Rhetorical Analysis

To understand a piece of media’s rhetoric, you must first look at the audience it is created for. The main audience for this piece of media is the viewers of the Unstable Universe series, though it could also appeal to the greater Minecraft YouTube audience, specifically those who enjoy SMP content or scripted, story focused content.

Next, you must look at the themes it communicates, and the topics it focuses on.

To communicate the theme of trust, blind loyalty, and betrayal, there are many different examples within the text. Firstly, Wifies is so loyal to Parrot that he is willing to sacrifice his own existence in exchange for Parrot to learn of the secret they had been chasing and working together to uncover for the entire episode. This trust is to his detriment. Wifies asks Parrot if he believes that the secret is worth such a price, and before Parrot even answers, Wifies understands how tunnel visioned Parrot is on this matter, and chooses to sacrifice himself. Another case of trust to the detriment of one’s safety is that Parrot trusts Spoke to a certain extent, at least believing that Spoke will share the information promised at the end of this quest. He believes Spoke to the point of blind loyalty, or possibly arrogance, in which he ignores every red flag that begins to crop up as the scavenger hunt continues. This leads to a case of betrayal, in which Spoke breaks the news to the two that only one of them will be able to come out of this alive, if they choose to continue to go further. Parrot does not expect this, even though Wifies had tried to point out to him that Spoke seemed to just be leading them along on a game instead of genuinely hiding something. At the episode’s end, Parrot is faced with another betrayal, as Spoke reveals that there was no secret, and that he had gotten what he wanted when Wifies had sacrificed himself for Parrot to, in turn, gain nothing.

Both the audience and Parrot are blindsided by the events of this episode. Neither Parrot nor the audience expect the terms that Spoke sets at the entrance to the final bunker, and in turn share the same shock when Wifies so willingly hands the spyglass back to Parrot and walks willingly into the chunkban. Due to Parrot’s blind belief in Spoke, this also leads to the audience who is unfamiliar with how Spoke works to believe that he will be a man of his word and share the secret he is keeping with Parrot. When Spoke doesn’t do this, and instead laughs at Parrot’s loss and despair it is not just Parrot who feels betrayed, but the audience as well.

To expand further on the theme of betrayal, by looking beyond the scope of one episode and into the entire series, betrayal is a very prevalent theme. There are three instances of betrayal in particular that seem to stand out from the others.

The first instance of betrayal to consider outside of episode five of Unstable Universe is that of episode eight, Wemmbu’s “I Created Minecraft’s Greatest Civilization”, in which Prince Zam, out of fear that Wemmbu will betray him, devises a plan to have him killed. Within episode eight, Zam sends Wemmbu to a remote location to start a new branch of his empire. He gives Wemmbu little supplies, and yet tasks him with the job of building this civilization above a vault hidden within the hill. As Wemmbu’s civilization grows and begins to develop, Zam tasks one of his best guards with killing Wemmbu. While Wemmbu eventually discovers that the vault he believed he had been tasked with guarding is not only insecure, but empty, it is only at the end of the episode that he is fully able to accept it. Only when Zam arrives under the guise of getting a tour, after another failed murder attempt on Wemmbu by his best guard, does Wemmbu fully realize the situation he is in. After Wemmbu reveals that he had looked in the vault only to find it empty, Zam finally reveals the cards he has on the table. He tells Wemmbu that he had sent his best guard to kill him, that the civilization to guard a vault had only been to keep him busy and weak, and that he no longer wants him dead, but instead to be kept alive so Zam can continue to torment him.

Another instance of betrayal within Unstable Universe is episode fifteen, Parrot’s “Escaping Proton: Minecraft’s Most Secure Prison”, where one of Parrot’s close allies attempts to betray him. In this episode, the cast is trapped within the most secure prison on the server, where individual prisoners are cycled through cells hourly without any obvious way to communicate with each other, other than word of mouth. Parrot, Wifies, and a few other players, including the prison’s architect, Kenadian, are trapped within this prison. While Parrot, Wifies, and the other prisoners work to escape, Kenadian is hesitant, given the fact that while he built the prison to be inescapable, he recognizes its design has clearly been tampered with outside of his supervision. Parrot and Kenadian’s views clash horribly within this episode, as Parrot views his only way to save everyone is to break every prisoner out of Proton, Kenadian’s idea on saving everyone is very different. Kenadian’s motivations and ideals are only revealed during one of the most crucial parts of their plan, in which Parrot is trying to walk Wemmbu, who has an hour of time with them as a visitor, through setting his stasis. Once the stasis is miraculously set, Kenadian tries to sabotage the machine making the stasis chamber possible. While he does not fully betray Parrot, as he decides to continue to cooperate with him and help the group escape, he reveals what he believed to be the only way to save everyone was by keeping every prisoner trapped within the prison and cooperating with the guards. If Kenadian had been successful in sabotaging the stasis, the entire escape plan would have been compromised, and the prisoners would not have had a second chance to attempt an escape.

The final notable instance of betrayal so far within Unstable Universe is in episode eleven, Spokeishere’s “I Bankrupted Minecraft’s Richest Civilization”. In this episode, Spoke is so desperate to have an ally that he blindly trusts Ashswag, despite the red flags that are constantly revealed to him both by Ash as well as Spoke’s own ally, Mapicc. Following a similar format to other episodes in which betrayal is a prevalent plot point, this betrayal is only fully realized within the final arc of the episode. Spoke meets Ash at the final farm he is planning to sabotage with a plan to confront him, only for Ash to reveal his plan to frame Spoke for destroying every farm instead of just sabotaging them. It’s in this confrontation that Ash reveals he knows of Spoke’s past with exploits, but Spoke also understands that as soon as he works with Ash, as soon as he gives him the information he wants, Ash will no longer have a need for him. Ash gives Spoke an ultimatum: either Spoke tells him what he wants to hear and works with him, or Ash will send his men after Mapicc. This betrayal only further isolates Spoke from those around him, and shows the audience just how important the knowledge and remaining gear Spoke has truly is.

The theme of loss also haunts the cast, as Spoke is driven by grief to carry out this scavenger hunt with the sole purpose of making Parrot feel the exact same as he did. In later episodes, Spoke does try to cover this up as just being bored, or letting his emotions build up until he had to take them out on someone, but it is clear in his monologue that he is haunted by the loss of his friend, Jamato. As episodes continue, this moment is also what sparks further conflict between Parrot and the PrinceZam Empire and drives him to action. Whilst Spoke grieves and believes he is unable to get Jamato back, despite the fact that Jamato is not chunkbanned or dead, Parrot continues to work to free Wifies and be reunited with him. This, of course, demonstrates two different ways people can deal with grief. Where Parrot’s grief is what drives him to act and work toward a solution, Spoke’s drives him to loneliness, desperation, and cruelty.

While the audience may or may not be familiar with the terms in which Spoke is operating under, it is easy to listen to his monologue and notice that he is not just doing the whole scavenger hunt and betrayal for the thrill of it, but because he is also hurt. Spoke specifically tells Parrot within this monologue that, “... honestly, with what you did to me, I needed to take away something from you as well... I realized I needed to give you something, to take it away.” As Parrot questions Spoke about what comes next, Spoke continues to taunt him, saying, “Parrot, I don’t know what you mean, ‘what now’. This is it! You’re never seeing Wifies again, you’ve wasted so much time, and now you get to sit here... for the rest of your time on the server knowing that you can’t change what you’ve done. ‘Cause at the end of the day, this is your fault.” What Spoke says directly parallels what is consistently said to him in previous episodes over his loss of Jamato, and now, Spoke is continuing this cycle himself, no longer the victim, but the perpetrator.

As loss motivates Spoke to become worse and indulge in something that is decidedly not “saving the server” as he insists his mission continues to be, it also serves as a motivation for Parrot. Driven by loss, Parrot is launched into action in the next episode, devising a plan to not only free Wifies from the chunkban and prison the PrinceZam Empire has built around it, but also to free everyone else that the PrinceZam Empire had chunkbanned and imprisoned in their pursuit of Spoke. With the prisoners he frees, and some outside help, Parrot is able to finally break into the vault Wifies is held in and break the mechanic of the chunkban, freeing him, and consequently, Spoke.

On the theme of the hunter and being hunted, Wemmbu and PrinceZam play the role of hunter. Spoke plays the role of the hunted. Parrot and Wifies are a special case, in which they play both the role of the hunter, when it comes to Spoke, and the hunted, as Wemmbu and Zam chase and threaten them throughout the episode. Wemmbu and Zam stalk, track down, trap, threaten, and attempt to kill their targets at every opportunity. Almost every encounter with them involves a power dynamic in which they are set to inevitably come out on top. A very clear example of this is when Parrot and Wifies are in the obsidian maze. Wemmbu and Zam both openly announce their threats to chunkban parts of the maze if Parrot and Wifies do not reveal themselves. When their invisibility potion runs out, Wemmbu is the one to chase them through the maze with a full gear set, even though it is completely overkill, as Parrot and Wifies are completely defenseless. Another occurrence of Parrot and Wifies being hunted happens only a little bit later in the video, in which Wemmbu and Zam realize they have been scammed, and chase Parrot and Wifies into the Nether. As Parrot and Wifies try to hide, Wemmbu and Zam quickly discover them and threaten them once more. This results in Wemmbu popping Wifies’ totem of undying before Parrot steps in front of him and hands over the disc that they are looking for. Every time that Parrot and Wifies try to leave the conversation, or interrogation, they are blocked back in by Wemmbu and Zam. A case in which Spoke is shown being directly hunted would also be at the end of the episode, in which Parrot joins Wemmbu and Zam in chasing him down after their final confrontation. Wemmbu and Zam are formidable hunters, and both Parrot and Spoke know this. Parrot uses this to his advantage, in an attempt to get revenge on Spoke. Spoke, fearing what could happen to him if Wemmbu and Zam were to finally corner him and unable to run any further, steps into the same chunkban Wifies is in to save himself from the fate that awaits him at the hands of Wemmbu and Zam.

With this dynamic constantly being shown within the episode, it leads to the audience beginning to expect Wemmbu and Zam at every turn. The audience expects Wemmbu and Zam to be following close behind Parrot and Wifies, which makes when they do not appear to be even more jarring. This leaves the audience to wonder what they are doing, or if they have somehow managed to get ahead of Parrot and Wifies. It also leads the audience to consider Spoke’s thought process once the episode is over. If Spoke is being hunted down by an entire empire, then why would he take the time to put together an entire scavenger hunt just to make someone who had previously been uninvolved suffer? This dynamic continues to be present within the following episodes, and urges the audience to ask questions and theorize.

The final theme I believe is important to touch on is the underlying theme of the sunk-cost fallacy. This theme is most evident in the case of the final bunker, in which Spoke gives Parrot and Wifies the option of walking away without learning the secret, but since they have come so far already, they refuse to do so. Parrot in particular is exceptionally stubborn, tunnel-visioned on the secret Spoke holds over his head.

The audience itself can get caught up in Parrot’s mentality easily, due to the story being told within his point of view. After watching Parrot and Wifies complete so many tasks, and go through so many trials and tribulations, they too believe that whatever secret Spoke is offering must be worth the price he demands to be paid, even if that is the life of Parrot’s closest friend. Due to this shared mentality, it makes Spoke’s reveal of there being no secret hurt even worse.

These genres help emphasize the stakes that the characters are working against, and in turn give the viewer a character to root for. The genre expects the viewer to sympathize with the point of view that they are watching and, in turn, view the opposition this character faces as a threat. It allows the viewer to become just as attached to Wifies as Parrot does, in particular, and gives enough evidence of something brewing beneath the surface when it comes to the escape rooms and quests to give the viewer a sense of doubt. When Wifies sacrifices himself, it is not just Parrot who feels that he’s lost something, but the audience as well, as they’ve grown to expect Wifies to be at Parrot’s side and have learned more about him as the episode progressed. Through this POV, it can give the viewer a sense of being hunted as well, as the viewer is watching through Parrot’s POV, and therefore is practically experiencing first-person in every confrontation between Parrot and Wifies and Wemmbu, Zam, and Spoke.