Since every character is at least somewhat biased towards or against each other, and in part due to the Morality Kitchen Sink nature of the SMP, it's difficult, if not impossible, for fans to agree on one select interpretation of each character.
Dream
- In spite of being the main antagonist of the Dream SMP, Dream himself is subject to this as well — was he always a manipulative, chaos-embracing, Card-Carrying Villain? Or was he a formerly well-meaning man who wanted to bring friends together on the SMP, only to have that vision shattered by the countless wars and conflicts started by L'Manburg and their associates, to which Dream responded by becoming the very villain they saw him as and thus entering a self-destructive, adrenaline-fueled desire for chaos that overrode what redeeming qualities he had? It's worth noting that Dream's letter to Pogtopia says that the L'Manburg War of Independence had half the server see him as the bad guy, but his wording implies this was only L'Manburg's perspective — in other words, Dream didn't see himself as a villain, at least not originally.
- Did he never care about Spirit at all, or did he decide to give up his attachment to Spirit just to take the leverage out of Tommy's hands? And if the latter is true, does that mean he stopped caring for George or Sapnap, does he still care about them, or did he never care about them in the first place?
- How justified Dream was in exiling Tommy for accidentally setting part of George's house on fire is also a topic of heavy debate among fans.
- Some believe that Tommy didn't deserve any punishment, considering it was a very minor crime (by Minecraft standards) and the damage was fixed within fifteen minutes.
- Some believe that, regardless of whether he deserved punishment or not, Dream way overstepped his boundaries and essentially kidnapped Tommy.note
- Some believe Tommy did deserve punishment but that exile was too harsh.
- Some believe he deserved the exile itself but not the abuse he suffered during it (in spite of the two being intrinsically linked, since Dream himself orchestrated Exile).
- A small but vocal minority believe that Tommy had all of it coming, or even that Dream didn't go far enough.
- A similar debate to the punishment-extent of Exile above takes place around Dream's imprisonment. Some believe he doesn't deserve to be in prison at all; some believe he needs to stay in there for everyone else's safety, but does deserve to be treated humanely; some believe Sam depriving him of food and human contact can be justified, but Quackity's torture can't be; some believe that Sam should just kill him to respect Tommy's wishes and reduce the risk to the wider server; and some believe both Sam and Quackity's treatment of Dream is entirely justified, considering what he's done and tried to do before. Another group say that, even though they acknowledge that Dream's treatment is horrific, they can't feel bad for him because of the abuse Dream inflicted on other characters, Tommy especially.
Philza
- Linked with Wilbur's entry below, Phil has been subjected to a multitude of interpretations, especially in terms of his fatherhood and parenting methods. Sympathetic depictions see him as a good father-figure to most characters. More critical depictions condemn him helping his son commit assisted suicide with little to no hesitation, and usually think of him as somewhat neglectful and irresponsible as a parent (see below in Wilbur's entry for an example)* , often citing that Phil's experiences in semi-immortality may have distorted his judgement and sense of morality.
Technoblade
- Was Techno's massacre of the festival attendees an unprovoked and unjustified moment of pure bloodlust, whose execution of Tubbo at Jschlatt's command gave him a power trip that overrode any development and genuine bond with Pogtopia that he may have had? Or was Techno genuinely remorseful that he'd been forced to execute Tubbo and, upon realizing that nobody in the crowd did anything to actually help Tubbo or stop Jschlatt, simply hit a grief-inspired Rage Breaking Point and decided to take revenge on the crowd in the only way he knew how? Several of Techno's lines from the Doomsday War (namely calling out Tommy for not stepping in to help him), as well as the fact that he continues to invoke Pay Evil unto Evil after the festival (the Doomsday War itself being an example), implies that the second interpretation is at least partially true.
Wilbur / Ghostbur
- Was Wilbur's fall from grace truly caused by a sudden Sanity Slippage as everyone believed? Or was it just the inevitable direction his character was going towards? Many people seem to forget that Wilbur wasn't the most upstanding guy even before his Mad Bomber plot (with his attempt to rig an election being what caused the whole mess), not to mention he'd shown tendencies of overpossessiveness towards L'Manburg from the beginning (even when he was more of a genuinely noble guy).
- Quackity's April 12th "Las Nevadas" stream sheds some light on this, revealing that Wilbur's Sanity Slippage began long before the Pogtopia arc, and it is heavily implied that it started out in response to a Cynicism Catalyst from Eret's betrayal of the revolution.
- Wilbur is also a known Unreliable Narrator on multiple occasions on the server, ranging from the reason he decided to destroy L'Manburg during the Pogtopia arcnote to even the happenings on the SMP when recounting them (according to Philza and the letters Wilbur had sent him). Because of this, as well as the revelations from post-resurrection lore streams, fan interpretations of him and his motives have been polarizing.
- At one point, Philza the content creator claims that young Wilbur enjoyed blowing his builds up after finishing constructing them, and "liked to fucking like pretend he was doing like demolition work", as an 'explanation' for his reaction to Wilbur destroying L'Manburg in the Season 1 finale* . Many Wilbur sympathizers interpret this statement as him being The Perfectionist from a young age and it wasn't that he enjoyed blowing things up, but that he was dissatisfied with his work like a burnt-out gifted kid. This interpretation also carries the implication of Philza misunderstanding his son and lacking awareness of his mental health, and lines up with their canonical emotional distance... and the aforementioned Wilbur sympathizers say that this says more about Phil and his parenting skills than Wilbur's mental state.
- After Wilbur's revival and Ghostbur's subsequent Death of Personality, Wilbur the content creator started releasing posts on Reddit updating on what's happening to Ghostbur in the Afterlife, with every single post being a Tear Jerker. However, since a section of the fandom believes that dead-Wilbur and Ghostbur merged to form "Revivedbur", this led to the theory that Wilbur's "updates on Ghostbur" are actually just "Revivedbur" venting about his Afterlife-induced trauma and experiences, using post-revival Ghostbur as a stand-in for pre-revival dead-Wilbur.
