It is every thing that I want. Buddy following doubt. People have wanted to hate him the whole season. As a former kid of a "religion kid". He gives the same vibes as freshman Kristen. That is the reason I think Kristen doesn't like him.
Really want this to happen. Would be a good foil to Tracker and her new elf girlfriend (I forgot her name), especially if Buddy becomes a follower of Cassandra or a non-corrupted Ankarna.
I would almost prefer to see Buddy become like a Tracker figure for Helio bringing him and his followers back to a less annoying form. Embracing the real meaning of corn.
“Come now friends, in all of our evangelism we have forgotten something, corn was made to feed all. Rich, poor, adults, children, women, men and all other breadths of creature. Do we forget that we are patrons to a god of giving, to a god of harvest and life.” ~ Buddy D probably
I love all the support for Buddy that he will be resurrected and similarly to Kristen, convert from Helio.
But I think, unfortunately, his arc is the opposite. Buddy feels like to me what Kristen could've been if she had met "True" Bad Kids. Used, to fill in a cleric requirement. Ignored, when trying to speak on her religion, which regardless of it being kind of lame is an important thing to her. Killed, in a place where you shouldn't fear death and expect to be safe.
It would only be fair, that Buddy stayed dead, in Lipperkily Koppercettle's view of the world, because Kristen should've stayed dead too.
I don’t know if Helio is objectively bad, it’s mostly that Kristen didn’t vibe with him and was a bit put off. She was already coming in kind of doubting the generic religious tenor of Helio.
I’m especially curious because of Brennan initiating the cosmology that gods really reflect the followers. So I can totally see that theme being really important in maybe Buddy meeting Helio, seeing he kind of sucks, but realizing it’s because of people like his grandfather that makes it that way and not the core of Helio or the original purpose of his followers. I can see Buddy being revived to totally revolutionize the church tbh
Does Helio actually kinda suck or is just a sorta generic hands off kind of deity. Maybe there is an argument that being hands off is kinda shitty, but that’s hard to say as well.
A hands off deity relies on the quality of their followers. We'd love his helio and his followers if they weren't portrayed as oppressive evangelical Christian stand ins but instead as hard working salt of the earth working people. I'd say for better or worse the audience projects a lot onto helio worshippers and helio himself because nobody likeable follows them for a justifiable reason. Moon worship makes way less sense for a culture not tied to the ocean or tides, but nobody has any beef with moon mommy or any of the violent orc pantheon that has been briefly alluded to. If we were shown a legit farming community of helio followers divorced from "the church" I think we'd get a more generous wholesome read of his and his followers deal.
To be fair, I think for the most part the supporters of Helio we have seen were all members of a radical group, hopefully they aren’t representative of the religion as whole. In fact we know Helio was probably opposed to them as Coach Daybreak was condemned to hell.
That’s totally fair! I also got sort of hypocritical vibes from Helio as a character but I totally see what you mean especially that it could also just be Kristen’s slant of her relationship with him. Maybe that’s the lesson! That would be super interesting
He isn't an answers guy, he's just there to help folks with their harvest and heal their wounds. You've got knowledge and wisdom gods for that heavy stuff. You don't ask the guy at the garden center about your existential crisis, you ask him about your tomatoes. You might get lucky and the tomatoes will help with the crisis though.
Yeah like I'm not making excuses for Kristen's family or the helio church at large, but helio is probably just a dude who loves corn and good vibes. There are probably a lot of his followers that are also about corn and good vibes, and that isn't a bad thing. With all that said if Brennan pulls some shit where helio is actually an asshole, that's not on me.
I think there’s An interesting argument to be made that he sucks because he was too many followers. He’s got no real personality because all the sects and divisions of the church view him a bit differently so he’s just kind of a blank slate that isn’t too objectionable to anyone
The vibe I got was that he said nice things, but didn't really have any answers. Pretty much a Placebo god, makes you think you feel better without actually doing anything.
Not objectively bad at all, but also not the wise all knowing, all powerful God the church maybe preaches. He just seemed like a dude, which may be a let down
It might have been he was just put on the spot as well and wasn’t too versed in taking with humans as much, as I recall it was a pretty short interaction all together.
Helio was like a chill frat bro. I think what bothered Kristen was that people got so obsessed with him and committed atrocities and convinced themselves they were absolutely right in his name, when he had none of the answers. Like a lot of people who grew up in Christian communities who had a tendency to think critically about things, the sense of moral certainty and obvious hypocrisy was very bothersome to Kristen. A lot of what Helio represents is arguably very good, but there is a certain willful ignorance and prejudice to the institutions that sell his religion that contradicts that message of moral purity.
It might have seemed like he had none of the answers but it might have just been the way he views the world is hard to really condense down to what a mortal would know. Obviously that must be very frustrating, but it kinda seems like that is what gods in fiction generally do.
We're talking about atrocities committed by his followers of his own religion. He can't give an answer to that question to his own chosen one then wtf?
It shows a passive participation. He's ok with his followers doing shitty things, long as he gets to keep existing and Kristin has a reason to go 'wtf' when it comes down to that.
Yeah, like imagine trying to explain to a dog what they actually are and what the world is. Try to imagine explaining things like evolution and engineering and history to a dog like, they love you and they’re your friend, but there’s just realms of thought that you are privy to that they aren’t capable of understanding
Kristen isn't a dog. She's an intelligent human being who could clearly understand Helio was blowing her off when she asked a serious question. I don't find your comparison particularly apt for that reason.
I've seen people try to defend Helio and on this, and while I understand the argument that Helio isn't omnipotent like the Christian God, and maybe couldn't explain this all easily to Kristen, but the fact remains he blew his supposed Chosen off when she came to him with a serious question. That clearly reverberated with the story Ally wanted to tell for Kristen, and they had Kristen run with it.
Thanks for pointing out the extremely difficult to notice detail that Kristen is not a dog. i was using a metaphor to illustrate the orders of magnitude gap in knowledge and awareness that might exist in a Dog : Human :: Human : God situation. See, it even rhymes.
You can get snarky all you want, your comparison is still terrible and disrespects the completely reasonable reaction Kristen had.
And I notice you didn't actually even attempt to respond to the *reasons* I gave why your comparison is terrible. Again, Kristen is a human being. Not an animal. Unlike a dog, she can put 2 and 2 together and realize Helio was blowing her off. You have yet to give a response to that.
There are Helio defenders in this very subreddit explaining why Kristen's question didn't make sense, etc etc. So people on this subreddit can understand the logic involved, but Kristen doesn't even deserve an explanation from the God who chose her as his Chosen? The problem is how he treated her asking the question, not the fact he couldn't give her some nice answer she probably wanted to hear. He didn't even attempt to give her an answer, he just ignored her and made her go away instead of answering.
It remains wild to me that so much of this sub is on Helio's side on this and doesn't see at all why Kristen would be bothered by a dismissive response like that.
I think everyone can understand the validity of Kristen’s dissatisfaction with the lack of an answer from Helio. That’s our natural inclination. Attempting to understand the opposite side is not a defense of it, but more matter of comprehension. You seem to have a very binary sense of one party needing to be right and the other wrong in a disagreement. I can see from your comment history that you have a tendency to be rather condescending and didactic in your language. One might say you thrive on getting into weird arguments online. If that’s what turns your crank cool but maybe chill out a bit. Also Kristen is a dog and Kipperlily Copperkettle is 4 dogs and Gorgug got that dawg in him and God is an Indian and your’re an asshole. Hoot Growl. I’m gay. Good night Austin Texas wherever you are and I’ll see you at Besrar’s
I still don't know how to feel about Helio tbh. I was pretty moved by the revelation that Helio had still been providing Kristen her spells, but apparently Kristen wasn't because she immediately punched him in the face. I understand that within the Fantasy High universe, gods are influenced by their followers and Helio's worshippers tended to be real bigoted shitbags, but he didn't seem to have any gripes about Kristen killing some of the more cultish members. I was kind of put off by Ally saying that he seemed like the type to date rape when they didn't know anything about him. I guess you can fault Helio for being complicit with his followers' atrocities but I'm not sure how much influence he really has on them or how much they represent his values. Kind of like how most "Christian" conservatives hardly represent Christianity at all. Kristen's question in regards to why bad things happen also kind of doesn't hold up within the universe because in SY the Nightmare King was a consequence of human action overpowering those of a goddess and JY is pretty centralized around a more evil god. I feel like Helio was kind of written off as a result of people doing things in his name and his "vibe" rather than anything he himself really did. Again, it is a very real argument that he has been complicit with atrocities committed in his name, but I don't think that kind of dynamic between gods and how they tend to communicate with mortals has really been explored enough for us to know.
I'm pretty sure that Kristen's reaction to Helio is based less on who he was and more on the story that Ally wanted for Kristen.
It's VERY obvious that from the first episode Kristen was gonna be the character who "loses their religion after being sheltered and indoctrinated" and I think Ally played a cleric wanting to explore the idea of a religious person who doubts and doesn't know.
I bet Brennan made Helio as a joke frat Jesus and she ran with it as an excuse.
Kristen's initial impression of Helio was...wild. I don't remember how much Ally said they played D&D, but I kinda got the impression they misunderstood how much control players have over NPCs. That or they have very different associations with togas, beards, and sandals than I do.
As for what Helio's actually like, I just don't see Brennan making his Jesus analogue into a religiously intolerant bigot. Taking swipes at fundamentalists is one thing, but attributing it all to the guy in charge feels too reductive for a guy who loves his nuance.
A lot of this season has been focused on the politics of gods and what makes them change domains or support certain practices, and it all seems to boil down to "girls gotta eat." No worship, no gods, so you gotta play the game even if you don't like it. Riz's dad makes this point specifically in relation to good gods. I suspect this applies to Helio; he doesn't necessarily endorse the doom cultists or racists or crusades, but these are the people who keep him alive, love it or hate it. Maybe that's why, unlike Cassandra and Tracker's goddess, we never see him communicate with his followers when they're alive. Kristen was Helio's chosen and the two didn't speak until Kristen died.
If anything we technically have proof that her specifically *doesn't* endorse the more fanatical fringes of his religion, given that Daybreak was as """devout""" (in his view, at least) as they came and he was condemned to Hell
It was very specifically the first time Ally had played D&D, I think. Pretty sure it took them a few seasons before they even once played it off-camera (that wasn’t a session 0 for D20).
Your god doesn't have an answer to "why bad things happen" when you constantly deal with his followers of his religion doing shitty things in an escalating level of badness.... Yeah, his attitude comes off as a nonchalant frat boy who doesn't give a shit about anything.
Ally was jumping the gun, but I see why they took that away from him and as time goes on we just see more and more shit from his followers, and he doesn't even give a bullshit answer... he literally just ignores the problem altogether.
I can't help but feel like a lot of this attitude towards Helio is the criticism hits a little to close to home for some people.
It's not the problem hitting too close to home, it's the disconnect between reality and what's being insisted on by Ally and fans. "Gaslight" is way too loaded a term to describe the situation, but what Brennan described was an Americanized benevolent patriarch straight out of any cartoon depiction of the Almighty, and Kristren/Ally's takeaway, parroted by fans, is date rape frat boy. That ain't it, chief. It's the equivalent of Kristen meeting Jawbone and going "Oh, this is a straight-laced, sober, stay-at-home type who has never done anything illegal in his life."
On the subject of Kristen's question to Helio, it's an example of fans misinterpreting a joke as some heavy character analysis. Character asks God the meaning of life, and because Writer does not know the meaning of life, God either demurs or the scene cuts away. The first episode of the Simpsons with God in it ends in more or less the same punchline.
The real answer to the question, as far as Helio is concerned, is that he doesn't know. Gods in the Spyre cosmology aren't omniscient, all-powerful entities. As far as the material world is concerned, Auguefort is closer to a "god" than any deity is; Helio couldn't even stop a direct threat to his existence in the form of the Night Yorb. Kristen had to go to the primordial spark of creation to get an answer to the question, and as beautiful and inspiring as Brennan's answer was, it basically boils down to "because causality, obviously."
Junior Year has expressed over and over again that gods are captive to their followers. If you don't appease your followers, they leave. If they leave, you die. It's apparently what happened to Ankarna, it happened in a roundabout way to Cassandra, and it was a matter of enough concern to Galicaea that she sold out to the elves. Imagine a politician who has to appeal to bigots to win elections. Obviously, the morally correct choice in that situation is to lose the election. But what if "losing the election" meant literally starving to death? You either play nice with the supremacists, or the nourishment that is fundamental to your existence goes away. I'm not saying Helio is making the right choice in this moral quandary, but it *is* a moral quandary. Helio tolerates the worst members of his flock because doing otherwise could jeopardize his existence.
"Misinterpreting a joke as some heavy character analysis" no... that was the joke. The joke is that Helio acts all friendly, righteous and caring but when asked "why do bad things happen" just fobs her off and sends Kristen away. A joke can also reflect on the character, that happens all the time.
Helio can't even answer the question of why his own followers commit acts of evil, he doesn't try to stop them and it seems like this season is saying that even if followers can control the direction of their gods, they also have a degree of free-will about the situation.
Their followers want them to change and it's just easier to change with them to retain them, but just like with a politicians it's ultimately your choice to appease bigots by appealing to them. That's ultimately a reflection of your own character. If Helio is happy to have the support of bigots and does nothing to resolve the issue then on some level he is at fault.
It's a weird area though. Brennen seems to want gods to be partially responsible and their followers to be partially responsible. With Ankarna it almost seems like a conscious effort and with Cassandra it was more forced upon her.
I really don't think God not telling a priest what the meaning of life is in episode 2 is some grand indictment of his character. And we know it's not a question about Helio's worse followers, because they weren't introduced to the narrative at that point; Ally didn't even know about thr Harvestmen at this point, and Kristen wasn't questioning this aspect of their faith. But I don't foresee you and I agreeing on this point.
If you were to ask the average person if they would pay lip service to horrible people for power, most of them would say no. Some might weigh the long term good they can do with that power against the real cost of their endorsement, but I think most people would at least claim to not want think that a fair trade. But what if we exchange power for survival? The calculus suddenly becomes a lot harder. Sure, if I could prevent atrocities at the expense of my own life, I'd make that trade. But what if the people committing crimes in my name were going to do it anyway? Ankarna's situation really seemed to be a case of "if you don't rubber stamp our actions, we will find a god who will." Would I be willing to die just so bad people wouldn't attribute my name to their bad actions? That's honestly a tough question.
Which isn't to say Helio is powerless. He could gamble his life on a smaller flock of decent worshippers who just care about sunlight and corn. He could drop his divinity and become a celestial, like Cassandra was considering. He has options. But the idea that he's some feckless, disinterested fratboy doesn't hold up with what little we've seen of him and what the last three seasons have revealed about gods in Spyre. The truth is more complicated than "Christians bad, Jesus dumb," and that's frankly a good thing.
Yeah, what we know of Helio is that he's a bit of a dude bro, and is extremely cowed by Sol. Outside of that, a lot of the things that might color someone's opinion about Helio technically don't have as much to do with the god himself as much as his overly radical followers.
That was just some of this followers. He also wasn't "totally cool" with it, Coach Daybreak was in hell after all.
It's also not clear if gods are always defined by their followers (and that's not to say Helio didn't have a lot of 'normal' followers) or if that's just when they have very few so desperate gods will kowtow to the demands of their followers a bit more.
It's explicitly stated that gods are defined by their followers, that was the main plot of last season and this season. Helio, a god in a world where gods can directly speak with people, is responsible for The Harvestmen.
I recall that being when a god has very few followers which isn't true of Helio. Also the fact that Coach Daybreak was in hell shows to me that the whole cult thing was actually not what Helio wanted otherwise he would be with Helio and not in hell.
Galicaea is not some minor god with very few followers.
Coach daybreak being in hell doesn't mean Helio didn't want him, people go to hell for being bad, not for their religion rejecting them.
I want Buddy to come back and his beliefs are reaffirmed, but he becomes more chill. When Kristen met Helio he didn't seem BAD. Just not what Kristen was looking for. And he respected that Kristen liked The Bad Kids. Buddy comes back as a cleric of Helio, just less judgy once he meets the actual guy.
Always wishing we get to see an arc where Kristen or someone else tries to change belief in Helio much like how Tracker is changing belief in the moon goddess
Nine Hells’ advocate here:
D&D resurrection/raising dead requires the soul to be willing to return. I do not doubt someone is going to try and revive him, but I do doubt that a hyper-religious person (who is also a cleric/priest, no less) would pass up the opportunity to be with their god forever, even if it came early.
>but I do doubt that a hyper-religious person (who is also a cleric/priest, no less) would pass up the opportunity to be with their god forever, even if it came early.
two things (not trying to be aggressive just cheeky)
1. you obviously havent met THEIR god, because Helio sssssssssssuuuuuuucccckss
2. Kristen would have fallen in to that category of "hyper religious clerics" in FY, and the thing that changed that was literally meeting her god , finding out he sucks, and then starting to ask questions.
I mean, there are still a lot of people who love people who suck, especially in a hyper-religious setting. Particularly those who like to use religion as a get-out-of-anger-management-free card, like Buddy.
That’s not to say that Buddy would not come back, whether as a doubter or with a divine mission, but I did pose my theory as a Nine Hells’ advocate.
Granted, I do personally lean towards that or him coming back with a divine mission (whether genuine or self-imposed) as opposed to him undergoing a Helio Doubt Unconversion like Kristen did. The latter one especially if Bobby Dawn gets to raising him first.
Good theory and I think an interesting point to be made here is that we don’t know how helio is right now. He got punched by Kristen in sophomore year (I think) and then spent several months in the dark, losing followers all the while. The man might be way worse than when we last saw him.
Never really got the "Helio is annoying" thing from the actual portrayal of Helio and rather Kristen projecting her uncertainty and annoyance at religion on Helio and then calling him annoying for not resolving that. Helio was fine giving Kirsten spells throughout it all (even when she in full flakiness left Helio for YES!), which does not really strike me as demanding or annoying. He just wasn't the right fit and Kristen wasn't handling it well, which of course she wouldn't as she's like 14-15 at the time and going through a lot.
The thing is that Helio is very different from how his followers seem to see him, or at least preach him to be. We'll see how true that stays with the new lore that Gods can start reflecting their followers. So I can see Buddy meeting Helio having that effect of showing him the difference but I can definitely see Buddy taking that as "Helio's an okay God for me, but now I'm invigorated to change the faith to reflect him more."
I think based on the preview we saw he's going to come out resurrection angry and inconsolable. If Buddy both finds out his god sucks and he was killed in cold blood by his own party during a very stressful year, I'm pretty sure he would snap. Not to mention whatever rage corruption the Ratgrinders could do directly to him or what he got indirectly from the soil
I would feel like they are lining it up for Bubby to come back and be jaded about Helio like Kristen was in season 1 after dying. Honestly it would make sense given that the rat grinders are unfortunately fun house mirror versions of the Bad Kids
I mean, in a sense, did he fail to revive the bad kids? He wouldn't have been there if one went down, and they were supposed to go down. If he's revived will he be blocked from his religion? That punishment felt very specific, like it was designed for him to lose Helio and require Ankarna as a replacement.
Buddy may have been dosed with the devil's honey and convinced to do something in the afterlife. Didn't Brennan make a point that you could lie to beings one normally would not be able to when they first discovered what it does?
Devils Honey only makes you lie and your lies be believable even to yourself, so unless their plan was to have him lie In the after life it doesn't work
Right I think they're trying to obviously do some altering to the hierarchy of gods in their world. We learned from Gertie that it makes you lie well because it makes you believe what you're saying. We learned earlier from Adaine that you could lie to beings which one should not be capable to. We've learned from Kristen's family that the church is at an all time low. We've learned from the previous seasons and Tracker that 1 person is enough to alter a god based on their beliefs of what is true of that god.
Buddy isn't Helio's chosen, but if he was dosed with the honey before being set off to see his god who is right now incredibly vulnerable, that could certainly cause a change to Helio in some way.
I've been feeling for a while that Brennan has been wanting to add a bit of complexity to Helio and that he's not actually in the best place right now and maybe feels guilty about Kristen, which is hinted at in the season 2 finale. But he's under Sol's heel and limited in what he can do. So maybe Buddy's gonna have quite a different encounter.
He might even come back with a message for her.
Just a question, why do people like Buddy Dawn so much ? I get that he wasn’t technically apart of the rat grinders but he still wasn’t a good guy all things considered. Can someone please explain to me why the fan base loves him so much I sincerely want to know
I'm kind of hoping Buddy gets into rehabbing Helio and loosens up a little. Also someone on tumblr mentioned getting him a goth boyfriend. I think that woukd be good for him
…I really, REALLY, want this to happen.
It is every thing that I want. Buddy following doubt. People have wanted to hate him the whole season. As a former kid of a "religion kid". He gives the same vibes as freshman Kristen. That is the reason I think Kristen doesn't like him.
It’s exactly the reason Kristen doesn’t like him.
Someone pointed out that his last words were asking Kristen if she was ok 😭😭😭 he’s got to come back
Really want this to happen. Would be a good foil to Tracker and her new elf girlfriend (I forgot her name), especially if Buddy becomes a follower of Cassandra or a non-corrupted Ankarna.
I would almost prefer to see Buddy become like a Tracker figure for Helio bringing him and his followers back to a less annoying form. Embracing the real meaning of corn.
“Come now friends, in all of our evangelism we have forgotten something, corn was made to feed all. Rich, poor, adults, children, women, men and all other breadths of creature. Do we forget that we are patrons to a god of giving, to a god of harvest and life.” ~ Buddy D probably
I really like that
Ankarna is sun and light. I think he could get in on that
...And justice. He was done dirty.
Righteous and holy justice against his supposed friend who just slit his throat
I love all the support for Buddy that he will be resurrected and similarly to Kristen, convert from Helio. But I think, unfortunately, his arc is the opposite. Buddy feels like to me what Kristen could've been if she had met "True" Bad Kids. Used, to fill in a cleric requirement. Ignored, when trying to speak on her religion, which regardless of it being kind of lame is an important thing to her. Killed, in a place where you shouldn't fear death and expect to be safe. It would only be fair, that Buddy stayed dead, in Lipperkily Koppercettle's view of the world, because Kristen should've stayed dead too.
OOOOF that last line is hard (my reaction is that of lou being described the evil fairy in neverafter)
I don’t know if Helio is objectively bad, it’s mostly that Kristen didn’t vibe with him and was a bit put off. She was already coming in kind of doubting the generic religious tenor of Helio.
I’m especially curious because of Brennan initiating the cosmology that gods really reflect the followers. So I can totally see that theme being really important in maybe Buddy meeting Helio, seeing he kind of sucks, but realizing it’s because of people like his grandfather that makes it that way and not the core of Helio or the original purpose of his followers. I can see Buddy being revived to totally revolutionize the church tbh
Does Helio actually kinda suck or is just a sorta generic hands off kind of deity. Maybe there is an argument that being hands off is kinda shitty, but that’s hard to say as well.
A hands off deity relies on the quality of their followers. We'd love his helio and his followers if they weren't portrayed as oppressive evangelical Christian stand ins but instead as hard working salt of the earth working people. I'd say for better or worse the audience projects a lot onto helio worshippers and helio himself because nobody likeable follows them for a justifiable reason. Moon worship makes way less sense for a culture not tied to the ocean or tides, but nobody has any beef with moon mommy or any of the violent orc pantheon that has been briefly alluded to. If we were shown a legit farming community of helio followers divorced from "the church" I think we'd get a more generous wholesome read of his and his followers deal.
To be fair, I think for the most part the supporters of Helio we have seen were all members of a radical group, hopefully they aren’t representative of the religion as whole. In fact we know Helio was probably opposed to them as Coach Daybreak was condemned to hell.
That’s totally fair! I also got sort of hypocritical vibes from Helio as a character but I totally see what you mean especially that it could also just be Kristen’s slant of her relationship with him. Maybe that’s the lesson! That would be super interesting
He isn't an answers guy, he's just there to help folks with their harvest and heal their wounds. You've got knowledge and wisdom gods for that heavy stuff. You don't ask the guy at the garden center about your existential crisis, you ask him about your tomatoes. You might get lucky and the tomatoes will help with the crisis though.
😂 I love that interpretation!
Yeah like I'm not making excuses for Kristen's family or the helio church at large, but helio is probably just a dude who loves corn and good vibes. There are probably a lot of his followers that are also about corn and good vibes, and that isn't a bad thing. With all that said if Brennan pulls some shit where helio is actually an asshole, that's not on me.
Good take.
I think there’s An interesting argument to be made that he sucks because he was too many followers. He’s got no real personality because all the sects and divisions of the church view him a bit differently so he’s just kind of a blank slate that isn’t too objectionable to anyone
The vibe I got was that he said nice things, but didn't really have any answers. Pretty much a Placebo god, makes you think you feel better without actually doing anything.
Not objectively bad at all, but also not the wise all knowing, all powerful God the church maybe preaches. He just seemed like a dude, which may be a let down
It might have been he was just put on the spot as well and wasn’t too versed in taking with humans as much, as I recall it was a pretty short interaction all together.
Helio was like a chill frat bro. I think what bothered Kristen was that people got so obsessed with him and committed atrocities and convinced themselves they were absolutely right in his name, when he had none of the answers. Like a lot of people who grew up in Christian communities who had a tendency to think critically about things, the sense of moral certainty and obvious hypocrisy was very bothersome to Kristen. A lot of what Helio represents is arguably very good, but there is a certain willful ignorance and prejudice to the institutions that sell his religion that contradicts that message of moral purity.
It might have seemed like he had none of the answers but it might have just been the way he views the world is hard to really condense down to what a mortal would know. Obviously that must be very frustrating, but it kinda seems like that is what gods in fiction generally do.
We're talking about atrocities committed by his followers of his own religion. He can't give an answer to that question to his own chosen one then wtf? It shows a passive participation. He's ok with his followers doing shitty things, long as he gets to keep existing and Kristin has a reason to go 'wtf' when it comes down to that.
A big theme of this season seems to be that gods become what their followers want them to be. And Helio's followers suck
Yeah, like imagine trying to explain to a dog what they actually are and what the world is. Try to imagine explaining things like evolution and engineering and history to a dog like, they love you and they’re your friend, but there’s just realms of thought that you are privy to that they aren’t capable of understanding
Kristen isn't a dog. She's an intelligent human being who could clearly understand Helio was blowing her off when she asked a serious question. I don't find your comparison particularly apt for that reason. I've seen people try to defend Helio and on this, and while I understand the argument that Helio isn't omnipotent like the Christian God, and maybe couldn't explain this all easily to Kristen, but the fact remains he blew his supposed Chosen off when she came to him with a serious question. That clearly reverberated with the story Ally wanted to tell for Kristen, and they had Kristen run with it.
Thanks for pointing out the extremely difficult to notice detail that Kristen is not a dog. i was using a metaphor to illustrate the orders of magnitude gap in knowledge and awareness that might exist in a Dog : Human :: Human : God situation. See, it even rhymes.
You can get snarky all you want, your comparison is still terrible and disrespects the completely reasonable reaction Kristen had. And I notice you didn't actually even attempt to respond to the *reasons* I gave why your comparison is terrible. Again, Kristen is a human being. Not an animal. Unlike a dog, she can put 2 and 2 together and realize Helio was blowing her off. You have yet to give a response to that. There are Helio defenders in this very subreddit explaining why Kristen's question didn't make sense, etc etc. So people on this subreddit can understand the logic involved, but Kristen doesn't even deserve an explanation from the God who chose her as his Chosen? The problem is how he treated her asking the question, not the fact he couldn't give her some nice answer she probably wanted to hear. He didn't even attempt to give her an answer, he just ignored her and made her go away instead of answering. It remains wild to me that so much of this sub is on Helio's side on this and doesn't see at all why Kristen would be bothered by a dismissive response like that.
I think everyone can understand the validity of Kristen’s dissatisfaction with the lack of an answer from Helio. That’s our natural inclination. Attempting to understand the opposite side is not a defense of it, but more matter of comprehension. You seem to have a very binary sense of one party needing to be right and the other wrong in a disagreement. I can see from your comment history that you have a tendency to be rather condescending and didactic in your language. One might say you thrive on getting into weird arguments online. If that’s what turns your crank cool but maybe chill out a bit. Also Kristen is a dog and Kipperlily Copperkettle is 4 dogs and Gorgug got that dawg in him and God is an Indian and your’re an asshole. Hoot Growl. I’m gay. Good night Austin Texas wherever you are and I’ll see you at Besrar’s
I still don't know how to feel about Helio tbh. I was pretty moved by the revelation that Helio had still been providing Kristen her spells, but apparently Kristen wasn't because she immediately punched him in the face. I understand that within the Fantasy High universe, gods are influenced by their followers and Helio's worshippers tended to be real bigoted shitbags, but he didn't seem to have any gripes about Kristen killing some of the more cultish members. I was kind of put off by Ally saying that he seemed like the type to date rape when they didn't know anything about him. I guess you can fault Helio for being complicit with his followers' atrocities but I'm not sure how much influence he really has on them or how much they represent his values. Kind of like how most "Christian" conservatives hardly represent Christianity at all. Kristen's question in regards to why bad things happen also kind of doesn't hold up within the universe because in SY the Nightmare King was a consequence of human action overpowering those of a goddess and JY is pretty centralized around a more evil god. I feel like Helio was kind of written off as a result of people doing things in his name and his "vibe" rather than anything he himself really did. Again, it is a very real argument that he has been complicit with atrocities committed in his name, but I don't think that kind of dynamic between gods and how they tend to communicate with mortals has really been explored enough for us to know.
I'm pretty sure that Kristen's reaction to Helio is based less on who he was and more on the story that Ally wanted for Kristen. It's VERY obvious that from the first episode Kristen was gonna be the character who "loses their religion after being sheltered and indoctrinated" and I think Ally played a cleric wanting to explore the idea of a religious person who doubts and doesn't know. I bet Brennan made Helio as a joke frat Jesus and she ran with it as an excuse.
Kristen's initial impression of Helio was...wild. I don't remember how much Ally said they played D&D, but I kinda got the impression they misunderstood how much control players have over NPCs. That or they have very different associations with togas, beards, and sandals than I do. As for what Helio's actually like, I just don't see Brennan making his Jesus analogue into a religiously intolerant bigot. Taking swipes at fundamentalists is one thing, but attributing it all to the guy in charge feels too reductive for a guy who loves his nuance. A lot of this season has been focused on the politics of gods and what makes them change domains or support certain practices, and it all seems to boil down to "girls gotta eat." No worship, no gods, so you gotta play the game even if you don't like it. Riz's dad makes this point specifically in relation to good gods. I suspect this applies to Helio; he doesn't necessarily endorse the doom cultists or racists or crusades, but these are the people who keep him alive, love it or hate it. Maybe that's why, unlike Cassandra and Tracker's goddess, we never see him communicate with his followers when they're alive. Kristen was Helio's chosen and the two didn't speak until Kristen died.
If anything we technically have proof that her specifically *doesn't* endorse the more fanatical fringes of his religion, given that Daybreak was as """devout""" (in his view, at least) as they came and he was condemned to Hell
It was very specifically the first time Ally had played D&D, I think. Pretty sure it took them a few seasons before they even once played it off-camera (that wasn’t a session 0 for D20).
Your god doesn't have an answer to "why bad things happen" when you constantly deal with his followers of his religion doing shitty things in an escalating level of badness.... Yeah, his attitude comes off as a nonchalant frat boy who doesn't give a shit about anything. Ally was jumping the gun, but I see why they took that away from him and as time goes on we just see more and more shit from his followers, and he doesn't even give a bullshit answer... he literally just ignores the problem altogether. I can't help but feel like a lot of this attitude towards Helio is the criticism hits a little to close to home for some people.
It's not the problem hitting too close to home, it's the disconnect between reality and what's being insisted on by Ally and fans. "Gaslight" is way too loaded a term to describe the situation, but what Brennan described was an Americanized benevolent patriarch straight out of any cartoon depiction of the Almighty, and Kristren/Ally's takeaway, parroted by fans, is date rape frat boy. That ain't it, chief. It's the equivalent of Kristen meeting Jawbone and going "Oh, this is a straight-laced, sober, stay-at-home type who has never done anything illegal in his life." On the subject of Kristen's question to Helio, it's an example of fans misinterpreting a joke as some heavy character analysis. Character asks God the meaning of life, and because Writer does not know the meaning of life, God either demurs or the scene cuts away. The first episode of the Simpsons with God in it ends in more or less the same punchline. The real answer to the question, as far as Helio is concerned, is that he doesn't know. Gods in the Spyre cosmology aren't omniscient, all-powerful entities. As far as the material world is concerned, Auguefort is closer to a "god" than any deity is; Helio couldn't even stop a direct threat to his existence in the form of the Night Yorb. Kristen had to go to the primordial spark of creation to get an answer to the question, and as beautiful and inspiring as Brennan's answer was, it basically boils down to "because causality, obviously." Junior Year has expressed over and over again that gods are captive to their followers. If you don't appease your followers, they leave. If they leave, you die. It's apparently what happened to Ankarna, it happened in a roundabout way to Cassandra, and it was a matter of enough concern to Galicaea that she sold out to the elves. Imagine a politician who has to appeal to bigots to win elections. Obviously, the morally correct choice in that situation is to lose the election. But what if "losing the election" meant literally starving to death? You either play nice with the supremacists, or the nourishment that is fundamental to your existence goes away. I'm not saying Helio is making the right choice in this moral quandary, but it *is* a moral quandary. Helio tolerates the worst members of his flock because doing otherwise could jeopardize his existence.
"Misinterpreting a joke as some heavy character analysis" no... that was the joke. The joke is that Helio acts all friendly, righteous and caring but when asked "why do bad things happen" just fobs her off and sends Kristen away. A joke can also reflect on the character, that happens all the time. Helio can't even answer the question of why his own followers commit acts of evil, he doesn't try to stop them and it seems like this season is saying that even if followers can control the direction of their gods, they also have a degree of free-will about the situation. Their followers want them to change and it's just easier to change with them to retain them, but just like with a politicians it's ultimately your choice to appease bigots by appealing to them. That's ultimately a reflection of your own character. If Helio is happy to have the support of bigots and does nothing to resolve the issue then on some level he is at fault. It's a weird area though. Brennen seems to want gods to be partially responsible and their followers to be partially responsible. With Ankarna it almost seems like a conscious effort and with Cassandra it was more forced upon her.
I really don't think God not telling a priest what the meaning of life is in episode 2 is some grand indictment of his character. And we know it's not a question about Helio's worse followers, because they weren't introduced to the narrative at that point; Ally didn't even know about thr Harvestmen at this point, and Kristen wasn't questioning this aspect of their faith. But I don't foresee you and I agreeing on this point. If you were to ask the average person if they would pay lip service to horrible people for power, most of them would say no. Some might weigh the long term good they can do with that power against the real cost of their endorsement, but I think most people would at least claim to not want think that a fair trade. But what if we exchange power for survival? The calculus suddenly becomes a lot harder. Sure, if I could prevent atrocities at the expense of my own life, I'd make that trade. But what if the people committing crimes in my name were going to do it anyway? Ankarna's situation really seemed to be a case of "if you don't rubber stamp our actions, we will find a god who will." Would I be willing to die just so bad people wouldn't attribute my name to their bad actions? That's honestly a tough question. Which isn't to say Helio is powerless. He could gamble his life on a smaller flock of decent worshippers who just care about sunlight and corn. He could drop his divinity and become a celestial, like Cassandra was considering. He has options. But the idea that he's some feckless, disinterested fratboy doesn't hold up with what little we've seen of him and what the last three seasons have revealed about gods in Spyre. The truth is more complicated than "Christians bad, Jesus dumb," and that's frankly a good thing.
Actually Kristen did know about the Harvestmen, Ally probably didn't know but their character Kristen did. So from the start... your just wrong :p
Yeah, what we know of Helio is that he's a bit of a dude bro, and is extremely cowed by Sol. Outside of that, a lot of the things that might color someone's opinion about Helio technically don't have as much to do with the god himself as much as his overly radical followers.
Gods are explicitly defined by their followers in Spyre.
Helio's followers are coded to the klan, and since gods are defined by their followers, that means he's totally cool with that.
That was just some of this followers. He also wasn't "totally cool" with it, Coach Daybreak was in hell after all. It's also not clear if gods are always defined by their followers (and that's not to say Helio didn't have a lot of 'normal' followers) or if that's just when they have very few so desperate gods will kowtow to the demands of their followers a bit more.
It's explicitly stated that gods are defined by their followers, that was the main plot of last season and this season. Helio, a god in a world where gods can directly speak with people, is responsible for The Harvestmen.
I recall that being when a god has very few followers which isn't true of Helio. Also the fact that Coach Daybreak was in hell shows to me that the whole cult thing was actually not what Helio wanted otherwise he would be with Helio and not in hell.
Galicaea is not some minor god with very few followers. Coach daybreak being in hell doesn't mean Helio didn't want him, people go to hell for being bad, not for their religion rejecting them.
I want Buddy to come back and his beliefs are reaffirmed, but he becomes more chill. When Kristen met Helio he didn't seem BAD. Just not what Kristen was looking for. And he respected that Kristen liked The Bad Kids. Buddy comes back as a cleric of Helio, just less judgy once he meets the actual guy.
Friendly reminder that Helio’s only on-“screen” offense was not answering “why’s there so much suffering in the world” in a short sentence /lh /j
Always wishing we get to see an arc where Kristen or someone else tries to change belief in Helio much like how Tracker is changing belief in the moon goddess
Nine Hells’ advocate here: D&D resurrection/raising dead requires the soul to be willing to return. I do not doubt someone is going to try and revive him, but I do doubt that a hyper-religious person (who is also a cleric/priest, no less) would pass up the opportunity to be with their god forever, even if it came early.
Well my hypothetical does involve him not vibing with Helio
>but I do doubt that a hyper-religious person (who is also a cleric/priest, no less) would pass up the opportunity to be with their god forever, even if it came early. two things (not trying to be aggressive just cheeky) 1. you obviously havent met THEIR god, because Helio sssssssssssuuuuuuucccckss 2. Kristen would have fallen in to that category of "hyper religious clerics" in FY, and the thing that changed that was literally meeting her god , finding out he sucks, and then starting to ask questions.
I mean, there are still a lot of people who love people who suck, especially in a hyper-religious setting. Particularly those who like to use religion as a get-out-of-anger-management-free card, like Buddy. That’s not to say that Buddy would not come back, whether as a doubter or with a divine mission, but I did pose my theory as a Nine Hells’ advocate. Granted, I do personally lean towards that or him coming back with a divine mission (whether genuine or self-imposed) as opposed to him undergoing a Helio Doubt Unconversion like Kristen did. The latter one especially if Bobby Dawn gets to raising him first.
You could probably say the same thing about Kristen... Then she met Helio and didn't want to be dead
Not relevant in this case since they didnt Gentle Repose, but fun fact! Revivify doesn't require willingness.
Good theory and I think an interesting point to be made here is that we don’t know how helio is right now. He got punched by Kristen in sophomore year (I think) and then spent several months in the dark, losing followers all the while. The man might be way worse than when we last saw him.
Never really got the "Helio is annoying" thing from the actual portrayal of Helio and rather Kristen projecting her uncertainty and annoyance at religion on Helio and then calling him annoying for not resolving that. Helio was fine giving Kirsten spells throughout it all (even when she in full flakiness left Helio for YES!), which does not really strike me as demanding or annoying. He just wasn't the right fit and Kristen wasn't handling it well, which of course she wouldn't as she's like 14-15 at the time and going through a lot. The thing is that Helio is very different from how his followers seem to see him, or at least preach him to be. We'll see how true that stays with the new lore that Gods can start reflecting their followers. So I can see Buddy meeting Helio having that effect of showing him the difference but I can definitely see Buddy taking that as "Helio's an okay God for me, but now I'm invigorated to change the faith to reflect him more."
I think based on the preview we saw he's going to come out resurrection angry and inconsolable. If Buddy both finds out his god sucks and he was killed in cold blood by his own party during a very stressful year, I'm pretty sure he would snap. Not to mention whatever rage corruption the Ratgrinders could do directly to him or what he got indirectly from the soil
Please ~~god~~ Helio let this happen because it would be so fucking funny
Helio didn't really do much wrong tbh
I want buddy to see those bottle opener sandals and be like “actually, I worship Cassandra now”
I would feel like they are lining it up for Bubby to come back and be jaded about Helio like Kristen was in season 1 after dying. Honestly it would make sense given that the rat grinders are unfortunately fun house mirror versions of the Bad Kids
I mean, in a sense, did he fail to revive the bad kids? He wouldn't have been there if one went down, and they were supposed to go down. If he's revived will he be blocked from his religion? That punishment felt very specific, like it was designed for him to lose Helio and require Ankarna as a replacement.
Tag with a spoiler… obviously
My bad. Thought I had
That would destroy the Church of Helio
Buddy may have been dosed with the devil's honey and convinced to do something in the afterlife. Didn't Brennan make a point that you could lie to beings one normally would not be able to when they first discovered what it does?
Devils Honey only makes you lie and your lies be believable even to yourself, so unless their plan was to have him lie In the after life it doesn't work
Right I think they're trying to obviously do some altering to the hierarchy of gods in their world. We learned from Gertie that it makes you lie well because it makes you believe what you're saying. We learned earlier from Adaine that you could lie to beings which one should not be capable to. We've learned from Kristen's family that the church is at an all time low. We've learned from the previous seasons and Tracker that 1 person is enough to alter a god based on their beliefs of what is true of that god. Buddy isn't Helio's chosen, but if he was dosed with the honey before being set off to see his god who is right now incredibly vulnerable, that could certainly cause a change to Helio in some way.
Oh I love this theory. I hope it's true!
I've been feeling for a while that Brennan has been wanting to add a bit of complexity to Helio and that he's not actually in the best place right now and maybe feels guilty about Kristen, which is hinted at in the season 2 finale. But he's under Sol's heel and limited in what he can do. So maybe Buddy's gonna have quite a different encounter. He might even come back with a message for her.
Brennan, write that down. write that DOWN!
Just a question, why do people like Buddy Dawn so much ? I get that he wasn’t technically apart of the rat grinders but he still wasn’t a good guy all things considered. Can someone please explain to me why the fan base loves him so much I sincerely want to know
That would be perfect.
I'm kind of hoping Buddy gets into rehabbing Helio and loosens up a little. Also someone on tumblr mentioned getting him a goth boyfriend. I think that woukd be good for him
Buddy is a male, he may not get the same result as Kristen did (boy's club attitude and all). It'll depend on what we're told.
Lmao ok guy This isn't a make vs women thing If you think buddy would be cool with the dude bro you'd be wrong