhood.