Chile anyways, if homelander was so smart that the fans and himself claim him to be, why didn't he just took that opportunity of freedom and ditch it all behind when sent to his first mission?? Also, since the loser learned u.s. history, you'd think he'd learn a thing or two about the slaves who fled from their prisons in the antebellum south and the members of the black panthers party fleeing to Cuba from being prosecuted. Like...there are narcissists in real life who would take that chance at freedom immediately, they want a taste of that too. Also, to learn in a new environment is to learn from the locals.
*sigh of the long suffering*
i wanna be fucking mad at this, i do. i am a little and i won't lie about that because this is FUCKED anon.
but i know (sincerely fucking hope) it comes from a place of genuine ignorance and not truly understanding what it is many abuse victims go through--or, perhaps not realizing that you have been through abuse and have fallen on any one of many many many reasons to not leave, so you rationalize your situation as tolerable (because in your mind there are no other alternatives) or you might have a weird fucked up version of survivor's bias which is pretty typical in this society.
the short answer is this:
and this:
and these also fit the bill:
but to address the question more directly and seriously.
a victim's intelligence and victimhood have nothing to do with one another. someone does not "become" a victim because they are stupid or smart. anyone can be conned. ANYONE. this is a gross oversimplification and assumption that is extremely dismissive to victims of abuse.
because he didn't realize he was a victim? because he didn't know where else to go? because vought promised him things would get better and he could finally be their 'special god boi' and believed that if he could just pull it together that maybe, just maybe vought, his only 'parental' entity and the only thing he had known his entire life to 'take care of him' and 'promise him the world', would be happy and proud of him. *and then things wouldn't have to hurt anymore*
see any of the above attached resources for more information. PLEASE. there are a number of reasons a victim will not leave an abusive situation, and they all amount to: THEY DO NOT BELIEVE THEY HAVE A CHOICE. and. THIS DOES NOT INVALIDATE THE EXPERIENCE OF A VICTIM OR THE SYMPATHY WE SHOULD FEEL FOR THEM.
okay, this bit about u.s. history is just silly to me, cause... just wut??? do you... i mean, do you honestly believe they taught him a wholly accurate take on u.s. history and gave him perfect examples of the oppressed fighting back against abusers or escaping them????? like HONESTLY, *you* think they taught him *THAT*??????????????? a NAZI made company.... teaching *accurate* history?????????????????????????????????????vogelbaum said it himself. "he loved MANIFEST DESTINY". a SUPER FUCKED UP concept that proudly proclaims white america as a "chosen people" that must "conquer the american continents"... really? REALLY??????? just that bit in itself should tell you what and how they were teaching him. take a wild guess how they teach about slavery in the deep south of the states and i can guaranfuckingtee you IT AIN'T ACCURATE.
bear in mind. vought was a company founded with nazi cult origins.
i think that should say enough on it's own but i'll elaborate, homelander was raised in a fucking cult. if you genuinely think escaping one is a 'simple and easy' thing and people INDOCTRINATED IN A CULT can just up and 'RuN aWaY', YOU ARE WRONG. plain and simple.
***ESPECIALLY for the fucking kids raised as the """"MESSIAH""" FOR THE CULT, REGARDLESS OF HOW MUCH ABUSE THEY FACE, THAT IS HOW BRAINWASHING WORKS.***
well good for those narcissists i guess?? i'm sure their situations weren't anywhere near half as bad as homelander's and i don't say that to dismiss anything they may have gone through, i say it just from a standing realistic point of view. homelander has LITERALLY been through worse that anything any human could ever go through and also more than a whole lot of comic characters out there have been through. vought was basically granny fucking goodness.
their situations are also... not relevant. AT ALL.
and i need to reiterate this:
being a victim and staying in an abusive situation is not a choice. victims do not choose to be victims.
victims. do not. choose. to be victims.
VICTMS. DO. NOT. CHOOSE. TO. BE. VICTIMS.
saying they do, and i want to be clear in no uncertain terms what so fucking ever:
IS VICTIM BLAMING.
see any of the above resources if you need to understand a bit better about human psyche and why victims do not simply 'rUn AwAy' from abusive situations.
and if it's not clear enough with that, it's because their brain, logic, belief, heart, whatever and every fucking fiber of their being tells them that they
*CAN'T*
the brain has fucked up ways of coping that don't always simply 'work out' in our favor, especially when it comes to extremely stressful environments like the one homelander was in. he was brought up to *believe* in vought. AND ONLY VOUGHT. was pretty much fucked before he was even born. forced to be trauma bonded to his motherfucking jailers.
and then never, nada, zip, zilch, NOT ONCE. has he EVER been presented with a viable alternative. or someone who genuinely cared for him.
this does not invalidate the fact that he is a victim of vought.
if anything? it only makes his whole situation worse because he still does not even realize that he is a victim.
here's to gotdamn HOPING s4 gives us at least some semblance of that understanding peaking through and brutal slaughter of the scientists or other responsible for that bullshit<3 (what i hope that scene of him covered in blood is~!)
the reason people have so much trouble seeing this and understanding it is:
we still live in a culture/society which is heavily veered towards victim blaming, especially imperfect victims. once a victim fights back or even if they choose not to, regardless of what happens actually, they are still somehow at fault for their situation, right? RIGHT? wrong... please see above resources for better understanding.
homelander is STILL stuck in the cult. he's trying lead it even (of course he fucking is, he was the raised 'messiah' and still has a childish mindset that believes in what he was taught), because that is what he was made for, and he is what VOUGHT made him... JUST as much as he a VICTIM of them.
homelander is an adult. at least physically. yes seriously, that is a factor. although i see this as something that makes his whole situation much much WORSE *because* of his stunted growth *because* of VOUGHT, his adult body and general presentation is enough for people to deny his victimhood if not outright blame him for it. (*HINT* STILL NOT HIS FAULT!), people keep calling him an immature 'manchild' which... sure, whatever sometimes i guess. but more *accurately*, we should be calling him a *CHILD* trapped in an *adult body*.
'manchild' implies the dude at least had an honest opportunity to grow the fuck up, and *chose* not to.
homelander had neither of these things. his growth was deliberately stunted so that he could be *controlled*.
and here's where i might differ from certain parts of fandom on homelander.
the show has actually done a relatively good of showing us that homelander is as much a victim to his circumstance as he is an asshole, and the trump/***cult messiah*** comparisons (while obviously satire and a bit on the nose) are actually... mm... not necessarily vital but actually pretty fucking important on providing an accurate representation of what he really is AND understanding how society reacts to it.
it is NOT the show that does a bad job presenting these characters intricately, whether showcasing victimhood, complexity, hypocrisy, critique, etc. they can do BOTH. and that is the point, that none of what's being presented is 'mutually exclusive' in one form or another because *society and people are fucking complex and nothing is black and white*. the point being, they at least make the effort and it is... profoundly ignorant to deny these details when they are presented.
they *present* homelander as a victim AND an asshole. *that* is why ANYONE in fandom is able to see that fact. no, that's not to say everything is hunky dory and perfectly written (because it's still written by ordinary *human* people, not abstract entities of perfection or imperfection)
it is to say that there is a factor fans seem to keep forgetting about this whole ass show built upon and centered entirely 1000% fucking percent on *CHALLENGING TRIBALISM AND HUMAN POLARIZATION WHICH DECENSITIZES US TO ALLEGED OPPOSING SIDES*.
it is the FANS that take what they are given, and *choose sides* from it. NOT THE SHOW.
this is very natural to society in some ways, the winners of wars get to write history, but it's also... not. or i should say, it's extremely fabricated and promoted because it's a means of 'divide and conquer' used against us.
this show gave us an entire segment with one chubby bastard who went down the right wing internet radicalization rabbit hole, and came out shooting an innocent man over his own *fear*.
you wanna know what the show did?
HUMANIZED that motherfucker AS WELL AS HIS VICTIM. very well i might add, i really felt for that bastard. he was a bastard for what he did, but i understand why people go the route of violence and hostility when they are *afraid*, especially of things they don't understand. (as much as i have faced it and as much as it pains me, I UNDERSTAND BECAUSE I HAVE BEEN THERE.)
you wanna know what the fans did?
COMPLETELY IGNORED THIS VERY EXTREMELY OBVIOUSLY PRESENTED LESSON.
homelander and butcher, comic AND show, are (whether abstractly interpreted or modernized) representees of the dangers of political dichotomy brought to extreme ideologies, to the point of *dehumanizing* the *other* side.
this is clear. the show *presents* the hypocrisy from *both* sides, as well as both being *wrong*, as well as both being *human*. AS WELL AS vought (and other horrendous systems in place) being the TRUE villain. everyone else might as well be pawns on a fucking chess board.
and still, the FANS... are the ones who take what is presented and interpret... pretty much what they want to conform to their own selective bias so that the cognitive dissonance doesn't come bubbling to the surface.
i don't have that ability. i know why people do it because i'm sure and i have seen that it makes things hella easier. never been able to pull the wool over my own eyes myself tho. call it compulsion. it's a real problem because people fucking HATE when you can't just 'go along' with them no matter how you do it.
but the way that i know this?
the genocide apologism... it's almost too fucking perfect given the state of the world right now. genocide under no circumstance is a forgivable or excusable crime.
no circumstance. ever.
doesn't matter what side it is and if you have to justify it with sides, you have completely missed the fucking point.
the show *DOES NOT* present genocide as justifiable in ANY form.
and *still* we have FANS choosing sides, and justifying genocide. whether deliberately ignoring what the story is presenting before them or not fully grasping it.
homelander is a major part of that, even billy to some (if much lesser and also greater) degree. the framing is intentional. homelander is a piece of shit. billy is an EQUAL if not worse, opposing piece of shit.
but the story gives us a *framework* to understand that 'this one side is bad', then *learn* 'oh this other side that we've been following is bad too, actually', and finally 'OH, it's the SYSTEM that's the real problem', and even now this shit is pretty damn clear to me, and i don't think it's necessarily relevant to reading the comic (altho i do feel this helps people see it better)
homelander and billy are both fucking problems, but neither are *the* true problems, they're both victims and symptoms of a greater issue, and we could all do well to remember that
even if society is fucked enough that they want to forget, WE shouldn't and we should keep at fighting back against status quo brain rot bullshit while maintaining empathy for those that suffer because of it.
including the imperfect victims that might still be stuck in the cult.
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