u/Shiver-Me-Timbers777

Edit: Aaron has stayed sober for 40+ years. So proud of my old man.

My Indigenous father ran a non profit organization for folks with physical and intellectual disabilities as one of the directors in Canada. He was a pioneer in assisting disabled people out of institutions and into community living. He is an amazing human with a big heart and an even bigger love for all walks of life. When I came out to him and my other father as gay like them, they said, "Well.... You had been surrounded by queer people, disabled people, and had a very liberal upbringing. You were to able to see people for who they are on the inside, so, it makes sense that you identify this way. It's who you are as expression of our good works as parents to help you see inner beauty."

I was just a former foster kid born to a drug addict mother, my biological dad ran off on her a couple months into the pregnancy, as he was in addiction too.

Sometimes people ask me: "Do you ever want to meet your biological parents?" And the truth is, I never met them. So I don't think about them. I just know I have two amazing fathers.

The photo I submitted here shows my dad, Aaron, finally be able to have an art exhibit showcase of his pottery creations. And I am so grateful for the people that allowed him to have this little moment.

He's a stone wall gay man with an equally stone wall husband, and I'll cherish the time I have left with them. So, so incredibly much.

Aaron getting sober, helping the disabled, and art exhibits; is the most punk thing I've ever seen someone do. And I'm already a member of that category. He is the ultimate punk and I am the student of the master.

And when Bella's dad loaded his shotgun and then said, "Alright bring him in", I think we had such a missed opportunity for a spinoff novel series called Charlie Swan: Vampire Hunter! I think it could have been a really good movie adaptation as well even if it only lasted for the one film--no trilogy needed!

It's because he’s insecure and he’s pathetic, it's also because he says incredibly stupid things. He’s misogynistic and he’s desperate for approval and he joins whatever side seems most likely to give him attention. And the dude has an extremely weird relationship with sea life.

But underneath all of that is one of the more depressing “what could have been” stories in the entire universe of The Boys because The Deep had one of the coolest powers imaginable. This dude can literally talk to aquatic animals.

His superpower was never “he swims really fast” or “he can breathe underwater”, he was literally able to communicate with another branch of life that humanity has spent centuries barely understanding. Imagine being a little kid and discovering that you can hear what dolphins, whales, octopuses, sharks, fish, etc. are saying. That should be an absolutely incredible gift.

And what's even more interesting is the implication that his relationship with aquatic life started when he was young. Mainly based on the fact that he wasn’t born in a laboratory like Homelander and he wasn’t raised in a facility with doctors constantly poking him, testing him and psychologically conditioning him. The Deep had parents, he had a mother and father and he had all the right tools to guide him as a person and especially as a person, with a mother and father figure to teach him from right and wrong, kind of like the Jonathan and Martha Kent for Aqua Man. He had something resembling an actual childhood and that's where his story becomes really sad.

Because theoretically, The Deep had almost every ingredient necessary to become a genuinely good superhero and especially a good person. If you were to think on this idea for example, imagine being a kid. You discover that you can communicate with animals and you realize that these creatures have their own thoughts and fears. You become aware of the suffering happening beneath the surface of the ocean in a way that almost nobody else can.

That could and should completely change the trajectory of a person's life. Because instead of becoming another corporate sellout superhero, you could become an advocate for marine life and you could rescue aquatic animals, you could expose illegal fishing operations and you could help scientists communicate with whales and dolphins. You could investigate pollution and you could literally become one of the most important environmental superheroes on Earth and probably earn a Nobel peace pride award for it.

And I mean, honestly speaking, The Deep could have built an entire superhero identity around that. He could have found other aquatic Supes. Maybe there were people with water manipulation, underwater strength, marine biology-related abilities, hydrokinesis (Hydrokinesis is a fictional or psychic superpower defined as the ability to mentally control, shape, and manipulate water and other related liquids using focus or the mind), oceanic senses, whatever and whoever he could have found to benefited his own non profit organizational superhero team that he could have created in regards to a privately owned, little independent network of water-based superheroes.

Imagine that version of The Deep. Not The Seven's mascot and most certainly not Vought's corporate fish guy. He could have been a genuinely caring, kind, good willed independent superhero who operates around the oceans, protects marine ecosystems and works with other aquatic Supes, and that guy could have been so, so incredibly fucking awesome and that's why his downfall feels so much more depressing than it initially appears.

It's because The Deep didn't necessarily start out with some grand desire to become an evil asshole. He was given a massive amount of power and then placed inside one of the most toxic environments imaginable. Vought, The Seven, celebrity culture, corporate branding, Endless marketing, ego, fame and most importantly, Homelander. That combination was basically gasoline poured onto whatever insecurities The Deep already had because The Seven doesn't reward humility as it rewards dominance, image and usefulness to Vought and The Deep probably learned very quickly, despite his initial good intentions upon joining The Seven that being a decent person isn't necessarily what gets you ahead as being popular does being popular, powerful, feared, and useful to Homelander was.

And that's where I think his misogyny becomes particularly interesting but not interesting in the sense of excusing it, because there is absolutely no excuse for what he does and it's more interesting in the sense of understanding how completely fucked up his development became, considering he grew up with an actual mom who probably taught him how to act around other women, especially if sudden superpowers were to emerge.

He has all this power, but he's deeply insecure about himself. He's constantly trying to convince everyone, and probably really just himself, that he's a legitimate member of The Seven. He wants respect. He wants women to respect him and he definitely wants Homelander to respect him, wants Vought to respect him and he damn well wants the public to think he's cool.

That's a pretty horrifying transformation for someone whose power is literally based around communicating with other living beings because the irony is almost too perfect. The guy who can understand animals better than almost anyone on Earth becomes progressively worse at understanding people, and eventually believes his only friends are the aquatic marine life he can communicate with it and eventually, he becomes so buried underneath his own ego, fear and shame that he can't even recognize the person he could have been and that right there iswhat makes the idea of The Deep creating his own independent superhero circuit so compelling to me. because he actually had a path out and he could have left Vought once he noticed all the dysfunctional workplace environmental factors and he could have found people exactly or at the very least similar to him with superpowers as he could have built something based around protecting aquatic life instead of selling merchandise.

And, hypothetically, he could have even become an ally to The Boys. Imagine The Deep showing up with an entire group of aquatic Supes because Vought has been polluting the oceans or experimenting on marine life. That would've been incredible but he never became that person. And that's the tragedy.

By the time we see The Deep at the end of his story, he's not some misunderstood hero waiting for someone to tell him it's okay, he's a guy who has accumulated an absolutely enormous amount of guilt and I think that's why his final moments are so much more interesting than giving him some traditional redemption arc.

He doesn't suddenly become Aqua Man, he doesn't suddenly figure everything out, he doesn't get a beautiful speech about how he has changed, he doesn't get forgiven, he reaches a point where he basically understands that he's fucked. And when he goes into the ocean and asks the animals to kill him through a telepathic means based off all the wrong he had ever done, I don't think that's supposed to be interpreted as some magical, beautiful moment where The Deep finally becomes a good person as it's much darker than that because e knows what he's done and he knows what kind of person he's become by the end of the series and he knows that the ocean, the very thing he was uniquely equipped to understand and protect, has essentially become the place where he wants to die based upon all that festering guilt. There's something brutally and poetically tragic about that.

The Deep had a superpower that could have made him one of the greatest environmental heroes imaginable and instead, he became a corporate celebrity whose entire life spiraled into insecurity, misogyny, fear and dependence on people who were even more broken than he was.

And honestly, I think that's why refusing to give him a clean redemption arc was the right choice because not every character needs to be redeemed. Sometimes the tragedy of a character is that you can see exactly where they could have gone, and you can see every opportunity they had to make a different decision, and then you watch them repeatedly choose the wrong one.

That's The Deep: He had parents, a childhood. an extraordinary ability. he had genuine access to the natural world in a way almost nobody else did and had opportunities and he even had chances to walk away from Vought. And he still became The Deep we all know by the end of the series and . that's what makes him tragic and not because he was secretly a good guy the whole time because he wasn't.

It's because somewhere underneath all the bullshit was a person who could have been good. And The Boys never lets us forget that those two things can exist at the same time because The Deep isn't tragic because he deserved redemption, it's because he's tragic based off how you can spend the entire series looking at him and thinking, “Dude, you could have been so much better than this.”

And then you realize that's probably exactly what he thinks about himself too. That's a hell of a lot sadder than a redemption arc.

I am from Vancouver Canada and would watch reruns of Cybersix with my dad in early 2000s as a bedtime routine to help me fall asleep at night. I love my dad a lot and I miss those times of early animation media that really stood out without being too overstimulating, good for political morals and a LGBTQ+ subtext that allowed everyone to feel included no matter what side of the rainbow they were on.

I was not by any means a teenager when I'd watch the reruns with my dad I was around 5 or 6, but I really love that the Canadian team wanted a more mature tone for this series and the Japanese team wanted a rating that made it so everyone of all ages could enjoy it for merchandising. Shame, this show could have been a really good gem in the crystal shop if the Japanese team went for a more mature tone. I guess we'll never know, and that's what cuts deep the most.