0–G (Famous Last Words | Foil) | H–Q (One Steve Limit) | R–Z (Wham Episode | Wham Line)
The Dream SMP is full of Foils, to the point that approximately half the cast has found a foil in each other.
Note: Unless otherwise specified, all tropes pertain to the characters, not the content creators that play them.
Main story
- Dream and Jschlatt. Dream would have been considered a dictator, but when the war ended he gave L'Manburg independence despite having no reason to (as he'd won) and respected the terms of the peace treaty, with the only conflict with him afterwards being provoked by others (namely Tommy). Jschlatt, however, blatantly ignored this treaty and actively generated conflict wherever he went (a 0% Approval Rating will do that). Dream's dictatorship was more subdued and quiet, but he's a lot smarter and more rational, being a fairly significant direct threat but being even more dangerous in the long run. Jschlatt favored a much more bold approach and while he was definitely the bigger immediate threat, he was also an idiot and borderline insane. Jschlatt shines brighter but burns out faster, and come the end of the L'Manburg Civil War, he was drinking himself to death in the Camarvan. Dream shines less but lasts far longer, and come the end of the civil war, he's sitting comfortably from Dream SMP territory, having gotten exactly what he wanted with next-to-no personal losses.
- Dream and Tommy. Tommy is an energetic Large Ham who holds personal attachment to a lot of things and ideas, while Dream is a Cold Ham who shuns attachments because he sees it as weakness. Tommy is someone who is consistently dealt a bad hand but tries to make friends in spite of it, while Dream is on top of the world and shuns friendships in order to protect himself. Tommy's friendships eventually come to benefit him, while Dream's lack of friendships results in his downfall. And lastly, both Dream and Tommy are responsible for each other losing all the lives they have lost so far (Dream having killed Tommy three times and Tommy having killed Dream twice), and each of them lost their first two lives one after another (Tommy lost his second life within a few days after losing his first, while Dream loses his first two mere seconds apart from each other).
- Dream and Foolish. Both are powerful, influential members of the server, but the similarities end there. Dream is one of the server's founders, while Foolish is a more recent addition. Dream is responsible for all of Tommy's deaths and trauma; Foolish is a loving father to his children, Foolish Jr and Finley. Dream develops a god complex after he learns he can successfully resurrect the dead, while Foolish is an actual god of undeath. By the Banquet Aftermath arc, more foils can be seen in the L'Sandberg conflict with Foolish; both Dream and Foolish have had portions of their land claimed by outsiders who created their own rules and laws that were unfairly biased against others (banning all non-Europeans in the case of L'Manburg, and taxing the rightful owner of the land in L'Sandberg). Notably, the main difference between the two is that Foolish avoided violence at all costs, attempting to negotiate with BadBoyHalo, who created L'Sandberg, while Dream's first response was to declare war on L'Manburg.
- Dream and Quackity. Both men are very manipulative and good at controlling arguments, with Quackity often being able to keep up Dream in verbal confrontations, though when it comes to physical fights, Dream is leagues better. Both aren't afraid of doing horrible things to get what they want, such as Dream threatening to kill Tubbo in order to control Tommy and eventually killing Tommy to prove he can revive the dead, and Quackity torturing Dream originally for the knowledge on how to resurrect people but now as a twisted form of revenge and punishment. At the same time, like Dream, Quackity isn't afraid to manipulate those close to him, he's easily able to put aside personal feelings when it comes to business as shown when he manipulated Awesamdude by striking at his guilt over Tommy's death, and later with him targeting Fundy's insecurities to convince him to join Las Nevadas. However, Dream believes that force is the ultimate method to controlling the server, while Quackity relies much more on forcing people into relying on him; Dream was once attached to his friends, but ultimately cuts off the attachments in order to keep himself from being controlled, while Quackity openly cares for his friends and gets easily attached to his builds, and is deeply sentimental even when hiding it. Moreover, in terms of manipulation itself, Dream more often than not does it For the Evulz and outright lies many times, while Quackity genuinely believes in the beliefs he speaks of, especially in the Las Nevadas arc, and is heavily implied to be projecting his own trauma and insecurities through it; and while Dream had been utilizing manipulative tactics as early as the L'Manburg War for Independence, Quackity seemingly has only used it as a last resort in his spiral. Interestingly, both are also associated with smiley-face emoticons, albeit slightly different ones (":]" for Quackity, ":)" for Dream).
- Dream and Technoblade. Dream prefers to manipulate people from behind the scenes, while Techno brute-forces his way through most situations. While both are trying to topple governments, Techno does it because he genuinely believes that governments are inherently evil, while Dream does it because he believes he should be the one in charge. At the same time, Techno sees his friendships and attachments as a strength and is extremely loyal to those that he cares for, but Dream views them as a weakness and actively tries to cut them off. However, at the same time, these attitudes turn out to be their respective Fatal Flaws, with Dream's attitude of cutting off his attachments ultimately turning himself against the entire server, and Techno being willing to die in place of those that he loves.
- Eret and Technoblade. Both of them played a huge role in a highly traumatic event to the L'Manburgians (the Final Control Room for Eret, and Tubbo's execution for Techno), but while Eret has tried to make up for her actions, Techno has not (or as of Season 4, barely). On top of this, Techno is devoted to anarchy and holds a heavy anti-government sentiment (or at least, he claims to be), and is feared by many for a variety of reasons; Eret is the King of the Greater Dream SMP and is fairly benevolent, both as a ruler and as a person outside the royal court.
- Tubbo and Tommy. Tommy is a very emotional person, and tends to throw logic and reason out the window in favor of protecting the things or people he holds dear. In contrast, Tubbo is a very logical person, and always tries to think his decisions through very carefully. Best exemplified by their would-be final conversation during the Final Disc War, where Tommy is desperately trying to find a way out and insisting that Dream is not going to kill Tubbo, while Tubbo calmly points out that Dream has cut off every possible escape route, and tries to comfort Tommy as he accepts his impending death. This also ties into their respective fatal flaws; Tommy's Hot-Blooded nature makes him very quick to anger, which causes or exacerbates a lot of conflict between himself and his servermates, while Tubbo's colder, more calculating nature leads him to make decisions that, while seemingly better in the long term, sever emotional ties between himself and his friends, inadvertently leading him to alienate his loved ones.
- Jack Manifold and Nihachu. Both were original members of L'Manburg, the only two who joined after the War for Independence, and as time went on, both of them grew to feel ostracized by the other citizens. They both even destroyed a monument of L'Manburg that survived Doomsday, the L'Mantree and the bakery for Niki and Ze Haus for Jack, after growing to hate the memories attached to them. However, when Tommy was killed by Dream, Jack began to feel guilty and started to reflect and move on, Niki outright refused to believe he was dead. And when Tommy gets revived, where Niki was able to find a support system in the form of the Syndicate, realizing she was targeting Tommy for the wrong reasons and dropping her plans to try and kill him, Jack only got angrier, abandoning his plans for change and putting his everything back into trying to kill him. At the same time, Niki turned against the people and country she was initially loyal to, while Jack was initially only loyal to himself but eventually grew to care about the people he was supposed to despise.
- Captain Puffy and Nihachu. Both are emotional people who are compassionate and willing to help and support their needs, and both follow their own beliefs. However, when it comes to expression, Niki tends to quietly hold grudges without anyone noticing, but she loses some of her morals, becoming more willing to hurt people who helped her before and take actions that only benefit herself. On the other hand, Puffy openly expresses her opinions, and keeps her willingness to save others and do what's best for the people. Puffy fought for L'Manberg, while Niki burned down one of their monuments. The two also have opposite relations towards Tommy; Niki planned to kill Tommy, while Puffy is somewhat of a parental figure towards him. Niki viewed Tommy as someone who brought chaos and destruction towards the adults, but Puffy views the adults as the ones who'd brought chaos and destruction towards Tommy. Much like Niki, Puffy too has reached a breaking point that has caused her to fall down the path of "villainy", though in Puffy's case, it's more a case being willing to raise hell on those that have wronged her and her loved ones than Misplaced Retribution like Niki.
- Tommy and Wilbur. They were both leader-figures of L'Manburg, who were then exiled and led to believe that everyone had abandoned them. In their rage, they each started on a path that would lead them to a Face–Heel Turn, and worked with Technoblade to plot the destruction of L'Manburg. When Wilbur realized he was becoming the bad guy, he chose to embrace that fact, fully going off the rails and committing himself to his goal of destroying his life's work. When Tommy realized he was becoming the bad guy, he was absolutely horrified with the person he was about to become, and immediately left Techno's side, rallied everyone together to defend L'Manburg, and started planning to make amends and turn his life back around. After Wilbur's revival, the two are similarly contrasted by their opinions on morality — both started out with Black-and-White Morality during the early days of L'Manburg, but while Wilbur descended into Black-and-White Insanity during his mental spiral in Pogtopia and never looked back, Tommy has since experienced Character Development and currently views the server with Grey-and-Gray Morality.
- Tommy and Technoblade. Where Tommy seems to be compensating for a lack of confidence with bluster, Techno is secure in his status as the best PVPer on the server. Where Tommy wants to redeem Wilbur, Techno seeks to drive him further into madness. When L'Manburg is retaken, Tommy takes the side of the country when Techno razes it to the ground. Most of the internal conflict in Pogtopia came from Technoblade and Tommy antagonizing each other, with Tommy believing in hope for a better future while Techno is jaded and only sees the potential for tyranny.
- Tommy and Quackity. Both of them are determined to achieve their goals, share a hatred towards Dream, and have broadly good intentions for the server. Both of them are also abuse survivors who have canonically killed their respective abusers at least once. However, in the current day, Quackity is power-hungry in that he wants the knowledge of resurrection for himself (though he eventually seems to give up on this), while Tommy believes having the knowledge to resurrect others gives people too much power and thus wants to have the knowledge destroyed. It also helps that both of them were frequently placed in powerless positions on the server, but developed contrasting opinions on power because of their history. This is then implied to go hand in hand with Tommy's foil with Wilbur, as Quackity is going down Wilbur's path of well-intentioned extremism as he did during the Pogtopia era, while Tommy is sticking to his own path.
- Punz and Technoblade. Both have very anarchistic mindsets and often times capable of switching allegiances on a whim. However, while Techno has Undying Loyalty to his friends, Punz only cares about money and can easily be bribed to betray his friends for profit. Punz wishes to keep the server in a permanent state of chaos, whereas Techno wishes to use anarchy to create a more peaceful world.
- Punz and Sapnap. Both are good at PvP and have a chaotic mindset to thrive on violence in major wars. Whenever the conflict is over, however, Sapnap settles down and stay loyal to his friends, and has experienced Character Development to become more peaceful, but Punz only cares for his own profit and is willing to betray anyone as long as there is money for him to obtain.
- Ranboo and Tommy. Both have been considered to be protagonists as a result of their incredibly heavy involvement with the story of the SMP and their connections to certain characters (Dream most of all), and them working together to grief George's house is what kicks off the conflict of Season 2. They also fill the protagonist role differently: Tommy is loud, rude, and often messes with other people on the server, but is a genuinely nice person underneath the bite who doesn't want to be a villain and wants the best for the server. Ranboo, on the other hand, is polite, kind, a doormat, and much more well-liked, but has also helped Dream while Enderwalking. Tommy is also extremely fierce in sticking up for the people he cares about, even if it gets him hurt, while Ranboo's Extreme Doormat tendencies lead him to sit on the sidelines and make him too scared to do anything about it. Case in point, after Tubbo's execution, Tommy was furious with Techno, fought him in the pit and treated him with nothing but contempt until he literally had no other choice. Ranboo, meanwhile (after being told by Tubbo what happened), refuses to bring it up with Techno out of fear of confrontation.
- Ranboo and Wilbur, to the point that the latter lampshades it. Wilbur values his nation over his personal relationships and believes that the only way to achieve power is through violence, the threat of violence, or careful manipulation. He also sees the world in black and white and considers Dream a hero, both for bringing Wilbur back to life and for "filling in the power vacuum formed by Wilbur's death". Ranboo, on the other hand, values his personal relationships over loyalty to any one group and doesn't care much about gaining or keeping power at all. He also acknowledges that people usually aren't totally good or totally bad and thinks of Dream as a villain due to all of the bad things that Dream has done.
- Ranboo and Ghostbur, to a lesser degree. Both have memory loss triggered by stressful or negative situations, but Ghostbur's is much more severe and is implied to be related to the trauma he had endured in life, while Ranboo's is apparently genetic.
- Ranboo and Slimecicle. Both are humanoid-looking mobsnote who joined the server, only to be dragged into events bigger than themselves that they didn't understand, Ranboo because of his passivity and Slimecicle because of his naïvete.
- Technoblade and Wilbur. While Wilbur prefers to use his skills as a wordsmith to make a point, Techno believes that violence is the only universal language that people are willing to listen to. However, Techno is willing to make a speech or two if the situation calls for it. The two also form a Ham and Deadpan Duo, with Wilbur ironically being the Large Ham to Techno's Deadpan Snarker.
- Technoblade and Quackity. Both have their own beliefs on what is the best for the people and a very strong determination to help, but their ideology and characteristics are opposites of each other. Quackity is not a strong combatant, but he is very good at controlling conversations and convincing people to support his point of view, while Techno prefers to use action to showcase his own beliefs, valuing acts over words. Quackity believes that ensuring absolute order and security is the only way of having a civilized world, however corrupt it may be; whereas Techno believes that anarchy will lead to a more peaceful world, as he sees governments to be inherently evil, and freedom and equality of the people impossible to achieve under an absolute order. After all, there is a reason some fans acknowledge them to be "perfect foils", as both of them can only become 'powerful' in a world where the other is 'weak'.
- Quackity and Jschlatt. Both are ruthless and willing to manipulate others to achieve their ends, and their respective behaviour is usually seen as morally questionable at best or outright unethical, immoral, and villainous at worst. Both have also made a statement along the lines that they would/will die alongside the country they rule over. However, regarding their respective statements, Schlatt said that Manburg would go down with him if he died, being arrogant enough to claim that the entirety of the country depended on him; while Quackity's claim was that if Las Nevadas were to die, he would die along with it and not vice versa (like Schlatt), because he's despondent and desperate to the point of tying the crumbled remnants of his self-worth to Las Nevadas, which is seen as his last chance for success, and if it fails, he will have lost everything and won't be able to come back from it. Schlatt's backstory and reason for villainy is canonically unknown, yet Quackity's idealist-to-cynic Trauma Conga Line (including Schlatt and his actions, who he opposed and dislikes to this day) is shown in full force, making him far more sympathetic than the Hate Sink that Schlatt was. Moreover, Schlatt was a Bad Boss to his cabinet to the point that most of them had PTSD from his reign, but Quackity, outside of his rather unusual (or some would say, unscrupulous) recruitment methods, genuinely seems to care about the members of Las Nevadas... most likely because he had been in their position before and knew better than to treat them cruelly.
- Quackity and Wilbur. Both of them started out as Wide-Eyed Idealists who are more skilled with words than with weapons and have broadly good intentions for the server, but eventually went through a Trauma Conga Line which caused them to take a level in cynicism and go into a mental spiral to become a Well-Intentioned Extremist. It is heavily implied that Wilbur saw himself in Quackity, then a Naïve Newcomer, during the elections, and therefore advised him that becoming a Well-Intentioned Extremist was the only way to gain power to truly help the people around them, because he didn't want history to repeat itself; and Quackity's message to Wilbur after the latter's passing indicates that he is consciously deciding to follow in Wilbur's footsteps. It is also all but outright stated by Quackity out-of-universe that his character arc was meant to mirror Wilbur's, and throughout their respective spirals, both of them have low opinions of themselves formed from their respective Trauma Conga Lines (whether it's implied or outright stated), are highly prone to Psychological Projection onto others, and show Improperly Paranoid tendencies. However, Quackity does actively carry out 'violence over diplomacy' thing unlike Wilbur, who just talked the talk but never quite walked the walk (the explosion of Manburg/L'Manburg was not designed to kill anyone but himself, for one); and though both characters' spirals stemmed from trauma, Wilbur's struggle is more closely related to a fear of failure and what contemporaries call "gifted kid burnout", while Quackity's likely stems from relationship trauma, a fear of abandonment and being forgotten, and a desire for a sense of belonging.
- Wilbur and Eret. Eret started out as a traitor to L'Manburg but eventually sided with its remnants in the Manburg-Pogtopia War, while Wilbur was the founder of L'Manburg (and thus loyal to the nation) but was the 'traitor' in Pogtopia. Both had somewhat understandable reasons for their respective betrayals, but their betrayals heavily affected those around them as well. Both of their character arcs have also revolved around the words "It was never meant to be", and in the current day, both of them are, at least to some degree, The Atoner. However, in spite of these similarities, one core difference divides them—Wilbur's betrayal was done with no intention on hurting anyone other than Schlatt and himself, while Eret's betrayal got their "brothers" massacred.
- Sam and Ponk. Sam is a cold and stern warden who harshly upholds the rules of the prison and is willing to harshly punish those that violate the prison rules and protocol; Ponk is a emotional, eccentric prankster who was willing to side with the Eggpire to thrive on chaos away from harsh punishment, though the ultimate reason he chose to become corrupted fully was because he felt that Sam broke his heart.
- Quackity and Tubbo, two former cabinet members in Manberg and New L'Manberg. Their poor experiences under Schlatt changed them both in big ways — Tubbo tried very hard to not be the man Schlatt was and tried to do anything to avoid big conflicts even if it meant letting other people, like Dream, taking advantage of his pacifistic nature; Quackity, however, can't stand seeing people abuse their power over those without it and is quick to go on the offensive, even if it'll cause backlash. While both men are very smart, Tubbo is better at controlling his emotions and makes decisions based on logic, which tends to make him come across as cold or blunt, while Quackity is often driven by his emotions, sometimes acting rashly in the heat of the moment, especially in stressful situations. Tubbo is more passive and sometimes forgiving to a concerning degree, while Quackity is more aggressive and his inability to let go of grudges tends to hurt him in the end. Both have bad issues with bottling up their trauma, leading to Tubbo suffering silently and Quackity projecting his issues onto others. Both were canonically killed by Technoblade, leaving them with facial scars and enough psychological trauma to last a lifetime, but in Tubbo's case it was during his own execution, while in Quackity's, it was during what was supposed to be Techno's execution. Both have also emulated methods used against them — Tubbo's nukes can be seen as a more extreme version of Techno and Phil's withers and were built purely as a defensive measure; while Quackity increasingly relies on more violent methods and tried to kill Techno the same way Techno killed him, once again with Tubbo being more defensive contrasting Quackity's more aggressive nature.
Tales From the SMP
- The Inbetween and the Other Side, a pair of dimensions acting as hub worlds of sorts for Karl's time travelling adventures. The Inbetween is bright white, almost sterile-looking, the weather is always sunny, and while talking to Karl, it's patronizing and uses a lot of flowery language. The Other Side is black, with gothic decorations and otherworldly plant life, the weather is always rainy and foggy, and while talking to Karl, it's blunt and brutally honest, treating him like a peer instead of a child. Their intentions towards Karl are similarly contrasting, with the Inbetween wishing to trap Karl in the Inbetween to facilitate his Loss of Identity and entice him to wander the castle forever, even if it takes gaslighting and threats to do so, while the Other Side seems genuine about wanting to help him and isn't seen resorting to these tactics.
