The villain is defeated, the kingdom is saved. Our hero has made many friends on his journey and learned a valuable lesson that will help him grow as a person. 

...And then he wakes up in his bed at home. It was all a dream. 

 The trope “It Was All a Dream” can be tricky to handle. Used poorly, it can remove tension from your story and potentially ruin any audience investment. There are certainly ways to make it work, but they necessitate careful planning by the creator.  

WandaVision follows reality-bending witch Wanda Maximoff and her deceased-android-husband, Vision. After the events of Avengers: Endgame, Wanda and Vision appear to be living in an idyllic 60s style sitcom. The setting and tone are immediately very different from the Avengers movies that came before it.  

The fact that WandaVision is set in a dream world is not a grand revelation- it is apparent from the very beginning that this world is not the usual MCU fare. Instead, the driving force behind the plot is the question of what the dream world actually is, and how it will impact the world outside. Rather than a twist ending, the dream world is a catalyst for the story. By isolating WandaVision from the rest of the MCU in a dream world, the writers are able to create a more character-driven story. The world may be a dream, but the characters—inside and out—face very real stakes. 

Where WandaVision used its dream world as a jumping-off point for the story, Over the Garden Wall features the dream reveal as a late-story twist.  

Over the Garden Wall follows brothers Wirt and Greg, as well as a talking bluebird named Beatrice, as they travel through a supernatural forest called the Unknown. The story begins in medias res , with no explanation for how Wirt and Greg arrived in the Unknown, or even where the Unknown is. In the penultimate episode, it is revealed that the brothers are from the real world and wound up in the Unknown after falling into a pond and getting knocked unconscious on Halloween. 

However, there is no clear answer for what the Unknown actually is. Although Wirt and Greg do end the series waking in the real world, the show reveals to the audience how life for other characters has continued on in the Unknown.  The show never fully reveals whether the Unknown was merely a dream or a different world altogether. Whatever the world may be, it continues to exist outside of Wirt and Greg’s experience in it.  

On the opposite end of the spectrum is Breaking Dawn: Part 2 which features one of the most infuriating dream reveals in YA history. 

The entire Twilight series has been culminating to this; a final standoff between the Cullens and the Volturi. There is a nearly 10-minute long battle between the vampire clans, with major character deaths on both sides. Finally, the Cullens come out victorious and all the Volturi are defeated. 

Just kidding. 

The drawn-out fight sequence was merely a vision of a potential future, shown to the Volturi by Alice to prevent a real battle. And for some reason, the Volturi just accept this and leave. That’s it.  

Even a relatively small dream reveal can ruin audience investment. If one scene not mattering is enough to annoy audiences, imagine how annoying it is when the entire story doesn’t matter.  

“It Was All a Dream” is a very risky trope to utilize. The bigger your reveal, the bigger the risk of undermining your entire story. This is a trope that can retroactively make your story weaker. 

With the right tweaks, this trope can be used (sparingly) to create an interesting and compelling story. When played straight, it can make your audience resentful for getting invested in a story that wound up not mattering. Like all tropes, “It Was All a Dream” can be very effective in the right hands. Just make sure you know what you’re getting into.

Cor O’Neill

Cor is a Professional Writing student at Algonquin and a horror enthusiast. If he’s not working at the library or attending class, he’s usually creating in some form. He writes in a wide variety of genres and his life dream is to meet Mothman.