#just as vogelbaum and edgar and even madelyn were

[homielander]

You called me "Squirt," silly. Remember why? [No.] Oh, Marty— okay. But you do remember, though, that I used to be left in there for hours, days on end. Completely alone, right? Only — I was never really alone, was I? Big Brother was always watching. You were always watching, weren't you, Marty? Huh? But... growing boys have certain... needs, shall we say.

THE BOYS 4.04 | Wisdom of the Ages

[amostimprobabledream]

You know, I know people like to meme on Homelander like "bro is beefing with a baby haha", but with S4 Ep4 revealing more context to his backstory, it's really not surprising and adds an extra tragic layer. (Note this isn't excusing him, it's just a little analysis.)

We already know early on that Homelander's childhood is a public fabrication and that he was raised as a lab rat, with Vogelbaum being his primary father figure. Despite raising John from birth, though, Vogelbaum has never seen him as a son or even a child - he's a product, an experiment that needs to be managed. Every day, Vogelbaum would go to work, do experiments on Homelander with his team of scientists, Stan Edgar, Barbara, and then go home and play happy families. Billy Butcher manages to get Vogelbaum to give him intel on Homelander specifically by threatening to hurt Vogelbaum's daughter if he doesn't comply. Once again, Vogelbaum puts his biological child over the one he spent most of his time with, and doesn't bother warning him or Madelyn of what's coming.

We also know now that the scientists who tortured him also had families - Frank is forced to go in the oven because Homelander overtly threatens to burn them too if he doesn't. We don't know about Marty or Barbara but it's easy to assume they do too. But none of them thought anything of sticking a little boy in an oven or testing nuclear weapons on him.

Then you have Madelyn. And we don't know exactly how long they've known each other, but it seems like it must be a long time for Madelyn to be in the position she is in Vought and by how well she knows Homelander. She's the closest thing to a mother figure he's ever had, and his unofficial handler/mentor. Whatever Madelyn thinks of him, Homelander is close to her.

And then Madelyn gets pregnant.

Something that always stuck out to me in Season One was when Homelander comments that Madelyn's baby is just a prop to make her feel like a good person. This always seemed like a really astute and oddly specific, personal observation, because mostly Homelander seemed pretty selective with Madelyn's unsavoury qualities until she lies about something too major for him to ignore anymore. But it does seem, to me, that he was right - whether Madelyn felt genuine love for Teddy or not, it does seem like these scientists and other people who work at Vought use their loved ones to convince themselves that they aren't really bad people - look, they have a good relationship with their kids! They're happily married! Yes, they experimented on a child, but that was just a job. It's what he was made for. But that's not who they really are, right? In particular, Madelyn's determination to make Teddy breastfeed from her seemed less because it was what's best for him, health-wise, and more because she saw it as something she was failing at as a mother so early on, and because she wasn't happy about her motherhood plans being derailed by her baby's refusal to comply with them. I feel like down the line, Madelyn would have probably ended up being emotionally abusive or at least extremely manipulative as a mother - loving your child and being a controlling parent aren't mutually exclusive, after all.

Vogelbaum's affection for his daughter doesn't change what an awful person he is. Stan Edgar adopting and grooming Victoria into being, well, Victoria, doesn't mean he isn't a sociopath - he's fond of Victoria because she's a successful project he raised. He still fucked her up and turned her into a serial killer and Victoria has now demonstrated she's willing to violate Zoe's bodily autonomy if she thinks it's necessary (or rather, convinces herself it is.) Frank was a family man 'just doing his job', but that didn't save him from Homelander's wrath. Did their families know about the atrocities they were committing? If they didn't, would they be able to look at them the same way?

So no wonder Homelander hates Madelyn's baby - he finally had a parental figure in his life who didn't have a family taking away what he saw as the love and attention he deserved like Vogelbaum did, and then she goes and has a baby anyway, and once again, someone else is receiving all the affection and care that Homelander has never, ever been given by anyone.

tl;dr: Homelander hating Madelyn's baby makes perfect sense and makes me sad. EDIT: If I've made a some mistakes in this post it's because I haven't watched S1 & 2 in a while so my recollection is a bit fuzzy, excuse me for that lol.