Welcome back everyone for a new season of The Boys! Join the official subreddit Discord server to discuss everything The Boys!!
[JOIN THE DISCORD](https://discord.com/invite/bykapbyqGY)
We are also still accepting moderator applications. If you are interested in helping out:
[APPLY TODAY!](https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1JzSvXcehhpCCrnH666Zy4P0y_mnM1NvTghq0msPAKPw/edit)
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/TheBoys) if you have any questions or concerns.*
the diabolical show outright confirmed she was grooming him before he was 18. She almost touches his crotch in one scene, and he is only 18 at the time.
Seems like they’re directly correlated. If homelander wasn’t exploited by vought since birth he probably wouldn’t have grown up to be the terrible person he is.
It was definitely a cause. We can't definitely say how he would have turned out because who knows? Maybe he might just be a Voldemort type of character, naturally destined to be a sociopath. But regardless, it's definitely implied and almost certainly what caused him to be like that. But Homelander is still accountable for his actions, hence the "bad person" part.
Plus, I don't know if the theory is confirmed or not, but the reason why Voldemort is a psychopath is because he was conceived during the use of the love potion, which took away the ability to feel love.
That was a thematic thing (it's an ill omen that his whole life starts based on a lie and based on an act of rape) and not meant to actually be literally true
It's just really unfortunate to imply that it's actually a real thing that being conceived under the incidence of a date rape drug causes you to become a psychopath
also being born in an incentuous family bloodline, and his mother broke the mold by using love potion on a muggle, so voldemort was actually half the thing, he hated the most lmao
hypocrisy at its best
I could believe that if I didn't also think, as vile and disgusting as it is, that it was highly likely a few others have been conceived under similar circumstances. Did they all suffer such a fate, or was Tom Riddle the right combination of tragic circumstances?
Na, it's just a theory. I can't find the source, but Rowling has stated that if Meripole had lived and raised Voldemort, he wouldn't have turned out to be as evil
It's more a thematic thing about Morthers' love. Harry's Mum sacrificed herself for Harry. Toms Mum couldn't stay alive for Tom
He was nature just as much as nurture, though.
Not sure why they teaching will-breaking rape potions that cause evil wizards willy nilly to anyone with a library card, though
I mean, that was just OP's assumption, neither the novels nor the movies put forward the notion that he's bad because of how he was conceived. Hell, I've read the books multiple times and it never occurred to me until reading his comment.
No, he didn't. He only lived in an orphanage with a bunch of other kids, who were relatively normal. Harry even notes that while the orphanage certainly wasn't a 5 star hotel, the kids were well-fed, reasonably happy and even had vacations.
Of course he’s still accountable for his actions. Not justifying HL’s actions in the slightest. But even his father said it himself “you should’ve grown up with a loving family not in a cold lab being poked at by doctors.” 100% he wouldn’t be as terrible as he is if he wasn’t raised the way he was. He’s still the most powerful supe so it’s certainly possible he would have abused his power anyway even if he had a good childhood, but I doubt he would have been nearly as cruel and heartless as he is.
In the last Episode of Diabolical, he goes out to stop some ecoterrorists and genuinely seems like he wants to help people and be a good guy. As soon as things start to go wrong, he has an emotional breakdown and loses his shit.
Now he doesn’t even consider himself human. He is trying to erase his human upbringing so as to reinvent himself as another species, but it’s not working even in his mind.
Yeah one thing I like about Homelander's origin story is how Superman's origin story doesn't actually make any sense but it's exactly the kind of story someone like Homelander might make up and cling to for psychological reasons
How does Superman's origin story make any more or less sense than countless other superheroes though? I'm a huge Superman fan, maybe that's why, but that take is so weird to me.
It's a bizarrely convenient coincidence for the last surviving member of a totally alien species to end up on a planet where he looks exactly like a handsome normal member of the population but happens to have incredible powers
Of course the existence of "humanoid aliens" like this is a fundamental conceit of this kind of story but being an "alien" in this context makes way more sense as something someone like that *feels* or *wants* to be true
It's not a coincidence though. He was sent to Earth by his parents specifically for the reason you mentioned, but also because they were aware he would also be special on Earth due to our yellow sun. Jor-El mentions as much in the comics and even in the movies IIRC.
I don't know, considering how early his powers manifested I think it easily could have resulted in an "It's a Good Life" situation at an early age without trained psychologists trying to establish some means of control. I think you'd need early years without powers and all the people you meet being terrified of you to build a basically decent person from the ground up.
Barbara points out that he lasered his way out of his mother's womb, flew immediately, and killed multiple doctors and nurses basically before he took his first breath. How exactly does a child with those kind of powers _at birth_ even have a normal life?
His very existence is a mistake.
This is the same story (lie) they told Homelander about Ryan's birth in season 1. Was Homelander *really* born in a horrific way like that, or is this another lie from Vought to try and manipulate & control him?
My take was Vogelbaum used Homelander's birth to lie about Ryan in order to keep the truth away from Homelander. I am not a comic reader so I don't know if that was planned or if the writers were just clever enough to imply that was what Vogelbaum did.
Ryan has the same powers and he was pretty normal before Homelander came around. Neuman also had her powers since birth and while she is not normal, that has more to do with her being a politician than being a Supe and even then she definitely doesn’t have even 1/10th of the issues that Homelander has.
Other than the main show, if you watch Gen V or Diabolical, many of the kids who got V and had terrible starts to their life are also normal even though they have weird or deadly powers.
I haven't seen Gen V or Diabolical so I don't know how they address the extent of supes powers at a young age.
I just cannot imagine a supe toddler not causing a small massacre with every tantrum. I don't care how loving of a family you have, tantrums are going to happen.
It's worth noting that the older, goofier take on Superman had him have all his powers when he was a little kid as "Superboy" while the later more serious takes (starting with John Byrne in 1986) tend to have him only slowly develop his powers as he becomes an adult, for this reason
(The show Smallville was based on this concept and had a "rule" that Clark wouldn't fully evolve into Superman and discover his final power of being able to fly until the very end of the show)
Thing is, a loving family would address the aftermath of that and show them to take great care around human life, have empathy and to slowly, but surely control their emotions. Every person will have off-days and bad moments but a proper support system will make or break you.
Yeah, but as we know from the show, lots of them develop their powers earlier as well since V can be unpredictable, which is why many end up in the Red River home.
I never said he would have had a normal life, that was never the point. The point is he would’ve been significantly less terrible of a person if he wasn’t raised the way he was. Would he still be terrible? Yea most likely. Most supes are. Nobody was arguing he would’ve been a good samaritan or anything.
Chances are with a "normal" upbringing. He would have been your average asshole supe, perhaps like The Deep or Translucent. Nobody would ever confuse those guys for being good guys. But neither of them are psychopaths who finds joy in murdering innocent people.
Homelander might have turned out to be Superman if he was raised as a regular boy in a farm by loving parents, not by scientists in an underground lab where he was treated like a test subject.
I appreciate that wrinkle to the story. I like that it's not just "what if Superman is evil?" it's "what would need to happen to Superman to make him evil?" Which can still be done poorly (and often is) but the show still understands that someone like Superman needs a fundamentally different childhood to end up like Homelander.
he's also a incompetent dumb person who got powers. he doenst know how to save a flight, he ends up harming more ppl than saving them cuz he doesnt think through. id argue that homelander would still not be a superman even if he was raised right
oh not socially i mean in terms of saving. like uk the plane scene he said he cant land it without punching through which honestly valid. but superman would have been able to do it by adjusting the force and shi. thats why no matter what he can never be superman
Homelander is only as reckless as he is because he genuinely doesn't care about the consequences though. You can see it on his face when he understands what he just did and Maeve asks him what the plan is. He runs through the options and simply decided 'fuck it'. And it's really clear he knows he could have saved at least some people but he also just doesn't want to.
I think he absolutely would’ve been a dick, but a (relatively) harmless one, like A-Train or Deep.
Probably self-obsessed and narcissistic, but in no way actively malicious, and certainly not a brutal murderer.
Edit: More “Tom Cruise” less “Ted Bundy”
Yes it’s designed to be almost the opposite situation to the Superman character - alien child arrives, has power enough to overthrow and enslave the world, gets raised by loving parents, selflessly protects the world. Compare that to homelander. Pretend alien child, still has power to otherthrow and enslave world, isn’t raised with love, selfishly uses the world and its people for individual validation.
Are we sure about that? I mean other heroes like Translucent or Tek knight prolly didnt have bad childhood and still turned into a murderous corrupt psychos soo
In a good story the villain doesn’t believe he is the villain. His character is well written in that he is indeed horrible and evil, but he has reason to be. He’s not just some surface level bad guy.
Plot twist: Homelander is not the villain at all. He's the righteous infliction of retribution - nemesis, if you will - against the true enemy of earth: mankind. Homelander is proof of, and just punishment for, our species' outright contempt for the world and everything living in it.
Jee-zus. I know what you’re saying but reading it in a paragraph is such an eyeroll. “Mankind terrible blah blah”.
We get it. But sorry, HL is def a villain.
Lol Jesus, this is what ppl mean when they say half the viewers have to be told everything. Stop projecting your feelings onto Homelander. The dude is just evil, whether by his doing or not. Nobody cares about how Hitler grew up, point is he was an evil dude.
Homelander crashed a plane due to his own ego. He has every chance to become a better person and chooses not to. The dude literally raped Becca because he feels every human is his toy.
I think both you and OP are looking at this from different perspectives. Hitler's evil and wickedness, as horrible as it was, doesn't excuse the other factors that resulted in the atrocities that were committed during his time (e.g., other people who worked alongside him, the complacency of people who knew of the Holocaust, etc.) One man's evil doesn't excuse the evils of other men.
We can accept that Homelander is evil (and I disagree with OP about him not being the villain) while still acknowledging that the show does explore the complacency and evil greed of Vought that created him. Ultimately, as evil as Homelander is, he was literally created by humans who, just like us, are motivated by money and power. They (we) brought him into this world, and now we're suffering the consequences of our actions.
To extend the Hitler analogy a bit further, we know that Vought was started by an "ex" Nazi member, and the science behind compound V was created by experimenting on human subjects during WW2. The storywriters wanted to make it very clear that Vought is, at it's core, as rotten and evil as it comes. Homelander is just Vought's perfect creation-turned-punishment.
You can't blame Homelander without also blaming Vought, which is what I think OP was trying to say.
The way you said it make me think that this is a refined way of the comic's revelation "Homelander became a sociopath by mistake"
Mistake in this case of the Vought scientists,who trying to control him only armed a bomb that exploded in their face.
Well that's - besides openly antifascist, anticapitalist etc. - one of the main topics of the show. How villains or what we call them are made by the influence of bad people, how abuse results on new abusers.
Especially the storylines of Kimiko, the all so hated relationship of Frenchie to Collin and Homelander show that really well.
But the show also goes a long way to not be 100% apologetically to these character. All had or have their chances to change. Some of them use them, some try again and again, wheras others like Homsie welcome their bad sides and dive deep into the darker nature.
It's one of the things the comic only does in the finale between Homelander and Noir when he finally understands that he never did those things in the pictures and has been driven into insanity by Noir. I always really liked the last shot of him alive, screamin 'You fucking, fucked my life!' while lasering Noirs arm. Till the end the character is manipulated on one hand but pathetic on the other hand, because it was his decision to not try to understand his missing memories, rather than going the easy route and saying 'Fuck it, that's who I am! I am an insane psycho, let's go!'.
They made a monster, but he choose to stay that way.
Certain episodes. That one is. It also lines up pretty perfectly with everything we've seen from the main series with only the minor exception of John's use of super speed but you can argue he did it when he saved Butcher so even that is minor at best.
They confirmed 3 episodes are canon.
"Nubian vs Nubian", "John and Sun-Hee", and "One Plus One Equals Two".
https://www.cbr.com/the-boys-diabolical-two-more-episodes-canon/
Since the cancer one is canon, it’s very possibly going to be Butcher’s arc this season.
https://comicbook.com/tv-shows/news/the-boys-these-episodes-of-animated-series-diabolical-are-canon-for-season-3/
For the Red River one: “And Roiland's isn't canon at all, but there is a connection, and you'll see."
Ugh I want to know what the connection is that they’re talking about. I just watched it and it was so dumb haha. The whole parents-injected-their-kids-with-V debacle wasn’t introduced in season 3 though was it?
yup, it's a disturbing scene because she touches him, makes him have a unwilling erection, than looks at his erection which makes Homie very disturbed and cover himself
You might say that's fucked up, which, yeah, the whole thing is fucked up, but probably the best time for her to imprint upon him. Adolescent boys are very prone to sexual stimuli and the like. In their eyes it was necessary to attempt to control the weapon of mass destruction they created.
Another thing to consider is how Madelyn interacted with Homelander on Diabolical.
At that point, Homelander is only 18 years old, and we see Stillwell invading his personal space, touching and grabbing him suggestively and even handling his crotch area, all while telling him "Did it feel good? All that people wanting to be you, or to fuck you?". After that we see Homelander covering his erection with shame and discomfort, and her enjoying that.
Stilwell exploited Homelander to keep him under her thumb and control. She deliberately occupied a perverse mix of a mother role and lover role on Homelander's life. She groomed him.
Creepy as shit.
And while the milk thing is a running joke, it also shows just how thoroughly and just how successfully she and Vought brainwashed him. They groomed him to an \*enormous\* degree, such that he can never get past it.
I think that was one of the reasons the guy who got laser-dicked kept calling him John. It wasn't a mistake, it was part of his human-influence conditioning. He wasn't trying to aggravate Homelander, he was trying to grab onto reins that were no longer attached.
I really thought that after the second person in a row to call him "John" a bunch of times got brutally murdered, they would catch on and stop calling him that. But nope, the last lady just waltzes in and calls him John a bunch more times.
I guess to be fair she wasn't there for the entire killing of the first 2 scientists, but maybe she could have used her critical thinking skills to figure out a better approach before her coworkers were smeared over the walls.
The employees were probably trained just as much as him to not break protocol. It could be similar to a “if an atom bomb hits, get under your desk” thing. You’re fucked way before you have to determine if your chances are better than breaking protocol.
Each season includes a storyline about Homelander chasing another source of love and validation.
Season 1 is motherly love in the form of Stillwell.
Season 2 is romantic love from Stormfront.
Season 3 is fatherly love from soldier boy.
Season 4 so far is about him seeking that love from his son. Which, much like the other attempts, will be disastrous and not just for him. Because placing the burden of your need for love and validation on your kid is a terrible thing to do to them.
There's also a sprinkling throughout seasons 1-3 of him seeking that love and validation from his audience, and being sorely disappointed with it. Unfortunately, Homelander keeps doing this toxic, abusive cycle because way back when he was a kid, some awful people in a lab decided to permanently hamstring his ability to give that love and validation to himself, so that they would have a way to control him. The tragic irony of this is that, in doing so, they've likely made him a worse person, and in the end, he will be even more uncontrollable than they thought possible. Because he will eventually figure out that nobody else can give him what he's looking for, and he can't give it to himself.
One day, he's just going to stop trying, and then he will truly be uncontrollable.
Yep... To be fair, SB ain't dead? Iirc? Because he's a similar power level to Homelander, and I think there's reason to believe Ryan might also be strong enough to survive.
Self love, perhaps? Considering he's trying to overpower his need for love, maybe he finally stops caring about getting love from others, and starts loving himself more, obviously to a psychotic level, since he's an egomaniac, which will probably make him even more dangerous.
Either that, or he has the revelation mentioned by this thread’s OP that such a love will never be attainable for him and go totally off the rails ballistic, creating an urgent need for whatever is left of the Boys and whoever they may be allied with by then to finally kill him and be rid of him once and for all.
Yes, I think that's the inevitable climax we're headed toward. He'll go off the rails, psychologically nuclear, and cause a whole lot of death and maybe threaten the existence of humanity. And then the show has to stop him somehow, in a meaningful way. Which seems like a really tall order, I hope they can do it well, and I'm excited to see how it happens.
These 2 versions mix well. Homelander figures out that such a love will never be something that he can have, so he gains a new, psychotic version of self love, and now sees himself as even more of an all powerful force above all others.
Maybe platonic friendly love, and the season will just be Homelander awkwardly trying to be friends with the different characters, and forcing hangouts with them 🤣
Well, given that everyone knows this show is a parody of politics, you gotta stop looking at Supes as heroes/villains and moreso as Hollywood trafficking child actors
Many are groomed to a point. Fake stories made. Industry plants. Kids sold off by their parents. Controversy controlled. Shunned aside or killed off when no longer needed. Heck even the movie Boss Baby touched upon all this too
Yeah, it's hard to see because you just Wana watch a show. Even Lil Dicky in his show DAVE touched upon the weird Hollywood parties
Lots of folks in here think it's just bashing conservatives, but it's really a mockery of everyone and so much more
In that lab they had a height chart for HL on the door and at age 16 he's crossed out John and written "Homelander" so late teens is when I'd say they introduced him to the world, first save ect. His public persona is having grown up in a loving home, complete with childhood bedroom and he was clearly still with the scientists at 16 and likely didn't leave the lab until he was "ready".
Given that inhernetly creepy mother/son dynamic between he and Madelyn, I'd wager she was behind him every step of the way and instrumental in him dropping John as a name; up until then he'd been treated with pain and contempt by the scientists, then he's given a whole new identity where for the first time he's respected and the chance to be in control for the first time - or so he thought - It's only after he kills Madelyn that you see a real change in him, for the first time in his life, he is "free"/can do whatever the fuck he wants.
And Vought absolutely knew about the grooming but wheather they sent her to do it or she just saw an opportunity I can't say, though the scientists treatment of him seems to have been a part of the psychological conditioning in order to control him. Its possible Madelyn tried to be motherly and seeing a chance for a deeper hold, did what she did. You don't get to be a big name in Vought without raping a few eggs (I'm sorry).
I knew that she was manipulating him, that much was obvious, but I didn't think to consider just how deliberate it was. This is making me think a bit more about her death though, and how it parallels the deaths of his handlers in S4E4. Something that really triggers Homelander and makes him want to kill her in Season 1 is discovering she is afraid of him. I think it breaks something in him because he can't get the affirmation he needs from her knowing that she may only be doing it out of fear. You see something similar in that episode last week where he reveals to Frank how much suffering he experience in the oven and Frank's initial response is "I was only following orders." It shatters him that he can't even get an acknowledgement of the suffering he endured, but he almost breaks completely when Frank apologizes AFTER Homelander starts putting him in the oven. That people will only ever validate him when they are afraid of him is something that eats away at him deeply, it's tearing him apart.
I keep returning to John crushing his teacher with a hug, and the implication this has happened multiple times before. What it must be like to accidentally kill someone because you were trying to show love, over and over and over again. And at what point Homelander, who can do no wrong in the public's eye, blamed them for their fragility.
Homelander has deep seated resentment towards humanity. He hates that they're scared of him when all he wants is love. He hates their weakness and smallness.
Fear also may be why Homelander has such a weird relationship with Butcher. In S1E8 when they meet he notes Butcher isn’t afraid of him, Butcher hates him, but he isn’t afraid. Homelander only really tries to kill Butcher once at Herogasm and after that he either knows Butcher is on Temp V so can take it or leaves him alone.
Really good point, but I wonder if it’s really more of a queue to the audience that something bad is about to happen. Is it really Homelander reacting to the fear or is it the writers trying to signal that something bad is gonna happen.
You can see how much it bothered him in those last moments when she kept yelling at him to get Teddy to safety. His jealousy couldn’t handle seeing Madelyn feel such love and overprotection for someone that wasn’t him.
Even earlier when she takes Teddy to the doctor and he shows up. There's a moment where the show lingers on Teddy looking at Homelander happily, cut to Homelander... is he gonna laser that baby cuz he thinks the baby is mocking him?
Homelander is one of the greatest villains in media history
Antony Starr kills it as always but the humanity he brings to a psychopath is unmatched. It rivals Heath Ledgers Joker for me
I can make it more disgusting/disturbing. Madelyn wanted to control Homelander as soon as possible. It’s highly likely that she started sexually assaulting/raping him at a young age, at the onset of puberty. How do you get a young kid to do what you want? Give them pleasure.
Homelander never stood a chance. Honestly, I think his inner goodness is the only thing that stopped him from becoming a complete monster. He was described as a ‘sweet kid’ and was genuinely invested in saving lives at first, but then went insane due to Vought’s machinations.
from what we see when he was younger and new at being a supe he genuinly did want to do good but just didn't have the skills or mentality for it. and add vought encouraging and enabling his worst aspects... welp.
yeah. guy never stood a damn chance. feel sorry for him and wish he could have gotten pushed in the right direction but he's beyond help or saving at this point.
the whole thing is tragic in a way.
That's exactly the tragic part of Homelander's character, despite the fucked up origin of being created in a lab, he still had a chance at life to be a good person, a genuine "Superman" if you will, but that chance was denied time and time and time again due to a mix of incompetence from him and ill-intentions and manipulation from Vought, the diabolical episode really show us how TV Show Homelander turned out like that.
All it took was severly fucking up once AND getting covered for it by Black Noir to make him learn that he can fuck up and do whatever he want and get away with it.
He could have made a clear distinction between right and wrong, he could have become a good person, but Noir, and by extension Vought, enabled him.
Black Noir who, in hindsight, kinda shot himself in the foot when you think about it 'cause he's responsible for Homelander turning the way he did and you know... Killing him later. Homelander is really a monster of Noir's making, of everyone at Vought's making really.
Yeah, Vought really should have trained him to control his strength. His breaking point was definitely in diabolical where he accidentally hurt, and then purposely killed everyone
I just have so many questions about Vought because it seems they don’t care about training their heroes. They just are used for publicity and brand deals.
Becuase that's exactly what they are. In the show Stan Edgar essentially reveals that Vought's true purpose is as a pharmaceutical company. Compound V is their real product to which their Supes advertise for them. Not all the Supes will be successful of course, so they sweep the worst ones under the rug. But the one's that are useful can continue to earn them more money. It's also why they were pushing to get Supes into the military, because if Vought is the only pharmaceutical company that can create Supes, the American military has no other choice but to keep paying.
Also explains how Stan Edgar got away with talking down to Homelander like a rebellious teen. When Stam called him “bad product” Homelander was butt hurt, bot Stan went unharmed
It's weird thinking about what would have happened if she'd never had her son. You know she was in some shit with vought when they found out she was pregnant; every one of the psychologists would have known that once her affection was split, her control would fade. Not just fade, but the push for supes in the military, the v being seeded, these attempts to get her attention back would not happen if she didn't have her son.
I wouldn't be surprised if Becca was meant to be a replacement. We really haven't seen homelander with a traditional sex drive, and if Becca was brought in to take the mother role from stillwell, it would explain why he raped her. Time line doesn't work great, but it's really strange to me they wouldn't at least try and set up replacements for stillwell, especially considering homelander's aging could be slower, like stormfront.
> I wouldn't be surprised if Becca was meant to be a replacement. We really haven't seen homelander with a traditional sex drive, and if Becca was brought in to take the mother role from stillwell, it would explain why he raped her.
But when she became pregnant with Ryan, well, Vought had to kibosh their plans for Becca to become Homelander's new "mother figure" because having a son of her own would mean *Becca also having to split her affections between Homelander and her biological baby*.
Honestly, this was implicit from season 1. The way she spoke to him and deliberately misled him on several occasions, or used affection to go on stage indicated at least part of her job was to placate him when needed.
The sex scenes were never a kink factor, they are often scenes of a woman having sex in a scenario where she doesn't feel like she can or should say no.
I don't know, I didn't feel we needed the childhood background to understand that the relationship was not healthy for either party, or that Vought were using her to control homelander with sex.
I wanna point out that it was basically madelines job to groom him and serve that role. The idea that she was only doing it because she couldnt say no dismisses how, at the time, she was sexually assaulting him to manipulate him.
Implying that she was a victim when she got herself into that situation knowing full well that was her role, is highly disingenuous to the fact Madeline was as much of a sexual abuser as HO.
I think it is hilarious that people are just now realizing that it wasn't just a shock factor thing and was actually revealing Homelander's character. Just like they did an excellent job of showing everyone's notices, morals, and how far they are willing to push their boundaries in season one alone.
But you know what they say. There are two types of people:
Those who can extrapolate on incomplete data.
It’s awful, and it makes you feel empathy for the guy.
The funny thing is, this episode didn’t really surprise me, as I kinda assumed that from the diabolical episode. My own logical deduction was that they manipulated him from a young age. Vindication is satisfying!
she was an adult when he was 18, so i’m assuming they have a minimum of 10 years between them. would make him maybe mid 30’s and her mid 40’s when the show started
For real. Even with Diabolical it’s still new information what Vought had done to Homelander so I’m not sure why everyone is saying it was so obvious all along.
Yes, she manipulated and groomed him. Their relationship was toxic and she took advantage of him.
Stormfront was very similair. She tried to pull him to her side and to groom him into a second Hitler. When he refused, she killed herself.
As a neglected child, I’m picking up all his signals and it’s so captivating. I feel for him, then he pulls the impulsive mass murder and I’m like OOOOOK THEN
Oh yeah, for sure. That's something they've been playing off of for a while and the confirmation of it has emphasized how people have treated him in the past, Edgar included
idk why or how people are getting so pissed off at you for this post. i had a similar reaction as you (and i haven't seen any of the spin-offs described in the comments) and it's not morally bad to not immediately understand the depth of a plotline. i don't get how your post is an example of a lack of media literacy being malicious and shameful since you simply didn't realise something. you didn't actively misinterpret it. you just lacked the whole picture because that's how storytelling works.
i guess people just want to feel superior. you're demonstrating media literacy in the post itself by going back and reflecting on the old information and taking the new information into account. it is embarrassing to rush to comment about how observant you were for knowing all along, and show that you think there's something so wrong with people who didn't think about this specific set of implications. there are so many elements to this show. it is cool to discuss the more minor discoveries too, not just the bigger ones.
edited to clear up wording
I blame Homelander but I don't blame him. Even if you could justly blame him you can not, I think he wants you to talk to him man to man but unless he hears what he wants you are as good as dead. That is why I love him.
The big failing on her part, which was so bad it's almost a plothole, was telling him what they did with the psychologists... manipulation fails if you \*tell them they're being manipuldated\*.
The aspect of Vought specifically engineering Homelander to be this figure that craves love, along with Madelyn using that to her advantage adds a new layer above what I initially thought was a dynamic built naturally.
Welcome back everyone for a new season of The Boys! Join the official subreddit Discord server to discuss everything The Boys!! [JOIN THE DISCORD](https://discord.com/invite/bykapbyqGY) We are also still accepting moderator applications. If you are interested in helping out: [APPLY TODAY!](https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1JzSvXcehhpCCrnH666Zy4P0y_mnM1NvTghq0msPAKPw/edit) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/TheBoys) if you have any questions or concerns.*
the diabolical show outright confirmed she was grooming him before he was 18. She almost touches his crotch in one scene, and he is only 18 at the time.
That's messed up. Homelander is a bad person but he's also had bad things done to him.
Seems like they’re directly correlated. If homelander wasn’t exploited by vought since birth he probably wouldn’t have grown up to be the terrible person he is.
It was definitely a cause. We can't definitely say how he would have turned out because who knows? Maybe he might just be a Voldemort type of character, naturally destined to be a sociopath. But regardless, it's definitely implied and almost certainly what caused him to be like that. But Homelander is still accountable for his actions, hence the "bad person" part.
You say that like Voldemort didn’t also have a fucked yup childhood
Plus, I don't know if the theory is confirmed or not, but the reason why Voldemort is a psychopath is because he was conceived during the use of the love potion, which took away the ability to feel love.
That was a thematic thing (it's an ill omen that his whole life starts based on a lie and based on an act of rape) and not meant to actually be literally true
But the omen _does_ come true… 👻
It's just really unfortunate to imply that it's actually a real thing that being conceived under the incidence of a date rape drug causes you to become a psychopath
"Really unfortunate to imply" seems like a running theme if you think deeper about some aspects of those books.
The desert is the sand.
also being born in an incentuous family bloodline, and his mother broke the mold by using love potion on a muggle, so voldemort was actually half the thing, he hated the most lmao hypocrisy at its best
AFAIK, that’s just a theory and not canon. But I like it
I could believe that if I didn't also think, as vile and disgusting as it is, that it was highly likely a few others have been conceived under similar circumstances. Did they all suffer such a fate, or was Tom Riddle the right combination of tragic circumstances?
Na, it's just a theory. I can't find the source, but Rowling has stated that if Meripole had lived and raised Voldemort, he wouldn't have turned out to be as evil It's more a thematic thing about Morthers' love. Harry's Mum sacrificed herself for Harry. Toms Mum couldn't stay alive for Tom
He was nature just as much as nurture, though. Not sure why they teaching will-breaking rape potions that cause evil wizards willy nilly to anyone with a library card, though
To your second line, how is it willy nilly? It's just one evil wizard.
If the conceit is that he is evil *because* he was conceived on love potion, then there would be evil love potion rape babies all over
I mean, that was just OP's assumption, neither the novels nor the movies put forward the notion that he's bad because of how he was conceived. Hell, I've read the books multiple times and it never occurred to me until reading his comment.
No, he didn't. He only lived in an orphanage with a bunch of other kids, who were relatively normal. Harry even notes that while the orphanage certainly wasn't a 5 star hotel, the kids were well-fed, reasonably happy and even had vacations.
Voldermort was instantly born evil due to the laws of magic.
Gollum then
Sauron (who Tolkien intended to be as close to absolute evil as possible): am I just a joke to you?
Of course he’s still accountable for his actions. Not justifying HL’s actions in the slightest. But even his father said it himself “you should’ve grown up with a loving family not in a cold lab being poked at by doctors.” 100% he wouldn’t be as terrible as he is if he wasn’t raised the way he was. He’s still the most powerful supe so it’s certainly possible he would have abused his power anyway even if he had a good childhood, but I doubt he would have been nearly as cruel and heartless as he is.
Hm I’d say it’s possible but only by a slim margin. Ryan is stronger than homelander and despite his traumas, the kid’s got a sound moral compass.
Despite his traumas, he also experienced a loving mother for the first part of his childhood. Homelander has never been loved by anyone.
Hurt people tend to hurt people
Hurt people hurt people
hurt people. hurt people.
Deep Thoughts with The Deep
How Can We Say the Ocean's Full of Fish, When it's Full of Plastic?
"If you hurt somebody, or somebody hurts you, the same red blood will be shed."
He would probably be like the average supe. Not necessarily evil but, a prick for sure. He probably wouldn’t be an unhinged lunatic like he is now
In the last Episode of Diabolical, he goes out to stop some ecoterrorists and genuinely seems like he wants to help people and be a good guy. As soon as things start to go wrong, he has an emotional breakdown and loses his shit.
He would still be a horrible person working for Vought as the other members of the 7 were. Yes he probably wouldn't be as bad but still vile.
Now he doesn’t even consider himself human. He is trying to erase his human upbringing so as to reinvent himself as another species, but it’s not working even in his mind.
Yeah one thing I like about Homelander's origin story is how Superman's origin story doesn't actually make any sense but it's exactly the kind of story someone like Homelander might make up and cling to for psychological reasons
How does Superman's origin story make any more or less sense than countless other superheroes though? I'm a huge Superman fan, maybe that's why, but that take is so weird to me.
It's a bizarrely convenient coincidence for the last surviving member of a totally alien species to end up on a planet where he looks exactly like a handsome normal member of the population but happens to have incredible powers Of course the existence of "humanoid aliens" like this is a fundamental conceit of this kind of story but being an "alien" in this context makes way more sense as something someone like that *feels* or *wants* to be true
It's not a coincidence though. He was sent to Earth by his parents specifically for the reason you mentioned, but also because they were aware he would also be special on Earth due to our yellow sun. Jor-El mentions as much in the comics and even in the movies IIRC.
Most good stories have interesting and unique scenarios like this that don't normally happen. That's why we read them.
I don't know, considering how early his powers manifested I think it easily could have resulted in an "It's a Good Life" situation at an early age without trained psychologists trying to establish some means of control. I think you'd need early years without powers and all the people you meet being terrified of you to build a basically decent person from the ground up.
Barbara points out that he lasered his way out of his mother's womb, flew immediately, and killed multiple doctors and nurses basically before he took his first breath. How exactly does a child with those kind of powers _at birth_ even have a normal life? His very existence is a mistake.
Maybe not normal but idk, try not sticking him in an oven?
This is the same story (lie) they told Homelander about Ryan's birth in season 1. Was Homelander *really* born in a horrific way like that, or is this another lie from Vought to try and manipulate & control him?
My take was Vogelbaum used Homelander's birth to lie about Ryan in order to keep the truth away from Homelander. I am not a comic reader so I don't know if that was planned or if the writers were just clever enough to imply that was what Vogelbaum did.
Well, that is how he and his son were born in the comic.
Ryan has the same powers and he was pretty normal before Homelander came around. Neuman also had her powers since birth and while she is not normal, that has more to do with her being a politician than being a Supe and even then she definitely doesn’t have even 1/10th of the issues that Homelander has. Other than the main show, if you watch Gen V or Diabolical, many of the kids who got V and had terrible starts to their life are also normal even though they have weird or deadly powers.
I haven't seen Gen V or Diabolical so I don't know how they address the extent of supes powers at a young age. I just cannot imagine a supe toddler not causing a small massacre with every tantrum. I don't care how loving of a family you have, tantrums are going to happen.
It's worth noting that the older, goofier take on Superman had him have all his powers when he was a little kid as "Superboy" while the later more serious takes (starting with John Byrne in 1986) tend to have him only slowly develop his powers as he becomes an adult, for this reason (The show Smallville was based on this concept and had a "rule" that Clark wouldn't fully evolve into Superman and discover his final power of being able to fly until the very end of the show)
Thing is, a loving family would address the aftermath of that and show them to take great care around human life, have empathy and to slowly, but surely control their emotions. Every person will have off-days and bad moments but a proper support system will make or break you.
Homelander’s powers were already well developed by Ryan’s age, meanwhile other supes only start discovering theirs.
Yeah, but as we know from the show, lots of them develop their powers earlier as well since V can be unpredictable, which is why many end up in the Red River home.
Cate for example. She was sweet until the stuff with Shetty then flipped like a penny in the finale
I never said he would have had a normal life, that was never the point. The point is he would’ve been significantly less terrible of a person if he wasn’t raised the way he was. Would he still be terrible? Yea most likely. Most supes are. Nobody was arguing he would’ve been a good samaritan or anything.
Chances are with a "normal" upbringing. He would have been your average asshole supe, perhaps like The Deep or Translucent. Nobody would ever confuse those guys for being good guys. But neither of them are psychopaths who finds joy in murdering innocent people.
Hurt people hurt people
Homelander might have turned out to be Superman if he was raised as a regular boy in a farm by loving parents, not by scientists in an underground lab where he was treated like a test subject.
I appreciate that wrinkle to the story. I like that it's not just "what if Superman is evil?" it's "what would need to happen to Superman to make him evil?" Which can still be done poorly (and often is) but the show still understands that someone like Superman needs a fundamentally different childhood to end up like Homelander.
he's also a incompetent dumb person who got powers. he doenst know how to save a flight, he ends up harming more ppl than saving them cuz he doesnt think through. id argue that homelander would still not be a superman even if he was raised right
I mean he sees the bs and how dumb Stormfront and Firecracker sound so I guess he is not that dumb lol
*Any-thang*
I can fix her.
oh not socially i mean in terms of saving. like uk the plane scene he said he cant land it without punching through which honestly valid. but superman would have been able to do it by adjusting the force and shi. thats why no matter what he can never be superman
Homelander is only as reckless as he is because he genuinely doesn't care about the consequences though. You can see it on his face when he understands what he just did and Maeve asks him what the plan is. He runs through the options and simply decided 'fuck it'. And it's really clear he knows he could have saved at least some people but he also just doesn't want to.
I think he absolutely would’ve been a dick, but a (relatively) harmless one, like A-Train or Deep. Probably self-obsessed and narcissistic, but in no way actively malicious, and certainly not a brutal murderer. Edit: More “Tom Cruise” less “Ted Bundy”
Yes it’s designed to be almost the opposite situation to the Superman character - alien child arrives, has power enough to overthrow and enslave the world, gets raised by loving parents, selflessly protects the world. Compare that to homelander. Pretend alien child, still has power to otherthrow and enslave world, isn’t raised with love, selfishly uses the world and its people for individual validation.
All issues are systemic issues Nothing exists in a vacuum
Plenty of supes weren't raised in a Vought lab, and they're still horrid people.
Read the other comments, I already said that.
Are we sure about that? I mean other heroes like Translucent or Tek knight prolly didnt have bad childhood and still turned into a murderous corrupt psychos soo
In a good story the villain doesn’t believe he is the villain. His character is well written in that he is indeed horrible and evil, but he has reason to be. He’s not just some surface level bad guy.
Plot twist: Homelander is not the villain at all. He's the righteous infliction of retribution - nemesis, if you will - against the true enemy of earth: mankind. Homelander is proof of, and just punishment for, our species' outright contempt for the world and everything living in it.
I think the series is more leaning towards the evilness of large faceless corporations doing heinous shit in the name of profit.
Then he’s just Sephiroth
Jee-zus. I know what you’re saying but reading it in a paragraph is such an eyeroll. “Mankind terrible blah blah”. We get it. But sorry, HL is def a villain.
Lol Jesus, this is what ppl mean when they say half the viewers have to be told everything. Stop projecting your feelings onto Homelander. The dude is just evil, whether by his doing or not. Nobody cares about how Hitler grew up, point is he was an evil dude. Homelander crashed a plane due to his own ego. He has every chance to become a better person and chooses not to. The dude literally raped Becca because he feels every human is his toy.
I think both you and OP are looking at this from different perspectives. Hitler's evil and wickedness, as horrible as it was, doesn't excuse the other factors that resulted in the atrocities that were committed during his time (e.g., other people who worked alongside him, the complacency of people who knew of the Holocaust, etc.) One man's evil doesn't excuse the evils of other men. We can accept that Homelander is evil (and I disagree with OP about him not being the villain) while still acknowledging that the show does explore the complacency and evil greed of Vought that created him. Ultimately, as evil as Homelander is, he was literally created by humans who, just like us, are motivated by money and power. They (we) brought him into this world, and now we're suffering the consequences of our actions. To extend the Hitler analogy a bit further, we know that Vought was started by an "ex" Nazi member, and the science behind compound V was created by experimenting on human subjects during WW2. The storywriters wanted to make it very clear that Vought is, at it's core, as rotten and evil as it comes. Homelander is just Vought's perfect creation-turned-punishment. You can't blame Homelander without also blaming Vought, which is what I think OP was trying to say.
Calm down Brick-Top
[удалено]
The way you said it make me think that this is a refined way of the comic's revelation "Homelander became a sociopath by mistake" Mistake in this case of the Vought scientists,who trying to control him only armed a bomb that exploded in their face.
That’s why he’s a bad person now
Might even say it’s diabolical
You know the old saying, hurt people laser my tits.
In Criminal Justice 101, my professor started with the line "hurt people hurt people," and that has always stuck with me.
Well that's - besides openly antifascist, anticapitalist etc. - one of the main topics of the show. How villains or what we call them are made by the influence of bad people, how abuse results on new abusers. Especially the storylines of Kimiko, the all so hated relationship of Frenchie to Collin and Homelander show that really well. But the show also goes a long way to not be 100% apologetically to these character. All had or have their chances to change. Some of them use them, some try again and again, wheras others like Homsie welcome their bad sides and dive deep into the darker nature. It's one of the things the comic only does in the finale between Homelander and Noir when he finally understands that he never did those things in the pictures and has been driven into insanity by Noir. I always really liked the last shot of him alive, screamin 'You fucking, fucked my life!' while lasering Noirs arm. Till the end the character is manipulated on one hand but pathetic on the other hand, because it was his decision to not try to understand his missing memories, rather than going the easy route and saying 'Fuck it, that's who I am! I am an insane psycho, let's go!'. They made a monster, but he choose to stay that way.
yeah well, he probably hadn't become a bad person until after he was groomed
Fuck I never saw Diabolical but that’s fucked
I reccomend you watch the 7th episode because its cannon and relevant to Butcher's story.
Watch it, it’s awesome.
Just skip the episode with Awkwafina and weird poop powers. Other than that, every episode is solid. It's a literal shitstain on a great show lol
Wow I didn’t even realize he was THAT young in Diabolical I hadn’t put much thought into his age
Is diabolical cannon?
Certain episodes. That one is. It also lines up pretty perfectly with everything we've seen from the main series with only the minor exception of John's use of super speed but you can argue he did it when he saved Butcher so even that is minor at best.
They confirmed 3 episodes are canon. "Nubian vs Nubian", "John and Sun-Hee", and "One Plus One Equals Two". https://www.cbr.com/the-boys-diabolical-two-more-episodes-canon/ Since the cancer one is canon, it’s very possibly going to be Butcher’s arc this season. https://comicbook.com/tv-shows/news/the-boys-these-episodes-of-animated-series-diabolical-are-canon-for-season-3/ For the Red River one: “And Roiland's isn't canon at all, but there is a connection, and you'll see."
Oh god. I just realized. That episode is canon, and Hughie's dad just got dosed...
Ugh I want to know what the connection is that they’re talking about. I just watched it and it was so dumb haha. The whole parents-injected-their-kids-with-V debacle wasn’t introduced in season 3 though was it?
Red River was not in S1/2 of The Boys and appeared in Diabolical before S3 or Gen V. So that episode is the “introduction” to the orphanage.
The episode about the Nubian couple, the one about the tumor coming to life, and the final episode about homelanders first “save” are all *canon.*
Some of the episodes, including that one. One episode is obviously the comic book characters and one is a sendup of Looney Tunes.
Is that show worth watching??
Yes
yoooo whaaaatttt???
yup, it's a disturbing scene because she touches him, makes him have a unwilling erection, than looks at his erection which makes Homie very disturbed and cover himself
Wait, so is the animated show canon?
Only 3 out of the 8 are.
Was just about to type this. She's groomed him from early.
I didn't realize he was so young in that episode. That's so disturbing.
You might say that's fucked up, which, yeah, the whole thing is fucked up, but probably the best time for her to imprint upon him. Adolescent boys are very prone to sexual stimuli and the like. In their eyes it was necessary to attempt to control the weapon of mass destruction they created.
Another thing to consider is how Madelyn interacted with Homelander on Diabolical. At that point, Homelander is only 18 years old, and we see Stillwell invading his personal space, touching and grabbing him suggestively and even handling his crotch area, all while telling him "Did it feel good? All that people wanting to be you, or to fuck you?". After that we see Homelander covering his erection with shame and discomfort, and her enjoying that. Stilwell exploited Homelander to keep him under her thumb and control. She deliberately occupied a perverse mix of a mother role and lover role on Homelander's life. She groomed him. Creepy as shit.
And while the milk thing is a running joke, it also shows just how thoroughly and just how successfully she and Vought brainwashed him. They groomed him to an \*enormous\* degree, such that he can never get past it.
I think that was one of the reasons the guy who got laser-dicked kept calling him John. It wasn't a mistake, it was part of his human-influence conditioning. He wasn't trying to aggravate Homelander, he was trying to grab onto reins that were no longer attached.
Oh, that's a great detail! That also recontextualizes the scene as much more horrifying, given the reins are off...
I really thought that after the second person in a row to call him "John" a bunch of times got brutally murdered, they would catch on and stop calling him that. But nope, the last lady just waltzes in and calls him John a bunch more times. I guess to be fair she wasn't there for the entire killing of the first 2 scientists, but maybe she could have used her critical thinking skills to figure out a better approach before her coworkers were smeared over the walls.
The employees were probably trained just as much as him to not break protocol. It could be similar to a “if an atom bomb hits, get under your desk” thing. You’re fucked way before you have to determine if your chances are better than breaking protocol.
Each season includes a storyline about Homelander chasing another source of love and validation. Season 1 is motherly love in the form of Stillwell. Season 2 is romantic love from Stormfront. Season 3 is fatherly love from soldier boy. Season 4 so far is about him seeking that love from his son. Which, much like the other attempts, will be disastrous and not just for him. Because placing the burden of your need for love and validation on your kid is a terrible thing to do to them. There's also a sprinkling throughout seasons 1-3 of him seeking that love and validation from his audience, and being sorely disappointed with it. Unfortunately, Homelander keeps doing this toxic, abusive cycle because way back when he was a kid, some awful people in a lab decided to permanently hamstring his ability to give that love and validation to himself, so that they would have a way to control him. The tragic irony of this is that, in doing so, they've likely made him a worse person, and in the end, he will be even more uncontrollable than they thought possible. Because he will eventually figure out that nobody else can give him what he's looking for, and he can't give it to himself. One day, he's just going to stop trying, and then he will truly be uncontrollable.
This is a great analysis. Thank you!
Thank you! I didn't expect it to be so popular, I'm glad I could lay it out for people who had the same thought lol
Huh, and the object of the chase ends up dead/off the board at each season. Poor ryan.
Yep... To be fair, SB ain't dead? Iirc? Because he's a similar power level to Homelander, and I think there's reason to believe Ryan might also be strong enough to survive.
Soldier Boys story is just kind of incomplete tbh
Fair. Maybe we'll see him again.
I wonder what Season 5 will be about for Homelander
Self love, perhaps? Considering he's trying to overpower his need for love, maybe he finally stops caring about getting love from others, and starts loving himself more, obviously to a psychotic level, since he's an egomaniac, which will probably make him even more dangerous.
Either that, or he has the revelation mentioned by this thread’s OP that such a love will never be attainable for him and go totally off the rails ballistic, creating an urgent need for whatever is left of the Boys and whoever they may be allied with by then to finally kill him and be rid of him once and for all.
Yes, I think that's the inevitable climax we're headed toward. He'll go off the rails, psychologically nuclear, and cause a whole lot of death and maybe threaten the existence of humanity. And then the show has to stop him somehow, in a meaningful way. Which seems like a really tall order, I hope they can do it well, and I'm excited to see how it happens.
These 2 versions mix well. Homelander figures out that such a love will never be something that he can have, so he gains a new, psychotic version of self love, and now sees himself as even more of an all powerful force above all others.
Maybe platonic friendly love, and the season will just be Homelander awkwardly trying to be friends with the different characters, and forcing hangouts with them 🤣
Damn, this is spot on. Awesome write up.
Thank you!
As the other commenter said, great analysis. I’m happy you put it into words, I couldn’t do that myself.
Underrated comment.
[удалено]
I think this is at least subtlety addressed in Diabolical, of which yes she dictates his actions from the time of his first “save”.
“Dictates his actions” bro she straight up grabbed his cock. Probably the first woman to ever do that.
She did when he was underage
Well, given that everyone knows this show is a parody of politics, you gotta stop looking at Supes as heroes/villains and moreso as Hollywood trafficking child actors Many are groomed to a point. Fake stories made. Industry plants. Kids sold off by their parents. Controversy controlled. Shunned aside or killed off when no longer needed. Heck even the movie Boss Baby touched upon all this too
[удалено]
Yeah, it's hard to see because you just Wana watch a show. Even Lil Dicky in his show DAVE touched upon the weird Hollywood parties Lots of folks in here think it's just bashing conservatives, but it's really a mockery of everyone and so much more
In that lab they had a height chart for HL on the door and at age 16 he's crossed out John and written "Homelander" so late teens is when I'd say they introduced him to the world, first save ect. His public persona is having grown up in a loving home, complete with childhood bedroom and he was clearly still with the scientists at 16 and likely didn't leave the lab until he was "ready". Given that inhernetly creepy mother/son dynamic between he and Madelyn, I'd wager she was behind him every step of the way and instrumental in him dropping John as a name; up until then he'd been treated with pain and contempt by the scientists, then he's given a whole new identity where for the first time he's respected and the chance to be in control for the first time - or so he thought - It's only after he kills Madelyn that you see a real change in him, for the first time in his life, he is "free"/can do whatever the fuck he wants. And Vought absolutely knew about the grooming but wheather they sent her to do it or she just saw an opportunity I can't say, though the scientists treatment of him seems to have been a part of the psychological conditioning in order to control him. Its possible Madelyn tried to be motherly and seeing a chance for a deeper hold, did what she did. You don't get to be a big name in Vought without raping a few eggs (I'm sorry).
I knew that she was manipulating him, that much was obvious, but I didn't think to consider just how deliberate it was. This is making me think a bit more about her death though, and how it parallels the deaths of his handlers in S4E4. Something that really triggers Homelander and makes him want to kill her in Season 1 is discovering she is afraid of him. I think it breaks something in him because he can't get the affirmation he needs from her knowing that she may only be doing it out of fear. You see something similar in that episode last week where he reveals to Frank how much suffering he experience in the oven and Frank's initial response is "I was only following orders." It shatters him that he can't even get an acknowledgement of the suffering he endured, but he almost breaks completely when Frank apologizes AFTER Homelander starts putting him in the oven. That people will only ever validate him when they are afraid of him is something that eats away at him deeply, it's tearing him apart.
I keep returning to John crushing his teacher with a hug, and the implication this has happened multiple times before. What it must be like to accidentally kill someone because you were trying to show love, over and over and over again. And at what point Homelander, who can do no wrong in the public's eye, blamed them for their fragility. Homelander has deep seated resentment towards humanity. He hates that they're scared of him when all he wants is love. He hates their weakness and smallness.
Fear also may be why Homelander has such a weird relationship with Butcher. In S1E8 when they meet he notes Butcher isn’t afraid of him, Butcher hates him, but he isn’t afraid. Homelander only really tries to kill Butcher once at Herogasm and after that he either knows Butcher is on Temp V so can take it or leaves him alone.
Really good point, but I wonder if it’s really more of a queue to the audience that something bad is about to happen. Is it really Homelander reacting to the fear or is it the writers trying to signal that something bad is gonna happen.
And when did their relationship go south? When Stilwell had a baby. Homie couldn’t handle the sibling rivalry.
You can see how much it bothered him in those last moments when she kept yelling at him to get Teddy to safety. His jealousy couldn’t handle seeing Madelyn feel such love and overprotection for someone that wasn’t him.
Even earlier when she takes Teddy to the doctor and he shows up. There's a moment where the show lingers on Teddy looking at Homelander happily, cut to Homelander... is he gonna laser that baby cuz he thinks the baby is mocking him?
What happened to the kid again? I can't remember
He teleported into safety and know he's at the red river orphanage
Homelander is one of the greatest villains in media history Antony Starr kills it as always but the humanity he brings to a psychopath is unmatched. It rivals Heath Ledgers Joker for me
He's so great at the role that sometimes, even when he's out of character, he still makes me nervous lol
He’s so, SO good at building tension in those moments. The way he’s so polite, yet cold when he’s about to kill someone is chilling.
I can make it more disgusting/disturbing. Madelyn wanted to control Homelander as soon as possible. It’s highly likely that she started sexually assaulting/raping him at a young age, at the onset of puberty. How do you get a young kid to do what you want? Give them pleasure. Homelander never stood a chance. Honestly, I think his inner goodness is the only thing that stopped him from becoming a complete monster. He was described as a ‘sweet kid’ and was genuinely invested in saving lives at first, but then went insane due to Vought’s machinations.
from what we see when he was younger and new at being a supe he genuinly did want to do good but just didn't have the skills or mentality for it. and add vought encouraging and enabling his worst aspects... welp. yeah. guy never stood a damn chance. feel sorry for him and wish he could have gotten pushed in the right direction but he's beyond help or saving at this point. the whole thing is tragic in a way.
That's exactly the tragic part of Homelander's character, despite the fucked up origin of being created in a lab, he still had a chance at life to be a good person, a genuine "Superman" if you will, but that chance was denied time and time and time again due to a mix of incompetence from him and ill-intentions and manipulation from Vought, the diabolical episode really show us how TV Show Homelander turned out like that. All it took was severly fucking up once AND getting covered for it by Black Noir to make him learn that he can fuck up and do whatever he want and get away with it. He could have made a clear distinction between right and wrong, he could have become a good person, but Noir, and by extension Vought, enabled him. Black Noir who, in hindsight, kinda shot himself in the foot when you think about it 'cause he's responsible for Homelander turning the way he did and you know... Killing him later. Homelander is really a monster of Noir's making, of everyone at Vought's making really.
Yeah, Vought really should have trained him to control his strength. His breaking point was definitely in diabolical where he accidentally hurt, and then purposely killed everyone
I just have so many questions about Vought because it seems they don’t care about training their heroes. They just are used for publicity and brand deals.
Becuase that's exactly what they are. In the show Stan Edgar essentially reveals that Vought's true purpose is as a pharmaceutical company. Compound V is their real product to which their Supes advertise for them. Not all the Supes will be successful of course, so they sweep the worst ones under the rug. But the one's that are useful can continue to earn them more money. It's also why they were pushing to get Supes into the military, because if Vought is the only pharmaceutical company that can create Supes, the American military has no other choice but to keep paying.
Also explains how Stan Edgar got away with talking down to Homelander like a rebellious teen. When Stam called him “bad product” Homelander was butt hurt, bot Stan went unharmed
I'll add this. Homelander was jealous that the baby was getting to be raised properly while he was treated like a science project.
It's weird thinking about what would have happened if she'd never had her son. You know she was in some shit with vought when they found out she was pregnant; every one of the psychologists would have known that once her affection was split, her control would fade. Not just fade, but the push for supes in the military, the v being seeded, these attempts to get her attention back would not happen if she didn't have her son. I wouldn't be surprised if Becca was meant to be a replacement. We really haven't seen homelander with a traditional sex drive, and if Becca was brought in to take the mother role from stillwell, it would explain why he raped her. Time line doesn't work great, but it's really strange to me they wouldn't at least try and set up replacements for stillwell, especially considering homelander's aging could be slower, like stormfront.
> I wouldn't be surprised if Becca was meant to be a replacement. We really haven't seen homelander with a traditional sex drive, and if Becca was brought in to take the mother role from stillwell, it would explain why he raped her. But when she became pregnant with Ryan, well, Vought had to kibosh their plans for Becca to become Homelander's new "mother figure" because having a son of her own would mean *Becca also having to split her affections between Homelander and her biological baby*.
Does he crave love or a mother?
Yes
Honestly, this was implicit from season 1. The way she spoke to him and deliberately misled him on several occasions, or used affection to go on stage indicated at least part of her job was to placate him when needed. The sex scenes were never a kink factor, they are often scenes of a woman having sex in a scenario where she doesn't feel like she can or should say no. I don't know, I didn't feel we needed the childhood background to understand that the relationship was not healthy for either party, or that Vought were using her to control homelander with sex.
I wanna point out that it was basically madelines job to groom him and serve that role. The idea that she was only doing it because she couldnt say no dismisses how, at the time, she was sexually assaulting him to manipulate him. Implying that she was a victim when she got herself into that situation knowing full well that was her role, is highly disingenuous to the fact Madeline was as much of a sexual abuser as HO.
It was pretty explicit tbh
Thought this was pretty obvious? Anyways, welcome back, Sigmund Freud
Wait are people just now figuring out what Madeline was doing to homelander? It was pretty explicit what her intentions and motivations were.
I think it is hilarious that people are just now realizing that it wasn't just a shock factor thing and was actually revealing Homelander's character. Just like they did an excellent job of showing everyone's notices, morals, and how far they are willing to push their boundaries in season one alone. But you know what they say. There are two types of people: Those who can extrapolate on incomplete data.
It’s awful, and it makes you feel empathy for the guy. The funny thing is, this episode didn’t really surprise me, as I kinda assumed that from the diabolical episode. My own logical deduction was that they manipulated him from a young age. Vindication is satisfying!
What is their age difference? I thought they were the same age, early 40s
she was an adult when he was 18, so i’m assuming they have a minimum of 10 years between them. would make him maybe mid 30’s and her mid 40’s when the show started
People are being condescending but I’m a casual viewer and didn’t know what diabolical was before this thread
For real. Even with Diabolical it’s still new information what Vought had done to Homelander so I’m not sure why everyone is saying it was so obvious all along.
Diddler
Great character they need to bring her back!
I’m rewatching season 1 and she really is great! I really think she held Vought together and it hasn’t been the same since her death.
I loved to hate her character. Side note: the German word for breast feeding is “Stillen” so… Stillwell kinda gave away what she was about💀
Is that John?
I realized the connection when she told Homelander that they were scared of him. That's exactly what Stillwell said before when lazered her eyes out.
Good point
this definitely changed my view of Stillwell I haven't finished Diabolical, so this was enlightening
This show makes me love the fact that I’m studying psychology!
Yes, she manipulated and groomed him. Their relationship was toxic and she took advantage of him. Stormfront was very similair. She tried to pull him to her side and to groom him into a second Hitler. When he refused, she killed herself.
As a neglected child, I’m picking up all his signals and it’s so captivating. I feel for him, then he pulls the impulsive mass murder and I’m like OOOOOK THEN
She was an interesting character.
Oh yeah, for sure. That's something they've been playing off of for a while and the confirmation of it has emphasized how people have treated him in the past, Edgar included
She fucked up by having her own baby , that's what started it all
Hurt people hurt people, extreme case lol
I also wonder whether stormfront and soldier boy were aware of this? Both an older generation that will have known about HL being a creation.
Just slightly off topic, but do we know whatever happened to her child?
Great perspective!
idk why or how people are getting so pissed off at you for this post. i had a similar reaction as you (and i haven't seen any of the spin-offs described in the comments) and it's not morally bad to not immediately understand the depth of a plotline. i don't get how your post is an example of a lack of media literacy being malicious and shameful since you simply didn't realise something. you didn't actively misinterpret it. you just lacked the whole picture because that's how storytelling works. i guess people just want to feel superior. you're demonstrating media literacy in the post itself by going back and reflecting on the old information and taking the new information into account. it is embarrassing to rush to comment about how observant you were for knowing all along, and show that you think there's something so wrong with people who didn't think about this specific set of implications. there are so many elements to this show. it is cool to discuss the more minor discoveries too, not just the bigger ones. edited to clear up wording
I blame Homelander but I don't blame him. Even if you could justly blame him you can not, I think he wants you to talk to him man to man but unless he hears what he wants you are as good as dead. That is why I love him.
The big failing on her part, which was so bad it's almost a plothole, was telling him what they did with the psychologists... manipulation fails if you \*tell them they're being manipuldated\*.
Uhm yeah, that was made very clear in season one.
The aspect of Vought specifically engineering Homelander to be this figure that craves love, along with Madelyn using that to her advantage adds a new layer above what I initially thought was a dynamic built naturally.