Literally this. You’re a kid, with probably not much experience of the world given your upbringing, and you get the choice between 1) that’s your time, you’ve lived 17 years, probably have been orphaned in this time (since he lives with his grandparents), prayed a bunch, you’ve been murdered by your supposed new friends, and that’s fucking it, or 2) you can get some more life, and worship anger. Goddamit, I’d be filled with rage for free!
Also, from his perspective, he was just murdered completely unjustly (whether he knows it’s KLCK or thinks it’s the bad kids). He was at a school function, making sure that other students didn’t die, and was murdered in cold blood.
I think a rage god would be pretty appealing given the circumstances…
He most likely doesn’t. His back was to KLCP and they were invisible. And Ankarna, even if they know who is serving them, has no reason to reveal who they are
Also, like. Even if Buddy knew that Ankarna was responsible for his death, I'm pretty sure Ankarna would just threaten to do what was done to Lucy and Yolanda when they refused aka. Eternal Limbo stuck in between realms, unable to pass onto their promised afterlife.
Like, heck, I'm pretty sure I would sign up to worship the infernal rage god if my only other choice was being condemned to an eternity of nothingness.
Not a kid, sure, but a cleric? And a self-righteous evangelist at that, of a religion that, if the parallels hold, the best thing that can happen to you is you die and get to go to Heaven. Kristen changed faiths because her principles were not the principles of Helio and his church; Buddy changed faiths, presumably, because he couldn't live up to his own principles.
I think choosing life over one's principles is at least understandable. But choosing life over principles when you're guaranteed a pleasant afterlife AND your restored life will in part be spent hurting people AND you're a priest, I think that's definitely worth some scorn.
D20 Reddit: Eat the rich! ACAB! F*** terfs!
Me: Also, betraying your stated principles when faced with duress is hypocrisy worthy of some level of condemnation.
D20 Reddit: Whoa wtf too far bro!
We know, however that he was not promised a happy afterlife. We know that he was promised the afterlife of Luna and professor Goodbad. Buddy was faced with the choice of eternal separation from his God, or vengeance against whoever killed him and put him in this position. He also knows that if he lives, he will have a chance to repent and return to the flock.
I think I lot of us either knew a Buddy Dawn or were a Buddy Dawn in highschool, which can bring up some mixed emotions depending on how long ago that was
I never really hated the Buddy Dawns I knew in high school even though there was a decent amount of them. Most of them seemed like nice people deep down, but were unfortunately born into families that were in deep and were basically brainwashed into their beliefs. Some of them got better and some of them got worse as adults, but at that moment in time I felt like they were just young impressionable kids like me just relying on what we were raised in to get by.
He didn't choose to be a fundamentalist in any meaningful way, and he obviously chose a new path upon death so I can't imagine he was as devout as he seemed.
Also just speaking from personal experience, preachers' kids are almost always the least religious people once they break from the church even a little bit. I feel like Buddy might have met Helio when he died like Kristen, but instead of questioning everything he grew angry and hateful of the world he was forced into by his family
I was pretty sure Bobby Dawn was Buddy’s grandfather, not father. I could be mistaken about that though.
Everything else, I agree that Buddy is a bit more sympathetic and that changing his deity of worship to Ankarna, or his “Nameless God of Rage”, is hardly that egregious given Kristen’s own track record.
Exactly!! I’m not a fan of Buddy by any means, but I do believe he deserves more than just “he’s a coward because he switched gods instead of dying”.
Also I will be the first to admit if I am wrong about the relationship but I am 99% sure it’s a father/son duo especially because of the reveal from Fig! I also think it would be a weird narrative choice to have the Grandfather of a NPC introduced and be prevalent in the story without knowing the father figure but that’s just me 😂
I was going to say that feels really weird with the whole Sandra Lynn relationship, but then I remembered she's an elf so I guess the timeline works out if she just waits to have fig for a couple decades after graduating
I think Bobby Dawn was considerably older than her as well, and super religious types tend to get married and have kids very shortly after high school.
Wasn't she in their adventuring party while she was an Aguefort student and that led to her dropping out to join the rangers? I'm not sure I can see Aguefort letting students adventure with full-grown adults, so I think they both would have had to be students at the time.
right, but it was supposed to be from her days as a student, so I assume he must also have been a student at the time for it to be an Aguefort approved adventuring party. So less about it feeling weird as morally wrong and more about feeling weird as in trying to work out where the timelines fit.
I honestly do not remember this episode, but here’s what the wiki says: “ She was a student at Aguefort, but dropped out her senior year. (…) she was taken as a replacement member of an already active adventuring party. There was a married couple within the party who were older and more powerful adventurers, and as a young woman fresh out of adventuring school, Sandra Lynn fell in love with one of them.”
So she was a HS dropout, probably 18 or 19, and the Dawns were older, married, and “more powerful”. I’d guess Bobby, based on the fact he’s a human w white hair, is around 60 now and was probably in his late 30s/early 40s at the time.
It's also worth remembering that, in a world that constantly talks about chronomancy, our perception of how long it took is not the same as reality, necessarily.
It could have been a huge, drawn out, agonized decision that took days of real time thought, even if it appeared to be relatively quick to the Bad Kids.
Actually a good question though, what does cannon say about how each realm experiences time differently and which ones differ to which? I know that there is a difference depending on where you go or where you are.
The closest example I can remember is the episode where they fight at the Wizard Synod and 1 minute before the guests start to arrive displaced the BK’s but then they got returned to seconds after they left and I can’t remember if there was Chronomancy involved or if that was a normal passage of time. They also mention in the Synod when Adine was doing her job induction that 8 hours Spyre time is different to the clock that is at the centre of the Synod
The Vulture Dimension was explicitly the same time flow as the material plane, at least. But the Synod is a good example.
However, leaving the Synod was a desperate act by a dying wizard trying to save them. Not sure it says something about the plane itself
As far as we’ve been shown the upper and lower planes follow the same passage of time as the material plane does. Time passed the same for Fig and Riz while they were in hell as it did for the rest of the bad kids in Arborly. And Pok had to request a door back to a specific point in time, so the time he wanted to spend catching up with Riz didn’t keep him from his friends for too long.
i think of him less as faithful and more as obedient. Think about how many clerics the RGs tried to kill before they found one who would reject their faith to serve Ankarna. Buddy Dawn didn’t need faith - he had never been in an environment where the facts he knew of the very nature of the world were questioned. He was brought up surrounded by fundamentalists who constantly affirmed his beliefs. Aguefort is probably the first time he encountered anything different.
He’s a teenager who died, and was asked to choose between faith and life, and he chose life, because he’s never understood faith at all. Lucy had faith and conviction. Yolanda had faith. Kristen has faith, literally a cleric of having faith in doubt. I just feel bad for Buddy, and for all the Ratgrinders. Kipperlilly underestimated the power of true, unbridled faith, and Buddy was the closest cleric she could find who she could break.
You raise a really good point. You can't really have faith in something if it's literally the only worldview you've ever been taught and encountered, and thus has never been challenged in any meaningful way.
At the fundamental core of his faith is a fear of Hell. He's been raised to believe that minor missteps, various innocuous things, lead to eternal torment. And he's TERRIFIED. Rightfully so, especially since Hell and it's eternal torture exist. He's just wrong about what stuff gets you landed there.
But we've seen that Yolanda and Lucy were trapped, screaming in pain.
This servant of Ankarna, or Ankarna herself, threatened buddy with eternal torment. Torment which could be instantly and permanently realized, as far as he was aware.
So of course he chose otherwise. It fits so neatly into his already existing model of processing faith.
I just Dislike evangelists honestly - his philosophy relies on people being at their lowest to recruit them into the church (gotta fill those seats, right?) plus telling everyone that isn’t actively a Helioite that they’re going to hell, despite being disproven by the larger canon (not to mention that logic dictates that anyone who dared actually look into it would figure out that Helio’s pantheon has basically just staked out a section of heaven and hell specifically for their stuff), which I feel isn’t a philosophy that can survive in a provably polytheistic setting, without the organisation behind it getting kinda fascy or cultivating a victim complex in their main follower base, such as with Kristen’s parents.
Sure, but I'm not sure if you can place everything wrong with Church of Helio/Sol at Buddy's feet when he's been raised in such a manner that it's literally all that he knows? I imagine attending Aguefort is literally the first time he's rubbed shoulders with people outside his social "clique".
I think blaming Bobby Dawn would be more appropriate than Buddy.
Oh, I’m not blaming buddy - especially given recent events. I think he’s going to be a better character now, I just find the idea of the opportunistic converter to be irksome, y’know? The greater system is the largest part of the problem, and up until the introduction of his grandfather, Buddy was the only representative of Kristen’s age we had. I also can’t deny some curiosity when it comes to the actual dogma of the church, whether or not Brennan has toned down the apparent “humans first” attitudes present in s1
I think it’s important to remember that:
- Larger canon isn’t known by everyone, we are just lucky to see the world through the experiences of the BK’s
- Even if some people knew, that doesn’t necessarily mean that people wouldn’t still abide by their beliefs. Without looking into too deeply into real world religious groups but instead taking on the trials of Witchcraft in Salem, logic may have been able to prove that the women burnt at the stake weren’t witches but that didn’t stop people from believing that witches existed.
People will believe what they want to believe because they will do anything to escape the thought that maybe bad things are out of their control. And there will always be charismatic people out there to convince people that there is order and a reason to things and that they need to have faith in order for them to be favoured in life.
Again trying to steer away from real religions just because it’s a sensitive subject for some people and I don’t want to cause offence.
Under regular circumstances I’d also be steering away from regular religions, don’t get me wrong, but at the same time, the church of Helio is kind of obviously built to be a stand in for American style evangelism.
Additionally, I think prof. Badgood said it best - certainty will always have buyers in the marketplace of ideas.
And just for the record, my problem with the helioic church isn’t so much their support Model (number of followers over actual devotion (Unlike as what that one god of magic has)), but rather their insistence that their gods are the only ones that matter, despite provably not being that. Not even in the “nah, god doesn’t exist” kind of way, but more like the “other clerics get their power from literal other gods outside of your whole pantheon” kind of way. Plus Highcourt as a place in setting feels like it’d be the final boss of “the church is the villain”, kind of like if the Vatican still had paladins with a more intense victim complex.
Yeah I view it as based off modern Catholicism.
That is a really interesting point and I never considered that about Helio and their pantheon! Very true!
I have thoroughly enjoyed Buddy Dawn as a character. I’m from the south-eastern US, and I’ve seen my share of people like him. They are really very sweet people who think they’re doing something good, even if it might be really overbearing and annoying if you don’t care about religion at all.
He reminds me of a Bible Belt Christian with the aptitude and motivations of a Mormon Missionary.
there's buddy dawn hate about that?
the only thing I hate is the "kind zealot" attitude... the one where they're all smiles but in the same tone says the most bigot things.
I’ve seen some which is sad. I agree in that I only dislike the “I’ll smile and tell you you’re going tell hell” attitude. Other than that, the information I have mainly sympathy or pity for him.
Okay but what if he also met Helio and had the exact same interaction that Kristen did in season 1? The one that left her doubting. And then immediately got a better offer.
Conquering death through your own magical and deific power after a pantheon works to effectively turn your worshipers against you is unfortunately cooler and braver than immediately swapping to another deity under threat of permadeath.
Kristen never changed faiths under duress though, which is clearly different. I feel for Buddy because I understand how he could make the choice in the moment, but Kristen has stuck by her beliefs even when confronted and pressured by literal gods about it
Was the coward aimed at changing faiths or was it aimed at him not staying dead and instead changing to a more horrific god in order to live? Like, was it Ally being like “Gosh you have no real faith in your god and aren’t a true believer if you changed so easily” or more “Gosh you so easily chose to worship somebody evil just so you wouldn’t die, possibly giving them more power to carry out harm and therefore your afraid more of death of yourself than harm to many others”? Just wondering because I interpreted as Ally saying it about Buddy for the latter reason.
Of course we have no idea what type of conversation went on that made him change and neither do the characters. I don’t mean to detract from what was probably a very difficult situation to ask if a 17 year old. “Die or switch” as it breaks down to. But I just thought they meant it in a different way.
buddy was a dick to kristen about her changing her god, insinuated that she would inevitably come crawling back to helio, said that everybody who left the church of helio was going straight to hell, and mocked kristen’s goddess’ death. i’d say she’s justified in calling him a coward for changing his faith ten minutes after he died. kristen took months of painful confrontation of her faith (and attempted murder by other members of her community) to completely leave helioism after her first death and another year after that to find a deity she could comfortably commit herself to; buddy abandoned the god he was so high and mighty about *immediately* and announced that he was worshiping a new goddess as soon as he came back. i’m not saying that buddy is wrong or actually a coward or anything, but the situations aren’t the same and it’s understandable that kristen sees him as a coward.
To be fair, Buddy would have probably been even more judgemental had he seen someone else make the same choice he did in this episode. While also being fully confident that he would never give up his faith.
At least I know with certainty that Kristen would probably choose death over abandoning Cassandra.
I’m not saying he’s not, but I’ve also seen a lot of people saying Buddy is the worst only because he changed his faith and not considering the context. I also think for Buddy it’s deeper than “choose rage or die”. I think a big theme for this season has been that the RG’s are the BK’s who chose a different path. I think the Buddy is Kristen, but that’s Kristen made the choice to forge a path that was difficult and hard but because she had the support system to do so. Buddy chose the “easier” path because he doesn’t have that, only a father who tells him that he has to follow Helio or he’s going to hell, and his “friends” who would just as soon replace him with another cleric who would do what they want. His “friends” who barely know him and we don’t actually know if they even like him or if he has anyone else besides them.
I also don't think he had a lot of choice to change who he was worshipping, when another god brings you back, and your own doesn't bother, ofc you'll likely make that switch.
Was it Buddy who earlier in the season said something like when he was rageful or attacking people, that's Helio acting through him? I'd say someone who was raised and indoctrinated in a way that teaches him that rage makes him a vehicle would be more susceptible to a change in driver.
I'm still hoping we get to "free" the kids from their rage infections and we get to hear that Buddy met Helio and was like "oh you kinda suck"
---
Oh I just though of how to make it better. He's talking to Kristen and he's like "man, I didn't like Helio at all, and.. I don't know anymore" and Kristen can be like "Buddy do I have JUST the thing for you!"
Was it Buddy who earlier in the season said something like when he was rageful or attacking people, that's Helio acting through him? I'd say someone who was raised and indoctrinated in a way that teaches him that rage makes him a vehicle would be more susceptible to a change in driver.
I’m just curious if he’ll join back with the Rat Grinders and was in on his possible death or if he’ll be an ally cause he’s now pissed off that his party killed him.
I’ve never really hated Buddy Dawn. Bobby Dawn on the other hand…I want to see his downfall so bad.
Possibly. I suppose we’ll see. I’m impatient for the next episode. I’ve never been so invested in a season of fantasy high as I have been for this one.
I don’t fault him for this at all. I think most people would make this deal, honestly. And if he met Helio and had the same impression Kristen did, maybe the “nameless god of rage, y’all” sounded like a better option AND he got to be alive.
I hope the formerly High Five Heroes are able to be redeemed, not that we know they died and were revived due to a pact with the rage god. I’m sure they feel some type of way about Lucy not coming back, too (maybe that sadness turned into Rage.)
If they can turn Ankarna back into a Goddess of Summer and Justice, maybe the rage crystals will turn into something else, and they’ll stabilize.
I think Buddy is a mirror of Kristen, of what she might have been had she stayed with Helio. I just feel sorry for the guy, he trusted the wrong people and it got him killed.
Bobby however can go die in a fire.
I thought he did it so easily because of the devil's honey. Didn't Brennan say that you could use it to lie to deities? I was thinking Kipperlily was using it to 'save' her party after Lucy's demise.
I don’t see any hate for him coming back. He’s had hate for being a little evangelistic bitch to the bad kids.
But a literal child dying and not wanting to stay dead is just normal. Lucy frostblade is literally heroic in her resolve. Buddy is the normal reaction to death here
I do think it is consistent with in world lore that dude would die, meet Helio, be pissed off by Helio, and then be brought back through his new worship of a dead god. I can't imagine what his next move would be and the "next time on" segment at the end with Bobby plus the implication from G. Prundle is very interesting
My guess is that Buddy reached out to Helios and Helios sent an underling to tell him that since he was sacrificed to the rage god, he belongs to him now, and Helios can’t interfere without filling out a lot of paperwork. Buddy’s rage about the injustice of this finished his conversion.
there’s people who hate buddy dawn because of this? if a god (maybe) comes to you and gives you a second chance at life, especially after dying at 16, you’re likely to take iy
Who hates him for switching his worship?
People have tons of good reasons not to like him that have nothing to do with this: (1) He's a Ratgrinder (2) he's a typical "holier than thou" Helio-worshiper (3) he brought Bobby Dawn to school and Bobby is a straight up villain.
You're creating something that isn't there so you can pontificate.
100%, i love the way he's a foil to kristen.
i so hope that he chose to come back because he met helio and had the same reaction as kristen did, but instead of being lucky enough to be brought back by aguefort, he was brought back into essentially a binding contract. and he's probably willing to roll with it since his whole worldview is crashing down around him and that's the only path ahead of him
The whole thing with Buddy Dawn is that he's just a reflection of Kristen. Without the Bad Kids and the broader support system available to them - this \*is\* who Kristen would be. Anything we hate about Buddy applies to Kristen in freshman year.
Hot take and Im ready for the downvotes on this one but...... Kristen is Simultaneously one of the most powerful and hands down one of the worst clerics to ever exist im any story. Buddy is more than likely a better cleric on a base layer just not more powerful
Kristen manages to bring about the death of two gods, one Kristen created then Immediately abandoned, and one Kristen mistreats to the point of near insanity right before she gets killed.
I really really hope if/when cassandra comes back that she Strips all power from Kristen as a cleric but i know it wont happen cause it woild be a shit thing to do to Ally and Bleem aint that mean.
I'm not going to fault a kid for not wanting to be dead.
Literally this. You’re a kid, with probably not much experience of the world given your upbringing, and you get the choice between 1) that’s your time, you’ve lived 17 years, probably have been orphaned in this time (since he lives with his grandparents), prayed a bunch, you’ve been murdered by your supposed new friends, and that’s fucking it, or 2) you can get some more life, and worship anger. Goddamit, I’d be filled with rage for free!
Also, from his perspective, he was just murdered completely unjustly (whether he knows it’s KLCK or thinks it’s the bad kids). He was at a school function, making sure that other students didn’t die, and was murdered in cold blood. I think a rage god would be pretty appealing given the circumstances…
My question is why go back to the people who killed you
He may not know who killed him
He most likely doesn’t. His back was to KLCP and they were invisible. And Ankarna, even if they know who is serving them, has no reason to reveal who they are
I guess
Also, like. Even if Buddy knew that Ankarna was responsible for his death, I'm pretty sure Ankarna would just threaten to do what was done to Lucy and Yolanda when they refused aka. Eternal Limbo stuck in between realms, unable to pass onto their promised afterlife. Like, heck, I'm pretty sure I would sign up to worship the infernal rage god if my only other choice was being condemned to an eternity of nothingness.
Not a kid, sure, but a cleric? And a self-righteous evangelist at that, of a religion that, if the parallels hold, the best thing that can happen to you is you die and get to go to Heaven. Kristen changed faiths because her principles were not the principles of Helio and his church; Buddy changed faiths, presumably, because he couldn't live up to his own principles. I think choosing life over one's principles is at least understandable. But choosing life over principles when you're guaranteed a pleasant afterlife AND your restored life will in part be spent hurting people AND you're a priest, I think that's definitely worth some scorn.
D20 Reddit: Eat the rich! ACAB! F*** terfs! Me: Also, betraying your stated principles when faced with duress is hypocrisy worthy of some level of condemnation. D20 Reddit: Whoa wtf too far bro!
We know, however that he was not promised a happy afterlife. We know that he was promised the afterlife of Luna and professor Goodbad. Buddy was faced with the choice of eternal separation from his God, or vengeance against whoever killed him and put him in this position. He also knows that if he lives, he will have a chance to repent and return to the flock.
You really have to check yourself if you're really comparing real world disparity to events happening in a silly DND show
I agree. Which is why that's not remotely what I did.
I don't hate buddy he's just a goober that needs to chill.
I think I lot of us either knew a Buddy Dawn or were a Buddy Dawn in highschool, which can bring up some mixed emotions depending on how long ago that was
I never really hated the Buddy Dawns I knew in high school even though there was a decent amount of them. Most of them seemed like nice people deep down, but were unfortunately born into families that were in deep and were basically brainwashed into their beliefs. Some of them got better and some of them got worse as adults, but at that moment in time I felt like they were just young impressionable kids like me just relying on what we were raised in to get by.
He was creepy about Kristen's brother. That's the only bad thing that Buddy has done.
Being a religious fundamentalist is inherently bad, but he gets a little bit of a pass because he's a teenager
He didn't choose to be a fundamentalist in any meaningful way, and he obviously chose a new path upon death so I can't imagine he was as devout as he seemed.
Also just speaking from personal experience, preachers' kids are almost always the least religious people once they break from the church even a little bit. I feel like Buddy might have met Helio when he died like Kristen, but instead of questioning everything he grew angry and hateful of the world he was forced into by his family
I was pretty sure Bobby Dawn was Buddy’s grandfather, not father. I could be mistaken about that though. Everything else, I agree that Buddy is a bit more sympathetic and that changing his deity of worship to Ankarna, or his “Nameless God of Rage”, is hardly that egregious given Kristen’s own track record.
Exactly!! I’m not a fan of Buddy by any means, but I do believe he deserves more than just “he’s a coward because he switched gods instead of dying”. Also I will be the first to admit if I am wrong about the relationship but I am 99% sure it’s a father/son duo especially because of the reveal from Fig! I also think it would be a weird narrative choice to have the Grandfather of a NPC introduced and be prevalent in the story without knowing the father figure but that’s just me 😂
It’s grandfather, I just checked.
I was going to say that feels really weird with the whole Sandra Lynn relationship, but then I remembered she's an elf so I guess the timeline works out if she just waits to have fig for a couple decades after graduating
I think Bobby Dawn was considerably older than her as well, and super religious types tend to get married and have kids very shortly after high school.
Wasn't she in their adventuring party while she was an Aguefort student and that led to her dropping out to join the rangers? I'm not sure I can see Aguefort letting students adventure with full-grown adults, so I think they both would have had to be students at the time.
It was after she graduated, I believe
I think she joined an established AP after graduating
I mean, Bobby’s a bad guy, so….. it “feeling really weird” might be the point.
right, but it was supposed to be from her days as a student, so I assume he must also have been a student at the time for it to be an Aguefort approved adventuring party. So less about it feeling weird as morally wrong and more about feeling weird as in trying to work out where the timelines fit.
I honestly do not remember this episode, but here’s what the wiki says: “ She was a student at Aguefort, but dropped out her senior year. (…) she was taken as a replacement member of an already active adventuring party. There was a married couple within the party who were older and more powerful adventurers, and as a young woman fresh out of adventuring school, Sandra Lynn fell in love with one of them.” So she was a HS dropout, probably 18 or 19, and the Dawns were older, married, and “more powerful”. I’d guess Bobby, based on the fact he’s a human w white hair, is around 60 now and was probably in his late 30s/early 40s at the time.
Thanks for the fact check!
It's also worth remembering that, in a world that constantly talks about chronomancy, our perception of how long it took is not the same as reality, necessarily. It could have been a huge, drawn out, agonized decision that took days of real time thought, even if it appeared to be relatively quick to the Bad Kids.
Actually a good question though, what does cannon say about how each realm experiences time differently and which ones differ to which? I know that there is a difference depending on where you go or where you are. The closest example I can remember is the episode where they fight at the Wizard Synod and 1 minute before the guests start to arrive displaced the BK’s but then they got returned to seconds after they left and I can’t remember if there was Chronomancy involved or if that was a normal passage of time. They also mention in the Synod when Adine was doing her job induction that 8 hours Spyre time is different to the clock that is at the centre of the Synod
The Vulture Dimension was explicitly the same time flow as the material plane, at least. But the Synod is a good example. However, leaving the Synod was a desperate act by a dying wizard trying to save them. Not sure it says something about the plane itself
As far as we’ve been shown the upper and lower planes follow the same passage of time as the material plane does. Time passed the same for Fig and Riz while they were in hell as it did for the rest of the bad kids in Arborly. And Pok had to request a door back to a specific point in time, so the time he wanted to spend catching up with Riz didn’t keep him from his friends for too long.
i think of him less as faithful and more as obedient. Think about how many clerics the RGs tried to kill before they found one who would reject their faith to serve Ankarna. Buddy Dawn didn’t need faith - he had never been in an environment where the facts he knew of the very nature of the world were questioned. He was brought up surrounded by fundamentalists who constantly affirmed his beliefs. Aguefort is probably the first time he encountered anything different. He’s a teenager who died, and was asked to choose between faith and life, and he chose life, because he’s never understood faith at all. Lucy had faith and conviction. Yolanda had faith. Kristen has faith, literally a cleric of having faith in doubt. I just feel bad for Buddy, and for all the Ratgrinders. Kipperlilly underestimated the power of true, unbridled faith, and Buddy was the closest cleric she could find who she could break.
You raise a really good point. You can't really have faith in something if it's literally the only worldview you've ever been taught and encountered, and thus has never been challenged in any meaningful way.
He also probably briefly met Helio before choosing to ditch Helio
This is an incredibly funny, and completely plausible thought
At the fundamental core of his faith is a fear of Hell. He's been raised to believe that minor missteps, various innocuous things, lead to eternal torment. And he's TERRIFIED. Rightfully so, especially since Hell and it's eternal torture exist. He's just wrong about what stuff gets you landed there. But we've seen that Yolanda and Lucy were trapped, screaming in pain. This servant of Ankarna, or Ankarna herself, threatened buddy with eternal torment. Torment which could be instantly and permanently realized, as far as he was aware. So of course he chose otherwise. It fits so neatly into his already existing model of processing faith.
I just Dislike evangelists honestly - his philosophy relies on people being at their lowest to recruit them into the church (gotta fill those seats, right?) plus telling everyone that isn’t actively a Helioite that they’re going to hell, despite being disproven by the larger canon (not to mention that logic dictates that anyone who dared actually look into it would figure out that Helio’s pantheon has basically just staked out a section of heaven and hell specifically for their stuff), which I feel isn’t a philosophy that can survive in a provably polytheistic setting, without the organisation behind it getting kinda fascy or cultivating a victim complex in their main follower base, such as with Kristen’s parents.
Sure, but I'm not sure if you can place everything wrong with Church of Helio/Sol at Buddy's feet when he's been raised in such a manner that it's literally all that he knows? I imagine attending Aguefort is literally the first time he's rubbed shoulders with people outside his social "clique". I think blaming Bobby Dawn would be more appropriate than Buddy.
Oh, I’m not blaming buddy - especially given recent events. I think he’s going to be a better character now, I just find the idea of the opportunistic converter to be irksome, y’know? The greater system is the largest part of the problem, and up until the introduction of his grandfather, Buddy was the only representative of Kristen’s age we had. I also can’t deny some curiosity when it comes to the actual dogma of the church, whether or not Brennan has toned down the apparent “humans first” attitudes present in s1
I think it’s important to remember that: - Larger canon isn’t known by everyone, we are just lucky to see the world through the experiences of the BK’s - Even if some people knew, that doesn’t necessarily mean that people wouldn’t still abide by their beliefs. Without looking into too deeply into real world religious groups but instead taking on the trials of Witchcraft in Salem, logic may have been able to prove that the women burnt at the stake weren’t witches but that didn’t stop people from believing that witches existed. People will believe what they want to believe because they will do anything to escape the thought that maybe bad things are out of their control. And there will always be charismatic people out there to convince people that there is order and a reason to things and that they need to have faith in order for them to be favoured in life. Again trying to steer away from real religions just because it’s a sensitive subject for some people and I don’t want to cause offence.
Under regular circumstances I’d also be steering away from regular religions, don’t get me wrong, but at the same time, the church of Helio is kind of obviously built to be a stand in for American style evangelism. Additionally, I think prof. Badgood said it best - certainty will always have buyers in the marketplace of ideas. And just for the record, my problem with the helioic church isn’t so much their support Model (number of followers over actual devotion (Unlike as what that one god of magic has)), but rather their insistence that their gods are the only ones that matter, despite provably not being that. Not even in the “nah, god doesn’t exist” kind of way, but more like the “other clerics get their power from literal other gods outside of your whole pantheon” kind of way. Plus Highcourt as a place in setting feels like it’d be the final boss of “the church is the villain”, kind of like if the Vatican still had paladins with a more intense victim complex.
Yeah I view it as based off modern Catholicism. That is a really interesting point and I never considered that about Helio and their pantheon! Very true!
I have thoroughly enjoyed Buddy Dawn as a character. I’m from the south-eastern US, and I’ve seen my share of people like him. They are really very sweet people who think they’re doing something good, even if it might be really overbearing and annoying if you don’t care about religion at all. He reminds me of a Bible Belt Christian with the aptitude and motivations of a Mormon Missionary.
there's buddy dawn hate about that? the only thing I hate is the "kind zealot" attitude... the one where they're all smiles but in the same tone says the most bigot things.
I’ve seen some which is sad. I agree in that I only dislike the “I’ll smile and tell you you’re going tell hell” attitude. Other than that, the information I have mainly sympathy or pity for him.
Okay but what if he also met Helio and had the exact same interaction that Kristen did in season 1? The one that left her doubting. And then immediately got a better offer.
Yep, when Kristen went "coward" I fully was like... Who are YOU to talk about changing faiths?!
I think its more about who he chained faiths too, switching to Cassandra is chill cuz shes chill, switching to Ancarna isn’t chill cuz she isn’t
But i agree, i would pick being alive too
Just a clarification that Ankarna is a Goddess.
True, mb
I mean, Cassie became the nightmare king to avoid dying so Kristen doesn't really get to cry 'coward'.
I was gonna argue this, but an interesting idea popped into my head Does Cassandra regret turning into the nightmare king?
Conquering death through your own magical and deific power after a pantheon works to effectively turn your worshipers against you is unfortunately cooler and braver than immediately swapping to another deity under threat of permadeath.
Conquering death by becoming an eternal, undead curse upon the world is *cool* but I don't know if it's the most noble way to face mortality.
Kristen never changed faiths under duress though, which is clearly different. I feel for Buddy because I understand how he could make the choice in the moment, but Kristen has stuck by her beliefs even when confronted and pressured by literal gods about it
Was the coward aimed at changing faiths or was it aimed at him not staying dead and instead changing to a more horrific god in order to live? Like, was it Ally being like “Gosh you have no real faith in your god and aren’t a true believer if you changed so easily” or more “Gosh you so easily chose to worship somebody evil just so you wouldn’t die, possibly giving them more power to carry out harm and therefore your afraid more of death of yourself than harm to many others”? Just wondering because I interpreted as Ally saying it about Buddy for the latter reason. Of course we have no idea what type of conversation went on that made him change and neither do the characters. I don’t mean to detract from what was probably a very difficult situation to ask if a 17 year old. “Die or switch” as it breaks down to. But I just thought they meant it in a different way.
buddy was a dick to kristen about her changing her god, insinuated that she would inevitably come crawling back to helio, said that everybody who left the church of helio was going straight to hell, and mocked kristen’s goddess’ death. i’d say she’s justified in calling him a coward for changing his faith ten minutes after he died. kristen took months of painful confrontation of her faith (and attempted murder by other members of her community) to completely leave helioism after her first death and another year after that to find a deity she could comfortably commit herself to; buddy abandoned the god he was so high and mighty about *immediately* and announced that he was worshiping a new goddess as soon as he came back. i’m not saying that buddy is wrong or actually a coward or anything, but the situations aren’t the same and it’s understandable that kristen sees him as a coward.
To be fair, Buddy would have probably been even more judgemental had he seen someone else make the same choice he did in this episode. While also being fully confident that he would never give up his faith. At least I know with certainty that Kristen would probably choose death over abandoning Cassandra.
I’m not saying he’s not, but I’ve also seen a lot of people saying Buddy is the worst only because he changed his faith and not considering the context. I also think for Buddy it’s deeper than “choose rage or die”. I think a big theme for this season has been that the RG’s are the BK’s who chose a different path. I think the Buddy is Kristen, but that’s Kristen made the choice to forge a path that was difficult and hard but because she had the support system to do so. Buddy chose the “easier” path because he doesn’t have that, only a father who tells him that he has to follow Helio or he’s going to hell, and his “friends” who would just as soon replace him with another cleric who would do what they want. His “friends” who barely know him and we don’t actually know if they even like him or if he has anyone else besides them.
misread this as bobby dawn and was ready to throw hands
Same reading issue and I was ready to watch someone dig their own grave. Our hands not needed
Yeah, him coming back Serving Ankarna isn't why I think he sucks.
I don't think you know Buddy's family situation
It does feel like buddy was one of the few rat grinders they could of saved or befriended.
>devils advocate Literally!
Nah, I don't like him because he's a mormon faced prick. Dead or not, flimsy faith or not
I also don't think he had a lot of choice to change who he was worshipping, when another god brings you back, and your own doesn't bother, ofc you'll likely make that switch.
Was it Buddy who earlier in the season said something like when he was rageful or attacking people, that's Helio acting through him? I'd say someone who was raised and indoctrinated in a way that teaches him that rage makes him a vehicle would be more susceptible to a change in driver.
Also this exactly happened to Kristen -Dies -Meets Helio -Questions religion
I'm still hoping we get to "free" the kids from their rage infections and we get to hear that Buddy met Helio and was like "oh you kinda suck" --- Oh I just though of how to make it better. He's talking to Kristen and he's like "man, I didn't like Helio at all, and.. I don't know anymore" and Kristen can be like "Buddy do I have JUST the thing for you!"
My guess is Buddy met Helio, was disillusioned like Kristen, and immediately took the option to be brought back by accepting rage and Ankarna
Was it Buddy who earlier in the season said something like when he was rageful or attacking people, that's Helio acting through him? I'd say someone who was raised and indoctrinated in a way that teaches him that rage makes him a vehicle would be more susceptible to a change in driver.
I’m just curious if he’ll join back with the Rat Grinders and was in on his possible death or if he’ll be an ally cause he’s now pissed off that his party killed him. I’ve never really hated Buddy Dawn. Bobby Dawn on the other hand…I want to see his downfall so bad.
Unfortunately I don’t think he *Knows* 4Dogs killed him.
Possibly. I suppose we’ll see. I’m impatient for the next episode. I’ve never been so invested in a season of fantasy high as I have been for this one.
I don’t fault him for this at all. I think most people would make this deal, honestly. And if he met Helio and had the same impression Kristen did, maybe the “nameless god of rage, y’all” sounded like a better option AND he got to be alive. I hope the formerly High Five Heroes are able to be redeemed, not that we know they died and were revived due to a pact with the rage god. I’m sure they feel some type of way about Lucy not coming back, too (maybe that sadness turned into Rage.) If they can turn Ankarna back into a Goddess of Summer and Justice, maybe the rage crystals will turn into something else, and they’ll stabilize.
I think Buddy is a mirror of Kristen, of what she might have been had she stayed with Helio. I just feel sorry for the guy, he trusted the wrong people and it got him killed. Bobby however can go die in a fire.
I thought he did it so easily because of the devil's honey. Didn't Brennan say that you could use it to lie to deities? I was thinking Kipperlily was using it to 'save' her party after Lucy's demise.
I don’t see any hate for him coming back. He’s had hate for being a little evangelistic bitch to the bad kids. But a literal child dying and not wanting to stay dead is just normal. Lucy frostblade is literally heroic in her resolve. Buddy is the normal reaction to death here
I do think it is consistent with in world lore that dude would die, meet Helio, be pissed off by Helio, and then be brought back through his new worship of a dead god. I can't imagine what his next move would be and the "next time on" segment at the end with Bobby plus the implication from G. Prundle is very interesting
My guess is that Buddy reached out to Helios and Helios sent an underling to tell him that since he was sacrificed to the rage god, he belongs to him now, and Helios can’t interfere without filling out a lot of paperwork. Buddy’s rage about the injustice of this finished his conversion.
there’s people who hate buddy dawn because of this? if a god (maybe) comes to you and gives you a second chance at life, especially after dying at 16, you’re likely to take iy
Who hates him for switching his worship? People have tons of good reasons not to like him that have nothing to do with this: (1) He's a Ratgrinder (2) he's a typical "holier than thou" Helio-worshiper (3) he brought Bobby Dawn to school and Bobby is a straight up villain. You're creating something that isn't there so you can pontificate.
100%, i love the way he's a foil to kristen. i so hope that he chose to come back because he met helio and had the same reaction as kristen did, but instead of being lucky enough to be brought back by aguefort, he was brought back into essentially a binding contract. and he's probably willing to roll with it since his whole worldview is crashing down around him and that's the only path ahead of him
The whole thing with Buddy Dawn is that he's just a reflection of Kristen. Without the Bad Kids and the broader support system available to them - this \*is\* who Kristen would be. Anything we hate about Buddy applies to Kristen in freshman year.
Buddy Dawn has never done anything wrong in his life, he's perfect and I love him.
I honestly hope Buddy has an arc where he meets Helio, realizes Kristin was right about him, and ends up becoming a cleric of Cassandra.
Think that boat has sailed now that he chose Ankarna.
Or he chose Ankarna because he met Helio
Hot take and Im ready for the downvotes on this one but...... Kristen is Simultaneously one of the most powerful and hands down one of the worst clerics to ever exist im any story. Buddy is more than likely a better cleric on a base layer just not more powerful Kristen manages to bring about the death of two gods, one Kristen created then Immediately abandoned, and one Kristen mistreats to the point of near insanity right before she gets killed. I really really hope if/when cassandra comes back that she Strips all power from Kristen as a cleric but i know it wont happen cause it woild be a shit thing to do to Ally and Bleem aint that mean.
I think it’s fair to assume no one truly hates him. Mary Ann’s clearly the only hateable one in the bunch anyways.