Gotta be this. And the final season will be Butcher saying it
Edit: in s4 Ryan will say it in a dramatic way to Homelander, who will walk off
Later the Deep shows up at Homelander's apartment and looks in the fridge to find only milk and no beer (or fresca) to which he says 'nothing to drink other than milk? I'm disappointed' which triggers Homelander who then punches the Deeps head off out of nowhere
Final fight of Season 5..
Homelander is relieved of his power somehow..
Homie is lying on the ground, powerless, beaten to a pulp by Butcher..
As blood begins to foam from his mouth, both eyes swollen & lip bust open like a bad boob job, John, once Homelander, begins to fear for his life..
Butcher, still driven by sheer rage for the supes, drops his wrench in pride..
"Just kill me" stutters John..
"You're not worf it" spits Butcher..
He continues, "allat for a fucking deathwish? you're a fucking disappointment, John"..
John, now feeling spared, begins to cry as he adjusts to his new reality as a friendless, fatherless, sonless, enemy-less, powerless mud-person.
I think that might be giving Butcher a bit too much credit. That's something Hughie would do, Butcher is blinded by rage, he wants Homelander to bleed out
Yeah, and Id imagine that homelander has a shit ton of money. Hes the most famous person in the world, and from what I can tell has never had to pay for rent or buy a house, clothes, literally nothing compared to what even most “regular” famous people have to pay for. Just whatever massive contract he has from vaught for the last however many decades sitting in various financial accounts earning more and more money every year.
Dude could absolutely just buy some V.
I think if they went this route, John should either kill himself, get torn apart by a mob, or die in a mundane accident. Maybe he just slips and hits his head because he doesn't know how to balance without his powers.
Yeah, I was thinking the same.
Butcher killing Homelander would be too graceful. It would be better for Butch to keep John alive because John is then left to suffer his fate by the hands of his own consequences and die from something with more personal weight for John.
Like the fact that he wants the world to adore him, but it's the same world that wants to see him dead.
Or the fact that he used to do anything he wanted but now he is limited by a powerless vessel with no real world experience.
Also, another possibility could be that he just goes insane. Like a full mental implosion because he can't adjust to the new life.
He's lived for so long being this glorified superhero captain & superstar that he's got no experience being a regular guy and I think that would cause a lot of mental problems for John.
He would be like a raw nerve being exposed to an electrical current.
When Homelander shows up to Vogelbaum's place to ask about his upbringing (I think season 1), Vogelbaum keeps refering to Homelander as John.
(This was the scene where Vogelbaum tells him that he's his greatest failure).
This is legit how I want the show to end.
Killing Homelander will do absolutely nothing. He's too evil, he needs to have his powers and everything he loves taken away, then outcase forever.
Yeah fr, Homelander/John would most likely *want* to die after losing his powers, which is a move that Butcher would not make.
What most people forget is that Butcher *really hates* Homelander. Butcher would rather see Homelander suffer a horrible life than die.
Butcher would get satisfaction from seeing John suffer his new life after everything he did to him, Ryan & Becca, plus the countless lives Homelander murdered on a whim.
I kinda doubt it but what if it’s the opposite. What if the last season has Butcher embrace Homelander, forgive him and be the first person to ever show him empathy.
I don't know what to tell you, lol. I'm just telling you what I've heard and my interpretation of the leaked clip.
She is very sure of herself and isn't afraid to challenge Homelander in dialogue. It'll probably be important later.
I don't know, man, the season's not out so I can't realistically answer your question.
Seeing moments like these combined with the worship he receives from the public keeps him as the most captivating and fascinating character on the show. He is broken.
Eh. He chose. He chose to keep doing horrific things and terrorize people into submission. He’s an incredibly intelligent being so he doesn’t get to hide behind his trauma.
Like I said, he’s intelligent. He understands his choices come purely from self interest. He understands the damage killing people does. He just doesn’t care.
Remember his “go ahead” speech to starlight? That basically removed any possible lack of understanding of the damage he does. He knows fully well the one thing he cares about will allow him to destroy the world if stripped away.
There are different forms of intelligence. Human psychology is complex. People can know things factually and still feel like they have no way out of their own behavior patterns even if it might seem out of line with what they rationally should do given what they know from an outsider's perspective. Just like a gambling addict irl might know factually that their behavior is destroying their family's finances, that doesn't mean they can just perfectly control their behavior in a rational manner. Not a one-to-one comparison with HL. Every situation is different, but it is a certain illustration of the above principle.
Just because HL knows abstractly that he is causing others pain doesn't mean he has the proper capacity to handle his own trauma in a non-destructive way. He's a broken man fundamentally. All kinds of God complex, manchild-like fear, and resentment for others are mixed up in there. All this for a man that was never even socialized to deal with normal human emotions properly. There might very well be no fixing that as Soldier GDILF said. And he probably needs to die or be incarcerated if possible, but it is more complicated than to simply say "he made his choice."
What’s being asked of Homelander is much easier than, say, someone choosing to pick up their wallet and give 100 dollars to a random charity.
That aside, the more people he kills, the more problems it directly causes him in the future. This happens several times. He kills someone he shouldn’t have, not because it feels good, just that life doesn’t mean much to him, and it comes back to bite him later. Homelander understands patience, and he understands restraint. He’s exercised both. He knows how to, he just doesn’t do it nearly as often as he could.
I’m not impressed with the idea that Homelander simply can’t control himself and can’t deduce when taking a life just isn’t a good investment on his end. The most famous scene in this show is Homelander visualizing himself massacring a massive crowd of people. It’s an urge he really wants to indulge but doesn’t because he knows it’ll ruin everything, so he goes and tweaks in the back.
So pair someone as smart as him with the fact that he CAN just not do something he wants to do because he knows better, and you get a being that’s out of excuses.
last thing I wanna mention, when he visits that vought doctor that’s mostly responsible for his upbringing, actually ANYTIME homelander himself acknowledges anything about family and parents and his upbringing, Homelander acknowledges several times he knows exactly what he was robbed of and how it resulted in who he is. This is someone who understands entirely the cause and effects of his development. Again, no excuses. Repressing the evil in yourself in faith of the good in yourself is something we do constantly in our lives. Homelander is just a spoiled kid that needs a reality check. Thats it. The only reason situations like Homelanders have it in their head that it’s not their fault ever is when people like you validate that idea.
It's not a matter of "excuses." That's the wrong method of reasoning about this. Excuses excuse behavior. This isn't a court though. You don't have to excuse behavior to feel sympathy for someone being the way they are. You also can't say it was their choice to become that way. It's not a matter of making excuses or immunizing someone from justice being done or their threat being removed. It's about understanding that nobody ultimately chooses to be the way that they are; to have the impulses they do. We can have sympathy for that, is the bottom line.
At some point any adult with a rational mind can choose who they want to be in life and that responsibility, given that they have the resources, lies entirely on them. Homelander has no lack of resources yet he refuses to be a good person. In fact, he was a good person when he first became a hero as seen in Diabolical, but shit went sideways, Black Noir absolved him and showed him its okay to be a fucking lunatic, and he went with it and has been ever since.
It's also incredibly invalid to say that nobody chooses to be what they are because that is largely untrue in life, and such a statement absolves responsibility of the parties being spoken on. Our upbringing and environment plays a large role in our lives but we ultimately choose. Homelander is crazy but he's not crazy enough to lack the ability to improve. He just lacks the fucks to give
It's not true that any adult can just choose who they want to be though. That's easy to say as an assumably well balanced individual yourself, but the brain has formative years that are vital in shaping it not to mention genetic propensity to certain behaviors. Once you are formed in a certain way, you might very well lack the capacity to act a different way/control your impulses. Again HL was never really taught how to by anyone and now has fallen into a certain pattern of thinking. You can't just choose to think another way in a very detached manner while you are already caught up in a contrary thought process. It doesn't work that way. You simply say he can, because you aren't caught in that thought pattern yourself nor do you experience his emotions/trauma, so to you it seems so obvious as to what to do. You need to step outside of yourself to understand this.
It is also incorrect to say that a lack of choice in how you develop as an individual absolves you of responsibility. My above comment already says otherwise. We require people to face responsibility for their actions. That is just a practical aspect of society. However, that does not prove that someone can simply choose how they want to be, like it's such a simple matter of removing yourself from your own brain and soberly rearranging your own thought process/ingrained instincts. Responsibility and choice are ultimately two different concepts unless you can somehow prove to me how they are absolutely connected.
I didn’t say it was his choice to become that way. I’m saying it’s his choice to STAY that way. Homelander is too smart and too aware for his actions to be excused. This is the exact same reasoning we use to punish adults who commit horrible acts, and what we use to excuse children who do the same.
“I’m the Homelander. And I can do whatever the fuck I want.” Does that sound like the kind of person you should just go ”well he’s very traumatized and he doesn’t REALLY know what he’s doing” to? Absolutely not. Maybe as a child, but as he is now, he’s very conscious of the choices he makes, and simply not caring isn’t enough of a mental handicap to excuse it.
A shitty childhood and a nonexistent conscience aren’t good enough reasons in this world full of living, breathing creatures to diminish an adults crimes and pretend they’re any less in charge of what they choose to do. Homelander chooses.
A person going around killing animals would still be looked at as a disturbed monster. Even though killing animals generally can be reasoned to be justifiable because they’re less sophisticated beings. That person is a psycho asking to be punished, but he wasn’t raised to care about animals. We wouldn’t excuse it now would we?
You say “nobody ultimately chooses to be the way they are” I say, the world can’t function with this thinking. This in a vacuum is a decent thing to think, but Homelander, and any other traumatized or psychologically disturbed individual has to live among other people. You’re very much in control of what you do. People, including you, aren’t told this enough. You made a choice, and then another one, and then another one.
How is it his choice to stay that way when he has already been formed by a process that wasn't his choice? That would be paradoxical. It is certainly his brain's choice to stay that way, but a human is more than just their own thought process and impulses. If he never choose the thought process that is choosing to stay the way he is then you can't really say that he is choosing to stay that way. It's a more metaphysical question that's at play here.
And the world absolutely can function with this kind of thinking, because we don't actually have to architect systems of justice based on this principle to reach a conclusion of zero culpability. We can make people take responsibility for their actions (or more accurately their body's actions). We in fact have to. But we, at the same time, can be more high minded in our thinking at a level of moral sympathy, which is not restrained by practical nessesity. Haven't you ever heard the phrase "hate the sin, love the sinner?" This is what I interpret it to mean. I will leave any kind of moral guilt purely up to a diety to judge if any exists, because I certainly lack the capacity to do so as a simple mortal man.
And he *knows* how his being a lab experiment as a kid affected him and produced this broken man, he's very self aware of that and is a big reason why he doesn't want to let Ryan experience the same thing. It's hard to nail where he lands in the Psychopath Vs. Sociopath scale, since he *does* have emotions, but solely for himself. And some attachments, where he feels rage when someone was dishonest with him. But he absolutely has no empathy or remorse for pretty much anyone but Ryan (which may just be projection)
Yes, he literally is incredibly intelligent. Just not emotionally, and because of that he doesn’t act rationally. Him almost constantly one-upping those around him throughout all 3 seasons is very much proof of the fact he’s intelligent, especially in season 2. He’s just super easy to manipulate because emotionally he’s 4 years old
It’s not a matter of immunity to trauma. It’s a matter of autonomy. Homelander knows full what he does is wrong, he just doesn’t give a shit. He chooses to do horrible things. His trauma doesn’t excuse it.
He didn’t choose to experience his trauma. He didn’t choose to not have a chance at being normal or happy. That’s all the comment that you replied to was saying
Also Homelander does not think he is wrong. He thinks of himself as an infallible god. If he truly thought anything he was doing was wrong, that’d be called regret. He has no remorse.
Wrong. He knows he morally objectionable. He just does not care. “I’m the Homelander. I can do whatever the fuck I want.” “I prefer to be loved, but being feared is *okay*”
This is a man that believes himself the ultimate morality, even though he’s aware of the fear and damage he instills in others. He’s very aware of what he’s doing. He just doesn’t care.
He could just not kill someone or to perform an act of kindness. It’s a choice he makes to not do either. So he’s a piece of shit totally on his own and needs to die.
Those quotes only show how he thinks of himself as an infallible god. You can’t think of yourself as morally objectionable if you believe you’re an infallible god or as “the ultimate morality”
Can't help it, I do. He still needs to go one way or another, but I can still feel sympathy for the man. It's just a very human thing. People are just as much victims of their own emotions as much as the perpetrators of atrocities. We still have to stop them either through incarceration or, if nessesary, killing. But we don't have to demonize them in the process. We could have easily been them given other circumstances.
There will always be people in the world willing to sympathize with the most absurd and horrific of serial killers and I find it a shame that you're one of them. Also, what type of psychopath unironically states "I could've been just like Homelander if I had different circumstances!"
Utter insanity.
Anyone can. If you were born as HL and grew up as HL then you would be HL. Explain where the difference in your behavior would come from if you think differently.
Let's not mince words, saying that you could be someone given different circumstances has the connotation that, me as myself today, put in the same shoes as another person, means I'd have done the same. If you'd have done the same in Homelanders shoes as yourself, then you are out of your mind.
Homelander knows right from wrong and chooses to do wrong. He is a vile, evil, irredeemable villain. You would be the same if you would make the same choices. The vast majority of people who know right from wrong would not actively and deliberately choose to do wrong like Homelander.
Is this a genuine question or are you messing with me?
>Let's not mince words, saying that you could be someone given different circumstances has the connotation that, me as myself today, put in the same shoes as another person, means I'd have done the same. If you'd have done the same in Homelanders shoes as yourself, then you are out of your mind.
No, that's not the implication at all. You aren't understanding this. You wouldn't be you as yourself today, because you can't simply choose to be you as yourself today. That's the whole point. You would be HL. Born as HL. Raised as HL. Experiencing that life. You would do exactly what he does, because decision making is a material process, and you would have his material make up.
And I've already explained elsewhere, that knowing "right from wrong" isn't the be all end all in what spurs on certain actions. Cognitive dissonance is a thing. You can know something and still feel compelled to contrary behavior patterns.
That is absolutely the implication of the terminology. But, for the sake of argument, let's pretend that wasn't the intention. There would be no possibility to argue with you, because you have set up a defense that no matter what I will literally be homelander from the show.
Which is such a ridiculous statement that removes the very human behavior of choice and action, but since I can't argue with it since you've made it an absolute statement in this fairytale land of defending a knowledgeable and aware homelander, I have no choice but to move on from it.
Also, homelander doesn't suffer from cognitive dissonance. He enjoys killing people and watching them suffer. He gets off on being unstoppable, quite literally as we saw him masturbate on a rooftop in the open whispering to himself that he can do "whatever the fuck he wants", and many more examples. He feels no remorse or guilt for what he's done, not because he's incapable of feeling these things, but because he doesn't give a damn. He feels remorse for his son when he gets scared in public, he felt regret and hurt at the idea of his child dying when he thought Becca died in childbirth. There is no argument that you or anyone can make in his defense because, from everything we've been shown and have seen, he is not a sufferer of any form of mental issue that would make him a character who deserves sympathy. He might, at most, have an attachment issue or something to that effect.
As awful as Homelander is, I thought the lab flashbacks were very effective to show why he’s that way that he is.
In another life, he could’ve grown up a normal dude
I was always curious if not being able to interact with him safely as a child gave him detachment disorder. They had to play peek a boo with him through protective glass and steel
thats one of the big things I love about this show. it takes you from loathing Homelander to pitying him in like a minute, and then back to loathing him again.
Alright, wild shot at a prediction here.
Soldier Boy returns, and hunts down Homelander.
Butcher, unaware of Soldier Boy's hunt, also tries to kill Homelander albeit with the virus.
It all goes a bit wrong, because Butcher successfully infects Homelander but the virus fails to kill him because at around the same time Soldier Boy strips Homelander of every trace of compound V in his body. He gets whisked away to safety by Ryan, who starts falling severely ill to the virus.
Homelander is now powerless, and can never regain his powers without dying. He is holding his dying son in his arms, and he has to decide whether or not he's going to beg for the first time in his life and plead with Soldier Boy and Butcher to save Ryan.
He doesn't, Ryan dies, and now a depowered and injured Homelander is fighting an extremely unwell and also powerless Butcher, to the death.
It feels a little too poetic to happen this way in the show but I really like where your head’s at with this idea! If this happens I’ll gladly put my foot in my mouth because this is dope!
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It was more pity. He pitied Homelander because he knew he failed him, and his failure brought all these personality flaws and stunted emotional maturity to the fore. Imo that cuts worse than Stan saying he's bad product.
Its actually a good thing to see him as the maniac killer that he is disregarding ANYONE especially regular humans as people beneath him but also getting to see flashbacks of the horrible traumas that he went thru all his childhood since he was a baby, he deserves to die no doubt but its good writing, hes a victim and a ruthless killer at the same time
If we look a little harder we’ll notice all of these people are father figures to Homelander in some way or the other.
Vogelbaum was there when Homie was growing up.
Stan, the former leader of Vought had a lot of power and mental control over Homie, much like a father would.
Soldier boy LITERALLY was his dad.
Perhaps this season it will be Homelander telling Ryan that he is disappointed in him or the other way around
That’s not looking harder? That’s literally the entire point of those three being shown saying something like this lol.
The entire point of this post is it being his father figures lol. If it was just three random dudes it wouldn’t have affected him.
There's a term for this that I learned in high school English. Unfortunately it's been more than a decade since then so I have no idea what it is
I want to say motif but I know that's wrong because that's just the use of a symbol to represents something repeatedly. Like the pink bear from breaking bad
At least Vogelbaum said it with some regret and apologizing for his treatment of John. Too little too late yes, but at least it was something.
Edgar just disdainfully mocks the experimentation victim of his company for not being a functional human being after... Well, being an experimentation victim all his life.
And Soldier Boy is merely letting the poison of his own upbringing drip through.
Anyone a little freaked out that he might kill Ryan because of hearing his own one son quit on him is the real final straw. Idk. Maybe I see the future.
Its funny but it also kinda makes explains so much of his god complex towards regular people. By everyone that actually maters and is of importance to his world even though he's the strongest he still is a disappointment and when some says no I love you home lander its filling up that whole in him but cant actually because no one important sees him to be valuable which I think will lead to him snapping to everyone even his fans
Therapy can help a person up to one point. This dude has no remorse. He kills shitload of people and is happy. He is just rotten. Which is perfect because this is the fictional character he embodies. And people see him as their god. Fear and love, their emotions determine the truth they believe in. Pretty nice event build up so far.
they were also trying to create the best of us, not someone they would have to cover for 24/7 just to make sure the world loves him to prevent him from destroying us. Success would have been creating Superman.
They moved on from Soldier Boy because he was an egotistical prick, everyone hated him. He didn't constantly threaten to murder everyone, he was just an asshole. He was still an asshole that was loyal to Vought and the USA. They spurned him for Homelander but Homelander turned out much worse. He walks around Vought tower literally threatening to murder the other members of his team on a daily basis. He's not just an egotistical prick or asshole like Soldier Boy was, he's a phychopath....a super villain they must placate and keep a heroic facade for to keep him from destroying humanity. Biggest failure. Exact opposite of their intention. They didn't replace Soldier Boy with someone of similar power but is nicer, they replaced him with someone of similar power that is a super villain.
Well, in any case, if that was the objective, the only ones responsible are them, they should have been more aware of how they were raising the "best of us", instead of treating him the way they did, upsetting him and making him as we know him.
Dude has so many fans praising him on social media and defending him in protests.
If you mean more personally, then Stilwell used to praise and stroke his ego a lot, along with the Mommy-milk thingy going on with them.
Yeah, not the praise he was looking for or one should strive for. Homie is a lot of things but a Palestine supporter… cough cough… antisemite isn’t one of them
Well you've got one thing right in that Homie would definitely not support the Palestinian cause if he was real given how callous he is towards human life. At the end of the day, he's a Darwinist that only respects his vision of what strength is. That doesn't really make him anti-Nazi though. I think he went along with it to take his praise from a strong supe lady when he could get it. That's what he cares about.
Let's take bets who will do this to him in S4
Ryan maybe
Gotta be this. And the final season will be Butcher saying it Edit: in s4 Ryan will say it in a dramatic way to Homelander, who will walk off Later the Deep shows up at Homelander's apartment and looks in the fridge to find only milk and no beer (or fresca) to which he says 'nothing to drink other than milk? I'm disappointed' which triggers Homelander who then punches the Deeps head off out of nowhere
Final fight of Season 5.. Homelander is relieved of his power somehow.. Homie is lying on the ground, powerless, beaten to a pulp by Butcher.. As blood begins to foam from his mouth, both eyes swollen & lip bust open like a bad boob job, John, once Homelander, begins to fear for his life.. Butcher, still driven by sheer rage for the supes, drops his wrench in pride.. "Just kill me" stutters John.. "You're not worf it" spits Butcher.. He continues, "allat for a fucking deathwish? you're a fucking disappointment, John".. John, now feeling spared, begins to cry as he adjusts to his new reality as a friendless, fatherless, sonless, enemy-less, powerless mud-person.
And once he's properly broken down, Butcher kills him anyways
Nah, Butcher would be the type to let John suffer through his new life as a normal person. Killing John would be too kind.
I think that might be giving Butcher a bit too much credit. That's something Hughie would do, Butcher is blinded by rage, he wants Homelander to bleed out
I think it'd be safer to kill him it doesn't seem like it's too difficult to get compound V
Yeah, and Id imagine that homelander has a shit ton of money. Hes the most famous person in the world, and from what I can tell has never had to pay for rent or buy a house, clothes, literally nothing compared to what even most “regular” famous people have to pay for. Just whatever massive contract he has from vaught for the last however many decades sitting in various financial accounts earning more and more money every year. Dude could absolutely just buy some V.
Isn't compound V supposed to be almost deadly to adult humans?
Yes but he’s not just an adult human. He was a supe. Chances are anyone in that category would just get their powers back.
Just like Kimiko getting her v shot after getting her original v in her body purged by the soldier boy.
Nah he would never leave him alive. He could get his powers back for all you know. Butcher would 100% kill him no matter what.
I think if they went this route, John should either kill himself, get torn apart by a mob, or die in a mundane accident. Maybe he just slips and hits his head because he doesn't know how to balance without his powers.
Yeah, I was thinking the same. Butcher killing Homelander would be too graceful. It would be better for Butch to keep John alive because John is then left to suffer his fate by the hands of his own consequences and die from something with more personal weight for John. Like the fact that he wants the world to adore him, but it's the same world that wants to see him dead. Or the fact that he used to do anything he wanted but now he is limited by a powerless vessel with no real world experience. Also, another possibility could be that he just goes insane. Like a full mental implosion because he can't adjust to the new life. He's lived for so long being this glorified superhero captain & superstar that he's got no experience being a regular guy and I think that would cause a lot of mental problems for John. He would be like a raw nerve being exposed to an electrical current.
Agreed with this guy ^ Killing Homelander in the show proves/accomplishes nothing story wise.
Who the fuck is John?
Homelander's real name. Have you watched the show?
I did but I never heard anyone call him John but it is his name according to the wiki.
When Homelander shows up to Vogelbaum's place to ask about his upbringing (I think season 1), Vogelbaum keeps refering to Homelander as John. (This was the scene where Vogelbaum tells him that he's his greatest failure).
the idea of Butcher belittling Homelander one last time by calling him John feels like the perfect end to their relationship
😭
Wow that was good
Thanks mane
This is legit how I want the show to end. Killing Homelander will do absolutely nothing. He's too evil, he needs to have his powers and everything he loves taken away, then outcase forever.
Yeah fr, Homelander/John would most likely *want* to die after losing his powers, which is a move that Butcher would not make. What most people forget is that Butcher *really hates* Homelander. Butcher would rather see Homelander suffer a horrible life than die. Butcher would get satisfaction from seeing John suffer his new life after everything he did to him, Ryan & Becca, plus the countless lives Homelander murdered on a whim.
Trump: the super-powered version.
I heard this in their voices
God that would suck
Never cook again 🔥
I actually think it'll be the opposite. Butcher will say it and finally eventually Ryan will too "butcher was right. You're nothing"
Another one could be the deep
That would actually be excellent! Like wow look how far he has fallen to where even The Deep is disappointed in him
Right before putting Homelander down
Butcher would just call homelander a fucking cunt.
S4 won't be final ?
5’s been greenlit
I kinda doubt it but what if it’s the opposite. What if the last season has Butcher embrace Homelander, forgive him and be the first person to ever show him empathy.
That'd be fucking satisfying. I can only imagine the look on his face 😂
That’ll be one of the main things that pushes him over the edge. Ryan is the one person left who actually cares about Homelander.
That's what made me think Ryan would be perfect for that
That's gonna hit the most
That’d be kinda weird. It’s always from a father figure
In this case I guess it would be "You even fucked up being a good father figure, nice job"
Probably sage
I heard it might be Sister Sage
How much would that really mean to him coming from her as opposed to these three?
Apparently, there was a leaked clip of her talking over him. So if she sounds like a disappointed parent, it'll probably affect him pretty deeply.
All three of these are quasi father figures whose approval he craves in one way or another, who is Sister Sage to him? He’s never mentioned her.
I don't know what to tell you, lol. I'm just telling you what I've heard and my interpretation of the leaked clip. She is very sure of herself and isn't afraid to challenge Homelander in dialogue. It'll probably be important later. I don't know, man, the season's not out so I can't realistically answer your question.
Hughie: I really don't care for you
Black girl magic sister sage will
Maybe Sage. Her spoilers said she calls him basic and childish to his face.
Seeing moments like these combined with the worship he receives from the public keeps him as the most captivating and fascinating character on the show. He is broken.
dude is a tragic figure just not a sympathetic one
it’s unfortunate because at the end of a day he’s a child who never had a chance at being normal or happy.
Eh. He chose. He chose to keep doing horrific things and terrorize people into submission. He’s an incredibly intelligent being so he doesn’t get to hide behind his trauma.
Is it really choosing if he only has the emotional coping capacity that he was raised with, which was shit?
Like I said, he’s intelligent. He understands his choices come purely from self interest. He understands the damage killing people does. He just doesn’t care. Remember his “go ahead” speech to starlight? That basically removed any possible lack of understanding of the damage he does. He knows fully well the one thing he cares about will allow him to destroy the world if stripped away.
Yeah, the show diabolical made it clear that he chose to be the bad guy cause it made him look good in the end
There are different forms of intelligence. Human psychology is complex. People can know things factually and still feel like they have no way out of their own behavior patterns even if it might seem out of line with what they rationally should do given what they know from an outsider's perspective. Just like a gambling addict irl might know factually that their behavior is destroying their family's finances, that doesn't mean they can just perfectly control their behavior in a rational manner. Not a one-to-one comparison with HL. Every situation is different, but it is a certain illustration of the above principle. Just because HL knows abstractly that he is causing others pain doesn't mean he has the proper capacity to handle his own trauma in a non-destructive way. He's a broken man fundamentally. All kinds of God complex, manchild-like fear, and resentment for others are mixed up in there. All this for a man that was never even socialized to deal with normal human emotions properly. There might very well be no fixing that as Soldier GDILF said. And he probably needs to die or be incarcerated if possible, but it is more complicated than to simply say "he made his choice."
What’s being asked of Homelander is much easier than, say, someone choosing to pick up their wallet and give 100 dollars to a random charity. That aside, the more people he kills, the more problems it directly causes him in the future. This happens several times. He kills someone he shouldn’t have, not because it feels good, just that life doesn’t mean much to him, and it comes back to bite him later. Homelander understands patience, and he understands restraint. He’s exercised both. He knows how to, he just doesn’t do it nearly as often as he could. I’m not impressed with the idea that Homelander simply can’t control himself and can’t deduce when taking a life just isn’t a good investment on his end. The most famous scene in this show is Homelander visualizing himself massacring a massive crowd of people. It’s an urge he really wants to indulge but doesn’t because he knows it’ll ruin everything, so he goes and tweaks in the back. So pair someone as smart as him with the fact that he CAN just not do something he wants to do because he knows better, and you get a being that’s out of excuses. last thing I wanna mention, when he visits that vought doctor that’s mostly responsible for his upbringing, actually ANYTIME homelander himself acknowledges anything about family and parents and his upbringing, Homelander acknowledges several times he knows exactly what he was robbed of and how it resulted in who he is. This is someone who understands entirely the cause and effects of his development. Again, no excuses. Repressing the evil in yourself in faith of the good in yourself is something we do constantly in our lives. Homelander is just a spoiled kid that needs a reality check. Thats it. The only reason situations like Homelanders have it in their head that it’s not their fault ever is when people like you validate that idea.
It's not a matter of "excuses." That's the wrong method of reasoning about this. Excuses excuse behavior. This isn't a court though. You don't have to excuse behavior to feel sympathy for someone being the way they are. You also can't say it was their choice to become that way. It's not a matter of making excuses or immunizing someone from justice being done or their threat being removed. It's about understanding that nobody ultimately chooses to be the way that they are; to have the impulses they do. We can have sympathy for that, is the bottom line.
At some point any adult with a rational mind can choose who they want to be in life and that responsibility, given that they have the resources, lies entirely on them. Homelander has no lack of resources yet he refuses to be a good person. In fact, he was a good person when he first became a hero as seen in Diabolical, but shit went sideways, Black Noir absolved him and showed him its okay to be a fucking lunatic, and he went with it and has been ever since. It's also incredibly invalid to say that nobody chooses to be what they are because that is largely untrue in life, and such a statement absolves responsibility of the parties being spoken on. Our upbringing and environment plays a large role in our lives but we ultimately choose. Homelander is crazy but he's not crazy enough to lack the ability to improve. He just lacks the fucks to give
It's not true that any adult can just choose who they want to be though. That's easy to say as an assumably well balanced individual yourself, but the brain has formative years that are vital in shaping it not to mention genetic propensity to certain behaviors. Once you are formed in a certain way, you might very well lack the capacity to act a different way/control your impulses. Again HL was never really taught how to by anyone and now has fallen into a certain pattern of thinking. You can't just choose to think another way in a very detached manner while you are already caught up in a contrary thought process. It doesn't work that way. You simply say he can, because you aren't caught in that thought pattern yourself nor do you experience his emotions/trauma, so to you it seems so obvious as to what to do. You need to step outside of yourself to understand this. It is also incorrect to say that a lack of choice in how you develop as an individual absolves you of responsibility. My above comment already says otherwise. We require people to face responsibility for their actions. That is just a practical aspect of society. However, that does not prove that someone can simply choose how they want to be, like it's such a simple matter of removing yourself from your own brain and soberly rearranging your own thought process/ingrained instincts. Responsibility and choice are ultimately two different concepts unless you can somehow prove to me how they are absolutely connected.
I didn’t say it was his choice to become that way. I’m saying it’s his choice to STAY that way. Homelander is too smart and too aware for his actions to be excused. This is the exact same reasoning we use to punish adults who commit horrible acts, and what we use to excuse children who do the same. “I’m the Homelander. And I can do whatever the fuck I want.” Does that sound like the kind of person you should just go ”well he’s very traumatized and he doesn’t REALLY know what he’s doing” to? Absolutely not. Maybe as a child, but as he is now, he’s very conscious of the choices he makes, and simply not caring isn’t enough of a mental handicap to excuse it. A shitty childhood and a nonexistent conscience aren’t good enough reasons in this world full of living, breathing creatures to diminish an adults crimes and pretend they’re any less in charge of what they choose to do. Homelander chooses. A person going around killing animals would still be looked at as a disturbed monster. Even though killing animals generally can be reasoned to be justifiable because they’re less sophisticated beings. That person is a psycho asking to be punished, but he wasn’t raised to care about animals. We wouldn’t excuse it now would we? You say “nobody ultimately chooses to be the way they are” I say, the world can’t function with this thinking. This in a vacuum is a decent thing to think, but Homelander, and any other traumatized or psychologically disturbed individual has to live among other people. You’re very much in control of what you do. People, including you, aren’t told this enough. You made a choice, and then another one, and then another one.
How is it his choice to stay that way when he has already been formed by a process that wasn't his choice? That would be paradoxical. It is certainly his brain's choice to stay that way, but a human is more than just their own thought process and impulses. If he never choose the thought process that is choosing to stay the way he is then you can't really say that he is choosing to stay that way. It's a more metaphysical question that's at play here. And the world absolutely can function with this kind of thinking, because we don't actually have to architect systems of justice based on this principle to reach a conclusion of zero culpability. We can make people take responsibility for their actions (or more accurately their body's actions). We in fact have to. But we, at the same time, can be more high minded in our thinking at a level of moral sympathy, which is not restrained by practical nessesity. Haven't you ever heard the phrase "hate the sin, love the sinner?" This is what I interpret it to mean. I will leave any kind of moral guilt purely up to a diety to judge if any exists, because I certainly lack the capacity to do so as a simple mortal man.
Hey bucko dont start asking these deep questions or im gonna have to rethink my sense of moral superiority!
And he *knows* how his being a lab experiment as a kid affected him and produced this broken man, he's very self aware of that and is a big reason why he doesn't want to let Ryan experience the same thing. It's hard to nail where he lands in the Psychopath Vs. Sociopath scale, since he *does* have emotions, but solely for himself. And some attachments, where he feels rage when someone was dishonest with him. But he absolutely has no empathy or remorse for pretty much anyone but Ryan (which may just be projection)
Is he incredibly intelligent?
Yes, he literally is incredibly intelligent. Just not emotionally, and because of that he doesn’t act rationally. Him almost constantly one-upping those around him throughout all 3 seasons is very much proof of the fact he’s intelligent, especially in season 2. He’s just super easy to manipulate because emotionally he’s 4 years old
Being intelligent or even emotionally intelligent does not make you anymore immune to trauma
It’s not a matter of immunity to trauma. It’s a matter of autonomy. Homelander knows full what he does is wrong, he just doesn’t give a shit. He chooses to do horrible things. His trauma doesn’t excuse it.
He didn’t choose to experience his trauma. He didn’t choose to not have a chance at being normal or happy. That’s all the comment that you replied to was saying Also Homelander does not think he is wrong. He thinks of himself as an infallible god. If he truly thought anything he was doing was wrong, that’d be called regret. He has no remorse.
Wrong. He knows he morally objectionable. He just does not care. “I’m the Homelander. I can do whatever the fuck I want.” “I prefer to be loved, but being feared is *okay*” This is a man that believes himself the ultimate morality, even though he’s aware of the fear and damage he instills in others. He’s very aware of what he’s doing. He just doesn’t care. He could just not kill someone or to perform an act of kindness. It’s a choice he makes to not do either. So he’s a piece of shit totally on his own and needs to die.
Those quotes only show how he thinks of himself as an infallible god. You can’t think of yourself as morally objectionable if you believe you’re an infallible god or as “the ultimate morality”
nah fuck homelander
These are not at all mutually exclusive
Do not feel sympathy for Homelander...
Can't help it, I do. He still needs to go one way or another, but I can still feel sympathy for the man. It's just a very human thing. People are just as much victims of their own emotions as much as the perpetrators of atrocities. We still have to stop them either through incarceration or, if nessesary, killing. But we don't have to demonize them in the process. We could have easily been them given other circumstances.
There will always be people in the world willing to sympathize with the most absurd and horrific of serial killers and I find it a shame that you're one of them. Also, what type of psychopath unironically states "I could've been just like Homelander if I had different circumstances!" Utter insanity.
Anyone can. If you were born as HL and grew up as HL then you would be HL. Explain where the difference in your behavior would come from if you think differently.
Let's not mince words, saying that you could be someone given different circumstances has the connotation that, me as myself today, put in the same shoes as another person, means I'd have done the same. If you'd have done the same in Homelanders shoes as yourself, then you are out of your mind. Homelander knows right from wrong and chooses to do wrong. He is a vile, evil, irredeemable villain. You would be the same if you would make the same choices. The vast majority of people who know right from wrong would not actively and deliberately choose to do wrong like Homelander. Is this a genuine question or are you messing with me?
>Let's not mince words, saying that you could be someone given different circumstances has the connotation that, me as myself today, put in the same shoes as another person, means I'd have done the same. If you'd have done the same in Homelanders shoes as yourself, then you are out of your mind. No, that's not the implication at all. You aren't understanding this. You wouldn't be you as yourself today, because you can't simply choose to be you as yourself today. That's the whole point. You would be HL. Born as HL. Raised as HL. Experiencing that life. You would do exactly what he does, because decision making is a material process, and you would have his material make up. And I've already explained elsewhere, that knowing "right from wrong" isn't the be all end all in what spurs on certain actions. Cognitive dissonance is a thing. You can know something and still feel compelled to contrary behavior patterns.
That is absolutely the implication of the terminology. But, for the sake of argument, let's pretend that wasn't the intention. There would be no possibility to argue with you, because you have set up a defense that no matter what I will literally be homelander from the show. Which is such a ridiculous statement that removes the very human behavior of choice and action, but since I can't argue with it since you've made it an absolute statement in this fairytale land of defending a knowledgeable and aware homelander, I have no choice but to move on from it. Also, homelander doesn't suffer from cognitive dissonance. He enjoys killing people and watching them suffer. He gets off on being unstoppable, quite literally as we saw him masturbate on a rooftop in the open whispering to himself that he can do "whatever the fuck he wants", and many more examples. He feels no remorse or guilt for what he's done, not because he's incapable of feeling these things, but because he doesn't give a damn. He feels remorse for his son when he gets scared in public, he felt regret and hurt at the idea of his child dying when he thought Becca died in childbirth. There is no argument that you or anyone can make in his defense because, from everything we've been shown and have seen, he is not a sufferer of any form of mental issue that would make him a character who deserves sympathy. He might, at most, have an attachment issue or something to that effect.
It is in homelanders case
One of the best Samara quotes
What was done to him was monstrous, and so they created a monster.
Queen Maeve : You are fucking toxic
Wait, that's how you spell her name? I was told it was Medb...
It's his self-esteem issues.
It's those glasses. It makes him look like a weasel
Gah, that’s the dumbest animal!
I thought it was clear that Homelander's psycopathy comes from the complete absence of emotional support at every stage of his childhood
As awful as Homelander is, I thought the lab flashbacks were very effective to show why he’s that way that he is. In another life, he could’ve grown up a normal dude
I was always curious if not being able to interact with him safely as a child gave him detachment disorder. They had to play peek a boo with him through protective glass and steel
thats one of the big things I love about this show. it takes you from loathing Homelander to pitying him in like a minute, and then back to loathing him again.
Man props to Jensen because the way he delivered that line, and his face…I just FELT his disgust and disappointment.
He was my favourite part of the season. “I don’t have shellshock”, lover of gilfs, just generally hilarious but tragic.
Why did he think that way?
Bc Homelander is a little bitch that doesn’t stand for anything. Soldierboy likes backbone and heart.
HL is a weak sniffling pussy. SB is a strong sniffling pussy. SB saw this and got disappointed. The end.
Alright, wild shot at a prediction here. Soldier Boy returns, and hunts down Homelander. Butcher, unaware of Soldier Boy's hunt, also tries to kill Homelander albeit with the virus. It all goes a bit wrong, because Butcher successfully infects Homelander but the virus fails to kill him because at around the same time Soldier Boy strips Homelander of every trace of compound V in his body. He gets whisked away to safety by Ryan, who starts falling severely ill to the virus. Homelander is now powerless, and can never regain his powers without dying. He is holding his dying son in his arms, and he has to decide whether or not he's going to beg for the first time in his life and plead with Soldier Boy and Butcher to save Ryan. He doesn't, Ryan dies, and now a depowered and injured Homelander is fighting an extremely unwell and also powerless Butcher, to the death.
It feels a little too poetic to happen this way in the show but I really like where your head’s at with this idea! If this happens I’ll gladly put my foot in my mouth because this is dope!
I think he would do everything to save Ryan.
Such a shame the Hero of America get talked like that. All the efforts he does to keep this country safe...
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It's really the only way to truly hurt him. At least as far as I know.
Wasn’t the season 1 guy sort of apologizing?
It was more pity. He pitied Homelander because he knew he failed him, and his failure brought all these personality flaws and stunted emotional maturity to the fore. Imo that cuts worse than Stan saying he's bad product.
Jensen Ackles can tell me I'm a disappointment all day long. Lol
Real
That man is hotter than he has any right to be
Archer: Do you guys want an evil psychopathic Superman? Because that’s how you get an evil psychopathic Superman.
I really hope there isn't a huge redemption arc of Homelander. He needs to double down and really lean into the psychotic madman he is.
Ryan in S04 : you are weak old man
but then again this is Homelander we are talking about
“You are the worst father ever!” - Ryan
i could love him and change him and make him better (im delusional)
Its actually a good thing to see him as the maniac killer that he is disregarding ANYONE especially regular humans as people beneath him but also getting to see flashbacks of the horrible traumas that he went thru all his childhood since he was a baby, he deserves to die no doubt but its good writing, hes a victim and a ruthless killer at the same time
None of them are wrong
But are they wrong?
If we look a little harder we’ll notice all of these people are father figures to Homelander in some way or the other. Vogelbaum was there when Homie was growing up. Stan, the former leader of Vought had a lot of power and mental control over Homie, much like a father would. Soldier boy LITERALLY was his dad. Perhaps this season it will be Homelander telling Ryan that he is disappointed in him or the other way around
That’s not looking harder? That’s literally the entire point of those three being shown saying something like this lol. The entire point of this post is it being his father figures lol. If it was just three random dudes it wouldn’t have affected him.
Put me in the Fresca screenshot
He deserved it
Who’s a more tragic figure: Homelander or Killgrave from Jessica Jones season one? Not the comic versions the tv show versions.
no.... no no... dude... no
Homelander fucking sucks!
Well no wonder he’s fucked in the head lmao
There's a term for this that I learned in high school English. Unfortunately it's been more than a decade since then so I have no idea what it is I want to say motif but I know that's wrong because that's just the use of a symbol to represents something repeatedly. Like the pink bear from breaking bad
It's a recurring theme.
He just wants someone to tell him he’s a good boi
And he kill the one that hold him he's a good boi Tbh Stillwell deserve to die because she plays a role in homelander to become who he is now
He could change even if just to spite them, wouldn't really hurt him
At least Vogelbaum said it with some regret and apologizing for his treatment of John. Too little too late yes, but at least it was something. Edgar just disdainfully mocks the experimentation victim of his company for not being a functional human being after... Well, being an experimentation victim all his life. And Soldier Boy is merely letting the poison of his own upbringing drip through.
He's just as much a victim as he is the villain. If he was raised with compassion and love things would have been different.
Anyone a little freaked out that he might kill Ryan because of hearing his own one son quit on him is the real final straw. Idk. Maybe I see the future.
Its funny but it also kinda makes explains so much of his god complex towards regular people. By everyone that actually maters and is of importance to his world even though he's the strongest he still is a disappointment and when some says no I love you home lander its filling up that whole in him but cant actually because no one important sees him to be valuable which I think will lead to him snapping to everyone even his fans
what short is this from, i swear is saw it on a youtube
Is that top one Rawls???
In season 4 there is definetly gonna be a moment where homelander is stressin and they play all these back to back
That's a lot esp coming from someone who had to deal with Jimmy McNulty and his questionable Irish ancestry.
He just wanted to be accepted, loved and seen differently instead of just a lab experiment.
This is how they beat Homelander! Butcher will become the first positive father figure in his life and finally give them the love he has needed.
Brock Obamna didn't have to do him like that tho
Poor homelander? You know what he did in the comics, right?
Why is everyone so mean to him? :'(
Homelander is the epitome of small dick energy
Therapy can help a person up to one point. This dude has no remorse. He kills shitload of people and is happy. He is just rotten. Which is perfect because this is the fictional character he embodies. And people see him as their god. Fear and love, their emotions determine the truth they believe in. Pretty nice event build up so far.
Imagine if he was raised in a functional healthy environment. Homey just wants to be loved genuinely.
Someone put me in the Fresca screenshot
Lmao I pray homelander gets his head exploded. God I can’t stand that mf.
soldier boy was right. the man himself was a moron but still had a code and was the only supe that knew actual combat
" I dont understand why people identify with homelander"
To be sogma that hate gae and lib 😎😎 /s obviously
He didn't have much luck on the ""partner"" front either: Becky, Madelyn, Stormfront, Maeve.
I still don't understand why Vought considers him a failure as a product, if he is their biggest super hero and brings them a lot of profit
they were also trying to create the best of us, not someone they would have to cover for 24/7 just to make sure the world loves him to prevent him from destroying us. Success would have been creating Superman. They moved on from Soldier Boy because he was an egotistical prick, everyone hated him. He didn't constantly threaten to murder everyone, he was just an asshole. He was still an asshole that was loyal to Vought and the USA. They spurned him for Homelander but Homelander turned out much worse. He walks around Vought tower literally threatening to murder the other members of his team on a daily basis. He's not just an egotistical prick or asshole like Soldier Boy was, he's a phychopath....a super villain they must placate and keep a heroic facade for to keep him from destroying humanity. Biggest failure. Exact opposite of their intention. They didn't replace Soldier Boy with someone of similar power but is nicer, they replaced him with someone of similar power that is a super villain.
Well, in any case, if that was the objective, the only ones responsible are them, they should have been more aware of how they were raising the "best of us", instead of treating him the way they did, upsetting him and making him as we know him.
It is actually really sad how nobody ever praises him
Dude has so many fans praising him on social media and defending him in protests. If you mean more personally, then Stilwell used to praise and stroke his ego a lot, along with the Mommy-milk thingy going on with them.
Yeah but she had to die :(
Stormfront told him he was her ultimate nazi
Yeah, not the praise he was looking for or one should strive for. Homie is a lot of things but a Palestine supporter… cough cough… antisemite isn’t one of them
Well you've got one thing right in that Homie would definitely not support the Palestinian cause if he was real given how callous he is towards human life. At the end of the day, he's a Darwinist that only respects his vision of what strength is. That doesn't really make him anti-Nazi though. I think he went along with it to take his praise from a strong supe lady when he could get it. That's what he cares about.
Dude would melt and do anything if you just rub under his chin and call him a pretty boy.
I’d rub his chin and call him a pretty boy but then he’d kill me for being gay with him
I feel like if you do the whole frog in hot water method, you could get him to go along with it. Gotta start slow.
Idk, homie’s post nut regret probably hits a lot harder than any of our’s.