#buzz lightyear zaddy

[lordsammichsilas]

The Fallout show got me playing FO4 again. This time around I’m playing default Nate galacanting around with Buzz Lightyear Zaddy (aka Paladin Danse).

I’ve romanced him in the past with my female character and I always thought the lines where they flirt were a bit awkward. It’s really hard to pinpoint why, but it feels a lot more natural with a male character.

I think I support the headcanon that Danse is gay (plus him being closeted and maybe not even realizing it himself would just pair with canon perfectly). I also think he has a super avoidant attachment style.

I also might have to break down and write a fanfic because I’ve always really liked his character and I was so mad FO4 didn’t give him a full character arc. There’s so much to be said about the trauma of having your entire life fall apart and having to start over, but when you’ve spent over a decade of your life caught up in a fanatical organization that doesn’t let you fraternize with the locals (it comes on the loudspeaker often on the Prydwen) that could have been explored.

I think he deserved an arc where he comes to terms with that and begins the process of deradicalizing. I see him as somebody whose rhetoric is out of loyalty to a group he believed cared about him rather than his own hate. Not entirely, anyway.

He totally hate’s super mutants because of what they did to Cutler. That will probably be the one that won’t change much. Once he deals with his own internalized dislike of synths, I don’t see him having an issue with the Gen 3 ones, although he has a hard time bonding with them because coming out of the Brotherhood makes him feel alienated .

I actually don’t think he has much of a problem with ghouls and that’s totally the Brotherhood talking. There’s no personal beef with them like there is super mutants. Even his reactions in game when you have positive interactions with ghouls are inconsistent. Usually he dislikes it, but there are times where he seems fine with it (or at least doesn’t disapprove).

He doesn’t seem like someone who’s unreasonable or dogmatic in and of itself. In fact, it’s funny when you push back against something he says in the dialogue options just the tiniest bit and he’s like “you’re right, how could I have been so blind?” It just seems really funny to me that he would be that even keel and hold such a high rank in such a fanatical organization. It’s almost like he knows deep down a lot of it is bullshit, but lectures you about the rhetoric to convince himself more than anyone.

Looking past the bigoted rhetoric, his biggest character flaw is his loyalty because he clings to something that is demonstrably bad and puts blinders on in order to defend that thing because he is so loyal. He’s still responsible for unlearning that, but I think it also speaks to the predatory nature of the BoS that manipulates vulnerable people. His earliest memories (whether they’re real or not are irrelevant) are of him being an orphan picking scrap in the Capital Wasteland. Of course he’s going to join the Brotherhood of Steel.

Honestly, there’s a lot of parallels between him and Maximus in the show (Maximus is my favorite and must be protected). They were in extremely vulnerable positions in their lives and along comes this organization that gives them a sense of belonging. It’s the reason a lot of people join the military in the first place. It isn’t idealism, but instead pragmatism.

Tl;Dr Danse deserved better.