It's not the fact that Rendell wanted to open the black door and others went along with it. You shouldn't be playing around with soul parasite demons but metal you can use to craft your own magic key? It still not wise but that is a big prize and since you're safe so long as you don't look thru the doorway there are ways to make this risk minimal. I would assume his ancestor got more metal this way. However the way they went about was just so stupid. For a start they should have called it off the instant Duncan found about it instead of "Oh no, its ok. The 9 year old promised he wouldn't follow us down here after I told him it was a dangerous and exciting big kid thing" and dose the "where are you going?" "X dangerous place isn't for kids so you can't come" mistake ever actually happen? why would you specify where you are going when he doesn't know? Then for some reason they go with his set up.
HEY LET"S STAND DIRECTLY IN FRONT Of THE DOOR! It's not stated anywhere but I'm going to assume they aren't being completely stupid about this and you need someone standing in front of the door for the demons to come thru (I'm not sure they do but I'm being generous because if you don't this is even worse) however even if that's true this still a moronic way to go about it. I doubt Dodge would be to stop Rendell with one hand if he went for the door anyway. He is more likely to get pulled around and thru the door as well. If you need someone as bait why not blindfold the person you're using as bait and have them held in place either by tying them up or getting the shadows to hold them so they can't accidentally glance at the door and even if they do can't get to it? Why the hell would you give the person standing in front of the door who most likely to be hypnotised or possessed the shadow crown (which grants control over the shadow constructs) instead of giving it to someone not at risk so they can order the shadows to grab people and close the door if they hear something go wrong? The shadows can act semi independently so you could probably summon some and order them to do that automatically. If Rendell had gotten possessed (which seems to be an instant thing) he could have use the crown against them and they would all be screwed. Why are the others sitting off to the side uselessly rather than being look outs to make sure no one else comes down?
Naturally the little kid didn't stay out of it and looked through the door. Dodge goes to grab him and ends up glancing at the door as well in the process. He manages to get to the door and stick his hand thru it before Rendell wakes the hell up (with how much dialogue there was it not like there was no time to react) and gets the shadows (finally! you're actually using them for something) to grab him and close the door.
They weren't stupid enough to take Dodges word for it that he was fine and figured if he was possessed he would go for the key so make a trap for him although they did let him get all the way up to a sleeping Rendell and put an axe against his throat before grabbing him even though they really didn't need to let him get that close since him showing up with axe was evidence enough.
They don't want to kill him but they can't cure him so they opt to take all his memoires of them, the keys and the door out of his head and let him loose while they look for a better solution. They realise he still very dangerous like that so agree to keep keys on themselves for self defence (except Ellie who is his GF and still in a bit of denial). Well that's fine and dandy for them but what about everyone else who isn't aware Dodge is now a demon possessed psychopath? what if he went home and knifed his parents or flatmates or whatever? Not to mention he was before that point Rendells best mate, Ellie's boyfriend and they're all in the drama club together so I don't how they expected nobody to think it's weird that he now doesn't know who they are and mention this to him...which they do so he follows Ellie (that he was able to do this means they weren't keeping an eye on him properly either) and finds where they where they are keeping his memories. His memories were being held in the well-house guarded by the echo of Rendells dead mother who attempts to get Dodge to back off with threats. Ellie freaks out and pushes her out of the well-house which causes her to disappear (because echoes are banished if they leave thru the well-house door) and leaving her alone with him, argh at least she realised she screwed up when she did it.
I don't know what's stupider, the fact that Dodge gender bent himself to try and distract Cho with tits (although I think he just thought it would be funny) or that it worked and resulted in Cho's death. Death by unwanted boner!
At the end of the series Tyler shows he's inherited Rendells stupidity when he's uses the well-house to bring back an echo of Dodge. Like opening the black door I don't think that is a terrible idea in itself. It's been established that there is an afterlife and you remain possessed after death. Since he never manage to use the alpha key on Dodge to remove the demon before he got killed again and Dodge isn't a bad guy (just a stupid one) I can see why he would want to bring him back to free him. The problem is he dose it as stupidly as possible. He tells no one he is doing it and takes every key into the well-house with him on a key chain including the omega key (which opens the black door and is what Dodge has been after the entire series) and the anywhere key (which allow you turn a door into a portal to another door. Echoes can use it to circumvent the well-house door rule and this is how Dodge came back to cause trouble the first time around!) but he uses non of them for defence. He could have (once again) used the shadows to grab Dodge and hold him place, or maybe the music box to control him and he could have done this from outside the well-house. He could have at the very least used the Hercules key to make himself much stronger and more durable. If he really needed to fight Dodge without the aid of any keys for pride or drama or some shit he should have left them with Lindsey. Tyler is bigger than Dodge and demon possession doesn't give him any powers (he can sorta levitate due to be an echo but that seems to be it) but Dodge isn't a weakling. He is capable of snapping a persons neck, he won't hold back at all and he doesn't feel pain. It would have been almost poetic if he smashed Tylers head in and continued his plans.
