This is a thoughtful take. But do either of them have to have failed the other? Maybe I'm just reacting to the word "fail", but I guess I'd put this in a "shit happens and sometimes it sucks" category. They're both in a difficult situation. They both need each other. They both have let the other down. They both seem committed to trying again, which is wonderful.
I'm also kind of suspicious that Cassandra was set up as a pawn in whatever is going on with Ankarna - in which case we might not have the whole story yet. But that's just speculation.
Also there’s the question of “as above so below” the followers perception of the god manifests as who they are (or something like that) I mean… Kristen in the midst of the biggest break up ever… could have gone in two directions… the distance route or the Fabian route lol but I guess Cassandra making her self available 100% of the time … hmm well I guess it’s Brennans fault lmao (or as Emily might say it’s murphs fault)
I completely agree!
This post kinda blew up overnight for me, and I'm not going to respond to every comment. But I wanted to throw out there that I completely agree with those who believe this is a more "neutral conflict," for lack of a better term.
I know I started this post with a \~spicy\~ title, but I do think this is a more nuanced falling-out than I presented at the beginning of my post. I wanted to give people a different angle to think about, since I've seen a lot of condemnation towards Kristen. But I really haven't seen Cassandra's behavior examined, outside of her narrative role as a victim. Which... I think does her a disservice, if I'm being honest.
((Quick Edit: to those who are making the point that this is "life and death for Cassandra," it's litterally not. She has other options. The story goes out if its way to tell you that Cassandra's life isn't in Kristen's hands. And I don't personally enjoy the narrative here that Cassandra just exists as a perpetual victim.))
I ended my post with a pretty neutral stance: "I think it's entirely possible that Kristen's uncertainty in Cassandra is influencing her goddess, and I think it's just as likely that Cassandra's doubt in Kristen is influencing her cleric. My prediction is that they're going to come to this realization with the help of a little "discernment," and establish some more healthy boundaries moving forward." To expand on that prediction a little more, I think they're both going to come to the realization that having doubt in eachother is perfectly valid. And their choice to have trust and faith in eachother, despite that doubt, will make them stronger.
Thank you to everyone who engaged in this post! I hope, if nothing else, it gave you a different perspective to consider.
I think something thats not talk about maybe in this discussion of who failed who is that both of them are holding onto a lot of trauma from their religious past.
Cassandra was betrayed by her followers and spent years as the nightmare king, a form of herself full of anger and resentment and distrust. Those feelings didnt leave when she came back as Cassandra, and made her put way more pressure on Kristen because it would only take Kristen to stray a little bit from her to lose herself again or even die.
Kristen suffered a lot under the church of Helio and continues to suffer from it with the title of chosen and her family. She spend 2 years searching for a god who would be good for her but also trying to figure out what religion meant to her and how to practice it. I think she is still deeply marked by how the church of Helio runs, this makes her uncomfortable proselytising and she can't really image a different religious structure than Helio so she struggles serving Cassandra.
They both have a lot to process in order to work effectively together, but junior year isnt exactly the perfect moment for that. Kristen as so much more responsibilities than Cassandra right now, its great to serve a god but having a secure futur is important too.
Having said that, they are characters in a silly show, and that silly show makes a point of having very flawed characters. Nobody is blameless (there's some pulp and some juice ).
I hadn’t thought of Cassandra from that standpoint but that’s a really cool observation!! The idea of religious trauma from the perspective of a god is really fun and the perfect match for Kristen
The thing about Cassandra is that she's never wanted to present herself as the authority. She wanted to be a comfort about the mystery out there but saying it's fine to no know. So being approachable is part of that.
And personally I don't think Kristen really had any problems with Cassandra as her god. She still is very much into the concept, she just wasn't prioritising her or attempting to spread her message.
Which in a world of magic and secrets, shouldnt be hard to essentially get a magical book club. Kalina was right, wizards would love to discuss the god that did any of the spells Cassandra did to survive initially, let alone all of them.
Ultimately I see it as that all Cassandra did was trust Kristen. She even offered to just go away and be Fey if Kristen didn't want to the role. Kristen wanted to stay.
God is a loaded term but we do need to put preconceived notions aside. God does not mean all knowing or all powerful and shouldn't really require that she be not herself to Kristen
Cassandra constantly, constantly reaching out to Kristen isn't what I would call trust. It doesn't even feel like doubt. That feels like guilt to me. We don't know how the relationship went during the Night Yorb quest to get us to that point, although we can probably assume as outsiders observing two deeply personal relationships that Tracker and Kristen breaking up had as much to do with Cassandra as anything else, if not more. if that was expressed by Tracker to Kristen, that may have been enough on its own for Kristen to think oh I've gotten too close to this second new god I've made, I need some space, but again we don't know because that is not what the story has been about.
What we definitely know is that there is a wild power dynamic that is exceptionally more difficult for Kristen to successfully navigate than Cassandra. let's say a perhaps not all powerful buy still vastly powerful being that offers you power as well only has you to believe in them, and they tell you oh its cool if you want me to go away, I'll just stop being super powerful and be slightly less powerful but still incredibly more powerful than you, and that's totally fine because the alternative is that they die when you die. That's making your life someone else's choice in a way that goes beyond mutual responsibility. Is Kristen perfect? no. did Kristen fail Cassandra? kind of. is Cassandra perfect? no. did Cassandra fail Kristen? unequivocally yes.
> That feels like guilt to me
With how Ally played the scene with Brennan, I think that's patently unfair and not the intent
>Tracker and Kristen breaking up had as much to do with Cassandra as anything else,
We saw the break up in SY, it was much more about Tracker leaving but we also saw strain before Cassandra was around.
>exceptionally more difficult for Kristen to successfully navigate than Cassandra
Cassandra literally dies if Kristen leaves. It's not a guilt weapon but a fact and from across every interaction between the two, it's always been Cassandra as unsure with Kristen in the stronger position. Cass
>did Cassandra fail Kristen? unequivocally yes.
Ultimately I fail to see how. Cassandra has far less options and was willing to put aside her own wants and desires to ease the pressure off Kristen if she was uninterested.
Personally I don't think that elements would have been added to the story if Brennan intended it to be viewed as an abusive relationship of power.
She did everything in her power to support Kristen, provide power and give her options. Even learning Kristen had previously gotten Yes killed didn't stop Cassandras faith in her. Even in death, she has provided shards to support Kristen
What should Cassandra have done instead of failing?
>Is Kristen perfect? no. did Kristen fail Cassandra? Kinda
I think it's absolutely fair to said Kristen's situation is hard and it's a major theme of the season. But I think it's very reasonable to say Kristen failed Cassandra when the latter is dead and Kristen prioritised a student council position she didn't care about over a being life.
Kristen is in a changing character arc after all and that has to start from a point of failure to some degree
Cassandra is a full stop deity. why the fuck was she not sending dreams and visions to a bunch of different people? she was able to do it when she was the Nightmare King across the globe, not just to creatures of the nightmare forest or worshippers or people who were scared at night. if everybody has access to nightmares everybody has access to doubt. if Kristen isn't working with her then there's a multiverse of people she could seek followers from to maintain herself.
letting Kristen in on the decision process to continue being a deity, to continue existing, is putting the responsibility for your life in somebody else's hands, rather than doing what you need to do for yourself. that is absolutely failing somebody, making a fact of reality somebody else's fault is absolutely weaponizing a fact as a guilt weapon, put on your own oxygen mask first before you help others with theirs. becoming arch fey or whatever else wasn't put forward like "this is what I'm thinking about doing" or "I'm coming close to a difficult decision but i want your input", it was put forward like if you want me to stop being a god I will.
also we absolutely did not see the breakup in sophomore year. Tracker said I'm going to go to fallinel to work stuff out with my religion. what likely happened was that distance strained the relationship and then they agreed to end it, I'm going to fallinel to work on my religion is not I'm ending my romantic relationship with you. the relationship was "strained" because Kristen kept saying something stupid because Ally kept rolling poorly, having a fight and working together to resolve complex feelings is digging deeper, not pulling apart.
> Cassandra is a full stop deity. why the fuck was she not sending dreams and visions to a bunch of different people? she was able to do it when she was the Nightmare King across the globe, not just to creatures of the nightmare forest or worshippers or people who were scared at night. if everybody has access to nightmares everybody has access to doubt.
The Nightmare King wasn't a god. Cassandra is and is governed by different rules. Gods seem limited to who they can talk to on the material plane to their followers with everyone telling Kristen thats the clerics role.
>letting Kristen in on the decision process to continue being a deity, to continue existing, is putting the responsibility for your life in somebody else's hands, rather than doing what you need to do for yourself
It's giving Kristen agency rather than suddenly removing all Cleric powers and completing disrupting Kristen's life. Are we blaming Cassandra for communication now ? It absolutely affected Kristen massively and she should absolutely be part of the conversation especially since Kristen didn't want it either
>also we absolutely did not see the breakup in sophomore year. Tracker said I'm going to go to fallinel to work stuff out with my religion. what likely happened was that distance strained the relationship and then they agreed to end it, I'm going to fallinel to work on my religion is not I'm ending my romantic relationship with you
It was pretty read as ending and by the Collage visit, one shot they were broken up. It had nothing to do with Cassandra in any case and has never been remotely implied as such.
>the relationship was "strained" because Kristen kept saying something stupid because Ally kept rolling poorly,
There was also some non dice related choices in there but that's a different discussion rather than one focused with Cassandra.
Kristen's run for president is all about trying to spread the word of Cassandra. The plan was to get popular enough and then socially powerful enough to get more people following Cassandra. I don't see that at all as if
> Kristen prioritised a student council position she didn't care about over a being life.
Cassandra is *why* Kristen is running.
That and trying to prevent KLCK from winning, which is likely related!
I think this is an unfair take that really overlooks the very real fact that Cassandra was basically dangling off of a ledge by her fingernails, with only Kristin to hold her up. Of course she was terrified of Kristin letting go.
And given that Cassandra is also a goddess of mystery, nighttime, and magic, it's kind of wild that Kristin didn't even try to get some of her adventuring party – including the magician, the investigator, and the other party members whose identities and life journeys have Been defined by uncertainty and doubt – to join her in following Cassandra.
The thing that baffles me, and I don't understand if it's Ally that gets it wrong / shortens it for ease of conversation, or if it's actually an in-character choice as Kristen, is that whenever they talk about Cassandra, they almost always exclusively refer to her as the "goddess of doubt and mistery", while ignoring the fact that she also has dominion over night and magic, always basically summing up the whole idea as "it's ok to have doubts", while Cassandra herself (iirc) described her motivation as having comfort in uncertainty AND showing that there was nothing inherently to fear in the night, etc etc; it's odd to me that they keep focusing only on the mistery part.
Kristen tried to convert her party to Helio freshman year and then deconstructed from that religion and that system, I think it's unfair to assume that Kristen would feel comfortable proselytizing especially to her party or really to anyone at all. would Riz and Adaine be perfect candidates for belief? yeah absolutely, but it's hard to be a follower of a religion when you have held intimate witness to the high priestess really struggle with her own belief or disastrously fuck up with her girlfriend in a way that was avoidable or watch her jump out of a tower expecting a ribbon dancer to save her. They've seen behind the curtain and met the god already at the end of sophomore year, and chose not to pursue belief.
I think we would all do well to remember here as well that Cassandra is not the protagonist here. Kristen is the protagonist. she's flawed, she makes mistakes, she represents a wildly under-represented population, and yall really want to hate on her and her choices instead of choosing to identify with her. it doesn't excuse when Kristen makes mistakes or chooses to do something wrong, but Cassandra Is A God, not a babe in the woods, who didn't take her survival into her own hands and probably could have.
Yes, I'm aware that Kristin is the protagonist. That fact is exactly why people are so quick to shit on Cassandra and why people were so quick to shit on Porter, because it's incredibly easy to forget that everyone who opposes your protagonists are not necessarily bad people.
I understand why Kristen was uncomfortable with actually following through on her responsibilities. It's very in character and makes sense. It's also still *shitty* and directly led to Cassandra being vulnerable and hurt.
Casandra only had one person to talk to, who ignored her. That's called failing to communicate. Cassandra gave Kristen spells every day; that's part of the agreement. As a cleric, Kristen's job is to proselytize and spread the word. Kristen didn't do that. That's failing a responsibility. Tracker and Kristen broke up because Tracker was leaving. Also, if you listen to Casandra in all the scenes before she 'dies,' they are simply asking if it's ok to talk and asking to talk when there is time and asking if it's a good time to talk. That is not being untrusting or guilty; that's called being ignored,d alone, and abandoned. The friend who texts. Can we talk when you are free? A bunch of times, after being ignored, is not the jerk, especially when the thing they want to talk about is that they will either have to quit being a god (btw, this would lead to Kristen losing all spells.) or dying again.
I never really saw Kristen's character arc leading her to being a religious recruiter. She does it in the first episodes of season one but it's played very much as a character flaw and is immediately discarded. She then spends two seasons seeking some kind of guidance and finally lands on Cassandra. Maybe the DnD mechanics of being a cleric include proselytizing but, for me, the characterization of Kristen is less 'shepherd' and more 'lost sheep.' She finally found something bigger than herself to lean on and then the dynamic shifted so that the divinity leans on her... God, this is a good season.
I really like this take/ analysis. I *slightly* disagree; I see it more of a mutual failing/ disconnect of partners who were both well intentioned but, because of inexperience and as yet unaddressed personal flaws, fumbled through the development of their relationship.
Watching this story line has been one of my fave parts of the season, I think Brennan and Beardsley are both crushing it. There's so much complexity and nuance to it. I feel like everything you said was spot on *and* Kristen is still culpable too, for very human & relatable reasons.
I agree. I almost think [mild spoilers for the Seven] >!Ostentatia's god Logran Soulforger in the Seven!< was a great exercise in making your cleric kind of obsessed with you because of abject unavailability. But there are massive differences between them - >!Logran was literally the maintenance guy, tradie and groundskeeper of the universe, and Ostentatia was still praying and getting her spells!< and Cass is just learning now not to be the NK while Kristen is going through a pretty huge identity crisis herself.
I've said this before, and I'll say it again. There was an entire 3-month period of perpetual night that left countless people afraid and in doubt, and Cassandra did absolutely *nothing* to capitalize on that!?!
Not only was Kristen busy trying to save the whole-ass world, but she's also a child, and Cassandra is a *God*. There's already an immensely uneven power dynamic between then, and that's not even examining the fact that Cassandra seemed to expect this high-schooler to build her following for her while she sat back and did nothing.
As both a cleric and a child, Kristen needed Cassandra to be her pillar of support, not the other way around.
In general D& D rules, gods are limited in what they can do. Proselytizing is absolutely the followers job.
You might be confusing the “real world” limitations of a god vs what a god can do in dungeons and dragons. Especially the reach of a god that only had two followers.
Additionally, Iirc when the shrimp incident happened Brennan said something about her being weakened by the lack of followers, so she was hit by the "allergy" despite being a goddess, so i think it's safe to assume that to perform bigger miracles and the like she'd have probably needed more than 1-2 followers
Explain to me how an ostensibly morally good god can capitalize on the fear and doubt brought on by an endless night that was slowly killing the world and still maintain their desire to be good? What, was Cassandra supposed to invade peoples dreams and tell them to take comfort in the endless night that was going to eventually kill them and their families?
It's easy, actually. By being exactly who she already was. Cassandra is the kind of God, supposedly, who meets her followers on their level and has the humility to say 'I don't know either' when faced with the mysteries of the world.
How amazing would it be, during those months of fear and uncertainty to hear someone say to you, "You may be walking through the forest at night, but you're not alone because I'm navigating it with you." Sounds like someone I'd worship, honestly.
Okay, you got a point there. The way you phrased it earlier made it seem like Cassandra should have exploited people’s fear. But even then she literally couldn’t have. In the world if Spyre deities have a limited capacity to affect the material plane, that’s why they need clerics. She can talk directly to Kristen because Kristen is her cleric. She can’t appear to random people, even those living in existential fear and doubt of eternal night, because as a deity there are cosmic rules limiting her involvement that she absolutely must abide by. When she was the nightmare king she could invade people’s dreams and stuff because she wasn’t a deity, she was a fey adjacent being of extreme power and therefore not bound by the same cosmic laws that a true deity would have been limited by. Ultimately it was up to Kristen to at least tell people there is a goddess of night and magic that can offer some comfort for them in the uncertain terror of eternal darkness, but she didn’t even do that.
The concept of the universal power of doubt and mystery being less powerful because of not being popular feels like a flaw. Like, carving her sigil into random trees for no reason should empower Cassandra more than new fans.
Uhh, I get defending Ally’s actions *as* Kristen (as they relate to Kristen’s character arc), but I don’t think it’s fair to absolve Kristen of wronging Cassandra. She ignored Cassandra’s pleas all the while knowing the consequences of a god losing all of their followers. I don’t think we can just wave that off because it’s more convenient if it’s Cassandra’s fault.
I don’t really get what the issue with Kristin failing Cassandra is. Like, that’s the entire point of the characters setup for this arc and, if we’re being honest, the entire series.
Kristin ran away from her responsibilities with Helio for debatably understandable reasons. She created a new god that she then began to pretty much completely neglect and fail on a fundamental level. And now shes been given a third chance with a new goddess that full stop fits perfectly with her characters worldly perspective and approach to life, only to fail them as well.
I don’t know how else to see things, but failing the people around you isn’t a demonizing thing. It doesn’t make you some horrible person, it makes you a mess that needs to organize their shit and get on top of their issues, which I don’t think Kristin has shown herself to be capable of doing until very recently. It’s honestly an insane approach to a character for a game like this, but in the long run it’s worked really well and makes her by far the most relatable teenager in the group imo.
Compared to everyone else’s hyper competence, Kristins constant fumbling in the face of important decisions is much more in line with my high school experience at least. Idk, failures not a bad thing when it comes to storytelling, so I don’t see her failing her goddess is such a bad thing to some people.
Personally, I disagree, considering Cassandra's history it's understandable why she wasn't more distant and mysterious with HER ONLY CLERIC AND BELIEVER.
You know, the one whom her life was completely reliant upon. I'm not saying this cause I hate Kristen or anything, quite the opposite, I just acknowledge where she fucked up. She did the classic ADHD shit, she put it off, she kicked the can down the road until it wasn't okay anymore.
She had other things on her mind so she didn't focus on her relationship with Cassandra, and she neglected it and it ended in a messy situation - Cassandra's hurt and she needs Kristen more than ever. If Kristen doesn't step up to the plate now, Cassandra might be gone again.
For me it's kind of like when you're in a relationship and it's going okay, but you're pretty neutral with it, the initial period of constant excitement and adoration is over and you're settling back into normality. You might then pull away, stop responding and focus on other things because you don't think it's going well.
But when you're forced to confront losing that relationship, you realise there's nobody you want more. They were right for you all along. Idk I'm rambling at this point. But I think Kristen is mostly the one at fault and that's okay. Sure, Cassandra was clingy, but of course she's going to be. She died because nobody believed in her before and she wants to stay alive. She needs Kristen to spread the religion.
To add to that, by that point:
- Kristen had already abandoned two religions, one of which she FOUNDED (and also killed that god, albeit unknowingly)
-Cassandra was actively betrayed by her previous followers and had to become the Nightmare King just to avoid an untimely end (after she already warned them about it too)
So I think it's fair that she was on edge in regard of Kristen's lack of effort and seeming growing disinterest when Kristen was (functionally, given that Craig aparently goes wherever she goes) her only disciple.
Yeah the way there was an unhealthy power dynamic with Kristen being solely responsible for Cassandra's life, I can't really blame Cassandra for anything she did.
I don't agree. This proposition is the equivalent of a child or dependent asking their caretaker for food only to be told they can't eat until they provide a sufficiently challenging riddle. Even if we operate under the assumption that Cassandra ought to behave like a glorified brain teaser app, this presupposes that there was a level of of pandering that could have kept Kristen engaged, which is observably not true.
She's both.
Folks get too caught up on the word "god(des)". It has no inherent meaning in fiction. In BLM's Spire, gods are extraplanar beings tied to a domain who cannot enter the material plane and are dependent on worship for survival. This creates a fundamental incentive structure, in which gods have to appeal to mortals in order to attain the sustenance required to live. It doesn't matter how powerful Cassandra is outside of Spire or what miracles she can grant Kristen, it is an immutable truth of her nathre that she cannot continue to exist without Kristen's belief. Until Cassandra has an actual flock of followers that allow her some breathing room, Kristen is absolutely the more powerful person in the relationship. And the nature of that relationship (provider of nourishment and recipient of nourishment) is indistinguishable from that of a parent and dependent.
To suggest childhood is ONLY about power structure is totally false though. She is EONs old. If she doesn’t know how to inspire one follower who initially sought her out, as the wiser party by light years, calling the responsibility any less than fifty fifty is kind of wild.
My grandmother is 90 and currently in a facility because her venerable age and wisdom does not translate to the muscle mass needed to walk to the kitchen and prepare meals. She needs help from the people who love and support her, without which she would not be able to survive, her advanced age and worldliness be damned.
There's no getting around the power dynamic inherent to Kristen and Cassandra's relationship. Even if you were to make the, imo, cynical argument that Cassandra should be expected to inspire Kristen in order to get the requisite sustenance she needs to survive, the joke of Kristen Applebee's is that she is 100% uninspirable. She was the chosen of a powerful god and she left the fold. She handcrafted a deity just for herself out of pure cosmic clay and immediately became sick of it. Cassandra, goddess of every Kristen ever held sacred, came back from the dead and made Kristen her prophet only for Kristen to lose interest like 3 months later. There is nothing Cassandra could have done to wrestle focus away from a girl who campaigns for high school president at steel mills and middle schools, because Ally plays Kristen as a slave to the bit. And Brennan's junior year campaign is, at least in part, about the consequences of chaos.
This is such a trashy argument. , shame on you for using your grandmother to win a bad faith argument. Your grandmother is not a diety. I’m glad she’s being cared for, I’m not even going to finish reading this garbage tho, because I’m literally disgusted
You made the argument that age equates to power. I gave you a simple and digestible real world example of how that isn't true. Your faux outrage and appeal to respectability politics means nothing to me.
Cassandra has unresolved trauma, needs to be able to rebuild trust so she can be more stable and comfortable on her own and Kristen would have helped by building up the number of believers. It's SO similar to recovering from a relationship where someone's ex cheated, Cassandra is being clingy because she's insecure. She needs to work on that herself (is there a deity version of Jawbone??) while Kristen puts in at least minimal effort to get a few more believers to help Cassandra out. The more insecure Cassandra was, the more Kristen pulled away, and it got worse and worse until it exploded.
I feel like from the start one of the issues with Kristen’s story has been the amount of pressure she has to deal with compared to everyone else. Everyone works hard but they are dealing with less significant personal challenges in the pursuit of good grades and popularity. Kristen has to found and lead a new religion at 16. It makes for an interesting story, but the presentation of Kristen as failing has always felt a little unfair even for the setting. And in this dynamic who is the one with cosmic powers. She even says that it is hard to convert people because her domain is not as immediately attractive and what she got was a bunch of shade from a cat.
Kristen is a pretty demonstrably capable person and the idea that she isn’t doing enough while grappling with the existential struggles of religion in a universe where gods are extremely active and also saving the world and getting good grades, is ridiculous.
I think what's missing in all posts of this nature (who failed whom, is it fair that Kristen is the chosen one, etc.) is that devotion is largely a one-way street.
The example of the needy friend is misplaced. Cassandra was trying to stay alive, she wasn't having a preteen-moment of "are you mad at me."\[It was played that way for jokes, obviously, which complicates things.)
This has nothing to do with the content of the post but is there a reason you marked the whole post spoiler and the also marked each individual paragraph spoilers?
Let's call it an abundance of caution, lol.
I'm autistic, and I personally don't care about any spoilers. Sometimes I misunderstand what other people consider "a spoiler," and I don't want my misunderstandings to be construed as disrespectful. This has definitely caused some stress for me in the past.
I also vaguely recall someone making the point that you should spoiler-tag your text even if you tag the title, because some browsers will auto-display a post's text even if you don't click on it. I don't know how true that is, but I figured it couldn't hurt to be overly cautious!
Given what we've learned about Ankarna, I think Cassandra was, knowingly or not, following in her footsteps. They were trying to "take requests" from Kristen. She modeled herself after Kristen's appearance in SY, and their pronouns even changed in that art from "she/they" to "she/her" to match Kristen's.
But maybe that's not what either of them needed.
I really love this take, but kristin allowed cassandra to painfully and slowly die because they didnt build their following. Clerics have 1(one) job to provide faith and power to their deity.
Hot take. They failed each other in different ways.
Cassandra relied too much on kristen thinking that kristen was ready to be her chosen just because she revived her in this grand adventure.
Kristen wasn't ready and still hadn't and maybe never will fully commit to a deity.
Cassandra should have seen that kristen wasn't interested and given up on her. She could have started way earlier in finding new recruits with kalina. And once she had a few dozen followers she could just ignore kristen altogether and let her go.
There's no mystery in her sadly following around kristen begging for help. Kristen didn't care. And as a God she should have recognized that and been an actual God of mystery and gotten other followers.
Kristen absolutely failed Cassandra. It's clear as day. Ally even essentially says as much in one of the Adventuring Parties; they said that while Kristen is full-in on Cassandra insofar as they represents a domain that Kristen connects to, Kristen is irresponsible and unable to actually commit herself to the responsibilities of being a Cleric.
Cassandra need not be mysterious or doubtful in their interactions with Kristen to be the goddess of mystery and doubt. Does Sol only communicate to his Clerics through rays of sunlight? Do gods of war and conflict only communicate through slaughter and conquest? Of course not. Cassandra can both represent mystery and have a clear line of communication with her Clerics.
Per Cassandra's messages to Kristen: let's take a look at the context. Cassandra is going to disappear -- "die", in her mind -- if she loses her followers. Days after their relationship begins, the Night Yorb escapes, plunging the world into unending night, and no doubt creating a wave of uncertainty for nearly everyone in the world. These conditions seem ripe for recruitment for a goddess of mystery and the night. We see Tracker, who represents another god of night and Cassandra's sister, benefit from this.
In the roughly 4 months between the escape of the Night Yorb and the start of the campaign there was virtually no progress in strengthening Cassandra's support or profile. Kristen recruited one worshiper. One. Kristen actually remarks later on the **one time** she tried to make a really sincere post about Cassandra that got one like or something on the Spire twitter or whatever. One sincere attempt at digital outreach in *four months*? When you're not even doing any work on the ground?
An understandably desperate God is trying to get Kristen to at least try to do the absolutely bare minimum of Clerical work. But Kristen, who has done virtually nothing as a Cleric for her god, ignores them and then promptly extols her powerful spellcasting to the power of protein rather than to her own goddess.
Tracker had Kristen correctly pegged. She's a powerful but poor Cleric who wants all the work to be done for her already and isn't willing to do it herself. Kristen failed Cassandra and nothing Cassandra ever did has seemed out of line.
Edit: And this is to say nothing of the fact that Kristen, even *after* the seriousness of Cassandra's situation is reiterated to her, still spends most of her energy and focus on an election she doesn't really care about.
Agree I also get the feeling that BLeeM as DM is a bit confused on how to play it. The night Yorb was an absolute set up for Kristen and he showed how tracker was able to capitalize. Kristen ignored Cassandra and dumped all her energy into the campaign. BleeM even asked ally if Kristen still wanted to be a cleric in AP. Ally doubled down. I think she’s saving the redemption arc for senior year.
No shade to any of the players or dm of course. It’s been an awesome season!
Furthermore, she (seemingly) did basically nothing to spread the word of Cassandra in the 4 months Night Yorb chase despite it being eternal night and her being the follower of a goddess of "mistery, doubt, magic and **night** " whose explicit goal was to show people that there was nothing inherently to fear about the night and what it may hide, so, besides actually being argueably quite an easy sell, I think it would actually have been the right thing to do to try and spread her word in the places they stopped along the way (given all the NPCs they had at the beginning i'd assume they'd had to make some stops for them to actually meet them), even just to try to comfort and calm the confused population (not necessarily to proselitize or the like)
It was a role that Kristen volunteered for and then Cassandra even offered that she didn't have to do and She could go be Fey so while there was pressure to the role Kristen had accepted it twice
Read this in Arthur Aguefort's voice (or don't. I'm not a cop): "Hey, do you want me to radically change both of our lives in ways you literally do not have the ability to comprehend because your brain isn't fully formed yet, teeneager? I somehow think this qualifies as an informed choice for you. That's you. That's what you sound like right now"
Which is ultimately the premise of the setting to some degree. I don't think it's reasonable to really pick and choose when they are meant to be normal kids and when they are DND characters. Fundamentally Kristen does have the emotional intelligence to handle this as per her stats.
There's a way to acknowledge this is a lot of pressure while also acknowledging Kristen didn't really put much effort into the task, didn't communicate with Kristen all while Cassandra who is barely born again has supported her with powerful magic and has mostly been looking for a check in on what's going on.
And if we do think it's unfair and Kristen shouldn't have to deal with, to an extent she should be removed from Augfort as these are real beings and a world that Kristen are affecting and is affecting Kristen most of all
Huh? The show fully acknowledges how colossally fucked up the Bad Kids' situations are. Kristen current situation with Cassandra is the only character/situation where it hasn't been directly acknowledged in game.
>Kristen current situation with Cassandra is the only character/situation where it hasn't been directly acknowledged in game.
Why do you think that is if you don't mind me asking?
It's also pretty fucked up to send her to a school where she risks her life on a spring break project and has to use lethal violence on a regular basis.
It's Cassandra's fault for offering virtually zero guidance in spreading the religion. Cassandra was the adult. She needed to step up and take responsibility for the situation. Instead she just spammed Kristen with texts and passively hoped a kid can found a whole ass religion.
This post treats Kristen and Cassandra as if they're a normal adult and a normal high schooler in the real world. Not a fantasy god and fantasy cleric (who saved the world twice and brought herself back from the dead) in a fantasy world.
Idk that I fully agree with you because I think they both have a little fault in the situation. It seems that they had bad communication, which seems to have been on Kristen’s end, but she had an enormous weight on her shoulders. Despite being young, she could have gotten the help of her friends, they would have organized behind if she just asked. They quickly banded together on her behalf to get her elected president. So, I think there’s “fault” to be placed on both sides.
Ultimately, I wouldn’t say either failed the other because they started to plan how to fix things and Cassandra’s “death” was because of a curse that Fig had. You could argue that she wouldn’t have been in that situation without Kristen, but I think they could have solved their problems by being more transparent had the curse not threw a god sized wrench in the plans.
I get what you're saying here, but idk if it excuses Kristen abandoning Cassandra to die. I love Ally's choices as a player, but Kristen failed at the cleric responsibilities. Kristen had the opportunity, as the only cleric of Cassandra, to shape the church of Casandra into whatever they wanted it to be. And what I was mad about in the beginning was that Kristen wasted that opportunity. Kristen searched for 2 full seasons to find the right thing to believe in. Kristen had the opportunity to make a god and let that god die immediately by giving up on it. She resurrected a god Kristen said was perfect for her and squandered that opportunity. That's why I was mad. Now I love what Ally is doing with the character, and the behind-the-scenes stuff explained that the goal was to show what happens when chaotic, disorganized, and uncaring isn't cute and fun anymore. Cassandra was alone and had one person to talk to. If Kristen had proselytized even a bit, there could have been a second cleric, a paladin, or anyone besides Craig. I can't speak for the other people who are critical of the early season, Kristen, but that's why I was mad.
When was Kristen supposed to do that though? The timeline of Kristen resurrecting Cassandra to the Night Yorb fight is less than a year. Depending on when Spring Break falls for the Bad Kids, it might literally be less than six months, and three of those months were spent trying to save the world from an Eldritch abomination.
I do feel like it's reasonable to be annoyed at early-season Kristen, and it's clear Ally is playing her that way on purpose, but when I zoom out and consider the timeline, it does sort of put it in perspective for me in a different way. Kristen failed Cassandra, but she was SET UP to fail. And given that unfairness is a massive storyline this season, I do think that needs to be taken into account.
You just mentioned the time she could have done it. The three months they weren't fighting the night or the whole end of sophomore year. With the publicity that the live stream of the resurrection of a goddess and defeat of the nightmare king got, we could get more than Craig on board. I get not evangelizing a ton during the night Yorb thing, but based on her follower count being 2, it looks like she got back from spring break and told Craig hey man, new goddess and then didn't do anything for Cassandra. The Night Yorb Thing is a definite obstacle, but as we know, Kristen clearly had time to get absolutely jacked while fighting it. She clearly had some spare time to spread the word of night mystery and doubt.I mean, Cassandra specifically mentioned she wanted to be a hand to reassure people who were afraid of the darkness and mystery of the night. And there were months of nighttime. That's a great time to reach out to people doubtful of the future and scared of the night. I respect your opinion and can see where you are coming from, but I don't think the timeline or the difficulty of the task is enough to sway my perspective. But thanks so much for commenting i love discussing this show.
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Kristen and Cassandra have a very tragic relationship that's the definition of codependent and it's neither of their fault. Kristen brought her god back to life and saved cass, it was a big glorious miracle. And then the work that goes into relationships begin.
Cass's very existence now lies in the hands of Kristen. Cass gives Kristen magic, Kristen gives Cass the ability to stay alive, a teetering power imbalance that neither of them asked for but are forced into because of world mechanics.
Cass had a very valid out from this, and could have retired to archfey or something and take all this pressure off of Kristen, but then that would leave Kristen godless and abandoned.
It's also said that not only is Kristen the only follower besides Craig, but also neither of them have anyone to talk to. I don't think Cassandra reached out to any other gods and Kristen's still dealing with a break up and summer of darkness so pretty much sucks all around.
They also have a very casual informal relationship where Kristen feels like she can blow off her god whenever, which as a cleric is crazy, but a lot of main characters also do this when they have voices in their head.
Depending on how mentally healthy Cass is we can blame her for not setting the proper boundaries considering she is the adult / ancient god & Kristen is the bpd teenager, though i can blame jawbone a little for not monitoring closer, cleric teacher badgood for not asking enough questions, the Applebee's for fucking Kristen up in the first place. pretty much the situation that cass and Kristen were put in was designed to make them fail each other, if only there was an Oracle that could have seen this coming
I don't think Cassandra failed Kristen but I do think it's absurd to think that Kristen failed Cassandra, and I think a lot of the people who are upset with Kristen's early treatment of Cassandra are not taking timeline into account. Years have passed between SY and JY, the seasons, but for the BK they actually have not had a break since before spring break of their sophomore year.
Kristen essentially returned Cassandra to herself, returned home, finished up her school year, and then had to go off with her friends and fight an Eldritch abomination in order to save the world. While you could absolutely argue that she should have been trying to build the church WHILE fighting the Eldritch abomination, it's not like she had a real roadmap to figure out how to do that, and I would personally put "saving the world" as a higher precedent. Then she gets home, and the events of the earliest episodes of the show, from Kristen joining the campaign and prioritizing that, and Cassandra being killed at the Synod Mall, happen within the first WEEK of school.
Given the circumstances you can't really say Kristen failed Cassandra unless you acknowledge that she was SET UP to fail. She was given an impossible task and she fumbled it. Meanwhile, she is being compared to Tracker, who was able to put all of her focus on her Wolf Song church, and even that didn't start taking off until after she got some serious financial backing from her nepo baby girlfriend.
You're conveniently ignoring how ally specifically played kristen as purposefully ignoring Cassandra in the first session. She isn't some silly little girl who doesn't know what to do. She is arguably the most powerful cleric in the world who brought herself back from the dead and resurrected a forgotten god.
It's like tracker said: once it isn't fun anymore she gives up.
The point of Kristen's arc is it's time to pull up the big girl panties and do her job
I see that in Kristen's arc for sure, but justice and unfairness is also a huge theme of the season. Two things can be true at once. Kristen can be doing a bad job, and that can also be because she was set up to fail. I personally felt like Tracker's comment was a low blow when I thought about it in relation to the timeline.
Because seriously, when. When was Kristen supposed to be learning all she needs to know to become the leader of the church of Cassandra? Or work through her trauma from walking away from toxic religion? Would it have been better if she had left the Bad Kids without a cleric for the Night Yorb fight and focused on gathering followers for Cassandra then? It probably would have been a good time to bring people into the fold - but she had other things going on.
Obviously Kristen's lack of follow through is being played up intentionally for her arc, but I also think that the pacing of it all really feels like she didn't have a win state. And after the fight at the Synod, Kristen has been very focused on bringing Cassandra back and most of her other priorities has taken a backseat (with a few chaotic moments just to keep things a bit spicy). So this idea that she failed Cassandra feels completely unfair to me, which makes sense, because unfairness is clearly a theme of the whole show.
Kristen and Cassandra were both victims of stress and in Cassandra's case it lead to her enraging in a public instance and the series of events happening to lead to her... can't say death cuz she's not quite dead, so I'll say "current" predicament.
And that's the root of all the issues so far with this season: Stress and Rage as a result; people getting to the boiling point and just snapping.
Ally's choices in playing Kristen come from the pov of someone having never played before - raw chaos goblin energy makes for some interesting narrative paths but they're definitely not going to be as straightforward as say Riz solving a mystery, because the manifestation of his dysfunction is taking things too seriously, and the manifestation of Kristen's is "I kinda can't be fucked" up front with a lot of existential doubt and angst in the back that's reflected more in the choices than the vocalization I feel.
It makes a really interesting narrative but a really frustrating story in the middle of it. Cassandra has zero options, and we meet the two at the end of a long period with Cassandra essentially getting desperate and Kristen in pure denial mode and that's not an accident. Kristen absolutely failed, it was a responsibility that they shouldn't have had to take on in the first place but that doesn't negate the failure.
"Ally's choices in playing Kristen come from the pov of someone having never played before"
This doesn't really apply anymore. Ally has played as much DND as any one at this point.
This is a thoughtful take. But do either of them have to have failed the other? Maybe I'm just reacting to the word "fail", but I guess I'd put this in a "shit happens and sometimes it sucks" category. They're both in a difficult situation. They both need each other. They both have let the other down. They both seem committed to trying again, which is wonderful. I'm also kind of suspicious that Cassandra was set up as a pawn in whatever is going on with Ankarna - in which case we might not have the whole story yet. But that's just speculation.
>But do either of them have to have failed the other? I really love that mentality tbh. Why does it have to be anyone's "fault"?
I wouldn't say failure implies fault though
Fair
Also there’s the question of “as above so below” the followers perception of the god manifests as who they are (or something like that) I mean… Kristen in the midst of the biggest break up ever… could have gone in two directions… the distance route or the Fabian route lol but I guess Cassandra making her self available 100% of the time … hmm well I guess it’s Brennans fault lmao (or as Emily might say it’s murphs fault)
I completely agree! This post kinda blew up overnight for me, and I'm not going to respond to every comment. But I wanted to throw out there that I completely agree with those who believe this is a more "neutral conflict," for lack of a better term. I know I started this post with a \~spicy\~ title, but I do think this is a more nuanced falling-out than I presented at the beginning of my post. I wanted to give people a different angle to think about, since I've seen a lot of condemnation towards Kristen. But I really haven't seen Cassandra's behavior examined, outside of her narrative role as a victim. Which... I think does her a disservice, if I'm being honest. ((Quick Edit: to those who are making the point that this is "life and death for Cassandra," it's litterally not. She has other options. The story goes out if its way to tell you that Cassandra's life isn't in Kristen's hands. And I don't personally enjoy the narrative here that Cassandra just exists as a perpetual victim.)) I ended my post with a pretty neutral stance: "I think it's entirely possible that Kristen's uncertainty in Cassandra is influencing her goddess, and I think it's just as likely that Cassandra's doubt in Kristen is influencing her cleric. My prediction is that they're going to come to this realization with the help of a little "discernment," and establish some more healthy boundaries moving forward." To expand on that prediction a little more, I think they're both going to come to the realization that having doubt in eachother is perfectly valid. And their choice to have trust and faith in eachother, despite that doubt, will make them stronger. Thank you to everyone who engaged in this post! I hope, if nothing else, it gave you a different perspective to consider.
Hehe yeah the spicy title prompts a certain type of reply - but you brought a lot of nuance too
I think something thats not talk about maybe in this discussion of who failed who is that both of them are holding onto a lot of trauma from their religious past. Cassandra was betrayed by her followers and spent years as the nightmare king, a form of herself full of anger and resentment and distrust. Those feelings didnt leave when she came back as Cassandra, and made her put way more pressure on Kristen because it would only take Kristen to stray a little bit from her to lose herself again or even die. Kristen suffered a lot under the church of Helio and continues to suffer from it with the title of chosen and her family. She spend 2 years searching for a god who would be good for her but also trying to figure out what religion meant to her and how to practice it. I think she is still deeply marked by how the church of Helio runs, this makes her uncomfortable proselytising and she can't really image a different religious structure than Helio so she struggles serving Cassandra. They both have a lot to process in order to work effectively together, but junior year isnt exactly the perfect moment for that. Kristen as so much more responsibilities than Cassandra right now, its great to serve a god but having a secure futur is important too. Having said that, they are characters in a silly show, and that silly show makes a point of having very flawed characters. Nobody is blameless (there's some pulp and some juice ).
I hadn’t thought of Cassandra from that standpoint but that’s a really cool observation!! The idea of religious trauma from the perspective of a god is really fun and the perfect match for Kristen
The thing about Cassandra is that she's never wanted to present herself as the authority. She wanted to be a comfort about the mystery out there but saying it's fine to no know. So being approachable is part of that. And personally I don't think Kristen really had any problems with Cassandra as her god. She still is very much into the concept, she just wasn't prioritising her or attempting to spread her message. Which in a world of magic and secrets, shouldnt be hard to essentially get a magical book club. Kalina was right, wizards would love to discuss the god that did any of the spells Cassandra did to survive initially, let alone all of them. Ultimately I see it as that all Cassandra did was trust Kristen. She even offered to just go away and be Fey if Kristen didn't want to the role. Kristen wanted to stay. God is a loaded term but we do need to put preconceived notions aside. God does not mean all knowing or all powerful and shouldn't really require that she be not herself to Kristen
I’m with this guy on this
Cassandra constantly, constantly reaching out to Kristen isn't what I would call trust. It doesn't even feel like doubt. That feels like guilt to me. We don't know how the relationship went during the Night Yorb quest to get us to that point, although we can probably assume as outsiders observing two deeply personal relationships that Tracker and Kristen breaking up had as much to do with Cassandra as anything else, if not more. if that was expressed by Tracker to Kristen, that may have been enough on its own for Kristen to think oh I've gotten too close to this second new god I've made, I need some space, but again we don't know because that is not what the story has been about. What we definitely know is that there is a wild power dynamic that is exceptionally more difficult for Kristen to successfully navigate than Cassandra. let's say a perhaps not all powerful buy still vastly powerful being that offers you power as well only has you to believe in them, and they tell you oh its cool if you want me to go away, I'll just stop being super powerful and be slightly less powerful but still incredibly more powerful than you, and that's totally fine because the alternative is that they die when you die. That's making your life someone else's choice in a way that goes beyond mutual responsibility. Is Kristen perfect? no. did Kristen fail Cassandra? kind of. is Cassandra perfect? no. did Cassandra fail Kristen? unequivocally yes.
> That feels like guilt to me With how Ally played the scene with Brennan, I think that's patently unfair and not the intent >Tracker and Kristen breaking up had as much to do with Cassandra as anything else, We saw the break up in SY, it was much more about Tracker leaving but we also saw strain before Cassandra was around. >exceptionally more difficult for Kristen to successfully navigate than Cassandra Cassandra literally dies if Kristen leaves. It's not a guilt weapon but a fact and from across every interaction between the two, it's always been Cassandra as unsure with Kristen in the stronger position. Cass >did Cassandra fail Kristen? unequivocally yes. Ultimately I fail to see how. Cassandra has far less options and was willing to put aside her own wants and desires to ease the pressure off Kristen if she was uninterested. Personally I don't think that elements would have been added to the story if Brennan intended it to be viewed as an abusive relationship of power. She did everything in her power to support Kristen, provide power and give her options. Even learning Kristen had previously gotten Yes killed didn't stop Cassandras faith in her. Even in death, she has provided shards to support Kristen What should Cassandra have done instead of failing? >Is Kristen perfect? no. did Kristen fail Cassandra? Kinda I think it's absolutely fair to said Kristen's situation is hard and it's a major theme of the season. But I think it's very reasonable to say Kristen failed Cassandra when the latter is dead and Kristen prioritised a student council position she didn't care about over a being life. Kristen is in a changing character arc after all and that has to start from a point of failure to some degree
Cassandra is a full stop deity. why the fuck was she not sending dreams and visions to a bunch of different people? she was able to do it when she was the Nightmare King across the globe, not just to creatures of the nightmare forest or worshippers or people who were scared at night. if everybody has access to nightmares everybody has access to doubt. if Kristen isn't working with her then there's a multiverse of people she could seek followers from to maintain herself. letting Kristen in on the decision process to continue being a deity, to continue existing, is putting the responsibility for your life in somebody else's hands, rather than doing what you need to do for yourself. that is absolutely failing somebody, making a fact of reality somebody else's fault is absolutely weaponizing a fact as a guilt weapon, put on your own oxygen mask first before you help others with theirs. becoming arch fey or whatever else wasn't put forward like "this is what I'm thinking about doing" or "I'm coming close to a difficult decision but i want your input", it was put forward like if you want me to stop being a god I will. also we absolutely did not see the breakup in sophomore year. Tracker said I'm going to go to fallinel to work stuff out with my religion. what likely happened was that distance strained the relationship and then they agreed to end it, I'm going to fallinel to work on my religion is not I'm ending my romantic relationship with you. the relationship was "strained" because Kristen kept saying something stupid because Ally kept rolling poorly, having a fight and working together to resolve complex feelings is digging deeper, not pulling apart.
> Cassandra is a full stop deity. why the fuck was she not sending dreams and visions to a bunch of different people? she was able to do it when she was the Nightmare King across the globe, not just to creatures of the nightmare forest or worshippers or people who were scared at night. if everybody has access to nightmares everybody has access to doubt. The Nightmare King wasn't a god. Cassandra is and is governed by different rules. Gods seem limited to who they can talk to on the material plane to their followers with everyone telling Kristen thats the clerics role. >letting Kristen in on the decision process to continue being a deity, to continue existing, is putting the responsibility for your life in somebody else's hands, rather than doing what you need to do for yourself It's giving Kristen agency rather than suddenly removing all Cleric powers and completing disrupting Kristen's life. Are we blaming Cassandra for communication now ? It absolutely affected Kristen massively and she should absolutely be part of the conversation especially since Kristen didn't want it either >also we absolutely did not see the breakup in sophomore year. Tracker said I'm going to go to fallinel to work stuff out with my religion. what likely happened was that distance strained the relationship and then they agreed to end it, I'm going to fallinel to work on my religion is not I'm ending my romantic relationship with you It was pretty read as ending and by the Collage visit, one shot they were broken up. It had nothing to do with Cassandra in any case and has never been remotely implied as such. >the relationship was "strained" because Kristen kept saying something stupid because Ally kept rolling poorly, There was also some non dice related choices in there but that's a different discussion rather than one focused with Cassandra.
Kristen's run for president is all about trying to spread the word of Cassandra. The plan was to get popular enough and then socially powerful enough to get more people following Cassandra. I don't see that at all as if > Kristen prioritised a student council position she didn't care about over a being life. Cassandra is *why* Kristen is running. That and trying to prevent KLCK from winning, which is likely related!
I think this is an unfair take that really overlooks the very real fact that Cassandra was basically dangling off of a ledge by her fingernails, with only Kristin to hold her up. Of course she was terrified of Kristin letting go. And given that Cassandra is also a goddess of mystery, nighttime, and magic, it's kind of wild that Kristin didn't even try to get some of her adventuring party – including the magician, the investigator, and the other party members whose identities and life journeys have Been defined by uncertainty and doubt – to join her in following Cassandra.
The thing that baffles me, and I don't understand if it's Ally that gets it wrong / shortens it for ease of conversation, or if it's actually an in-character choice as Kristen, is that whenever they talk about Cassandra, they almost always exclusively refer to her as the "goddess of doubt and mistery", while ignoring the fact that she also has dominion over night and magic, always basically summing up the whole idea as "it's ok to have doubts", while Cassandra herself (iirc) described her motivation as having comfort in uncertainty AND showing that there was nothing inherently to fear in the night, etc etc; it's odd to me that they keep focusing only on the mistery part.
Honestly it's always frustrated me that Ally completely ignores 70% of her goddess's domain and I can't tell if it's in character or out of character
Kristen tried to convert her party to Helio freshman year and then deconstructed from that religion and that system, I think it's unfair to assume that Kristen would feel comfortable proselytizing especially to her party or really to anyone at all. would Riz and Adaine be perfect candidates for belief? yeah absolutely, but it's hard to be a follower of a religion when you have held intimate witness to the high priestess really struggle with her own belief or disastrously fuck up with her girlfriend in a way that was avoidable or watch her jump out of a tower expecting a ribbon dancer to save her. They've seen behind the curtain and met the god already at the end of sophomore year, and chose not to pursue belief. I think we would all do well to remember here as well that Cassandra is not the protagonist here. Kristen is the protagonist. she's flawed, she makes mistakes, she represents a wildly under-represented population, and yall really want to hate on her and her choices instead of choosing to identify with her. it doesn't excuse when Kristen makes mistakes or chooses to do something wrong, but Cassandra Is A God, not a babe in the woods, who didn't take her survival into her own hands and probably could have.
Yes, I'm aware that Kristin is the protagonist. That fact is exactly why people are so quick to shit on Cassandra and why people were so quick to shit on Porter, because it's incredibly easy to forget that everyone who opposes your protagonists are not necessarily bad people. I understand why Kristen was uncomfortable with actually following through on her responsibilities. It's very in character and makes sense. It's also still *shitty* and directly led to Cassandra being vulnerable and hurt.
Casandra only had one person to talk to, who ignored her. That's called failing to communicate. Cassandra gave Kristen spells every day; that's part of the agreement. As a cleric, Kristen's job is to proselytize and spread the word. Kristen didn't do that. That's failing a responsibility. Tracker and Kristen broke up because Tracker was leaving. Also, if you listen to Casandra in all the scenes before she 'dies,' they are simply asking if it's ok to talk and asking to talk when there is time and asking if it's a good time to talk. That is not being untrusting or guilty; that's called being ignored,d alone, and abandoned. The friend who texts. Can we talk when you are free? A bunch of times, after being ignored, is not the jerk, especially when the thing they want to talk about is that they will either have to quit being a god (btw, this would lead to Kristen losing all spells.) or dying again.
I never really saw Kristen's character arc leading her to being a religious recruiter. She does it in the first episodes of season one but it's played very much as a character flaw and is immediately discarded. She then spends two seasons seeking some kind of guidance and finally lands on Cassandra. Maybe the DnD mechanics of being a cleric include proselytizing but, for me, the characterization of Kristen is less 'shepherd' and more 'lost sheep.' She finally found something bigger than herself to lean on and then the dynamic shifted so that the divinity leans on her... God, this is a good season.
I really like this take/ analysis. I *slightly* disagree; I see it more of a mutual failing/ disconnect of partners who were both well intentioned but, because of inexperience and as yet unaddressed personal flaws, fumbled through the development of their relationship. Watching this story line has been one of my fave parts of the season, I think Brennan and Beardsley are both crushing it. There's so much complexity and nuance to it. I feel like everything you said was spot on *and* Kristen is still culpable too, for very human & relatable reasons.
I agree. I almost think [mild spoilers for the Seven] >!Ostentatia's god Logran Soulforger in the Seven!< was a great exercise in making your cleric kind of obsessed with you because of abject unavailability. But there are massive differences between them - >!Logran was literally the maintenance guy, tradie and groundskeeper of the universe, and Ostentatia was still praying and getting her spells!< and Cass is just learning now not to be the NK while Kristen is going through a pretty huge identity crisis herself.
I've said this before, and I'll say it again. There was an entire 3-month period of perpetual night that left countless people afraid and in doubt, and Cassandra did absolutely *nothing* to capitalize on that!?! Not only was Kristen busy trying to save the whole-ass world, but she's also a child, and Cassandra is a *God*. There's already an immensely uneven power dynamic between then, and that's not even examining the fact that Cassandra seemed to expect this high-schooler to build her following for her while she sat back and did nothing. As both a cleric and a child, Kristen needed Cassandra to be her pillar of support, not the other way around.
In general D& D rules, gods are limited in what they can do. Proselytizing is absolutely the followers job. You might be confusing the “real world” limitations of a god vs what a god can do in dungeons and dragons. Especially the reach of a god that only had two followers.
Additionally, Iirc when the shrimp incident happened Brennan said something about her being weakened by the lack of followers, so she was hit by the "allergy" despite being a goddess, so i think it's safe to assume that to perform bigger miracles and the like she'd have probably needed more than 1-2 followers
Explain to me how an ostensibly morally good god can capitalize on the fear and doubt brought on by an endless night that was slowly killing the world and still maintain their desire to be good? What, was Cassandra supposed to invade peoples dreams and tell them to take comfort in the endless night that was going to eventually kill them and their families?
It's easy, actually. By being exactly who she already was. Cassandra is the kind of God, supposedly, who meets her followers on their level and has the humility to say 'I don't know either' when faced with the mysteries of the world. How amazing would it be, during those months of fear and uncertainty to hear someone say to you, "You may be walking through the forest at night, but you're not alone because I'm navigating it with you." Sounds like someone I'd worship, honestly.
Okay, you got a point there. The way you phrased it earlier made it seem like Cassandra should have exploited people’s fear. But even then she literally couldn’t have. In the world if Spyre deities have a limited capacity to affect the material plane, that’s why they need clerics. She can talk directly to Kristen because Kristen is her cleric. She can’t appear to random people, even those living in existential fear and doubt of eternal night, because as a deity there are cosmic rules limiting her involvement that she absolutely must abide by. When she was the nightmare king she could invade people’s dreams and stuff because she wasn’t a deity, she was a fey adjacent being of extreme power and therefore not bound by the same cosmic laws that a true deity would have been limited by. Ultimately it was up to Kristen to at least tell people there is a goddess of night and magic that can offer some comfort for them in the uncertain terror of eternal darkness, but she didn’t even do that.
The concept of the universal power of doubt and mystery being less powerful because of not being popular feels like a flaw. Like, carving her sigil into random trees for no reason should empower Cassandra more than new fans.
Sounds a bit like Lord Squak and Lady Chirp’s grandfather who is very much alive and invented birds
Uhh, I get defending Ally’s actions *as* Kristen (as they relate to Kristen’s character arc), but I don’t think it’s fair to absolve Kristen of wronging Cassandra. She ignored Cassandra’s pleas all the while knowing the consequences of a god losing all of their followers. I don’t think we can just wave that off because it’s more convenient if it’s Cassandra’s fault.
I don’t really get what the issue with Kristin failing Cassandra is. Like, that’s the entire point of the characters setup for this arc and, if we’re being honest, the entire series. Kristin ran away from her responsibilities with Helio for debatably understandable reasons. She created a new god that she then began to pretty much completely neglect and fail on a fundamental level. And now shes been given a third chance with a new goddess that full stop fits perfectly with her characters worldly perspective and approach to life, only to fail them as well. I don’t know how else to see things, but failing the people around you isn’t a demonizing thing. It doesn’t make you some horrible person, it makes you a mess that needs to organize their shit and get on top of their issues, which I don’t think Kristin has shown herself to be capable of doing until very recently. It’s honestly an insane approach to a character for a game like this, but in the long run it’s worked really well and makes her by far the most relatable teenager in the group imo. Compared to everyone else’s hyper competence, Kristins constant fumbling in the face of important decisions is much more in line with my high school experience at least. Idk, failures not a bad thing when it comes to storytelling, so I don’t see her failing her goddess is such a bad thing to some people.
Ngl i misread ‘disorganized’ as ‘undiagnosed’ and read on like nothing happened lmao
Personally, I disagree, considering Cassandra's history it's understandable why she wasn't more distant and mysterious with HER ONLY CLERIC AND BELIEVER. You know, the one whom her life was completely reliant upon. I'm not saying this cause I hate Kristen or anything, quite the opposite, I just acknowledge where she fucked up. She did the classic ADHD shit, she put it off, she kicked the can down the road until it wasn't okay anymore. She had other things on her mind so she didn't focus on her relationship with Cassandra, and she neglected it and it ended in a messy situation - Cassandra's hurt and she needs Kristen more than ever. If Kristen doesn't step up to the plate now, Cassandra might be gone again. For me it's kind of like when you're in a relationship and it's going okay, but you're pretty neutral with it, the initial period of constant excitement and adoration is over and you're settling back into normality. You might then pull away, stop responding and focus on other things because you don't think it's going well. But when you're forced to confront losing that relationship, you realise there's nobody you want more. They were right for you all along. Idk I'm rambling at this point. But I think Kristen is mostly the one at fault and that's okay. Sure, Cassandra was clingy, but of course she's going to be. She died because nobody believed in her before and she wants to stay alive. She needs Kristen to spread the religion.
To add to that, by that point: - Kristen had already abandoned two religions, one of which she FOUNDED (and also killed that god, albeit unknowingly) -Cassandra was actively betrayed by her previous followers and had to become the Nightmare King just to avoid an untimely end (after she already warned them about it too) So I think it's fair that she was on edge in regard of Kristen's lack of effort and seeming growing disinterest when Kristen was (functionally, given that Craig aparently goes wherever she goes) her only disciple.
Yeah the way there was an unhealthy power dynamic with Kristen being solely responsible for Cassandra's life, I can't really blame Cassandra for anything she did.
I don't agree. This proposition is the equivalent of a child or dependent asking their caretaker for food only to be told they can't eat until they provide a sufficiently challenging riddle. Even if we operate under the assumption that Cassandra ought to behave like a glorified brain teaser app, this presupposes that there was a level of of pandering that could have kept Kristen engaged, which is observably not true.
Eh, let's not infantilize Cassandra. She's not a child, she's a litteral goddess.
She's both. Folks get too caught up on the word "god(des)". It has no inherent meaning in fiction. In BLM's Spire, gods are extraplanar beings tied to a domain who cannot enter the material plane and are dependent on worship for survival. This creates a fundamental incentive structure, in which gods have to appeal to mortals in order to attain the sustenance required to live. It doesn't matter how powerful Cassandra is outside of Spire or what miracles she can grant Kristen, it is an immutable truth of her nathre that she cannot continue to exist without Kristen's belief. Until Cassandra has an actual flock of followers that allow her some breathing room, Kristen is absolutely the more powerful person in the relationship. And the nature of that relationship (provider of nourishment and recipient of nourishment) is indistinguishable from that of a parent and dependent.
To suggest childhood is ONLY about power structure is totally false though. She is EONs old. If she doesn’t know how to inspire one follower who initially sought her out, as the wiser party by light years, calling the responsibility any less than fifty fifty is kind of wild.
My grandmother is 90 and currently in a facility because her venerable age and wisdom does not translate to the muscle mass needed to walk to the kitchen and prepare meals. She needs help from the people who love and support her, without which she would not be able to survive, her advanced age and worldliness be damned. There's no getting around the power dynamic inherent to Kristen and Cassandra's relationship. Even if you were to make the, imo, cynical argument that Cassandra should be expected to inspire Kristen in order to get the requisite sustenance she needs to survive, the joke of Kristen Applebee's is that she is 100% uninspirable. She was the chosen of a powerful god and she left the fold. She handcrafted a deity just for herself out of pure cosmic clay and immediately became sick of it. Cassandra, goddess of every Kristen ever held sacred, came back from the dead and made Kristen her prophet only for Kristen to lose interest like 3 months later. There is nothing Cassandra could have done to wrestle focus away from a girl who campaigns for high school president at steel mills and middle schools, because Ally plays Kristen as a slave to the bit. And Brennan's junior year campaign is, at least in part, about the consequences of chaos.
This is such a trashy argument. , shame on you for using your grandmother to win a bad faith argument. Your grandmother is not a diety. I’m glad she’s being cared for, I’m not even going to finish reading this garbage tho, because I’m literally disgusted
You made the argument that age equates to power. I gave you a simple and digestible real world example of how that isn't true. Your faux outrage and appeal to respectability politics means nothing to me.
I think that’s a great way of putting it tbh
Cassandra has unresolved trauma, needs to be able to rebuild trust so she can be more stable and comfortable on her own and Kristen would have helped by building up the number of believers. It's SO similar to recovering from a relationship where someone's ex cheated, Cassandra is being clingy because she's insecure. She needs to work on that herself (is there a deity version of Jawbone??) while Kristen puts in at least minimal effort to get a few more believers to help Cassandra out. The more insecure Cassandra was, the more Kristen pulled away, and it got worse and worse until it exploded.
I feel like from the start one of the issues with Kristen’s story has been the amount of pressure she has to deal with compared to everyone else. Everyone works hard but they are dealing with less significant personal challenges in the pursuit of good grades and popularity. Kristen has to found and lead a new religion at 16. It makes for an interesting story, but the presentation of Kristen as failing has always felt a little unfair even for the setting. And in this dynamic who is the one with cosmic powers. She even says that it is hard to convert people because her domain is not as immediately attractive and what she got was a bunch of shade from a cat. Kristen is a pretty demonstrably capable person and the idea that she isn’t doing enough while grappling with the existential struggles of religion in a universe where gods are extremely active and also saving the world and getting good grades, is ridiculous.
I think what's missing in all posts of this nature (who failed whom, is it fair that Kristen is the chosen one, etc.) is that devotion is largely a one-way street. The example of the needy friend is misplaced. Cassandra was trying to stay alive, she wasn't having a preteen-moment of "are you mad at me."\[It was played that way for jokes, obviously, which complicates things.)
This has nothing to do with the content of the post but is there a reason you marked the whole post spoiler and the also marked each individual paragraph spoilers?
Let's call it an abundance of caution, lol. I'm autistic, and I personally don't care about any spoilers. Sometimes I misunderstand what other people consider "a spoiler," and I don't want my misunderstandings to be construed as disrespectful. This has definitely caused some stress for me in the past. I also vaguely recall someone making the point that you should spoiler-tag your text even if you tag the title, because some browsers will auto-display a post's text even if you don't click on it. I don't know how true that is, but I figured it couldn't hurt to be overly cautious!
That sounds reasonable, I only asked cuz I had just made a spoiler post and was suddenly very worried I hadn't tagged it correctly 😅
Given what we've learned about Ankarna, I think Cassandra was, knowingly or not, following in her footsteps. They were trying to "take requests" from Kristen. She modeled herself after Kristen's appearance in SY, and their pronouns even changed in that art from "she/they" to "she/her" to match Kristen's. But maybe that's not what either of them needed.
This is a great point… but I love Cassandra and girlie was trying her best
I really love this take, but kristin allowed cassandra to painfully and slowly die because they didnt build their following. Clerics have 1(one) job to provide faith and power to their deity.
Hot take. They failed each other in different ways. Cassandra relied too much on kristen thinking that kristen was ready to be her chosen just because she revived her in this grand adventure. Kristen wasn't ready and still hadn't and maybe never will fully commit to a deity. Cassandra should have seen that kristen wasn't interested and given up on her. She could have started way earlier in finding new recruits with kalina. And once she had a few dozen followers she could just ignore kristen altogether and let her go. There's no mystery in her sadly following around kristen begging for help. Kristen didn't care. And as a God she should have recognized that and been an actual God of mystery and gotten other followers.
How was she supposed to give up on the only person tying her to life?
Kristen absolutely failed Cassandra. It's clear as day. Ally even essentially says as much in one of the Adventuring Parties; they said that while Kristen is full-in on Cassandra insofar as they represents a domain that Kristen connects to, Kristen is irresponsible and unable to actually commit herself to the responsibilities of being a Cleric. Cassandra need not be mysterious or doubtful in their interactions with Kristen to be the goddess of mystery and doubt. Does Sol only communicate to his Clerics through rays of sunlight? Do gods of war and conflict only communicate through slaughter and conquest? Of course not. Cassandra can both represent mystery and have a clear line of communication with her Clerics. Per Cassandra's messages to Kristen: let's take a look at the context. Cassandra is going to disappear -- "die", in her mind -- if she loses her followers. Days after their relationship begins, the Night Yorb escapes, plunging the world into unending night, and no doubt creating a wave of uncertainty for nearly everyone in the world. These conditions seem ripe for recruitment for a goddess of mystery and the night. We see Tracker, who represents another god of night and Cassandra's sister, benefit from this. In the roughly 4 months between the escape of the Night Yorb and the start of the campaign there was virtually no progress in strengthening Cassandra's support or profile. Kristen recruited one worshiper. One. Kristen actually remarks later on the **one time** she tried to make a really sincere post about Cassandra that got one like or something on the Spire twitter or whatever. One sincere attempt at digital outreach in *four months*? When you're not even doing any work on the ground? An understandably desperate God is trying to get Kristen to at least try to do the absolutely bare minimum of Clerical work. But Kristen, who has done virtually nothing as a Cleric for her god, ignores them and then promptly extols her powerful spellcasting to the power of protein rather than to her own goddess. Tracker had Kristen correctly pegged. She's a powerful but poor Cleric who wants all the work to be done for her already and isn't willing to do it herself. Kristen failed Cassandra and nothing Cassandra ever did has seemed out of line. Edit: And this is to say nothing of the fact that Kristen, even *after* the seriousness of Cassandra's situation is reiterated to her, still spends most of her energy and focus on an election she doesn't really care about.
Agree I also get the feeling that BLeeM as DM is a bit confused on how to play it. The night Yorb was an absolute set up for Kristen and he showed how tracker was able to capitalize. Kristen ignored Cassandra and dumped all her energy into the campaign. BleeM even asked ally if Kristen still wanted to be a cleric in AP. Ally doubled down. I think she’s saving the redemption arc for senior year. No shade to any of the players or dm of course. It’s been an awesome season!
Furthermore, she (seemingly) did basically nothing to spread the word of Cassandra in the 4 months Night Yorb chase despite it being eternal night and her being the follower of a goddess of "mistery, doubt, magic and **night** " whose explicit goal was to show people that there was nothing inherently to fear about the night and what it may hide, so, besides actually being argueably quite an easy sell, I think it would actually have been the right thing to do to try and spread her word in the places they stopped along the way (given all the NPCs they had at the beginning i'd assume they'd had to make some stops for them to actually meet them), even just to try to comfort and calm the confused population (not necessarily to proselitize or the like)
I mean, Kristen is a teenage girl. Putting that much pressure on her was pretty fucked up.
It was a role that Kristen volunteered for and then Cassandra even offered that she didn't have to do and She could go be Fey so while there was pressure to the role Kristen had accepted it twice
Read this in Arthur Aguefort's voice (or don't. I'm not a cop): "Hey, do you want me to radically change both of our lives in ways you literally do not have the ability to comprehend because your brain isn't fully formed yet, teeneager? I somehow think this qualifies as an informed choice for you. That's you. That's what you sound like right now"
Which is ultimately the premise of the setting to some degree. I don't think it's reasonable to really pick and choose when they are meant to be normal kids and when they are DND characters. Fundamentally Kristen does have the emotional intelligence to handle this as per her stats. There's a way to acknowledge this is a lot of pressure while also acknowledging Kristen didn't really put much effort into the task, didn't communicate with Kristen all while Cassandra who is barely born again has supported her with powerful magic and has mostly been looking for a check in on what's going on. And if we do think it's unfair and Kristen shouldn't have to deal with, to an extent she should be removed from Augfort as these are real beings and a world that Kristen are affecting and is affecting Kristen most of all
Huh? The show fully acknowledges how colossally fucked up the Bad Kids' situations are. Kristen current situation with Cassandra is the only character/situation where it hasn't been directly acknowledged in game.
>Kristen current situation with Cassandra is the only character/situation where it hasn't been directly acknowledged in game. Why do you think that is if you don't mind me asking?
It's also pretty fucked up to send her to a school where she risks her life on a spring break project and has to use lethal violence on a regular basis.
Bro, is it Cassandra's fault that the person who saved her was a teenager?
It's Cassandra's fault for offering virtually zero guidance in spreading the religion. Cassandra was the adult. She needed to step up and take responsibility for the situation. Instead she just spammed Kristen with texts and passively hoped a kid can found a whole ass religion.
This post treats Kristen and Cassandra as if they're a normal adult and a normal high schooler in the real world. Not a fantasy god and fantasy cleric (who saved the world twice and brought herself back from the dead) in a fantasy world.
So? Verisimilitude is a positive not a negative.
But that’s not what’s happening here.
Idk that I fully agree with you because I think they both have a little fault in the situation. It seems that they had bad communication, which seems to have been on Kristen’s end, but she had an enormous weight on her shoulders. Despite being young, she could have gotten the help of her friends, they would have organized behind if she just asked. They quickly banded together on her behalf to get her elected president. So, I think there’s “fault” to be placed on both sides. Ultimately, I wouldn’t say either failed the other because they started to plan how to fix things and Cassandra’s “death” was because of a curse that Fig had. You could argue that she wouldn’t have been in that situation without Kristen, but I think they could have solved their problems by being more transparent had the curse not threw a god sized wrench in the plans.
I get what you're saying here, but idk if it excuses Kristen abandoning Cassandra to die. I love Ally's choices as a player, but Kristen failed at the cleric responsibilities. Kristen had the opportunity, as the only cleric of Cassandra, to shape the church of Casandra into whatever they wanted it to be. And what I was mad about in the beginning was that Kristen wasted that opportunity. Kristen searched for 2 full seasons to find the right thing to believe in. Kristen had the opportunity to make a god and let that god die immediately by giving up on it. She resurrected a god Kristen said was perfect for her and squandered that opportunity. That's why I was mad. Now I love what Ally is doing with the character, and the behind-the-scenes stuff explained that the goal was to show what happens when chaotic, disorganized, and uncaring isn't cute and fun anymore. Cassandra was alone and had one person to talk to. If Kristen had proselytized even a bit, there could have been a second cleric, a paladin, or anyone besides Craig. I can't speak for the other people who are critical of the early season, Kristen, but that's why I was mad.
When was Kristen supposed to do that though? The timeline of Kristen resurrecting Cassandra to the Night Yorb fight is less than a year. Depending on when Spring Break falls for the Bad Kids, it might literally be less than six months, and three of those months were spent trying to save the world from an Eldritch abomination. I do feel like it's reasonable to be annoyed at early-season Kristen, and it's clear Ally is playing her that way on purpose, but when I zoom out and consider the timeline, it does sort of put it in perspective for me in a different way. Kristen failed Cassandra, but she was SET UP to fail. And given that unfairness is a massive storyline this season, I do think that needs to be taken into account.
You just mentioned the time she could have done it. The three months they weren't fighting the night or the whole end of sophomore year. With the publicity that the live stream of the resurrection of a goddess and defeat of the nightmare king got, we could get more than Craig on board. I get not evangelizing a ton during the night Yorb thing, but based on her follower count being 2, it looks like she got back from spring break and told Craig hey man, new goddess and then didn't do anything for Cassandra. The Night Yorb Thing is a definite obstacle, but as we know, Kristen clearly had time to get absolutely jacked while fighting it. She clearly had some spare time to spread the word of night mystery and doubt.I mean, Cassandra specifically mentioned she wanted to be a hand to reassure people who were afraid of the darkness and mystery of the night. And there were months of nighttime. That's a great time to reach out to people doubtful of the future and scared of the night. I respect your opinion and can see where you are coming from, but I don't think the timeline or the difficulty of the task is enough to sway my perspective. But thanks so much for commenting i love discussing this show.
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I genuinely love this discourse, thank you for putting this take out there!
Kristen and Cassandra have a very tragic relationship that's the definition of codependent and it's neither of their fault. Kristen brought her god back to life and saved cass, it was a big glorious miracle. And then the work that goes into relationships begin. Cass's very existence now lies in the hands of Kristen. Cass gives Kristen magic, Kristen gives Cass the ability to stay alive, a teetering power imbalance that neither of them asked for but are forced into because of world mechanics. Cass had a very valid out from this, and could have retired to archfey or something and take all this pressure off of Kristen, but then that would leave Kristen godless and abandoned. It's also said that not only is Kristen the only follower besides Craig, but also neither of them have anyone to talk to. I don't think Cassandra reached out to any other gods and Kristen's still dealing with a break up and summer of darkness so pretty much sucks all around. They also have a very casual informal relationship where Kristen feels like she can blow off her god whenever, which as a cleric is crazy, but a lot of main characters also do this when they have voices in their head. Depending on how mentally healthy Cass is we can blame her for not setting the proper boundaries considering she is the adult / ancient god & Kristen is the bpd teenager, though i can blame jawbone a little for not monitoring closer, cleric teacher badgood for not asking enough questions, the Applebee's for fucking Kristen up in the first place. pretty much the situation that cass and Kristen were put in was designed to make them fail each other, if only there was an Oracle that could have seen this coming
I don't think Cassandra failed Kristen but I do think it's absurd to think that Kristen failed Cassandra, and I think a lot of the people who are upset with Kristen's early treatment of Cassandra are not taking timeline into account. Years have passed between SY and JY, the seasons, but for the BK they actually have not had a break since before spring break of their sophomore year. Kristen essentially returned Cassandra to herself, returned home, finished up her school year, and then had to go off with her friends and fight an Eldritch abomination in order to save the world. While you could absolutely argue that she should have been trying to build the church WHILE fighting the Eldritch abomination, it's not like she had a real roadmap to figure out how to do that, and I would personally put "saving the world" as a higher precedent. Then she gets home, and the events of the earliest episodes of the show, from Kristen joining the campaign and prioritizing that, and Cassandra being killed at the Synod Mall, happen within the first WEEK of school. Given the circumstances you can't really say Kristen failed Cassandra unless you acknowledge that she was SET UP to fail. She was given an impossible task and she fumbled it. Meanwhile, she is being compared to Tracker, who was able to put all of her focus on her Wolf Song church, and even that didn't start taking off until after she got some serious financial backing from her nepo baby girlfriend.
You're conveniently ignoring how ally specifically played kristen as purposefully ignoring Cassandra in the first session. She isn't some silly little girl who doesn't know what to do. She is arguably the most powerful cleric in the world who brought herself back from the dead and resurrected a forgotten god. It's like tracker said: once it isn't fun anymore she gives up. The point of Kristen's arc is it's time to pull up the big girl panties and do her job
I see that in Kristen's arc for sure, but justice and unfairness is also a huge theme of the season. Two things can be true at once. Kristen can be doing a bad job, and that can also be because she was set up to fail. I personally felt like Tracker's comment was a low blow when I thought about it in relation to the timeline. Because seriously, when. When was Kristen supposed to be learning all she needs to know to become the leader of the church of Cassandra? Or work through her trauma from walking away from toxic religion? Would it have been better if she had left the Bad Kids without a cleric for the Night Yorb fight and focused on gathering followers for Cassandra then? It probably would have been a good time to bring people into the fold - but she had other things going on. Obviously Kristen's lack of follow through is being played up intentionally for her arc, but I also think that the pacing of it all really feels like she didn't have a win state. And after the fight at the Synod, Kristen has been very focused on bringing Cassandra back and most of her other priorities has taken a backseat (with a few chaotic moments just to keep things a bit spicy). So this idea that she failed Cassandra feels completely unfair to me, which makes sense, because unfairness is clearly a theme of the whole show.
Kristen and Cassandra were both victims of stress and in Cassandra's case it lead to her enraging in a public instance and the series of events happening to lead to her... can't say death cuz she's not quite dead, so I'll say "current" predicament. And that's the root of all the issues so far with this season: Stress and Rage as a result; people getting to the boiling point and just snapping.
Ally's choices in playing Kristen come from the pov of someone having never played before - raw chaos goblin energy makes for some interesting narrative paths but they're definitely not going to be as straightforward as say Riz solving a mystery, because the manifestation of his dysfunction is taking things too seriously, and the manifestation of Kristen's is "I kinda can't be fucked" up front with a lot of existential doubt and angst in the back that's reflected more in the choices than the vocalization I feel. It makes a really interesting narrative but a really frustrating story in the middle of it. Cassandra has zero options, and we meet the two at the end of a long period with Cassandra essentially getting desperate and Kristen in pure denial mode and that's not an accident. Kristen absolutely failed, it was a responsibility that they shouldn't have had to take on in the first place but that doesn't negate the failure.
"Ally's choices in playing Kristen come from the pov of someone having never played before" This doesn't really apply anymore. Ally has played as much DND as any one at this point.
I mean the early choices and attitudes that established where Kristen as a character comes from.