Dogma

This article is about the boss. For the item, see Dogma (Item).

**Dogma** is a boss added in *The Binding of Isaac: Repentance* and is the first boss of Home.

## Behavior

### Phase 1

In their first phase, Dogma is attached to a television. Damage can only be dealt to Dogma by damaging the television in the center of the room. Any attacks towards Dogma themself causes a shield to briefly appear and block the attack. Dogma moves slowly towards Isaac leaving a trail of damaging Static Creep and has a variety of attacks:

* Fires three consecutive radial bursts of 8  projectiles. If Isaac stands within the projectiles' auras for long enough, a  beam hits Isaac from above.
* Fires four consecutive bursts of projectiles in groups of 1, 2, 3, and 4 in each of the cardinal directions, with the overall pattern resembling a star.
	+ Occasionally after firing the 4th burst, Dogma greatly slows down all the projectiles mid-flight, leaving them to float around slowly for a moment before vanishing.
		- Dogma starts using this variant after losing around 60% of their HP, and performs it more frequently the lower their HP is.
* Fires 3 consecutive waves of 3 to 4 projectiles each in random directions. When these projectiles land, they create thin, harmless rays that point towards Isaac and become damaging lasers after a few seconds.
* Fires a static  beam that bends towards Isaac. This beam is always fired in the closest cardinal direction to Isaac and switches if Isaac moves closer to a different cardinal direction.

### Phase 2

After destroying the television, Dogma falls apart into a puddle of static, before rising out of it as an orb and growing two pairs of wings resembling a Seraph. During this phase, Dogma continues to chase Isaac between attacks but becomes vulnerable and has completely different attacks:

* Fires a spread of disorganized feather projectiles towards Isaac if he's to their left or right.
* Summons a ball of light overhead which creates 16 to 18 harmless rays of light that point outwards and spin around the ball in random directions. After a few seconds, the rays stop moving and become damaging thin beams, similar to the ones used by the Angels. This pattern is repeated three times, then Dogma throws it, firing one last wave of 8 wider beams in the cardinal and ordinal directions before dissipating.
	+ If the thrown ball of beams is slowed (by  for instance), the 8 beams fire before being properly aligned.
* Turns into a winged wheel resembling an Ophan and floats off-screen before charging back towards Isaac, continuing off-screen releasing a radial burst with three layers of feather projectiles with 12 feathers each near the end of the dash. They repeat this attack a total of 6 times.

As Dogma takes more and more damage during this phase, their Seraph form will occasionally flicker into various other forms; these include Isaac's head, a lamb's skull with a serpent in its eye, a fly, and a troll face with horns. This is a purely visual effect.

When Dogma's HP reaches zero for the second time, they are destroyed as the whole screen fades to white before turning off like an old TV. Then Isaac is automatically given  as the cutscene that introduces The Beast is played.

## Gallery

* Dogma in-game.
* Dogma's television.
* Dogma in their second phase.
* Dogma resembling an Ophan.
* The sprites that Dogma's second form can briefly transform into while at low health.
* Early concept sketches of Home, including Dogma's boss arena for Home along with Min-Min.
* Early concept sketches of Dogma themself and their boss arenas for Home. Edmund McMillen noted that Dogma was initially intended to be a demonic Isaac.
* One of dogma's cards in the card game, comedically nicknamed “Christian broadcasts” in reference to the intro sequence.

## Audio

Audio for the cutscene preceding Dogma's fight.

Dogma shrieking upon emerging from the television.

The reading of Psalm 23: 1-6 that can be heard over the course of Dogma's first phase.

Televangelists heard throughout Dogma's second phase.

The sound of Dogma's  laser.

One of the sounds that Dogma emits while firing  tears.

The sound of Dogma's television breaking.

Dogma transitioning into their second phase.

Dogma preparing to fire light beams.

Dogma spraying a barrage of feathers.

Dogma transforming and preparing to perform the spin attack.

The noise Dogma makes upon defeat.

Audio that plays after defeating Dogma.

## Damage Scaling

Damage scaling is an unclear mechanic introduced by Nicalis in *The Binding of Isaac: Afterbirth* to provide a more challenging experience to the players, enabling *some* enemies to retaliate against high damage attacks by deploying an "armor" of a sort to greatly reduce the amount of damage taken. Further details and an in-depth explanation may be found here.

## Notes

* After the beginning cutscene, Dogma appears very close to Isaac, making it easy to immediately take damage.
* Having a high speed is highly recommended for the second phase, as the charge attack can be almost unavoidable with low speed.
* makes the second phase more difficult by reducing the space between feathers during Dogma's charging attack while not slowing Dogma themself. It is not recommended for this fight.
* As the Dogma room is not counted as a Boss room, effects like  will not occur in this fight.
* If Isaac has triggered the beginning cutscene, re-entering the room will trigger the Dogma fight immediately.
* Before beginning the fight, going out and back into the living-room repeatedly while holding  guarantees to get the best possible effect sooner or later, which can greatly help during the fight.
* will prevent Isaac from being affected by Dogma's  aura projectile attack in their first phase.
* Any effect that lasts for one room won't remain after the fight and won't carry over to the Ultra Harbingers and The Beast fight.

## Trivia

* A "dogma" is most commonly defined as "A set of rules, beliefs, or opinions laid down by a group, the members of which unquestionably follow".
	+ Dogma's portrayal as a being made of static tied to a television heavily implies that they represent the "Christian broadcasts" that Isaac's mother watches. This is further evidenced by the level transition that plays, showing Isaac watching the broadcasts with his mother.
	+ Dogma could be interpreted as the Second Beast: The Beast from the Earth. A popular interpretation of this beast is the "False Prophet".
	+ The reason why Dogma may have a brimstone attack is the fact that "fire and brimstone" is a term referring to the style of Christian preaching that uses vivid descriptions of judgment and eternal damnation to encourage repentance, which is heavily implied to be what Isaac's Mom follows.
* Dogma's theme is called "Living in the Light", and is taken directly from one of the many Bible quotes heard during the fight's second phase.
	+ The vocals in "Living in the Light" are performed by Matthias Bossi and Jon Evans.
	+ The OST version of "Living in the Light" plays unique vocals before playing the vocals from the in-game version.
	+ The composition of the "Living in the Light" is very similar to Matricide, and shares motifs with tracks Genesis 22:10 and Crusade.
	+ The vocals from "Living in the Light" can also be heard in the cutscene that plays prior to fighting The Beast.

* The majority of Dogma's sprites are actually blue in the files.
	+ This is because the blue is used to indicate areas that the game should apply the static effect to. This was likely done to avoid making the sprite file animated, instead simply letting the game apply the effect to designated areas when the time comes to use them. This also results in the static effect being randomized, instead of following a repeating pattern. This same trick is also what the  item uses.

* During Dogma's first phase, a quiet recording of Psalm 23:1-4 can be heard. At the beginning of most of Dogma's attacks, this recording is temporarily made much louder.
* Dogma is one of the two bosses that have a unique health bar, the other one being Great Gideon.
* Dogma is the only boss to have a unique level transition and a unique Versus screen sound.
* If the player uses  to magnetize Dogma or their TV, the respective sprite will become fuzzy, as if they're having a signal error.
	+ will also distort Dogma's sprite while the beam of light is charging.
	+ The same can be accomplished with .
* Curiously enough, despite being a TV during the 1st phase, it's not immune to any of the status effects. One could even say it signifying how Dogmatic Presence in Isaac's life is something more than an inanimate object to him.
* If a player defeats Dogma but dies during the Beast fight on the first time fighting Dogma, a unique save file state will appear, showing a Cross similar to the one in the cutscene between the two bosses.
* Dogma has two unused attacks in the games files. They would have summoned Angelic Babies and a Blackhole.
* During the *Repentance* DLC's early development, Isaac was meant to fight a demonic doppleganger of himself, who would grow larger and stronger from every hit. This boss was scrapped and replaced by Dogma.
* When at lower health in their second form, Dogma will transform into four random images for split seconds: Goat skull with a snake, a housefly, Isaac's face, and a troll face. Each image shown represents one of the 4 horsemen.
* Ridiculon, the composers of Dogma's theme, has stated that one of Dogma's quote can both be heard as "anger" and "angel" of God.
* Edmund McMillen noted that Dogma, along with the Tainted Characters and The Beast sequence, were initially reserved for a possible Isaac sequel.

## References

1. ↑ https://twitter.com/edmundmcmillen/status/1442954444115636228