[The Boys Rant] Even if the writers didn't intend to, I really liked a decision in the final episode of The Boys, and I think it was terribly in-character. Most of you are wrong.
Yes, I guess I'm going to praise something everyone criticizes. And yes, I wrote the title as a joke, just so you'd click on it so yeah It's clickbait, I'm not saying anything wrong to anyone. I understand you perfectly :d
And I have to say this: I think the finale was terrible. Even I, who don't like cynical stuff, found the original comic better. Butcher's arc felt forced, and the evil part from season 4 wasn't explored. Even when things went well, Vought was never destroyed, but everything was presented as a victory. ALSO SOLDIER BUY SUCKS BRO! THE WORST CHARACTER OF SEASON. I'll write about these things after weighing them in my head as rants.
But then there's Homelander. I have to say, I think if the budget or Amazon had given the necessary permissions, we would have seen Homelander wreaking havoc. But I argue that it's more in-character that we didn't see that.
People want to see Homelander destroying everything like Injustice Superman or Omni-Man. And all 5 seasons build on that. "Homelander will go crazy, destroy everything," "He'll start with military bases, then attack government buildings," "He's so scary."
And I thought so too but then changed my mind. I'll explain. "A massacre would be good for understanding the gravity of the event." I was saying, "This character wasn't like this in season 1." Then today I watched some episodes of season 1. I'll admit, the right-wing populist parody thing gets exaggerated in later seasons, but how's the framing of Homelander in season 1?
We see Homelander's inner self very superficially in season 1. In fact, at the beginning, he's directly seen as Vought PR. Some people were saying things like, "Awww, actually Homelander is a good person, the people around him are bad." in first episodes.
He was definitely smarter, definitely more frightening, but we didn't know what he was going through in his inner world. Even so, we could still pick up clues in his connection with Madelyn.
This was the Rosetta Stone of the character's entire psychology. Beneath his Machiavellian and genius personality lay a deprived baby trying to gain the approval of Madelyn Stilwell, a middle-level corporate manager. The breast milk was entirely symbolic of this. In Season 1, a key clue we saw regarding Homelander's inner world was his obsession with breast milk and a mother figure. And he was always searching for something to connect with.
Keep this information in mind, because now I'm about to share a huge "WOWW MAN, THIS GUY IS GOING TO GO CRAZY!" chain of reactions.
KILLING THE MOTHER FIGURE:
At the end of Season 1, he brutally kills the Madelyn Stillwell character. He destroys the mother figure he had built in his mind, as if to break free from its chains.
What happens? Absolutely nothing. On the contrary, in Season 2, Homelander finds new figures like Stormfront and Stan Edgar.
SEASON 2 FLIGHT INCIDENT:
Let's move on to the next one,
The Season 2 finale, where Queen Maeve turns against him and threatens to release the "flight video," and Stormfront almost dies. Here, he could have surpassed himself, killed Queen Maeve and the Boys team, and started his great conquest, but the release of that video would have led to people hating him. His desire to lose his fanbase was stronger than his desire for violence.
STORMFRONT INCIDENT:
Let's connect it back to Stormfront from the beginning of seasons 2 and 3. For a villain to engage in large-scale mass murder, a nihilistic tendency or a great moral compass is required. Stormfront offered him exactly that: "NAZI SUPREMACY."
And he liked it. at least various aspects of Nazi ideology. So what happened when Stormfront died? Instead of directly killing the weaklings he looked down on, he threw this ideology in the trash like a constantly changing child :D. BECAUSE IT LOOKED BAD FROM A PR PERSPECTIVE HAHAHA. He never embraced it.
He masturbated on top of a skyscraper and kept saying:
“I can do anything I want.” He said.
This wasn't a scene of a god taking over the world. It was a lonely and pathetic coping mechanism, trying to convince himself that he was still in control.
Let's move on to season 3. The chain continues.
"I'M BETTER SPEECH"
Now, this is good. Because here, Homelander is actually giving a speech against those who control him. "All my life, people have tried to control me. My whole life. Rich people, powerful people have tried to muzzle me, cancel me, keep me impotent and obedient, like I'm a fucking puppet."
Our teenage boy seems a little angry :D. This was a breaking point. People thought he was out of control, but what happened next? Our angry teenager obsessively started looking at the poll results. He was afraid of public reaction until he saw his ratings rising. His apocalyptic threats were never a grand master plan. They were more like, standing in the safety of the living room:
"I'm going to run away from home and you'll all regret it!" It was a geopolitical version of a teenager shouting "You're a fucking disappointment!"
We're continuing, it's not over yet,
"You're a fucking disappointment!"
We talked about Homelander's obsession with starting a family and his fondness for a father-mother figure. What happens towards the end of season 3? Homelander finds this father figure. He directly encounters his father. So how does the scene unfold? While Homelander, like an emotional child, is waiting for a family reunion, Soldier Boy gives him a reality check.
"YOU ARE A DISAPPOINTMENT."
His father, from whom he sought attention, essentially rejected his superiority. Also he directly rejected him as his son. Because he seemed too weak and looked like a pussy. This is a tremendous chance for Homelander to completely lose his mind. Overcome the father figure and show that you're not a pussy!
So what happened next? Homelander didn't burn the world down again. His voice trembled, and then, as a rejected boy, he desperately tried to fight. Then he realized that people were okay with what he was doing, and he smiled at the end of the season.
SEASON 4: The actual massacre scene in the lab
Yes, this scene is the biggest indicator that this man cannot destroy everything. I recommend you sit down and watch this scene again. This is actually what lies beneath Homelander's entire psychology. After watching this scene, I think there was an explanation from Kripke too! I suggest you look into that.
The point is, in season 4, Homelander, now aware of himself and talking to his inner voice, is very troubled by his inability to overcome himself. He thinks he needs to kill his humanity. He thinks he has a humanity deep down. Homelander thinks mechanically. "Kill your abusers, destroy that faculty, and finally surpass yourself!" Barbara, the head scientist there, lays him down the law: "We have no physical power over you... But you didn't. Because you couldn't stand the idea that we would be disappointed in you. Your need for approval and for love... In many ways, that was our greatest success."
Homelander hears this. He realizes he's completely conditioned. He's someone who can never escape his humanity.
Andd... What would a truly inhumane god do here? "I don't care about you anyway," he would say and leave. A god doesn't harbor resentment towards ants. Homelander has already misunderstood the concept of God from the start :D. Everything he does boils down to his conditioning to be loved. He's trapped in his trauma forever and can't overcome it. He feels the need to look into the eyes of his abusers and prove himself to them. You can't get over your trauma by killing people, Hommie :D
What drives him is entirely his childhood wounds. He tried to cut off his need for approval by killing the people who didn't give it to him, but the operation failed. You can't rip your own bone out. You are human. Kripke's comments regarding this episode are supporting this.
In season 5, he completely embraces the image of a god, a cult leader. He gets many opportunities to kill people. He even gets the chance to kill Ryan. However, he repeatedly struggles to avoid killing him. In the final episode, he goes to him and says, "You are of my blood." Ryan is a very important point here because he symbolizes Homelander's chain of human connection. He loves his child. Even if ryan doesn't believe in him, as a superior god, he can't choose to kill him. He becomes tearful. He tries to prove to himself that he can be a good father. He desperately tries to rewrite his own childhood trauma through Ryan.
A god being completely detached from humanity wouldn't care about intergenerational trauma.
At this point, I find this very logical. I think The Boys staff aren't doing this intentionally. As I said, I feel like they're reaching this point because of budget constraints. But Homelander's inability to kill anyone is also, in my opinion, very in-characteristic. That's what I'm trying to explain.
Although the series constantly markets itself as "Homelander is about to go crazy, destroy everything, a huge massacre is coming,"
Homelander's inner world works the opposite way. He thinks, "Damn, I'm going to kill everyone, but if I do that, I'll look terrible, I'll be a monster," and constantly finds new coping mechanisms. In fact, Homelander tries every way to avoid committing a massacre, even if he wants to. He's a hostage conditioned by love. AND CANT OVERCOME THIS. I MEAN ITS LIKE THATS THE WHOLE POINT FOR ME
LAST SCENE: THE BEGGING SCENE:
Now, let's get to the final scene. Honestly, I find this scene edgy, but not because Homelander is whining or anything. Homelander's emotional state could have been better developed. It would have been much better if a character whose entire character is based on being loved by society had seen society turn its back on him in his final moments. It would have been better if we had seen his pleas to his mother and father figures, if he had cried more like a child on the ground. It would have been more interesting if Butcher had stepped back for a while and looked at his suffering. The event happens too quickly and remains too survival-focused for him. And frankly, it's not satisfying. However, there's nothing wrong with his characterization.
Because, as I mentioned throughout the text, Homelander was always like this. A man-child who could never do anything and was constantly crying. When his lasers, his flight, and his bulletproof body are taken away, what's left? Not Homelander. John...
A child who was scared, unloved, and constantly abused in the laboratory, and most interestingly, completely conditioned to be loved and do what others wanted. When that armor protecting him collapses, the royal nobility is gone. On the contrary, a collapse occurs.
In psychology, this is precisely what is called narcissistic collapse. It's my favorite deconstruction in stories. :D When the grandiose false self disappears, the narcissist returns to his most primal, most fearful self.
His choice to "suck," "make a fool of himself," and "eat shit" on live TV is shocking and bizarre to people. Yes, I find the dialogue edgy too, but it's completely in-character. Because that's exactly what the child under the armor is. The moment his powers disappear, his superiority complex vanishes instantly, replaced by a desperate, animalistic instinct for survival. A child conditioned to do things. His true self, his instincts, are nothing more than that.
He regresses back to his childhood. He turns into John, the lab rat. What does a lab rat do? It obeys its masters to get the attention or what it wants. He does whatever they say. It works like a conditioned dog. He acts with a naive thought like, "Look, I'll do this to you, and you'll let me live, okay?" Thus, he becomes ready to do any humiliating trick to please the person punishing him/it. And I think this is a fairly solid piece of writing. And frankly, it's a little sad.
If anyone has read this far, congratulations. I can even summarize it in a single sentence. Although Homelander wanted to commit a massacre from the beginning, he was so badly conditioned that he constantly sought ways to avoid it, and in the end, he reverted to his most childlike self, practically begging, which I don't think is out of character. However, I don't know if the series did this intentionally. And yes, the ending is bad. THANKS FOR READING. REALLY WONDER YOUR THOUGHTS TOO. SORRY FOR MESSY WRITING.