What Makes Homelander Such An Effective Antagonist?

     Hello! I'm going to keep it real with you, I've been grasping at straws for blog topics to write about, so that's led me to lean back and rely on past media that I've consumed to talk about and maybe analyze a little bit. And since I recently finished the new season of Amazon's "The Boys" a week ago, I figured it'd be an interesting idea to revisit the show and talk about probably the best character to come out of it: Homelander.

    But first, a quick refresher course: If you're not tapped into the world of "The Boys", it's essentially a 'what-if' scenario where the show explores how the existence of superpowered beings would impact our real world. While it isn't the first show that tries to tackle this idea (you see this concept reflected in modern Marvel movies or more grounded superhero movies like The Batman), I think the way that the show interprets this prompt, establishing superheroes as no more than corporate mascots and extremely messed up mentally, is a creative and refreshing interpretation of the idea.

    In the show (based on the comic by Garth Ennis), pharmaceutical company Vought had developed a serum that gives people superpowers, and through this, became a multimedia conglomerate that controls everything, with some influence in even the U.S government. However, this serum didn't just magically spring out of nowhere- it was the result of a long line of human testing and torture to children to perfect the formula, which is where John, later known as Homelander, is born and raised.

    Homelander goes through a lot of messed up trials, torture, and tests as a child, being raised in a lab with no human interaction save for his experimenters. All the same, he is fed propaganda and stories about strong male fictional characters to groom him to one day be a perfect representation for Vought's superheroes. However, the scientists also encode in him a very strong need for approval and affection, as a result of his traumatic childhood. By the time that the audience meets him in the show, he is deeply mentally unstable, feels superior to anyone else he interacts with, and despises humanity for being so far below him, but he still, deep down, needs humanity so his desire for validation and approval can be met.

    I think I get a little lost in retelling his backstory because I watched the first seasons of the show so long ago (I should really rewatch it), but the point of all of this exposition is to tell you: This guy is the most powerful man in the world, he's psychotic, and filled with hate, but he can't just kill everyone because psychologically, he depends on them for fulfillment.

    Case in point, what I think makes Homelander such an effective villain in the show is his instability, the uncertainty that follows him in every scene he's in. He's a rage-filled, violence heavy balloon that's ready to burst at any moment, absolutely eviscerating anyone who's pissed him off in the slightest, but he's also acutely aware of his dependence with humanity, leading to him constantly trying to regulate himself and not let the mask slip. This makes every scene with him in it feel like there's a ticking time bomb in it, but you never know when he's going to snap. He might just walk away from it with a big smile, or he could rip someone in half for simply seeing him pluck out a stray gray hair. The tension is what carries every scene he's in, because its not a matter of whether the heroes can beat him in a fight or not, its a question of them avoiding him completely, because if he gets them, its over.

    For example, in the latest season, there's a scene where there's been a mole leaking classified information from Vought to a gang of people trying to take down the company. Homelander and his partner, Sage, begin to investigate the employees at the company to see who's responsible and deal with them. As they begin to interview one of the employees, who's clearly afraid of him, he assures them with a smile that he won't hurt them, he just wants to know the truth. And admittedly, it feels convincing, because there's nothing to gain from killing the mole without knowing what information she was leaking and to who. However, the second the employee opens her mouth, he instantly lasers through her head, killing her before letting her speak, much to the shock of Sage, who is now frustrated because she doesn't have any information on the leak. And as the audience finds out, the employee wasn't even the leak to begin with, adding to the horror of the situation. In times like that, the audience is ripe with tension knowing that from that point onwards, he can just randomly kill someone in an instant, without reason, and that same tension will last for the rest of the season, since they know that he's ready to flip on someone in a second.

    In terms of his broader character, yes, he is scary because he's so ridiculously powerful, but the show goes the extra mile to emasculate him and show him as a pathetic, desperate freak who isn't even that smart. He still has an emotional dependency on humanity to a depressing degree, and he is shown time and time again to have some messed up fixation on breasts and milk since he was deprived of a motherly figure as a child. In every aspect besides his strength, he is shown to not think things through, depend on others for self confidence, and generally just behaving like a big child. However, it is the tension that he brings with him through every scene he's in that invalidates the rest of those aspects of his character to make him terrifying no matter how many of his vulnerabilities that audience is aware of. If he's in a scene, you have no idea what to expect, and that is what makes him such a good character.