#and coming from the asoiaf fandom I may be too focused on author intentions

[xieyaohuan]

Stan Edgar's and Homelander's relationship: my two cents

Tl;dr: Stan Edgar's show-canon relationship with Homelander presumes (and loosely establishes) the relationship between comics Homelander and James Stillwell, including James' Stillwell's extreme confidence vis-à-vis Homelander, which explains a lot of Stan's more insane choices provoking Homelander, but I remain naively hopeful that the show also means to show us in the end that he has miscalculated.

Following up on this post trying to figure out what the hell Stan Edgar's end game is with Homelander, I just want to add a small point to what I think is an excellent discussion because I think you can't really answer the question of Stan's intentions via-à-vis Homelander without establishing what the show-canon relationship between the two is supposed to be (even if the execution is done badly). Personally, I think show canon tries to do one of two things: 1. take the canon relationship in the comics and twist it by having "James Stillwell"/Stan Edgar miscalculate or 2. take the canon relationship in the comics and keep "James Stillwell"/Stan Edgar as the mastermind. My guess (and hope) is that they are going for number 1, but who knows, maybe there's some secret third option.

Either way, what is clear is that the show is trying to replicate, in some form, the dynamic that exists between Homelander and James Stillwell in the comics. That's apparent when Stan Edgar tells Starlight that Homelander will stay in line as long as he is in charge, which is supposed to establish that Stan Edgar is 100% confident in his ability to manage Homelander no matter what.

(It is also hinted at from Homelander's perspective when they replicate the comics plot point that Homelander is confused by/scared of his blood pressure/heart rate/whatever other readings he gets, and when he wonders if Stan Edgar is the headpopper because he thinks he must be a very powerful supe due to his lack of fear.)

Seriously, I think the sentence above is central to understanding the relationship. BUT, interestingly, when he says "and we both know why", the viewer doesn't know why, and this is where the show could have really done a better job explaining it.

This is a problem with many of the points taken directly from the comics because they are casually imposed on the show without properly "translating" them to the new medium and the new storyline to actually make them significant to the show (instead of just mentioning them on the side). Another good example of this is Maeve's alcoholism. We see her drinking in S1E1 during a work meeting, then we don't see her drinking in meetings again though she still has occasional drinks, and in S3, she tells Butcher she's been sober for X months. But that's really all we see of it -- it never becomes a major point in her character arch and gets lost easily. So from a storytelling perspective, that's dissatisfying. Either weave the point properly into the character's arch, or leave it out entirely.

So anyway, back to the main point, which is that the show presumes the relationship from the comics and makes it visible here and there. I think they do a slightly better job with Homelander and his relationship with Stan "James Stillwell" Edgar than with Maeve's relationship with alcohol, but the point is still not translated very well. However, what we can take away from it is that for whatever Stan Edgar does, he always proceeds from the assumption that he has Homelander 100% under control, same as when James Stillwell tells an enraged Homelander, who has come to kill him, to do it already because he is bored out of his mind by his rant.

That is the level of confidence that should be assumed behind every single of Stan's actions that affect Homelander. My personal take is he takes some joy in humiliating Homelander and getting away with it, especially since this person he considers largely irrelevant to the company's bottom line has just given him a ton of extra work.

I did also consider the possibility that Stan is doing this strategically to show who the real boss is and bring Homelander back under his thumb, and I guess that's possible given that he has just had to deal with two Homelander contingencies in a row -- the supe terrorists and HL discovering Ryan. That would seem like a good time to reassess his prior assumptions about his control over HL. But I do think his confidence in his ability to manage HL is supposed to be taken as real and not just an act in S3, so my personal headcanon is that Stan is being petty. Homelander annoys him, so why only punish him once if he can do it -- cost free in his mind -- over and over again?

Anyway, my hope is that the show is going with having Stan Edgar miscalculating instead of masterminding. I don't want a "Stan as puppet master who saw every single one of Homelander's moves coming" storyline, but based on the way the scene between Homelander and Stan Edgar on 99 was done, miscalculation also seems more likely, because Stan does slam the glass down on the table as he leaves the room, which I'm guessing is meant to indicate that despite his blood pressure and calm demeanor, his blasé attitude was an act and he is waking up to the fact that, oops, he did miscalculate.

That doesn't answer all the questions, such as why choose Starlight over Maeve, but I mean, the answer to that one is pretty evident from a storytelling perspective: if you have a central heroine and a character who will leave the show at the end of the Season 3, which of of these two characters are you going to put at the center of a major conflict? Obviously the one who is your main heroine. Bringing in a new person mid-season just for this would be... a very questionable choice in any writer's room.

Anyway, I would also argue that in this case, it doesn't really do much harm to Stan's character building and story arch. It's totally in line with his own and Vought's overall ethics that they would discard a woman who, by industry standards, is old, and go for a fresh face, their rising star, a person Stan presumes to still be impressionable and malleable -- he knows how to work with people like that. Sure, she may not be as young as Vicky was when he got to her, but it's reasonable he would assume he could shape her more easily than Maeve, so I really don't see any plothole here.

Starlight's relationship with The Boys is irrelevant because Stan canonically does not see The Boys as a threat. He may not love Butcher, but he's good enough to form a temporary alliance with, and Stan certainly does not view him as a existential threat to himself or to Vought. That may be another miscalculation, but for the time being, given Butcher's hyperfocus on Homelander and his inability to see the big picture about Vought, it seems fair enough. Stan also doesn't believe that he's giving Starlight a whole lot of power with the new position. The co-captains are performing monkeys in his mind (just like Homelander himself has always been), so the risk, to him, is not much higher than having her join The Seven in the first place.

It certainly doesn't answer the question of why Stan put Stormfront in The Seven given what must be a very complex relationship between the two. Clearly, she's influential at the company, clearly, they work together (she does the high risk stuff for him so that he can maintain plausible deniability and distance himself from the ugliest parts of Vought's medical experiments), clearly, they do not like each other (unless there's something we don't know). But perhaps that's their deal: Stormfront does the ugly stuff for Stan, Stan gets her closer to her beloved Nazi-ideal-conforming potential son-in-spirit. Obviously, their exact relationship is never explained directly. It's either a plothole or a plotline that was left open because it will be closed later, or a plotline that was left open and will remain open because the way shows are written means not all loose ends are tied up in the end. Personally, I don't think we'll see this one resolved.

Anyway, best case scenario, the show will deliver as a twist on "James Stillwell" as someone who miscalculated on multiple fronts (mainly Homelander, possibly Butcher, but that's probably just my pipe dream lol) thanks to his overconfidence, and gets destroyed along with Vought as a consequence. Worst case scenario, this will all fizzle out and not be resolved properly as the show descends deeper into the contemporary American politics non-plotline.

[poorshadowspaintedqueens]

Hey about people shitting on lyanna to defend elia while I'm sure those people exist I think majority at least myself arent saying that lyanna was such a horrible person that she was gleefully laughing as the realm blead only that she made the big mistake of being lethally naive of course not maliciously so. Also when I say holding lyanna responsible too alongside rhaegar aerys and Co of I give them 99%of the blame & I don't advocate people spend their time blaming the teen instead of the adult.

When I say lyanna should be held responsible it's less about my opinion on her (which is that she was impulsive a bit selfish but definitely didn't deserve to get taken advantage of) and more about the what I think would be elia's opinion on her. Even people who like elia and call out rhaegar tend to be unintentionally dismissive when it comes to elia's feeling on not just her shit husband but lyanna. I get people wanna show lyanna and elia drive into sunset while making fun of rhaegar. Fine.

But to quote elia's lawyer Sprinkles36 elia should be allowed to have unkind feelings towards lyanna. Often both people who only give a shit about lyanna and even elia fans tend to portray her as this all forgiving Saint who can only be angry at rhaegar (sometimes even not him). Further quoting Sprinkles36 - "lyanna was a victim of rhaegar, but not elia. If anything she helped rhaegar victimize elia." Even if unintentionally she still contributed to something that led to elia & her kids deaths.

Please know I'm not some raging lyanna hater meninist. I'm a chronically ill handicapped women of color and I'm sick of fandom expecting brown or black girls to be all forgiving Saints. We can admit that rhaegar was pedo peace of shit who ruined both elia and lyanna and both women deserved better but we can also admit that lyanna's disregard for elia played a part in elia and her own gruesome fates too. Elia rhaenys aegons lives were worth consideration that BOTH r&l didn't give to them.

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Dear anon, thank you for putting the time and effort into this ask. (And do forgive me for the dodgy formatting; I wanted to make sure the entire thing was visible.)

It does flag up a number of the issues I have with ASOIAF/GoT fandom specifically, and with fandom more generally, so this is probably going to ramble a lot. Apologies in advance for that.

So. Here goes nothing.

First and foremost, if I have ever implied that there is only one way to view the deeply problematic and complicated relationship between Rhaegar Targaryen, Elia Martell, and Lyanna Stark, that was absolutely not my intention.

One thing I’ve tried to do in every fic I’ve written is to make clear in author’s notes that what I’m offering is a single interpretation of events and characters, and that mine is no more or less valid than anyone else’s. There is no correct version. Even GRRM’s, I’m sure, will have its problems (because while I love so much about ASOIAF/GoT, his track record on race and gender is questionable at best). One of the problems I have with fandom (particularly right now, I say as a Fandom Old who has been hanging out in these parts for nearly 20 years) is the insistence on One True Interpretation. As a literary scholar this makes me want to spit nails, because if there’s one thing I’ve learned in studying medieval and early modern culture, it is that there are always variants and there is no objective truth. You can only get the truth according to one side or another, and our job as interpreters is not just to decide which truth we prefer but to also allow that there might be others that are equally valid.

Secondly, you are correct that while it is important to take into account Lyanna’s age and ability to consent from a Doylist perspective, if we’re just focusing on how Elia may have reacted to events, she was entirely within her rights to be furious at this little white girl who stole her husband and humiliated her in front of her future subjects. It’s worth remembering that, until the sack of King’s Landing, Elia was queen-in-waiting. That status was hers by right as Rhaegar Targaryen’s lawful wife and mother to the heirs to the throne. Lyanna Stark completely disregarded and disrespected that if we assume that she ran away with Rhaegar by choice and was not, in fact, abducted. One of the things that had me shrieking with rage at the Season 7 finale of Game of Thrones was the complete erasure of Elia and the show’s insistence that we ought to view Rhaegar/Lyanna as this epic, sweeping romance. If I have ever implied that Elia shouldn’t have been furious with her husband, or that she was somehow obligated to be kind to the woman who--let’s face it--wrecked her marriage in the eyes of the realm, that was not my intention at all.

When I started writing The Assembly of Ladies back in 2013, I had not planned on the interpretation that I ended up with. It developed as I was writing the story, and by the time I realized what was happening, I was committed. I still stand by it as a valid interpretation of what happened, and as a reader who is constantly aggravated by pop culture’s insistence that women cannot be friends or that women are constantly fighting over men, I liked the idea of something different.

But you are, again, completely correct to point out the deeply problematic trope of women of colour (and especially disabled women of colour) as perpetually forgiving saints. I like to think that my version of Elia is more complicated than that (and that was my goal in writing her the way I did), but as a woman of colour who is not disabled and who has lived a fairly privileged life in the West, I have my own legion of blind spots, and they will show in what I write. My hope is that by acknowledging those blind spots and learning from them, it will not only make me a better writer, but also a better human.

So, again, thank you for the ask, anon. I hope my response is, at the very least, the beginning of a productive conversation, even if I cannot claim to have any concrete answers.