Pillow (Battle for Dream Island)

 In its third season, Battle for BFDI, the series Battle for Dream Island debuted many new characters. The creators of Battle for Dream Island, Cary and Michael Huang, took designs from their fans and dumped over twenty new characters in to compete alongside the twenty-two characters they already had competing on the show. However, the last two seasons had already fleshed out the old characters, and now the crew had to scramble to give personalities to the new ones. They’d introduced far too many, however, and scrambled to give screentime to the twenty-three new characters to try and flesh them out all at once. 

One of these new characters was Pillow. Due to not getting much focus, Pillow didn’t seem to have much of a personality during Battle for BFDI. She was also not brought back until the most recent season of Battle for Dream Island: The Power of Two. In the Power of Two, Pillow now appears to have an entirely new personality: that of a psychopath with no empathy. Many fans believe she was simply always this way and we never got to see it due to how little we got to see her in the season Battle for BFDI. These fans have very good evidence to back up their argument as well. This includes lines from “Getting Teardrop to Talk” and “The Worst Day of Black Hole’s Life”. And while this argument works very well on a surface level, it also contradicts many of Pillow’s actions in Battle for BFDI, many of which were rather altruistic and selfless. So if she was not always a psychopath, what happened? What made her change her ways? In this essay I will explain.

For context, in the world of Battle for Dream Island, death is not forever. There are many ways of bringing somebody back to life. Because of this, life is not very highly valued, and people are often killed to slow down other teams. These deaths, while easy for the killer, obviously cause quite a lot of pain for the one being murdered. In the first episode of Battle for BFDI, “Getting Teardrop to Talk”, a collection of characters including Black Hole, Pie, Tree, and more, all notice an alarming number of people being slaughtered. They all make a pact to prevent the deaths of others and then name the team they’ve made after it, leading to the creation of the team Death P.A.C.T. Pillow joins this team, remaining a member for all of the third season.


Interestingly, Pillow seems to be the only member to not fully know what she’s signing herself up for when she joins. In “Getting Teardrop to Talk”, she’s wandering aimlessly about when she hears Death P.A.C.T. talking about the dire situation. She joins after saying “Did somebody say killing?” This suggests she thought Death P.A.C.T. would be all for death and not against it. This supports the argument that Pillow was always a psychopath and we simply never got to see it. The other point that backs up this argument comes in the Power of Two episode “The Worst Day of Black Hole’s Life.” In the Power of Two, most characters originally on Death P.A.C.T. have stuck to their pact, calling their new team Death P.A.C.T. Again. However, Pillow has broken off and joined a new team called Just Not. Free of the pact, Pillow has already begun killing people freely. In this episode, they rush to try and stop the death. One of the new members Death P.A.C.T. Again has taken in, Lightning gets confused once they get there, however. He asks how Pillow ever prevented death when she seems so adamant on causing it and Black Hole answers the question simply with: “She was always like this, we were just hoping she would stop.”

Now one would think this is more than enough evidence to support any opposing argument. Pillow, as Black Hole said, was simply always “like this”. She always had no empathy. She never cared about anybody’s life. She always wanted to throw everybody overboard as quickly as possible. But this argument doesn’t acknowledge the selfless actions Pillow took in Battle for BFDI.

Firstly, Pillow did not always prefer bloodshed. If you pay close attention to Pillow’s actions in Battle for BFDI, she actually prevents quite a few deaths. For context, in the show Battle for Dream Island, hosts tend to vary, and the host chosen for season 3 is Four. Four is an insanely powerful being, having the ability to do almost anything. He’s also unfortunately insanely violent. He often physically attacks contestants for doing anything that upsets him in the slightest. In the episode we’ll be looking at, “Today’s Very Special Episode”, the contestant Lollipop sells Four a faulty brand of Fork Repellent. This brand attracts an unusually large number of forks to him, all prong-first. Pillow is the first to notice this, and she jumps in front of Four, taking constant hits from constant forks. Why? So that Four won’t blame Lollipop and take it out on her. Pillow’s team notices and tries to join her to lighten the load, but she refuses to let them. In this episode Pillow takes the fall and lets countless forks stab her, knowing every single one could kill her, as pillowcases aren’t that tough. She doesn’t let any other team member with tougher skin take her place. Instead Pillow insists all of them leave to go get Black Hole, as he can help them solve the problem. All actions here clearly contradict Black Hole’s claim that she was always a heartless killer.

Now something I feel fans of the show often forget is that Pillow considers herself a scientist. It’s not too hard to forget, to be fair. Little to no time was spent on it. As I previously said, Battle for BFDI was drowning in new characters and Pillow was very rarely shown. But in “Getting Teardrop to Talk, she pulls out a chart and tells everybody a theory she has made. This obviously does not come off as very sciency in the moment, but during the scene she very clearly says she’s done “research” on the topic and comes up with a laughably bad theory that she wholly believes. It’s very clear to me the people behind the show wanted to make these theories a running gag. The only remaining evidence of Pillow’s scientist traits comes in the Battle for Dream Island: Character Guide (Huang and Hinatsu, page 32). In this book, each character from the show is given their own page. Pillow’s reads:
Pillow is a big, fluffy down pillow, who is unpredictable. She can stuff objects inside her pillowcase or use it as a weapon. However, she's not all-powerful... she can't even tell which things she's allowed to eat.

Pillow likes to think of herself as a scientist, although her research is often faulty. For instance, she thought that people who waved their arms around didn’t care about things. She was wrong. Not a good look for a scientist, don’t you agree?

This is very clearly the character that would have been shown if Battle for BFDI hadn’t been so overwhelmed with new characters. One of the creators, Cary Huang, even stated putting such a big cast into one season was a mistake. But if Pillow had been focused on more, this would have been her character.

The writers also made another mistake by putting Pillow on Death P.A.C.T.. Every other team disagrees with their belief that killing is wrong, and therefore almost never interact with them.. Pillow’s teammates are also very logical, way too logical to believe any theories Pillow could come up with. So the writers essentially wrote Pillow into a corner where the personality they had for her couldn’t work for any joke except for one of her teammates saying she’s an idiot.

Now let’s think for a minute, and try to put ourselves in Pillow’s shoes. She’s on a team we joined thinking it was for death and not against it. The other contestants have essentially ostracized her for being on said team, and so she’s only got her teammates for company. However, said teammates don’t agree with our views on killing, so they don’t really pay much attention to us unless we’re in immediate danger. So of course in the many new hours of free time she’s found, Pillow would turn to playing scientist. Pillow has to follow her team and her team’s goal is saving lives. So naturally, being dragged around to save lives, Pillow would be around death a lot. I believe she simply did research on death and came up with another laughably bad conclusion: that dying gives the deceased good luck. I believe Pillow simply started her death-causing capacities while still on Death P.A.C.T., and that is what I believe Black Hole is referring to when he says she was always the way she is now.

As the Power of Two progresses, Pillow puts others in more and more perilous situations. However, if you watch closely, you can tell she thinks she’s helping. In “Fishes and Dishes”, the host of the season, Two, says it’s too crowded on the roof. Pillow says she’ll help, then proceeds to throw everybody else off. In “The Great Goikian Bake-Off”, her team Just Not tell her they need to kill a dragon. Pillow grabs Cake and throws him into its windpipe to do so. Pillow’s actions come off as scary and unsettling those around her, but in Pillow’s fluffbrain, she’s helping by doing them.

The piece de resistance of hurting while thinking she’s helping however, comes in the ninth episode, “Outbreak at Stake”. In this episode, zombies have overrun the grasslands where the competition is held. Every team runs, scared, to a different shelter. Two uses their magical powers to send out a message to tell everybody they’re changing this emergency to a challenge. Two tells everybody the last team to survive will win. Two’s voice breaks up on Just Not’s end, however. This causes Pillow believe the first team to have all its members die will win, and she goes out of her way to lead her team to victory. When Just Not are revived in the next episode, “Oneirophobe’s Nightmare”, they are told they lost. This absolutely crushes Pillow.

And here is what I believe proves my theory. Pillow admits to everybody there she thought killing people gave them good luck. Pillow’s entire world is crushed as not only are her teammates now terrified of her, she feels she’s lost her sense of purpose. She looks depressed every single time we see her in a group shot. This is because she’s now realizing nobody but her knew her intentions were pure during every murderous act she committed. 

Many fans simply think that Pillow stopped her murderous tendencies after “Outbreak at Stake”. They rely on Pillow’s actions in Power of Two solely. This makes sense, as her personality in Battle for BFDI was very understated and Black Hole seems to have confirmed that she acted the same way she did in Power of Two back in Battle for BFDI. I believe that Pillow only took up her psychopath tendencies after she conducted research on death and came to the conclusion it gave good luck. So, while she was still on Death P.A.C.T. and long enough to leave an impact on Black Hole and the rest of the team, but not the entire time. It couldn’t have been, considering the death prevention and selfless actions we see her take in early Battle for BFDI


Pillow was never anybody with any real malice behind her. She is and always was just an idiot trying to figure out the world around her. She made a bad theory and just had far too much confidence in the truth of both of them. The chain of events ties both personalities together. Pillow never had any bad intentions at any point. She simply wanted to give good luck out to others and had a little too much fun handing it out.