#my heart SHATTERS every time i am subjected do scenes from diabolical 8 or any flashbacks to the lab

[blindmagdalena]

Okay,look I get it,Homelander is supposed to be a horrifying psychopath and not at all a good person but his character just makes me sad?Maybe I'm crazy and yeah I know the boys is meant to be a cynical look at heroes and how expecting people with ridiculous powers and fame could be in any way good is just naive and foolish,but personally I would like to believe that human kindness and our spiteful determation is the reason why we are surviving in the first place 1/?

2/? Obviously Homelander isn't meant to be looked at with sympathy but my thing is, he is a product of the damn organization in the first place,instead of you know teaching basic human empathy,they taught him basically that looking good is how he gets love and admiration,they didn't teach him that because he is the strongest he can help and save and protect others weaker no instead that's the condition to get any kind of love to him and no person can take that for long and idk I'm just sad over it 3/? The man genuinely doesn't have any kind of inter personal relationship and these fuckers didn't teach him shit other than how to act,had there been like one person with ounce of humanity working there when John was a kid that like got him out of there or shown basic human kindness,we would have a different man now,like Idk Homelander strikes me as a person that if you happen to kidnap him as long as you treat him to things like Mac n cheese he would probably enjoy it? 4/4How bad is this society that John probably would have benefited from some rando with basic humanity just snatching him away?Fuck this company,but anyway I find it interesting that people want a perfect superhero in Homelander and then get surprised over his psychotic meltdowns for a simple reason,humans aren't perfect,what they want isn't a human, it's something else and when that something else doesn't see value in their human lives they are horrified? Should have made him care for you Vought.

I don't know that we're not meant to look at Homelander with sympathy. Homelander as a character is nuanced, and is dimensional enough to be worthy of both critique and sympathy. Scenes like his torturous childhood, the blue blanket, the mirror scene, and even his milk fixation all demonstrate really... tragic aspects of the whole. a tragic backstory is motive, and as some dude once said, "Cool motive, still murder!" we can sympathize without excusing. imo, the show actually does a pretty good job at showing us that Vought and people like Vogelbaum are wholly to blame for the man that John became. another element to consider is that Vought wasn't trying to make a good person. they were trying to make a good product. It wasn't until Vogelbaum saw how unhinged John was that he realized he had made a mistake. you know who they WERE trying to make a good person? Ryan. Ryan is where we see exactly who John could have been. we don't even need to speculate, because the narrative is screaming at us this!! here!! look!! love is foundational to humanity!!! and to your point about kindness and the human condition, I don't think the show is QUITE so cynical. the fact that Homelander craves love and acceptance as deeply as he does, even with that other self of himself desperately trying to choke it out of him, even with everything that was done to him and withheld from him, is a testament to the strength of his humanity. you're right, Homelander is deeply flawed, deeply human, and he HATES it. villains aren't born, they're made, and that's exactly what Vought did. I think the fact you feel as badly as you do for Homelander is an excellent example of your own personal kindness and empathy. I think that on some level, we ARE meant to feel badly for Homelander. but it doesn't change the fact that his deeds are spreading the harm that was done to him, and that he needs to be cuddled to my bosom stopped.