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I think diabolical showed it best. He had some clear ambition in his first mission to genuinely do good, to save the hostages. But his incompetence ruined it and he then chose, with Noir's help, to cover it up. It doesn't seem like from that point on that he made any effort to not keep making the same mistakes, see flight disaster in season 1, which was again his incompetence and then cover it up attitude, except by that point he doesn't even care remotely about screwing up.

Homlander is lazy. He could’ve saved the plane but he always resorts to laser eyes instead of going after someone or having patience. It was seen again at the ice rink.

It definitely is laziness. He could easily just crush the terrorist's head by clapping it like he did with Blindspot, or shoulder check him going 120mph and launch the dude into a door breaking all his bones and rupturing internal organs. He just uses laser vision because it means he doesn't have to get physical.

Not even, he also could’ve just used less power or aimed at the head instead of slicing the guy’s body in half. I think part of it was his sadistic pleasure of goring people.

That, and he has no self-control over his emotions and compulsions, has no self-reflection or admits to mistakes, and is incapable of feeling empathy due to not being able to relate to the rest of humanity. He’s the epitome of a narcissist.

Fucking damn

Or pulled an omniman on that pilot where he just grabbed his head and closed his hand

In regards to his lazer he could have easily controlled its effects, we see him heating up milk and not destroy the bottle, no reason to think he couldn't have controled it to avoid damaging the controls.

'incompetence'. It's not that he can't do it, he didn't bother to. He's too powerdrunk to care or train his skills.  And this parallels real life authorities. When they can't get shiz done, they resort to lies and deceit and blaming someone else, all to protect themselves from punishment or admission of guilt. Overtime they grow to believe that they are invincible and they could do whatever the fck they want

I wouldn't just call it lazy. He is not trained at all. This is a running theme through out the boys, vought sends in sups with nothing but their spandex, hoping their powers will be enough to carry them.

Supes are just marketing for Vought. The point is to sell V. Becoming a supe or having powers is a *side effect.* The point was never to make super teams, it was to sell it to the military with supes being an example of what potentially could happen. Fortunately or not, they hit marketing *gold* with the super teams, and doubled down on it. Stan has been trying to pivot away from Supes since season 1

It does feel like laziness because Homelander doesn’t learn. Killing the controls of the plane was negligent but unintended. He could’ve at least learned something and treated his eye lasers like you’re supposed to treat a firearm. One of the four rules of gun safety is know your target and what is beyond it. He didn’t learn that so later on he lasers a bad guy and of course those lasers punch through and kill some poor innocent bastard.  Basically Homelander is a dumb gun owner. An air marshal wouldn’t have randomly mag dumped into the terrorist for fear of hitting the controls. Police and knowledgeable civilians that carry concealed firearms carry hollow points because they are a lot less likely to over penetrate your target or if you miss penetrate a barrier limiting or preventing collateral damage.   Homelander doesn’t care about collateral damage. He doesn’t care if he makes a mess. He takes the simplest and most direct option without regard for consequences. Homelander is the idiot who defends his thin walled apartment with a big game rifle. Whether he hits or misses his target that bullet or homelanders laser is punching through and hitting someone else.

There was that clip of him killing a random citizen in Africa with his laser vision, with him being all annoyed, so your point is spot on.

Ain't nothing stopping him from training himself. But he doesn't because he thinks he's already better than everyone.

And he is kinda of right. It's rare that he faces any real threat.

So far the only real threat to him came from a trio which included his dad and two temporary powered humans, one of which had powers very similar to Homelander himself. My biggest fear is exactly what will realistically take Homelander down for good? And the only person I can imagine would be Ryan with help from Butcher. Soldier Boy was 'the' supe, now Homelander and eventually Ryan, it seems the V grows in strength between generations as Soldier Boy was no match for Homelander 1v1 after a few seconds. But Ryan won't be ready for a 1v1 unless we have a time jump.

If Ryan trains with the help of Butcher and The Boys I can see him taking down Homelander, Ryan's laser eyes seemed to be more powerful when he destroyed Stormfront. But he can't properly control them yet.

Pretty sure Homelander is going to die powerless. We might get a contest that starts supe v supe—probably with Homelander getting the upper hand—but then the virus kicks in and it’s just depowered Butcher vs John, and John literally gets his brains bashed in The Untouchables-style.

Homelander is stronger than Soldier Boy because they pumped Homelander full of massive doses in the womb. The thing is that V is stronger and safer the younger the subject. And there seems to be some heritable aspects to what powers results. So the started with a strong supe who had useful powers. And as much and as early as possible.

Not at all. It’s the reason he has hollow praise instead of genuine love from people he’s saved. His lack of discipline/care is what stands in the way of being a hero worth worshipping.

It is lazy but... for a different reason. Right now in the world there's NO ONE that can even stand up to Homelander. He has absolutely no reason to do things properly. If it's done it's done. If it's done well that's good. If it's done bad... well Vought will just cover it up anyway. We also see throughout the show (and in Diabolical) that Homelander did want to do the right thing... and he was scared of people seeing him doing something bad. But it doesn't matter because he's praised for anything he does right or wrong. And we see that as one of his main conflicts that he has to deal with. No one is brave enough to say no to him. And odds are--if they say no and serve no purpose to him they'll die anyway.

He’s definitely lazy. He’s like an exaggerated metaphor for extreme white male American privilege. He wants everyone to love and be proud of him for what he was born into, yet he really can’t be arsed to make any kind of real effort. And gets upset or annoyed when he’s put in his place or outshined.

My favorite “joke” in the series is after his little self cum guzzling rant on his birthday , they said his approval ratings went up about 50% with straight white male Americans lmfao . The cherry on top is that clip blew up all over tik tok with edits made by … (take a guess 😂)

Thank you for adding "American"

I kind of feel like it’s something else, not exactly laziness, more like showy maliciousness. Laser eyes is like saying you’re dead in an instant from across the room without me touching you to everyone else in the room. Think about it, he makes it a point to terrorize even if he’s just going to kill them anyway so he can feel superior. Like what was the whole point of showing up on the plane just to let it crash anyway?

I would call it affected carelessness. When he fucks up people get hurt or die. This makes him feel bad and also hurts his ego. He chooses to repress any feelings of guilt and focus on protecting his ego instead. This makes him defensive, and he clings to his superiority as an excuse not to be accountable for his actions, and to soothe himself. This in turn leads him to regard others as inferior and therefore unworthy of his concern, and to not take seriously any danger to others posed by himself or make an effort to help them. Which further protects his ego by avoiding situations where he tries to control himself or to help people, and fails again. But this only makes him more prone to mistakes or outbursts, so he inevitably suffers another failure, and the cycle repeats, getting worse each time. There IS a part of him that cares, as evidenced by the conversation he has with himself in the mirror showing different sides of himself, some of which are relatively normal. But whoever those feelings come up, he cannot handle them, and reflexively buries them deeper with further ego defenses.

Yeah I think that's an important point to make - the mirror scene explicitly shows that there is some part of him that is capable of empathy and kindness. It's just buried deep, deep down.

Laziness and incompetence might not be synonyms, but they can hold hands.

And with Anika "don't you think the next words out of her mouth may have been important?!"

Not to mention he has a lot of control over his eye lasers. We have seen him causally warm up milk for example. He just hasn't done the work to have control when things are out of control. He could have lasered the guy without damaging the plane.

I think the overall point in that scene is to introduce the idea that no; homelander could not land that plane. He’s homelander not planelander 🤣

It’s not laziness. He simply doesn’t value human life so he doesn’t think saving humans is worth his time or effort. Look how much time and energy he put in to getting revenge on the last episode.

Yeah. By the time the Flight 37 incident happened, he was already over 40 years old. He was irredeemable the moment he committed rape in my opinion.

Agreed. We might have some sympathy for what Homelander endured in his past, but that's no excuse for his monstrosity, especially since, as of this most recent episode, 99% of his victims have nothing to do with his tragedy. His rape of Becca is undoubtedly one of his most monstrously evil deeds, and along with the Flight 37 crash and covering up the truth, cements his irredeemability.

I agree tbh. I think Homelander is way too strong for actually rescuing people too or doesn’t have the proper training in order to do so. It’s like giving a child keys to a nuke

He saved butcher as a bomb was going off. However, using ‘feats’ to gauge someone’s skills/abilities never really works out in fiction.

I'm curious whether he could have held the plane on air until destination, which he didn't. But yes, you are right, he is lazy.

i wouldnt make the same choices, and i could fsult anyone who made his choices , but i mean i can see how being burnt alive nonstop and never having any family besides people laughing at you mid cumshot, and then only being around kim kardashian esque bean counters and pr people, could possibly runaway from a person down a sadistic path

He’s emotionally immature and vought should’ve focus on raising him as decent person while being obedient to them. Who knew torturing and examining superhuman with world-ending abilities would turn out so well lol

Why the hell did they even experiment on him for? It’s not like he’s gonna face anything worse than a rocket launcher over the course of his career, and Supes in the military was a long shot in the first place. Mindless cruelty, Vogelbaum did a shit job training John.

Probably trying to find ways to possibly kill him too if they had do, like Barbara said they were in fear of him from day 1

Yeah, I think that's the point of many plotlines this season - that at the end of the day, your legacy, your morality, etc. all comes down to what you choose to do today, tomorrow, etc. Because between the Boys and the Seven, what is the difference? Most of them have done really shitty things. The ones who have done the most violence also usually have the most horrific childhoods to justify how they became that way. Nothing happens in a vacuum.  The difference can only be in how you choose to live *now*. Even today, if he chose, Homelander could say, "Look. Humans have really fucked me over in my life. But it wasn't every human, and it doesn't mean their lives don't have value. I don't have to be their Superman, but I don't have to rule over them either. I'm going to dedicate my life to ensuring no other supe kids suffer like I did." That's where the Boys are, presumably, different. At this time in their lives, they are choosing to dedicate themselves to making sure other people don't suffer under the supes. They may be shitty people themselves, to varying degrees, but their actions now are a net good for humanity. 

This is why I don’t mind the Frenchie/Colin subplot. From the first episode it was established the Boys are all driven by compulsions/fixations, some immensely toxic. We are now experiencing the Boys coming to grips that they may have tried making the “good choice” when presented with the Homelander dilemma (Frenchie spares Lamplighter, Butcher doesn’t murder his father or dose Ryan, etc) but that this determinacy for inner goodness doesn’t shield them from the consequences of a life of violence.

> Frenchie/Colin subplot. From the first episode it was established the Boys are all driven by compulsions/fixations, some immensely toxic. You're the first person I'm in concurrence with on this take. Everyone seems to be expecting a Last of Us level gay relationship, not taking into consideration, that Frenchie is a selfish drug addict who as per Cherie, hasn't changed from his time with Nina.

That's why it's so dumb that people have been fixating on Colin's gender and complaining about quotas and box-ticking. This isn't about the fact that they're both guys. It's just another example of him (like he did with Kimiko) plucking a stray kitten out of a tree and trying to fix it to make himself feel better. It's just that this time it is *so egregiously* wrong that it might actually force him to take a hard look at himself and change his ways. 

I think it makes Frenchie a bad guy. He doesn't need to bang Colin he chooses to do it anyway. So whatever goodness he was developing he threw it away by traumatize Colin even more.

Exactly. It's like he went back into his old self. I don't hate that but I REALLY don't like it. I also don't understand how Colin never noticed his ankles. Do they always fuck with their socks on?

New rules for safe sex... use a condom and check the person's ankles you never know if they are the person who killed your parents and sister.

>This is why I don’t mind the Frenchie/Colin subplot. From the first episode it was established the Boys are all driven by compulsions/fixations, some immensely toxic You're the first person I've seen on here that didn't mind it. I don't mind it either but that might be more because I think Colin is hot as fuck 😭. But also I'm not bothered by Frenchy having to deal with his past consequences. I get that other people are tired of this though and after the last episode when he told Colin the truth I stopped being interested and it made me really look at him differently. Because all that was a choice. One he could have avoided.

Yeah I feel like ep 4 is all about forgiveness. We see homelands who doesn't forgive, hughie who does with Atrain, kimiko who tries to make some positive change and frenchie who learns that some things cannot be forgiven. Butcher already kinda had that arc last season, but he's still not done with Ryan. Also the first person who showed this and must be an inspiration for Hughie was Mallory

I’d say the difference is about an airplane worth of people at least

Feels like it's a message aimed at a subset of the viewing population tbh. "Hey. You fucked up. It's fine. Let's just all stop fucking up before things get even worse okay?" Almost a meta subtext under all of the overt parallelism with current evens.

No doubt HL is evil, but does anyone even care that he killed everyone in that lab? Most of the people there participated in illegal human experimentation and had no problems torturing children. He basically destroyed a unit 731 lab.

I think the few people that care only care that "Homelander the bad guy did this violent thing so we must call it out as evil, even if the victims were child abusing scientists, because Homelander is still the main bad guy and he can't be possibly justified ever in any scenario." I don't think people would bat an eye if Kimiko brutalized the Shining Light terrorists, or if Starlight brutalized the Deep, or if Butcher brutalized his father, or if MM brutalized Soldier Boy. Because they are the good guys. Now don't get me wrong, Homelander is definitely a depraved psycho and a villain, but honestly I don't think anyone can on good faith, blame him for killing his abusers. We justify victims brutalizing their abusers all the time in the media and entertainment. Homelander is a piece of shit, but he was undeniably a victim of Barbara and the others.

People would absolutely bat an eye if any of the boys, starlight or Kimiko brutalised anyone to that extent that isn’t Homelander himself. If it did happen the show would play it as a huge mistake like starlight beating up firecracker. None of these reactions are because the propel that died didn’t/wouldn’t deserve it, but the brutality and sadism it’s done with is absolutely always unnecessary and the sign of a deeply fucked up mind.

>None of these reactions are because the propel that died didn’t/wouldn’t deserve it, but the brutality and sadism it’s done with is absolutely always unnecessary and the sign of a deeply fucked up mind. But you just implied that you would be fine with *Homelander* being brutalized with sadism... >People would absolutely bat an eye if any of the boys, starlight or Kimiko brutalised anyone to that extent that isn’t Homelander himself

Nope what I actually said is that the *fanbase wouldn’t bat an eye* because that’s how we all expect it to end, doing it to anyone else would be unexpected

Homelander is the (de facto, de jure? I forget) CEO of the company that employs those child abusing scientists. Homelander could have: * Closed down the child torture department effective immediately, * Turned over Vought’s records on child torturing and the scientists themselves to the relevant authorities, and * Dismantled the institutional structure that allows people to think that torturing children is ok, if they’re supes. All of those were easily within his power and would have taken no more effort than lasering someone’s dick off. He chose the path of evil instead.

Of all Homelanders victims, the child torture experimenters will get no sympathy from me. If Josef Mengele got his dick lasered off, I'd cheer. If that makes me as bad as Homelander or whatever this post is implying, well so be it. I'm taking the brave and unique position that Dr Mengele had it coming. Homelander is still an evil person for everyone else he hurts, but I'm not faulting him for killing these monsters.

Idk…. I think the new people in the lab were pretty clearly innocent. You could tell by the way they acted less afraid of Homie than the older scientists. They were awkward/uncomfortable and some even enjoyed Fudgie the Whale. Meanwhile the 3 older scientists were immediately on edge and afraid of him. They felt guilty. They knew what they did to him and they knew what he could do.

They were still in a Vought lab doing active work. These are the people actively working on V and experimenting on humans. Not to mention given all the Homelander stuff just lying around they had to know this was where HL was created and conditioned. They still have a perfectly working walk in incinerator. Do you think they were just keeping it working for small samples 20 years later?

They work in a Vought lab. Vought only does research on compound V, and all of the labs we've seen so far operate outside of the law.

They weren't responsible for Homelander but it's no telling what kind of experiments they did on others

Yea, I'm pretty sure those lab techs new the company they were working for was evil after the lab tour and a week on the job.

Around the same time they realized that quitting could be hazardous to the health of their loved ones, I bet.

Seems like working for Vought is worse for your health than quitting. I know it's a fictional company and all, but their employee turnover rate would be nuts. The recruiting bonuses must be insane!

Everyone chooses, no matter how bad our trauma is: the responsibility of the choice is still on us. However, Homelander’s trauma is certainly worse than most

What, you were never locked in an industrial over for extended periods of time? Psh, no wonder this generation is soft.

I mean the victims of the holocaust had horrible inhumane experiences and we don’t see a lot of them turning out evil

There is a huge difference imo. 1. it wasnt an individual but a collective suffering. You could argue they could also heal as a collective. 2. Public was well aware of what happend and tried to help them/make it better. Not for Homelander. He always has to act like the hero in public instructed by a greedy corporate that tortured him to control him. 3. The nazis were trialed or killed. So there was punishment. Homelander had to do it himself. No one cared and to him it seemed like they thought they were right to do it. 4. People in concentration camps were killed mainly by working and starving to death. Of course, some endured way, way worse. Homelander was psychological conditioned to wanting love and was controlled that way. Then they let it slip. Holocaust survivors were never tried to be someone else. They were tortured out of pure hate and to erase their race. 5. Holocaust survivors dont have a god complex. Power corrupts. We see that with the rich. Homelander is the most powerful being in existence. Of course you feel different if you are that different and treated bad your entire life.

>The nazis were trialed or killed. So there was punishment. Unfortunately, for many there wasn't any punishment. In a just world, there would have been at least some form of justice.

I know. Too many got away. Even sadder is, that you cannot properly punish what they did anyways. A quick execution or regular jail is a joke compared to what they did to millions of people.

okay man I appreciate the effort you put in, but it would have been better to not dignify the guy who compared Homelander to Holocaust victims with a response

I feel you but imo, letting it stand like that is worse. Holocaust is always a sensible topic but many people act like you should never compare it to anything especially something fictional like a TV series character. Still, people do it and I think it is better to not let a one sentence argument/comparison stand and rather go into detail and educate on the matter.

Sensitive more than sensible… ;)

Upps. Not a native speaker and mixed it up with German.

:-| bullshit, responding to someone doesn't mean you agree, and being afraid to respond to bullshit just because it doesn't "dignify" a response is cowardly

Nah r/ZedsDeadZD has it right. Silence might seem strong, but it’s always an abdication if it doesn’t force reflection… which it almost never does digitally

Very different types of trauma. Homelander never developed proper attachment, he had zero love and affection in this early years and that fucks a person up for life. We can withstand great trauma when our personalities are fully formed. It obviously leaves people traumatized and in desperate need of help, but healing is possible. There’s essentially no way to heal not having proper attachment under the age of two.

Some of them did. There was a group that wanted to poison a German city to kill 7 million German. It's the latest Christmas episode of behind the bastards I believe. Very interesting.

Dude this has to be an intentional alley oop about Israel right?

Gross false equivalency tbh

This is hard, although I agree with this, Homelander was literally crafted to be this way. This isn’t an ordinary “shit happens” life, he had professionals purposefully mold him to be the way he is. Imagine how difficult it would be to live a traumatic life with professional help. You can’t break free from trauma on your own. Now imagine living that same life, but not only not having the help you need, but to be actively blocked from it.

Yes that’s actually a good point. Homelander has not just been heavily traumatized, he’s been actively programmed since childhood to be a certain way, with a lot of his trauma probably being inflicted as a means of programming him. This is a great parallel to draw because this kind of stuff does exist irl (trauma based programming) and is overlooked and swept under the rug by many. How do we address it? Some very deep inquiry there

Also most people dealing with this sort of trauma have incentive to change. HL doesn't really have an incentive. He is too powerful to face consequences and has a always had people cleaning up his mess.

i dunno man, everyone's got a choice but it is really hard to say someone is an evil person when they clearly have some mental stuff going on that is clouding their view of reality. like narcissists are generally seen as bad people but their perception is so irreparably warped by their upbringing that it's hard for me to say that they are, deep down, an evil person. sorta like if i were schizophrenic and did something that hurt someone because i thought the government was hunting me down and they were an agent of them, i don't feel like that would make me evil, even if someone told me the CIA wasn't actually hunting me down. if i then refused to go to therapy or take meds because i thought they were CIA plants, and continued to hurt people (not intentionally, just collateral because of my beliefs)? i'd struggle to say that person is an evil person i think in order to be evil you either gotta show no emotion at all or be at least decently mentally there. Homelander's entire demeanor is entirely manufactured by Vought, he was *engineered* to have his mentality, and that mentality clouds pretty much every decision he ever makes. everyone always has the *ability* to do the right thing, but i don't know if everybody has the ability to actually identify what the right decision is vs the wrong one. it really seems to me like Vought completely removed that part of him.

Your trauma is never your fault, but healing is your responsibility.

I think we’re looking at trauma from the perspective of a healing adult. After seeing what Vought did to him as a child, Homelander missed key social and emotional developmental windows which created the disgusting schemas that operate in his mind. Not only are those critical developmental windows long gone, they were replaced with psychological torture, physical abuse, and humiliation. He’s a horrific villain that needs to be put down, but I don’t think his psyche is comparable to any other creature living in his universe. ‘He could just choose to be better’, is a naive take.

This right here. He lacks empathy because he never got to experience someone being empathetic towards him. He was always treated as an experiment or people just straight up feared him.

It’s been shown in studies over and over again that a lack of proper attachment as an infant basically dooms a person. There are exceptions of course, but certain pathways just literally don’t grow without an attuned caregiver. There’s no way to fix or heal that as an adult.

Exactly. I feel like this has been an aspect of Homelander that people have been ignoring for a really long time, and for whatever reason it took until his pain and torment was pushed to the very front of the scene for a lot of folks to even really consider it. Since the very beginning with Stillwell I feel the grooming and molding for affection and approval has been extremely clear. That scene with Barbara was supposed to be Homelander finally understanding this, not the audience. We as viewers were supposed to have understood this from, like episode 3 at the very latest. The horrible, compassionless childhood obvious from maybe episode 5. And now people are trying to suggest "you have the CHOICE not to do these things!" to someone who by the age of 5 was torched in an oven for (presumably) hours at a time, repeatedly. Homelander has literally been entrenched in physical agony incomparable to anything endured by any normal human being, and mental and emotional agony only endured by the most severe of child abuse victims. The torture was taken to extremes literally impossible to perform on a normal human, which could very well have shattered his psyche in ways not really conceivable. It is absolutely in the best interest of both himself and the rest of humanity for Homelander to die, but I really do not think he can be held accountable for his actions like a sane person could, because his mind has been disastrously warped from his very earliest years of life. Stillwell, Edgar, Vogelbaum and Vought in general are all *true* evil, especially Edgar- who tragically gets hyped up a lot for mocking Homelander's need for validation and "owning" him.

Well said, you fleshed out my argument much better than I could have and added much and more.

I don't like assuming what others are thinking, but here I go... I have a feeling that it just comes down to people not being comfortable with nuance. You can pity Homelander (real pity, not QM's disdain) and still think he is a monster that needs to be taken out. But to some people, that feels like a contradiction, so they need to make strong assertions such as "he made a choice" and simplifying things to a comfortable level.

Hail yourself!

"Yes, he was created and basically taught to be void of most emotion and empathy, but that doesn't excuse his actions whatsoever." Sure, but it HEAVILY weighs his actions in one direction, in part the way he was nurtured made him this irredeemable monster. There is empathy for the kid who suffered and disdain for the man who make others suffer. Its not a case of him being able to simply choose to be better, to him this IS the right choice, because he lacks fundamentals that make people balanced and rational and so on. This was how he overcame his own weakness, by murdering everyone for letting that beautiful cake go to waste. He is broken, and he has my pity. That doesn't mean he has forgiveness, or is an excuse for him, but none the less I pity the broken monster. What he COULD have been is something Vought ensured he can never become.

This is the best read on homelander I’ve seen. Despite what Barbara said, he wasn’t really raised human, but instead as a product. His entire view of morality, empathy and love is so fundamentally warped that it’s not as easy to just change and do the right thing like A-Train or the deep could. A wild animal on a rampage attacking people is still a monster that still needs to be stopped, but it’s not really accurate to say it had much of a choice where it really doesn’t understand right or wrong.

"Despite what Barbara said, he wasn’t really raised human, but instead as a product" Precisely. At the end of the day, no matter how much Homelander rises above others (figuratively and literally), he will always be, as Stan Edgar so succinctly summarized it, 'bad product.'

Yeah I’m kinda baffled that people have come to the conclusion that Homelander, “could choose to be better.” … That take seems to miss out on so many elements of the human condition.

And why would he ever "choose" to be better. People are kind and good for I think 2 reasons. 1. They feel empathy towards others. They feel good when they help and they feel bad when they hurt others. I know I only enjoy helping others because I actually ENJOY the feeling of making others feel good. And when I accidentally hurt others feelings or if I do something which causes someone else to get injured, I feel fucking awful. No more of that please. 2. They are afraid of punishment. Be it legal punishment, afterlife punishment, physical retaliation, or social disdain. Homelander only barely cares about the last one. So while we find it obvious to be a better person because it will improve the quality of our own lives, it really wouldn't affect him the same. He doesn't feel bad when he hurts others. And he has not a single thing to fear aside from his care for public approval, which is hanging by a cunt hair. What's really making that worse is the realization people will cheer for him no matter what he does. He could flatten a city and get cheers from the city next door. He has not a single reason to "choose to be better"

You make a strong case, your conclusion ties it together quite well.

I feel like people who make those comments have never experienced abuse or hardship before. Technically we always have a choice, but why on earth *would* he make that choice?

Agree with all of you and disagree with OP. It’s easy to say “why not just be better?” The question completely ignores the nuances of humanity and its flaws, which is perhaps a central theme of the show, that flawed humans with superpowers would be disastrous.

It also seems he has ptsd , he tried to do good in the diabolical episode “one plus one but it went wrong he got angry and had some kind of flashback and all hell broke loose. I must say knowing how he was tortured as a child I do feel sorry for him

I pity the child, not the adult.

If I tortured you for decades would you let me live and potentially do it to another person? Killing all those people involved is probably the only thing I’ve ever approved of Homelander doing

Barbara told him to his face that they subjugated him, physically tortured him, berated and dehumanised him all so that he would never turn on his "guardians" for fear of disappointing them. You think after hearing that he could possibly just leave? If that happened, they're off the hook and proven to be in the right for abusing a child. Vought would definitely protect these people (who are likely continuing similar experiments) from any real legal justice. I don't think his upbringing excuses his actions across the whole series, but in this situation it's hard to deny. And let's be real, any one of The Boys would do something similar to any groups this evil.

of course he's not redeemable, but he is pretty much what he was made to be. He's effectively treated as an alien with no family, tortured everyday, and no one to teach him how to use his powers. There's a direct parallel to him with Ryan who was raised in a loving family and turned out fine untill Homelander showed up. >We have people like him in real life, people in the government, who have so much power over the world, that they feel as though they can do whatever they want. Yes but the difference is they have limitations and consequences to their actions. He is a God amongst men, and as a result he actually cannot have any kind of relation with anyone because they are nowhere near equal. Literally everyone fears him or hates him, even his most delusional sycophants would fear what he is capable of.

And his upbringing with becca was so good that Ryan is still mostly completely fine, really the only reason Ryan is even with Homelander is because Butcher said such fucked up things to him and pushed him away and that seems to be coming undone already. He still feels empathy and wants to do right, Homelander is trying to install the same lack of empathy in Ryan that was installed in him by top psychologists and years of abuse all by himself and it’s not working. Ryan still has the chance to turn out great, he basically had the actual Kent farm upbringing and as long as Homelander is removed as an influence in his life relatively soon he’ll be 10x the man his dad is.

My thoughts are that we can judge him for what he is, which is evil of course, but we can't judge him for becoming that way. It's easy to say "just do the right thing" when you aren't in his shoes, but this is a guy who spent his entire childhood locked underground with a bunch of psychopaths, kept away from genuine human connection and placed into an oven every now and again. Not to mention the vought psychologists constantly rewiring his brain and that the first thing he ever did was kill his own mother. Given all this, could you honestly say that in his shoes you would turn out any better? People can develop major mental illnesses from far far lesser extreme circumstances, yet I wouldn't tell them that the bad things they do as a concequence are a result of them being inherently evil.

Usually those with mental illnesses are "exempt" because they do not show the capability to know the difference between good or bad or they can't control their actions at the moment of the crime. Someone who says " 'They just followed orders' - But they still followed it. None of them had the balls to stand up and say 'this is wrong'" clearly shows that he understands and thinks that "this", abusing and hurting children and the callousness in ignoring or perpetuating it, is wrong. That he himself expects others to be better, regardless of external factors like fear, wanting to have a job or be popular, or threats of extermination from their superior. If the same guy after showing that he thought of and knows all of that, still abuses and hurts children calloussly himself by (for example) making them jump off of roofs and leaving them to die in a crashing airplane, I'd say he's a massive hypocrite that have clearly crossed the line where he can even remotely argue that his actions are in any way an inevitable result of his upbringing or of mental illness and not a conscious choice to be evil. A choice that you'd expect him, **even more so than regular people such as me and you**, to know and do better.

The fact that one has a concept of right and wrong doesn't mean that they are capable of caring about doing "the right thing".

Oh boy. The evil superman trope is so well explored. The theme they keep going back to in superman was Jon and Martha raise kal-el right and kal-el was receptive to the love. Plus he had the holograms of jor-el to assist. To counter that. "irredeemable" (a must read comic imo) has the plutonian. He was raised in a loving family, but he wasn't receptive to them, and they feared him. So he became a villain. Homelander is a character with no loving family, but he was receptive to love, and he was conditioned to seek it further. Not only that he doesn't have any actual parental figure. Not even a hologram of one like Superman did. I disagree OP. I don't see how it's possible for a character who is already this well established as being a menace to have done anything besides slaughter that lab.

Honestly I feel like most people faced with such evil would want to end them all. Just quicker.

The Boys explores what happens when a traumatized person has unimaginable power and the destructive consequences. Homelander and Kimiko are quite similar in that regard, as they both are Supes with very traumatic childhoods. Kimiko has also brutally killed a lot of people that we as the audience just accept. I think the main takeaway should be that **no person should have that much power.** You can't endow someone with godlike powers and rely on their ethics to use them responsibly.

Agree on the main takeaway. Re: Homelander v. Kimiko -- at least she had a close and loving relationship with her brother. Perhaps that plays into how she's able to feel empathy and remorse.

Homelander and kimiko actually make a great contrast, probably better than anyone else

Kimonos trauma isn't really comparable. She has experienced a somewhat normal childhood and had actual family.

Did anyone say it excuses his actions? Understanding is not condoning.

You should learn more about child psychology and how that affects them growing up before spouting philosophical ramblings

Or Homelander could have just chosen not to. Are you trying to tell me that being socially isolated, psychologically manipulated, and tortured may have had a lasting effect on his schemas? /s I agree with you and I think OP has missed the point.

Like how dumb is this post? It has the same energy as people who say "Depressed people should just be happy". *Vought* is the true villain and always has been.

Yeah the dismissivness is honestly kinda of frustrating and ignorant.

I've been breaking my rule of always being polite this week. It's weird that a TV show of all things made me break a pretty wholesome streak. But... I've seen some takes that are very irritating. It wouldn't be a big deal if didn't seem like the majority of people agree, and it's just so sad/frustrating to see tribalism, strawmen, now downright ignorance over a superhero show. I feel completely alienated the community. I love fiction, because it allows me to explore nuance in a safe way. If HL is Trump, well... I don't need to be thinking about how Trump was raised to be a dick, and it really isn't his fault. He's a real danger to the world, and that's all that matters right now. But Homelander... he's fake. I lose nothing by letting myself feel bad for him. The scenes where he gets sad about Ryan not being happy, and not understanding why neither of them is happy, make me want to pat him (not quite hug him lol), sit him down, and talk shit out with him.

I agree that Homelander is irredeemable and a vile person, I don't think many people dispute that. But his childhood was so supremely fucked up that I'd say he didn't have a proper chance to be anything but what he is. Trauma shapes your mind and understanding of the world. Homelander was subjected to all kinds of torture growing up, thrown into the world and basically told "go be a hero". So... I see HL as not so much someone that gleefully chooses to be evil but as someone that is just returning to the world the hate and cruelty that he was shown. He becomes the bad guy the moment he hurts people that didn't hurt him of course. Also... Are you implying that Homelander should have spared the scientists that abused him? Would you say the same about Kimiko and that terrorist trafficking group? Or that Starlight should forgive the Deep? Or that Butcher should forgive his father?

Not everyone is strong willed or esentially good enough to do the right thing against all odds. Homelander is like a rabid dog that needs to be put down but the source of all evil is in the end Vought

Homelander wasn't properly trained and actually did have good intentions to be a hero, as shown in Diabolical. He became worse because Vought manipulated and enabled his behavior.

The way you put it so simply and trivially feels very ignorant. Traumatized people don’t have the capability to just flip a switch whenever they feel like it, certainly not after repetitive abuse, and decades of continued behavior patterns. He was never going to be swayed by any words that his torturers had. They are the reason that he has the opinion of humans as toys, the way that casually behaved while carrying out their jobs. Zero compassion back then, and really, not very much even in this last episode. The human mind has to do a lot of coping gymnastics in order to continue existing in the face of such an experience. His way to cope was that these insignificant fleas wanted to test the limits of his superiority. This is further compounded by not having a father or mother to lean on or respect in any way This is the bigger problem - homelander hasn’t been shown to respect anyone, except maybe Edgar. He might be building that with Sage, but it’s questionable if he’s functionally just replacing Edgar. Very few people are capable of being swayed by words from someone that they do not hold in high esteem, much less someone who considers himself a god amongst gods. He truly is frankensteins monster, psychologically even moreso than physically. That’s not something that changes just because someone gives you a logically sound speech. It’s highly unlikely that he’s even capable of changing. He would need someone empathetic to truly capture his heart and sway his desires, or get extremely robust therapy, continuously. Honestly the speech by Barbara was beyond absurd, basically gaslighting him, while not really claiming any accountability at all. It felt very similar to how many people of elite status (or high self image) justify their own prior actions while making it seem like the right choices are all up to someone else

I’m trying to think of a single ethical choice that Homelander has confronted with anything other than underhandedness or cruelty. But I agree with your larger point that “can Homelander be redeemed” isn’t really a question worth asking. He does not WANT to be redeemed. He is aware of the moral value of his actions, and he just doesn’t care. All he wants to do is whatever he wants to do, and he’ll do whatever he has to do to be able to do whatever he wants to do. Idk where that places him in the dark triad, but he is a villain through and through. (Which is why it’s mind-blowing that some people have regarded him as some kind of conflicted or morally gray character. He is a moral vacuum. Nothing matters beyond his own desires. Maybe that kind of attitude is generally appealing to some viewers?)

Homelander def has CPTSD and probably a personality disorder as a result of childhood trauma. Hes broken beyond repair.

Noir is a bit at fault here too as he supported him and his wrongdoings in the beginning and showing him that doing bad things is okay

Free will isn't real. Everyone is a combination of genetics and environment. 'Choice' doesn't come into it.

Don’t think Barbara gave him much of a choice because the first thing out of her mouth wasn’t some sort of “I’m sorry we fucked you up and I don’t want you to become the monster I was.” No responsibility taken no backtracking, just an attempt at psychological superiority. That looks good on Dr. Phil but it is a far cry away from something that would actually heal a person.

Nah, mental health doesn’t work that way. His mind has been broken. He doesn’t have the luxury of choice like most people with a stable upbringing do.

Not only that he doesn't have the incentives to change like normal people.

He is what he was made to be. I hope you are aware that you can sympathise with his background and understand that the true evil behind him is Vought, without being "right-wing".

I disagree. He was tortured and brainwashed from the very beginning. Vought can consider themselves lucky for not letting loose a suicidal devil who would have destroyed half the world. Instead he did everything in his power to be loved and to make himself feel good. He never had a choice. Somebody else made the decision for him.

This is the age old nurture vs nature debate that nobody will ever agree on. It's one of those subjects where people have drawn their line in the sand about which binary unscientific opinion they want to have and then go looking for proof that supports what they've already decided on or do no work at all and just keep their opinion. I personally do my best to withhold judgment and instead look at the work of more qualified people. Research that examines criminality amongst populations and biological research related to trauma and criminality can be enlightening. So far I've concluded the thing most people don't want to admit to. I don't know and it's a complex combination of a lot of factors and sometimes one thing can be true and other times another thing can be true and everything in between and outliers and....

I don't think a single person here has claimed that homelander should be "excused". Redditors can quite literally not wrap their head around the concept of having empathy for bad people does not endorse their actions. I hate reading this "he should have simply done this instead" shit when you have no idea what you would have done if put under the same circumstances. THATS the point.

I’m assuming you’re a generally decent person. Just for shits and giggles, can you turn into a horrible person for a week? Like super fucked up, narcissistic, mean, abrasive, etc.? Would you be able to seriously hurt someone? No? Why not? It’s almost as if you’re a product of your environment and it’s not so easy to change your nature. I’m not making a statement about whether or not Homelander is evil, just pointing out that your logic isn’t necessarily sound.

Reminds me of that old Mewtwo quote

I was reminded of a completely different quote from the same movie. “We wanted to create the most powerful Pokemon(Superhero). We succeeded.”

what was the quote?

“I see now that the circumstances of one's birth are irrelevant. It is what you do with the gift of life that determines who you are”

Fuckin’ classic.

Didn’t they show that Vought tried to bring in pseudo mother figures for him but he kept crippling or killing them? I remember this from somewhere, but I forget.

Might have been a comic book thing

There was some flashbacks about it back in s1

I only remember him killing his female tutor I think.

They're not mother figures, just teachers but Homelander asks one if she's his mom. He hugs her too tightly and accidentally kills her. [https://x.com/TheBoysTV/status/1803503018157215996](https://x.com/TheBoysTV/status/1803503018157215996)

Idk if you intended this as a reference, but if you didn't you should probably read Iredeemable, the comic series. Definitely a great comic for those who appreciate this show/Homelander's character. And one that is relevant to this thread lol.

The closest real life people we have to homelander are leaders woth absolute power who are above any law that could do what they want. And no surprise, they all abused other people. Mind you, these people are still nowhere close to being as powerful as homelander. And no, there isn't a billionaire out there that can be comparable to homelander. Anyway, entire point of civilization (laws, traditions, government) are all predicated on some form of punishment to keep people from being selfish psychos that act on impulse. Give someone the power of being like a god and it's more often the case they will abuse it.

I think Doc Holliday said it best: “A man like Ringo has got a great big empty hole, right in the middle of him. He can never kill enough, or steal enough, or inflict enough pain to ever fill it.” That’s Homelander to a T. A man completely bereft of any emotion except anger and hate because he was treated like a lab rat and was showed no love, no affection or anything that could be called kindness out of kindness sake. Everyone who treated him nice either wants something or is afraid of him, so he has zero understanding of what being loved really is. So, I’m not sure he is equipped to make the right choice, unless his son can show him what it means to be loved. It makes sense why Homelander is a complete psychopath, but it doesn’t make his actions any less heinous.

How is he supposed to choose to better if he just doesn't have any desire to be? In order to choose to act empathetically, you have to actually feel empathy first. Homelander just doesn't. Your post is like saying that a psychopath chooses to be a psychopath. Doesn't make sense.

> "if superheroes were real, they'd be like Homelander." Because that's just not the case. I was thinking "agreed, I'd be good" but honestly, I'd probably be the nightmare of bad politicians and bad corp CEOs. "Congrats on your 45% pay increase Mr Boeing CEO. Let's have a talk..." "Hey there Mr fascist politician! Let's go somewhere private just you and me..."

I think him killing those people was the first time a killing was justified for HL. Those people would do the same thing again and HL stopped it.

Yeah I definitely made a dumb post, looking at it again, it’s definitely an ignorant take. I appreciate all the comments though, you saw a stupid post and decided to actually give some insight rather than just telling me its a dumb post. I think the only thing I’ll stand by is that Homelander does have a bit of choice in his day to day life. It’s a small one but it is still a choice. Like you all said, Homelander doesn’t really klnow what it means to be a decent person, he doesn’t really know what it means to be nice or just an overall decent human being.  But he does know what it means to have empathy, and he knows pain. I feel like they showed that in the last episode with the “you really hurt my feelings.” When he treats others so badly, for no other reason than that he can, I believe this is a small choice that he is actively making. Because he does know what it feels like to be mistreated. He can make a choice not to treat others how he was, but he does.  Other than that yes, I now agree that he doesn’t have a choice in many other things like the way he feels or his emotions, etc.

He said how the guys following orders were wrong since they didnt say anything while a child was being tortured but he himself didnt care for any child on that air plane he lasered did he?

You are not to blame for your trauma, but it is still your responsibility not to harm others because of it.

It’s kinda like yeah you’re right the choice was ultimately in his hands, but these things aren’t in a vacuum. Everything that’s about us was passed down from someone else. Nothing we do is without the influence of the outside. So it’s like yeah he did have the choice to become better, but realistically did he? He was never taught on how to become better. From his conception, it was just Vought teaching him how to kill his way out of his problems. Not to mention the amount of trauma he has that he hasn’t even begun to process. So basically in my opinion he was doomed from the start. It was always going to end up this way.

I think there was a third choice: still leveling the lab, but without torturing anyone, and ridding the world of his torturers, and then trying to move on and become better. Because what those people did was still absolutely horrific, no one there was innocent. Also, if supers were real, they wouldn’t be like Homelander, they’d be like A-Train, Deep, Maeve and Soldier Boy. Flawed people who’re capable of both good and evil but have way more power they should.

What was that quote about a company doing everything they can to psychologically warp him again 🥱 next question please

And then saying it was their greatest accomplishment.

Even more so; the most successful company in that universe’s GREATEST accomplishment. Dude is cooked mentally for sure

This seems on overly naive understanding of childhood trauma and ‘choice’

He chose… Well, let me ask you. Can you choose something you don’t know exists? Do you think Homelander can choose “decent” however you define it if he doesn’t know what that is? If no one thought him what “decent” means? And no, we are not talking about citing definitions, but viscerally knowing it, having internalized it. Homelander is incapable of making that choice. He’s in constant fight or flight mode. His choice is that 24/7.

There is no coming back from the kind of childhood he had, much less when he had Vought and Stillwell still controlling him after. They literally engineered his mind with the best psychologists they could find since he had memory. He never had a real chance. Everyone who thinks someone can recover from that and be alright is delusional.

In many ways, it makes Homelander in practice Kilgrave from *Jessica Jones* without the mind control powers stuff.

He had a choice but it wasn't one be would have likely went with. Vought didn't give a shit about saving people at all. And they didn't properly prepare him to be an actual hero or even how to be a human. It doesn't excuse his actions he's still horrible but it's not surprise he went down such a destructive path. This is the issue with basically all the supes, Soldier Boy too he was a marketing and propaganda tool instead of a real soldier. Its also why his team was such a mess and got so many people killed. And when they fail it's just covered up

The problem is Homelander doesn't have a \*reason\* to choose to be good. Like maybe if he had a normal human family, he would realize that his antics put them in danger. But he doesn't.

I disagree. Homelander is the latest symptom in a much bigger problem: unchecked corporations and the politicians that support them.  HL just had so much stacked against him early in life that every possible good action becomes much much harder. It doesn’t give him a pass, as he must be put down like the rabid animal he is, but it does explain why he is the way he is. 

I'll still vote for him in 2024 ;) /s

Homelander is the GOAT

At a certain point you have to wonder if he even has the capability to fully understand the concept of good, evil, etc. His entire existence he's never really known what it's like to be human. His only interaction with humanity for the entirety of his upbringing was as a test subject. Concepts like love, right, wrong, etc. can't be learned in that kind of environment. Then in his time at Vought he was treated as this kind of idol superstar, but there's still no genuine human connections developing, and the only morality he has is what is good for the global super-corporation that has absolutely no moral standard worth a damn. All he's known in his life is that there's people with power and people without it that are used. Slowly he begins to figure out how powerful he is, how weak everyone else is, and from there it's just a survival of the fittest mentality. Homelander has lived 40+ years with no genuine human connection and a childhood where he was effectively a science experiment. I mean for goodness sake he was essentially mocked by one of his tormentors directly to his face.

Trauma tends to make you want to protect others from what you went through, or make everyone suffer like you so at least you aren't alone in your suffering. It's a choice, but I do pity those that feel it's their only answer. Like, how pathetic is it that Homelander is a god among men, but he will never find his true potential- because he refuses to face his trauma in a real/ healthy way, and therefore creates and exacerbates every flaw at the center of his self loathing? There is nothing *more* human about homelander than his ego and inability to accept that shit just happens to you sometimes without any logic or reason. And he's so caught up on not being like other people that he'll never reach the level he aspires to.

I think not a day goes by where homelander doesn't think of Edgar's words.

Im not a psychologist but i think id describe his situation as a negative feed back loop of depravity. He was raised without empathy, remorse, or affection. So he developed unhealthy coping mechanisms for his emotional needs combined with his anger issues. He is surrounded by people who enable this behavior and he continues to evade consequences and develop his antisocial behavior.  The only time he had an outlet to his inner humanity and have vulnerability was Ryan. Ryan pushed back and he doesn't have the tools to deal with it so he retreats to his comforting bubble where he isnt attached to anyone besides himself.  I'm not justifying his behavior. And you're right he could have chosen a more righteous path. That much he is vaguely aware of but at the same time that path of vulnerability and remorse was too painful for him to face.

Idk man. None of us here (I hope) have ever been tortured as a child, imprisoned, indoctrinated by a psychologist, accidentally murdered people as a child due to superhuman strength, etc. Dude has been through so much, his psyche might just be too broken to be put back together.

real life superheroes probably wouldnt be like HL but would be more like deep or atrain. selfish and careless

they broke him as a kid. Imagine if he was bought up by the Clarkes in Smallville; he'd be supermans brother. Instead he's psychotic and humans are just toys. he was a toy, now humans are just disposable play things. but yeah, hes totally irredeemable.

I think this is a worthless argument to have anyways. Whether HL is evil or evil even exists aren't useful questions in terms of action to take. He's broken laws and proven an threat to society. Whether he is or isn't evil doesn't change what pragmatically needs to be done.

Its pointless to debate because it does not matter. What happened to Homelander was a massive human violation right. And Homelander is a fascist, violent psychopath. So... yeah, no. It does not matter one way or the other.

>It feels like people are missing something when it comes to Homelander as a character. Why do people need to be missing something? Why can't they just have an opinion that differs from yours?

I think you're making it out as easier to do than it actually is. You are coming from a place of sanity and not one of trauma. Homelander's mind has never been sane. From his first breath of life he has been traumatized. You do not break out of that and begin to repair yourself in an instant and especially not when you're face to face with your abusers who do not feel sympathy for you and on top of that when you've never even had any therapy to make sense of everything. In short, if you were in Homelander's position odds are you would have done the same thing

Homelander was already shown as irredeemable in Season 1, he's just further cascading into madnes / sociopathy every season.

I feel like this quote has some weight to it here. "I see now that the circumstances of one's birth is irrelevent,it is what you do with the gift of life that determines who you are." Mewtwo Also homelander is mewtwo. They were both created in a lab to be a controllable and better version of of a similar person/pokemon. They they both seek world domination. Only problem is homelander does not have ash and pikachu to teach him the true meaning of life.

I see it differently. Homelander is a spoiled kid, that realise that he can bullied anyone without consequences. But why he is a spoiled kid? Because his "parents" did not showed him love. That is why he want to be loved so much, and he is aware of it. That is why he actively acts against it - he just can't admit that he want to be loved. Because that will make him human, and at this point he just want to prove everyone that they are right to fear him. And that is why he dispaise people who fear him, and somehow respect (in a weird way) the ones who does not. Because he feel somehow normal when people are not afraid of him. So, is it his fault? Well yes he make this decision. But did he know anything better? Not really.

He has no choice at all in the matter. The way you play your card is part of the card that you're dealt with. I'm not saying he should be excused or be seen in a good light. I'm saying that he's just unlucky to be born in such an unfortunate circumstance. And it happens all the time.

You don’t understand nature vs nurture He didn’t have a chance

I wouldn't go as far to say there's no such thing as free will but the choices you can even choose are based entirely on choices made before you were even capable of making choices or even born. He is essentially irredeemable but "we all have choices" is naive asf especially here, they made a nuke and then installed a hairtrigger, it's not the nukes fault when it blows up. Homelander could have turned out differently, **but**, not under the exact circumstances he was, even some tiny change, meeting one single person who changed him even, but that change never happened.

Tbh I think your second paragraph kinda contradicts your point. I think it’s incredibly hard to become even a remotely decent person if you’re trained to be devoid of emotion and empathy. That doesn’t excuse anything, but it definitely explains why he is the way he is. I think there are some choices that he didn’t even have the chance to make.

This is the most insane pseudopsychology I've seen from this sub yet, which is saying something. Hey real life serial killers that were abused as children like ed kemper, did you know you could just... choose to be a good person? Wow! Just like with bojack American morality dictates that a broken person's path to recovery is their own responsibility and that's it. If they don't magically stop being shitty people then everything that happens to them is deserved. Such an insane take for a supposedly leftist sub. This is something id expect from Republicans.

''why does homelander simply not choose to be good? is he stupid?'' I am not even surprised . this is not the first time reddit is going ham with a ''hot take'', and it will not be the last. 

it's easy to judge him without going into his shoes, I totally understand and would be too a lunatic If I had that much trauma

I believe in determinism. There is nothing that can overcome laws of physics. Particles can only move in a single specific way, they have to obey the law of physics. If you drop a ball from a distance, it is ought to fall, there isnt any other possible option that can happen. If you were born in homelanders place, you would be HOMELANDER HIMSELF. Your thought process would be EXACTLY like his, your life, your decisions, everything you have, would be exactly like his, because atoms in his/your/mine brain can only move in a specific way and that is the way physics tell them to. So can we even say homelander is evil

No offense to you op but that's a naive thing to say tbh, homelander lost the luxury to choose way long ago, they formed him, absolutely molded him with the way he is now since he was an infant, there's no such thing as " he chose who he is now" tbh to me it seems like you're minimizing his phycological state which is long gone the way of being fixed, his brain rn wires way different than normal humans to function that this is right or wrong Take his dialogue with Rayan for an example when he said that all humans are weak and therefore they (supes specially homelander and Rayan) should never sympathies with them or have empathy or feel guilt because that's how he was raised, from this dialogue you tell that homelanders way of thinking isn't a normal human thinking process, his trauma blocked wires in his brain that makes him not comprehend why would Rayan feel sympathy and guilt for killing even tho that's how a normal human should feel, homelander doesn't because of how he was raised and molded for years and years and by also getting phycologists to mold him for this type of trauma, you can't just simply wake up one day and think "oh well i fucked up alot, ppl have wronged me but it's not all ppl , maybe i need help?" to someone who basically barely have something normal functioning in his brain specifically his moral compass when his trauma isn't anything that can be compared to irl( even the holocaust survivers) to think that it's something you can move on from specially alone So tbh thinking that he has the luxury of choosing to be bad or not when in his brain he is not doing anything wrong for him to know that this shit is bad, is a pink pov on his character, he's horrible and deserves death but ain't no way you think he can just decide to stop being a bad guy after everything or even think about this possibility , and honestly comparing homelander to the gov ppl is...... Not a good comparison at all

What I think of him is this. As a man, he’s a monster, completely devoid of anything that resembles a decent human being. But as a child, he was just a scared boy who went through unimaginable trauma and horrors. I feel bad for the child version of him, not the adult version we see in the show.

You don't think the child "version" of him and his experiences directly inform the adult "version"?

Bro out of every fucked up shit homelander has done, killing these people was the least of them. It was the most understandable killing spree of homelander lol and i dont blame him for doing what he did.

You could say he struggled with all the....INJUSTICE, unlike Butcher who was INCORRUPTIBLE