#is controversial and i feel a bit weird slipping in that characterization of it w/o any follow-up)

[homielander]

the most interesting character detail about maeve through which i have extrapolated at least half my understanding of her is that she prefers to be called maeve. i frequently see "maggie" pop up in meta and fic as her chosen name, but quite literally nobody calls her that, including (and most significantly) elena. elena is maeve's tether to her humanity and her refuge away from vought, yet even elena only ever refers to her as maeve. (and in season 2, we learn that maeve started dating elena before she joined the seven -- before queen maeve's popularity would have become so inescapable that she would feel compelled to introduce herself by that name.) it's especially notable that in her final scene, maeve refers to starlight as annie for only the second time, but she is still called maeve by both annie and elena.

here's what we know about maeve's life as maggie: she had a rocky relationship with her father whom she doesn't seem to speak to anymore, she's from a "cousin-fucker hick town" as described by homelander -- i can't imagine this place being terribly lgbt-friendly, and she generally lacks connection with anyone she would have known before becoming queen maeve. she doesn't have fond memories of this time of her life, and perhaps that extends to all associations with it, including the name maggie.

i tend to think that becoming queen maeve was, in many ways, self-actualizing for her. the act that garners her national attention and earns her a ticket to vought is a heroic one -- she breaks every single bone in her right arm to save a school bus from falling off a bridge. and i know madelyn says she is responsible for the mythos of queen maeve, but this character was still aspirational, and likely someone maeve wanted to live up to. in any case, this new identity gave her a purpose and tools to achieve it: she wanted to help people! by her own admission, maeve enters vought bright-eyed and hopeful, not far off from annie. (maeve is also one of the only supes in the seven not to know about compound v -- she doesn't strike me as religious but believing she's among the very few born with powers would have strengthened her internal drive to be a hero.)

it's for the same reason that i think maeve actually... liked having powers? of course she says otherwise in her last season, but season 3 maeve is cynical and weary from about two decades of dealing with vought and homelander's abuse. they've used her first as the token woman and then the token gay person of the seven. after growing largely passive to the brutality of the job, the flight 37 incident forces her to confront all of the violence she's witnessed and tolerated. she's given pieces of herself away and she loathes the husk of herself that's left. i don't find it surprising that she would want to relinquish every single connection to vought, including her powers.

assuring herself that she will be better off without her powers comes with an added benefit: she gets to distinguish herself from homelander, who would be lost without his powers. and i think she is eager to make this distinction in her mind because there are some uncomfortable similarities between their initiations into vought. the mantle of homelander allows him to exert agency for the first time in his life, just as the mantle of queen maeve endows her with purpose for the first time in hers. (crucially, none of his current circle call him john, either.) they both enjoy being the most powerful superheroes in the world, the unending public adoration, and (in my interpretation) each other. they're also both overwhelmingly lonely and they know it -- homelander teases her multiple times about how she has no friends with a bit more bite in every passing season, while maeve is keenly aware of his isolation and exploits his yearning for love pretty effectively.

maeve steadily grows disillusioned with her position at vought because she still has a moral code, suppressed though it may be. even so, she nearly relents to homelander's vision: that they will be lonely at the top but lonely together. she's pulled out of her miserable state of inaction by annie and elena. annie reminds her of what a hero should be (what she was, once); elena offers her a way out of vought, serving as maeve's light at the end of the tunnel, so to speak.

she escapes that tower as maeve, not maggie. she rejects homelander's god complex which engenders his cruelty towards regular people and 'lesser' supes -- no one will call her queen maeve ever again, at least -- but it is still important to her to be a hero, and for better or for worse, she found that as maeve. i feel like she'd struggle to exist without her powers (possibly the self-awareness hasn't settled in yet) for all the reasons mentioned above. i like to think that eventually, she'll circle around to helping people and resisting vought however possible -- albeit on a smaller, more covert scale so she can continue living a peaceful life with elena.