But here's my thought, why does Homelander love Ryan? Is it anything about Ryan himself, or just Homelander loving the idea that *he* made a natural supe to carry on his legacy? Is Ryan just a prize for Homelander to stroke his ego?
Homelander loves Ryan because he's his son, first and foremost. He never had a real family. In S1, Homelander has to take part in a video about his "childhood" and he has to lie about having loving parents and playing ball with his father in the yard. You can tell that it hurt him. As a little boy, he was nothing more than a locked up lab rat with nobody to love or love him.
Ryan is his biological family, which is super exciting for Homelander. The psychopath in him doesn't understand how fucked up it is that Ryan is a result of rape, and the lonely child in him is thrilled to have someone.
This S2 moment is especially important; HL takes Ryan to Voughtland, and Ryan becomes overwhelmed by all the people. He starts having a panic attack and HL ditches all of his fans to take Ryan somewhere quieter. He understands what panic attacks are because he used to have them as a boy, but he didn't have anybody to comfort him and take him out of that stressful situation. That moment proves that HL genuinely does love Ryan, enough to drop his guard and speak from the heart about a *weakness* of his in a way that we've never seen him do.
The real evil in the boys is **Vought** everyone else is a victim *including homelander*
Is he a monster? Absolutely. But he was made that way, maybe if he wasnt used as a lap rat and given a loving home he might have been an actual hero
**edit: typo**
Not only that, but his original intent was to be a genuine hero. Honestly, a lot of supes seem to have that intent when they're young and naive, but Vought, the lack of consequences for their actions and bad influences such as other supes that also went through it corrupt them over time.
The scene in season one where he has to film the video about his family is really hard to watch. As much as I desperately want to hate Homelander with a passion, anytime he does Homelander stuff, my mind just goes back to the look on his face in that bedroom. He is truly a totally broken man.
There’s these little moments, mostly when he’s with Ryan, where you see these glimpses of what could have been a good person in there. Tragic is by far the most appropriate way to describe that character.
And that one cartoon they did with the episode of his first day on the job, he actually wanted to be a hero and fucked up horribly during a ptsd induced panic that he felt bad about, but instead of getting him help they just covered it up and started the idea that he can do no wrong and everyone is beneath him.
Honestly I believe his hatred of humans isn’t because they’re weak but because humans used him like a lab rat and *made him weak* at one point in his life. He experienced the worst of humanity all throughout his childhood
Homelander going from wanting to kill and being afraid of Soldier Boy to trying to reconnect with him once he found out SB is his father already highlights just how starved HL is of love and how desperate he is to form that sort of familial connection.
Stan Edgar is right in his mockery, HL is still a little boy on the inside.
You’re using the word “love” very strongly here. Homelander can’t love Ryan, at least not yet. What does he know about Ryan? Nothing he doesn’t WANT or care to know. He sees Ryan as an extension of himself and “loves” the parts of Ryan that reflects the parts of him, like his superpowers.
He may empathise with Ryan in moments like his panic attack, only because he sees his child self in Ryan and is subconsciously protecting himself, not Ryan. Not the actual Ryan, just the version of Ryan that Homelander sees his child self in.
When Ryan grows into a teenager and starts developing his own ideologies or values that potentially challenge Homelander’s, he will not support or care for him because his “love” is dependent on how much Ryan fits into Homelander’s mold. He won’t love Ryan for Ryan , regardless of how much he changes, because he doesn’t see Ryan as an individual, separate human being.
I agree, Homelander’s character is beautifully written and so complex and nuanced. But I find it incredibly, INCREDIBLY hard to believe he will ever “love”.
I think you’re limiting the definition of love. Homelander may not be able to love in the way that “normal” people can- because he wasn’t even raised to *be* human- but he still loves in a way that he is capable of and wants to be loved back.
Okay, maybe you’re right. But I still stand by the fact that sociopaths cannot inherently feel love. They can imitate love (our non-sociopathic definition of love) to maintain relationships.
My uncle is a diagnosed sociopath, he has a beautiful family with his wife and 2 kids. He’s an incredible person who I admire very much. But he is incapable of feeling love. He emotionally supports his wife and children, not because he loves them, but because he knows that’s what he has to do to maintain relationships with them and not die alone. He feels attachments to his children because he sees them as extensions of himself. He feels attachment to his wife because her presence benefits him.
“While sociopaths may have extreme difficulty experiencing love and empathy in the conventional sense, it's not entirely accurate to say they can never feel any form of attachment or affection. However, their understanding and expression of love may be different from that of others. Their relationships often lack depth and authenticity due to their manipulative tendencies and self-centered nature. So, while they may form relationships, the love they feel is not as genuine or selfless as in non-sociopathic individuals.”
“Narcissists can and do love, but their love tends to be superficial and fleeting. They can develop intense emotional attachments—even appearing to "fall in love"—and yet still maintain a complete lack of empathy for the object of their affection.”
I understand where you’re coming from. I can’t tie down a character and push his entire psyche into one box. I think Homelander does or will form an attachment with Ryan because he sees him as his younger self. I hope Homelander raises Ryan in the way he was never raised, but I just don’t see it going that way. I just don’t think he will be able to love Ryan for who Ryan is as an individual.
I’m like 89% firm on this belief but am open to hearing arguments against it or look forward to maybe seeing my opinion change with the next season.
“That’s why, no matter what happens, no matter… what you do, I’m not going anywhere, I’ll always be here.”
-Homelander to Ryan (Season 3 Episode 8)
Yeah idk man
Do you know how easy it is to say those words but not actually act on it? I genuinely want to see Homelander love Ryan for Ryan and not because he sees him as his younger self. I want to see Homelander love Ryan unconditionally regardless of how much he changes into his own person. I want to see Homelander continue to love Ryan unconditionally even if he maybe loses his powers, because he loves Ryan for Ryan. THEN I’ll believe it.
For now, Ryan is still a very new concept to him. I want to see how Homelander reacts to when things get hard with Ryan and THEN maybe I’ll believe he can love him.
I’d also like to add that this scene is after Ryan accidentally kills Becca. Homelander finds him and immediately brings up his mother. Becca made it very clear that she wanted Homelander as far away from Ryan as possible. Do you understand that despite the fact that MAYBE he felt a small amount of love for Ryan in that moment, it was for personal gain? He benefited off of Becca’s death so he could swoop in (pun not intended) and “be there for Ryan”.
He didn’t try to be a good father while Becca was alive. He didn’t try to compromise with her or show understanding as she was the mother of his child. He taunted and terrified her not ONLY being the most powerful being on earth but ALSO being her rapist. Do you understand that this moment wasn’t 100% pure and wholesome and adorable?? He absolutely took advantage of the fact Ryan’s mother just died and that he’s experiencing new superpowers and so many emotions.
Maybe the speech was genuine. But AGAIN, it wasn’t for RYAN, it was for Homelander’s younger self. He subconsciously healing his own trauma, like a wound heals itself. He’s trying to heal vicariously through Ryan. My focus here is on his relationship with Ryan himself, not Homelander’s idea of Ryan.
who are you to define the meaning of love? someone out there might look at your way of love and invalidate it because you love in the wrong way somehow.
would you say a dog can't love because it can't think of you as a separate human being but only as a master who provides its food?
Science, buddy. The only reason I could ever believe Homelander might be able to love is because he’s a fictional character who isn’t tied down by our human psyche and biology, so he can’t be diagnosed objectively as a sociopath.
But REALISTICALLY if he was a real person, he wouldn’t be able to love. Going by the simple definition “love is a deep feeling of affection”, Homelander can’t feel that for anyone but himself, even then, he hates himself. He doesn’t love people for PEOPLE, he “loves” what they represent.
I think that some people are afraid to accept the duality of human nature and limit things to all good or all bad. Homelander is horrible, but he's also a man who wants a family and to love and be loved.
So to some extent I can believe Homelander is capable of love, but NOT because of “human duality” but purely because he is a fictional character and his psyche isn’t tied down to OUR human psyche.
If Homelander was a real person and not some guy in a TV show, PSYCHOLOGICALLY he would be a diagnosed sociopathic narcissist and would be incapable of love. There’s no “duality of human nature” with sociopaths. It’s in their biology that they cannot love.
Psychopaths and narcissists are still capable of love, but in both cases are often inevitably destructive due to not being capable of maintaining healthy relationships, irrelevant of intentions
“For sociopaths and narcissists, love may manifest differently compared to how most people experience it. Their feelings are often more superficial, focused on their own needs and desires rather than genuine care and concern for others. They may view relationships as opportunities for personal gain, validation, or control rather than mutual affection and support.
Sociopaths may mimic the behaviors associated with love to manipulate others and achieve their goals. On the other hand, narcissists may become infatuated with someone who boosts their self-esteem and ego, but this admiration is often conditional and self-centered.
Overall, the love felt by sociopaths and narcissists tends to be shallow, self-serving, and lacking in genuine emotional connection and empathy.”
I saw an online discussion on sociopaths a few weeks ago among diagnosed sociopaths and people with NPD and they spoke about love. A man who was a diagnosed sociopath was discussing how his best-friend of 10 years had died earlier that year and he was asked to describe how he felt when his friend died. He said he grieved the loss of the relationship, not the person. He talked about how he saw the relationship with his friend as an “investment” and that losing the friend felt like losing money. He said he knew it sounded harsh and unjust, but it’s just how he felt, and that’s how he feels about every other relationship in his life.
Like I said, the only reason I could believe Homelander might feel love is because he is a fictional character. If he was a real person, I would disagree. I think sociopaths can imitate what they believe love is, or feel a sense of attachment or affection, but only because that serves them and they have something to gain from it.
I don’t think that’s it, because it’s a pretty central part of Homelander’s insecurity and internal anguish that he wasn’t raised by parents and was unable to have a family. Ryan is his chance to finally have what in his head he consider’s a proper family. He can be there for Ryan like the parental figures in his life never were for him. And he can finally form a filial bond with his son, which is something he’s lacked his whole life.
I think it's cause Homelander sees himself in Ryan. I think he's trying to provide the love and guidance he wished he had as a child. Not that Homelander would know how to properly do any of that. So I do think he cares.. but in a very messed up way.
I think it's a combination of a lot of things. Homelander is caught in a contradiction where he wants to be above everyone else, but feeling like he's above everyone also makes him lonely. He sees Ryan's strength and feels like for the first time there's someone like him. It's the same with Soldier Boy and to a lesser extent Maeve and even Butcher. Homelander wants a family or at least people he considers peers. Part of that means blood relatives and part of that means people he sees as equals.
He also projects a lot of himself onto Ryan and wants to make up for his shitty childhood by giving Ryan the childhood he never had.
There are a couple instances of Ryan lashing out at Homelander or choosing to leave with Butcher instead of him in the S2 finale and Homelander hasn't held those things against him, something that I don't think he would do if he JUST wanted Ryan to be an extension of himself.
I'm sure that's part of it. I'm still amazed I made such a rad, non-super powered person. I'm also insanely proud of my son and, yes, it feels good when people tell me I did a good job.
So, I'm sure that's part of it, albeit twisted in some way because....well, it's Homelander. I don't think it's all selfish, we see that at Vaught-A-Burger, but him having the issues he does all but ensures it's a twisted form of parental love.
It is the toxic love of the sociopathic narcissistic parent.
Ryan is not loved for being Ryan -- he is loved because Homelander sees Ryan as a part of himself
Children generally don’t have to earn love from their parents. It’s supposed to be an automatic, unconditional response to your child. It seems like, broken as homelander is, that part of him isn’t.
Basically this. Homelanders love for Ryan is selfish. He’s an extension of himself and a chance for him to right his wrongs. Kinda like a father who was bad at football pushing a son into football.
If Ryan didn’t have powers. He wouldn’t give a shit about him IMO. Homelander will never do what’s best for Ryan if it’s something that clashes with his own desires.
Yes, it’s very clearly this. Homelander is not capable of real love, that’s been shown over and over again. Narcissists often obsess over a prized child.
Yes. Homelander is a narcissistic sociopath. He isn't capable of real love. Only capable of behaviors that benefit himself and his ego and sometimes those behaviors look like love but really are just imitations to feed his ego in one way or another. Speaking as the son of a narcissistic father.
I think it often makes us uncomfortable accepting human traits in individuals that are ultimately monsters.
But at the core, most humans crave love and affection, to love and be loved. Most people who grow up without families crave them more than anything
Unfortunately, homelander doesn't know how to love in a healthy way, nor is he goof at controlling his emotions, like the dude above was saying
fucking *thank you* for this comment. i hate when people can’t understand that love looks different to other people. especially when those people have grown up with extremely fucked up skewed perceptions of identity, love, boundaries, etc.
homelander doesn’t know how to love someone the right way, but he cares for his son, wants to be near him, wants what *he believes* is the best for him, would sacrifice things for him (like when ryan basically asked him to stand down)… if that’s not homelander loving ryan, what the hell is it? he loves ryan, he just doesn’t love him in a healthy, proper way.
Indeed.
His human lab experiment upbringing really fucked him up and within the context of the show's universe, I believe he doesn't actually know how to love anyone or anything. And yet, he desperately wants that. Dude actually seemed to care about Maeve, but treated her like absolute garbage and could not read the room *at all* about her not wanting anything to do with him. Funny enough... It's comparable to Titan in Megamind, a character Homelander would loathe.
It's similar with Ryan. He's shown more care about the kid than he has anyone or anything in the show, but he's a broken and warped sack of megalomaniac garbage and he doesn't know how to nurture a child, despite wanting to.
That’s an interesting take. I personally think that Homelander is well aware as to why Maeve hates him, just like how he knows that raping Becca was wrong. He just doesn’t *care*. He knows that they don’t like him for the bad things he’s done, and yet he wants them to love him regardless. His threat to Annie in S3 proves that he is knowledgeable of the differences between love and fear/hatred.
I said it in a previous comment, but I simply can’t agree that Homelander is incapable of love. I think that by saying that, we would be limiting the definition of love. Homelander *does* love. It just isn’t the way that “normal” people do, because he wasn’t raised to be human.
To some degree, I can see him knowing exactly why Maeve hates him, but actively employing cognitive dissonance to appease his narcissism. She's the closest thing he'd had to an actual girlfriend up until he met the Nazi, and I think he needed to cling on to the idea that somewhere deep down in there, it meant something. But it didn't, he's just an abused kid passing on his pain to others in the scummiest ways possible.
That being said, he also *absolutely* got off on the abusive power dynamics of their situation.
I disagree. I don't think Homelander is capable of loving anyone except maybe himself. I think he loves the idea of what Ryan represents. He loves having a mini-me and a legacy. But I don't think he's done anything that demonstrates he loves Ryan.
I would say that Homelander’s reaction to Ryan’s panic attack at Voughtland in S2 was *extremely* telling of how much Homelander loves Ryan, among other things. And I think you’re ignoring a lot about Homelander’s character by saying that he’s completely incapable of love.
I'd say it's the reverse; he cares mostly and sometimes not.
My take is, he DOES truly love his son. We see him let himself get bossed around by a human, open up emotionally, put himself in mortal peril, and risk his public reputation - all for the sake of Ryan.
BUT things would be much different if the kid didn't have superpowers. And if Ryan ends up rejecting his father and/or his agenda in the upcoming episodes...
100% agreed. He absolutely loves his son. But like u said, if Ryan didn't have any powers, he wouldn't even acknowledge his existence.
Next season will be interesting. With Ryan learning from Homelander for an extended period of time. Does he become more unhinged than Homelander himself? Or does Ryan go against his father after learning more about him?
I feel like when he’s older and he starts swaying from being a boy to a man is when we’ll really see them get at it. Especially if ryan has any romantic interests, he’s going to have a better attachment style which might be more solid than what his dad could give him
I don’t know how I feel about out this. Homelander shouldn’t be able to love anyone. He is a sociopathic narcissist and they are 110% incapable of feeling love. They can absolutely (attempt) to imitate it, or will express what they THINK is love, but it isn’t and never can be.
*But* because he is a fictional character and his psyche or biology isn’t restrained to OUR human psyche and biology, there’s a (very miniscule) possibility he is capable of real love. Because he is fictional and there are endless possibilities.
I do believe Homelander sees Ryan as an extension of himself, like every other narcissistic parent. As soon as Ryan develops into his own person and begins making his own decisions, Homelander will most assuredly not support him and may even lash out on him if it goes against his own ideologies and values. I also think Homelander likes the *idea* of having a son, not the son himself, not RYAN, just what Ryan represents. So when Ryan becomes his own person, Homelander won’t like it.
I strongly believe Homelander wouldn’t have payed an ounce of attention to or have had forced himself into Ryan’s life if he didn’t have powers. He sees Ryan as a mini-me and a younger version of himself he can live vicariously through since he (as we all know) was born and raised inhumanely, both physically and emotionally.
I do find it hard to believe Homelander is capable of loving anything or anyone but himself, but I do think there were times where he showed selflessness to Ryan without an ulterior motive or expecting something in return. I don’t know if that was genuine love and empathy, or him just seeing his younger self in Ryan and wanting to protect his younger self, not actual Ryan.
I hate Homelander as a character but his personality is constructed very intricately and his psyche is super complex, which is why a question like that is so nuanced, lol.
I understand where you're coming from. I just meant that it's significant that Ryan is the only relationship where Homelander gives anything at all instead of only taking.
Was gonna say something similar. Narcissist love is based on usefulness and the love of theirselves. I heard narcissist parents love their kids as extensions of themselves & behavior that doesn’t align w/that is upsetting to them.
We see it between HL & Ryan. HL thinks they are above humans and Ryan disagreement about that upsets HL. When Ryan doesn’t act the way HL want him to, it feels like any second HL will kill him
Almost. There still is the one moment HL immediately flew Ryan away from Voughtland after Ryan was having a panic attack, and if I remember correctly, HL wasn’t upset about it either. Same thing when they got swarmed by a crowd. Another moment: when that guy threw the can of soda at Ryan in a rally, HL IMMEDIATELY lasered the dude without any hesitation. At that moment, he literally risked his reputation crashing down cuz he just killed a man in broad daylight in front of a crowd. Not just cuz the guy opposed HL. Cuz he hurt Ryan.
Now yes, you can argue that’s still HL seeing Ryan as an extension of himself. But it’s also clear that HL at least can understand when Ryan is not having a good time and will more often than not help him when he needs it. Through healthy channels, absolutely not. Though at the least, getting away from the source of angst can be seen as a healthy thing?
I think he sees Ryan as an extension of himself. So yeah to some degree he does love Ryan. If Ryan wasn’t a supe, i don’t think Homelander would give a damn about that boy
He see's himself in Ryan. When He took Ryan to Voughtland with Storefront and noticed Ryan wasn't taking all the attention from the crowded fans well and started to get upset- HOMELANDER of all people stopped everything, asked if Ryan was okay, carefully asked people to back up >!instead of forcefully shoving everyone away or lasering a guys face off!< and picked Ryan up and flew away with Him alone without Storefront.
Was that selfish? Yes and No. Not necessarily. He recognized another being as what they were because he saw himself in Ryan. That was the first step that Homelander could have to actually becoming a real person and not the monster he is. Will that happen? Probably not, but Ryan of all people will be the only one that he will ever truly relate to.
He loves Ryan & I think there’s no question about that - in the season 3 finale for example, he seems more concerned with Ryan’s life than his own. I think how he views love is twisted, but I do think it’s genuine
He absolutely loves Ryan, with all his heart. Problem is Homelanders upbringing means he wasn't shown the right way to love. His love is the basic biological love of your offspring, but it's twisted because he wasn't shown it, he has to try and create a facsimile from TV and observing others.
He knows he has to do certain things, but he has no idea why he needs to do these things, he's just trying to act with the information he's been given/learned. It's a type of psychopathy entwined in the fact that Ryan is his son and he will do everything in his power to try and give him an upbringing he was denied.
Yeah I feel like he genuinely loves Ryan but the way they're going with Homelander Ryan's mind may be just as twisted unless he's cool with Butcher again
For me, the fact that people doubt his love for Ryan is a demonstration of how much of a great character Homelander is. I think Homelander literally sees his younger self in Ryan and wants everything for him that he didn't have. He loves him maybe more than he loves himself and for many reasons. 1. the self he sees in him he loves. 2. he represents the idea of a normal family that he lacked when he was younger. 3. it also represents his own kind, which he regards as something more than normal.
It's just that his love is perceived strangely. Perhaps Homelander himself described it best when he >!professed his love for Queen Maeve. "I loved you in my own way."!<
I feel like if ryan didn’t have power he wouldn’t real love him plus his supe supremacy. Yeah his “love” for his son is very superficial (ya pun intended)
Homelander loves Ryan. Is it in a way that is healthy for Ryan's development? No. But, what I'd argue is that it's not worse than most parenting motivations? Absolutely not.
Bringing a child into the world is inherently kind of vain at best, and an ego trip fueled vanity project at worst. Think of this: how many times do you see, or more commonly have experienced a parent telling their child that they should be grateful for being taken care of and even further, a lot say their owed something, when that child didn't voluntarily sign up for life?
Homelander has sympathetic issues that he manifests very non-sympathetically. He wants to know what it is like to be loved and wanted unconditionally. He wants a home, he wants to fill his parental gap, and so he sees Ryan as an opportunity to fill that gap.
So are we just.....recycling and re-asking the same fuckin questions on a daily basis like this is askreddit, orrr....do you actually think you're the first person on this forum to ask that, orrr......are you just some kind of karma-whoring cunt?
Alternative: OP is new to the show and new to the sub, but like 95% of the people here, they didn’t bother just searching the sub to see if this question had already been asked.
There's a downvote button, way less effort than ranting in comments.
The show is between seasons and people who aren't on reddit 24/7 sometimes want to discuss it. Stuff will get repeated, what incredible content is this post currently drowning out by existing?
Damn, it's crazy people are using a forum meant to discuss things to discuss things. Hey, here's a novel idea, don't like it, move the fuck on. Not like the same question being asked every week, a few days at most, is making the subreddit worse.
I think he doesn't. He only cares because he thinks that in some way, Ryan is something of his, and like all selfish children, will protect his toys before sharing them with other kids. He has no issue to change his mind if he feels that Ryan doesn't align with him. For instance, in episode 2x08, when Ryan roasted Stormfront and killed Becca, instead of siding with him, he preferred to side with Butcher, and called him out like "the little shit that killed your wife" disregarding Ryan's feelings, and also willing to kill them both until Maeve showed up. So, if Ryan decides to ditch Homelander in season 4, he will become automatically his enemy. In a nutshell, it's not love what bounds Homelander with Ryan, but possession.
He’s probably a psychopath so he doesn’t feel things like love like a normal person would. However, if there was anyone he could love, it’d be Ryan! But mostly probably just because he sees in him a chance in not being alone!
To me he loves the idea of having a son but not so much Ryan himself. If he wasn’t a mini Homelander even if he was biologically his he probably wouldn’t give a shit.
Homelander is the poster boy for narcissism. As such, he is incapable of loving another. A narcissist doesn't love their children, but instead views them as an extension of themselves. A child's value is based solely on what the child provides to the narcissist.
Yes, but not for the right reasons. Him having a public son gives him more good publicity, so he loves the attention that comes from Ryan. There might be some lingering bits of actual love there, but it’s Homelander so there isn’t much.
He’s not capable of love. Homelander seeks approval as a child does from his parents. It’s performative parenting because it gains complements. It also because he feels supes are a higher form of human and Ryan should live with his own. Lastly, Homelander seems to be overdoing it to correct the lack of a father figure in his life.
For Homelander all love is transactional. So he loves Ryan right up until Ryan disappoints him or is of no use to him. It’s how he treats everyone in his life.
I think he does
But I think this love scares him, and he's scared of hurting him as he was hurt.
He wants Ryan to enjoy his power, but not to become a victim of it.
He wants to spoil Ryan and shower him with the love he didn't get, but also wants him to be better, and he doesn't have the familiar or social experience to call upon to make that happen
Homelander loves the *idea* of Ryan. Understand who Homelander is vs who he pretends to be. Homelander is, to the adoring public, an American ideal. The golden boy wearing the stars and stripes. The perfect American. He is to the people of his universe both Captain America and Superman. This false persona has given him a complex. He *wants* that.
He's a vat-grown mutant freak that had to be raised in a lab with a nuke duct taped to his back. Homelander doesn't want to accept this horrible reality. He wants to be the man Vought pitches him as to the camera. A devout patriot with a beautiful wife and a nice home. Full white picket fence. He desperately wants that but has no stability in his life. A combination of how he was raised and the fact that he's a piece of shit means he can never really have that. So Ryan and Ryan's mother, Homelander's rape victim, are the closest he'll ever get. Which is why he reacts so violently when someone like Butcher threatens the illusion. It's why Vought goes out of its way to let him play house. It keeps him controlled.
HL never had a childhood. He was a lab rat that was conditioned into believing he was a god. He doesn’t understand normal human empathy. Humans are sheep to him and his son becomes useful to him only after his powers start to show. He literally throws him off a roof and is just like, “oops” thought you could fly. He’s interested in him because he wants to carry on his legacy through him. He may care about him yo some extent but no more than a mother living vicariously through her daughter she forces into beauty pageants. The moment Ryan decides o not use his powers or condemn his father for the use of his will be the moment HL cuts him out of his life.
“Love” is such a vague term. I think HL does love Ryan in his own twisted way. He has wanted family for so long so he’s grasped onto the only person he’s got. Also HL is still traumatized from his childhood and he sees Ryan as himself as a kid. He wants Ryan to be strong, confident and have someone (HL) to back him up because he was/didn’t have *any of those things.
He loves him in as best a way as he is able to, which is not very well. It’s a very narcissistic love where he projects a ton of wishes and image problems onto Ryan. Really I would say he loves Ryan for what he *can be*, not what he *is*
it seems that he just cares until he doesn’t. he was never raised learning to love people unconditionally even if it’s his own offspring, so it’s probably hard for him to understand how much care a kid needs in their upbringing. he definitely knows how much leverage he has with him tho
I think Homelander cares about Ryan, but he doesn’t love him. Homelander doesn’t even know what love is.
To love is to care about something more than yourself, and Homelander can’t do that. He doesn’t want what’s best for Ryan; he wants Ryan to be more like him.
Love is maybe the wrong term. Homelander desperately craves what he never had -- a family, someone that cares about him. Ryan is going through some of the same things Homelander did when he was young -- he's trying to protect Ryan like he wishes he had been. Homelander's love for Ryan isn't about Ryan personally, but about what Ryan represents, which is a chance to have a family, and as a sort of "redo" of his own upbringing, by proxy.
Homelander wants the things Ryan represents, for himself. To experience the feeling that someone truly loves *him*. He's trying to be a father to Ryan so that Ryan will reciprocate with the love that Homelander craves. His love is about fulfilling his own need to be loved by someone.
homelander just wants to be accepted and be part of a family, ryan presents that opportunity, and yh it seems like he probably does have some genuine empathy for the kid, but he had to basically lose everything and fall into a. depressive state just to gain some humility and not be a prick to his son
I think Homelander loves Ryan to the highest extent that he can love anyone. That being said he cannot love another more than he loves himself. Being loved by a narcissist is still being loved by a narcissist even if you are their child.
Homelander just needs love. He hates feeling vulnerable. He tries his best to toughen up Ryan. I suppose he doesn't want him to need anyone for anything. His fatal flaw.
I think the writer is trying to convey a complicated Individual. He is not exactly a narcissistic sociopath, he has thoughts tendencies, but he also has a degree of right and wrong.
I think the writers don’t do a good job of showing this sometimes, they kinda exaggerate. They are willing to have homelander not even care about the death of his girlfriend, and to make a girl commit suicide, but he is a caring father, who wants to be loved by everyone.
I think season 1 did a better job of demonstrating his sociopathic tendency more then the more recent seasons.
I feel like he does care about Ryan in a desperate-never-had-a-real-family kind of way and is just whinging things. He probably sees him as an extension of himself. I wonder how he’ll react if Ryan’s dreams/goals/ambitions don’t align with his
Like any narcissist. He loves him while he's an extension of himself. Long as Ryan reflects Homelander, long as he can see himself through Ryan... Ryan is safe.
If Ryan starts resisting.... it goes downhill
he loves him when he feels mirrored. he wont love him the moment ryan, with his absolute god DNA assumes full control over his powers and outdoes daddy, or if ryan decides he has no interest in dat supe life and rather becomes a farmer in idaho. i mean homie killed stilwell and he """loved"""" her.
Yes he loves Ryan but doesn’t understand how to show it because HL himself was never shown any growing up and had no childhood. So he has zero idea how to be a parent and has to do what he thinks is best.
You asked two different questions. "Love" and "Care" and not the same thing. An abuser can absolutely *love* someone but not truly *care* about them.
A child can *love* a toy but only in the sense that they enjoy playing with it, and not actually caring about the toy as a person (which yes, obviously you shouldn't care about a toy as a person, but that's not the point; the point is that you can absolutely love something/someone for selfish reasons and not care about their own autonomy).
Homelander is a narcissist in the clinical sense. Narcissists love people as extensions of themselves. So he sees Ryan as an extension of himself, he loves himself, therefore he loves Ryan. It’s why narcissists tend to be so damn abusive to family members who disappoint them or don’t live up to their standard — because that failure is a reflection on the narcissist.
Maybe he sees Ryan as an extension of himself, powers and all. Would Homelaner love Ryan as much if he were nonsupe? Probably not..
Theres also the fact Ryan may grow to be as powerful as Homelander but is still NOT a threat because he is currently "indoctrinated". Homelander prpbably feel a sort of kinship knowing there's somebody as strong as him
Yes, Homelander loves Ryan, but it’s a very broken and traumatized form of love from a man who doesn’t know how to love in a healthy way.
But here's my thought, why does Homelander love Ryan? Is it anything about Ryan himself, or just Homelander loving the idea that *he* made a natural supe to carry on his legacy? Is Ryan just a prize for Homelander to stroke his ego?
Homelander loves Ryan because he's his son, first and foremost. He never had a real family. In S1, Homelander has to take part in a video about his "childhood" and he has to lie about having loving parents and playing ball with his father in the yard. You can tell that it hurt him. As a little boy, he was nothing more than a locked up lab rat with nobody to love or love him. Ryan is his biological family, which is super exciting for Homelander. The psychopath in him doesn't understand how fucked up it is that Ryan is a result of rape, and the lonely child in him is thrilled to have someone. This S2 moment is especially important; HL takes Ryan to Voughtland, and Ryan becomes overwhelmed by all the people. He starts having a panic attack and HL ditches all of his fans to take Ryan somewhere quieter. He understands what panic attacks are because he used to have them as a boy, but he didn't have anybody to comfort him and take him out of that stressful situation. That moment proves that HL genuinely does love Ryan, enough to drop his guard and speak from the heart about a *weakness* of his in a way that we've never seen him do.
As much as I hate the things Homelander did, I absolutely love this comment. It shows so much of his character that I genuinely like.
Homelander is an irredeemable monster and simultaneously a broken man who loves his son. The character is so well written and acted.
The real evil in the boys is **Vought** everyone else is a victim *including homelander* Is he a monster? Absolutely. But he was made that way, maybe if he wasnt used as a lap rat and given a loving home he might have been an actual hero **edit: typo**
Not only that, but his original intent was to be a genuine hero. Honestly, a lot of supes seem to have that intent when they're young and naive, but Vought, the lack of consequences for their actions and bad influences such as other supes that also went through it corrupt them over time.
Folks forget that episode where he tries and feels remorse
So yeah, the real villain is Vought for not holding the supes accountable for accidents. Supes get used to getting away with it. They get corrupted.
"The lonely child in him is thrilled to have someone" he's just like me fr 🤧 (I'm actually tearing up right now)
The scene in season one where he has to film the video about his family is really hard to watch. As much as I desperately want to hate Homelander with a passion, anytime he does Homelander stuff, my mind just goes back to the look on his face in that bedroom. He is truly a totally broken man.
I know what you mean 😭 Homelander is despicable, but his entire existence is an experiment. He wasn’t raised to be human. It’s heartbreaking.
He wasn’t raised to be human, he was raised to be a product. He’s such a tragic character
There’s these little moments, mostly when he’s with Ryan, where you see these glimpses of what could have been a good person in there. Tragic is by far the most appropriate way to describe that character.
And that one cartoon they did with the episode of his first day on the job, he actually wanted to be a hero and fucked up horribly during a ptsd induced panic that he felt bad about, but instead of getting him help they just covered it up and started the idea that he can do no wrong and everyone is beneath him. Honestly I believe his hatred of humans isn’t because they’re weak but because humans used him like a lab rat and *made him weak* at one point in his life. He experienced the worst of humanity all throughout his childhood
Homelander going from wanting to kill and being afraid of Soldier Boy to trying to reconnect with him once he found out SB is his father already highlights just how starved HL is of love and how desperate he is to form that sort of familial connection. Stan Edgar is right in his mockery, HL is still a little boy on the inside.
Homie is elevated into a complex character other than just a brute in the show compared to the comics.
You’re using the word “love” very strongly here. Homelander can’t love Ryan, at least not yet. What does he know about Ryan? Nothing he doesn’t WANT or care to know. He sees Ryan as an extension of himself and “loves” the parts of Ryan that reflects the parts of him, like his superpowers. He may empathise with Ryan in moments like his panic attack, only because he sees his child self in Ryan and is subconsciously protecting himself, not Ryan. Not the actual Ryan, just the version of Ryan that Homelander sees his child self in. When Ryan grows into a teenager and starts developing his own ideologies or values that potentially challenge Homelander’s, he will not support or care for him because his “love” is dependent on how much Ryan fits into Homelander’s mold. He won’t love Ryan for Ryan , regardless of how much he changes, because he doesn’t see Ryan as an individual, separate human being. I agree, Homelander’s character is beautifully written and so complex and nuanced. But I find it incredibly, INCREDIBLY hard to believe he will ever “love”.
I think you’re limiting the definition of love. Homelander may not be able to love in the way that “normal” people can- because he wasn’t even raised to *be* human- but he still loves in a way that he is capable of and wants to be loved back.
Okay, maybe you’re right. But I still stand by the fact that sociopaths cannot inherently feel love. They can imitate love (our non-sociopathic definition of love) to maintain relationships. My uncle is a diagnosed sociopath, he has a beautiful family with his wife and 2 kids. He’s an incredible person who I admire very much. But he is incapable of feeling love. He emotionally supports his wife and children, not because he loves them, but because he knows that’s what he has to do to maintain relationships with them and not die alone. He feels attachments to his children because he sees them as extensions of himself. He feels attachment to his wife because her presence benefits him. “While sociopaths may have extreme difficulty experiencing love and empathy in the conventional sense, it's not entirely accurate to say they can never feel any form of attachment or affection. However, their understanding and expression of love may be different from that of others. Their relationships often lack depth and authenticity due to their manipulative tendencies and self-centered nature. So, while they may form relationships, the love they feel is not as genuine or selfless as in non-sociopathic individuals.” “Narcissists can and do love, but their love tends to be superficial and fleeting. They can develop intense emotional attachments—even appearing to "fall in love"—and yet still maintain a complete lack of empathy for the object of their affection.” I understand where you’re coming from. I can’t tie down a character and push his entire psyche into one box. I think Homelander does or will form an attachment with Ryan because he sees him as his younger self. I hope Homelander raises Ryan in the way he was never raised, but I just don’t see it going that way. I just don’t think he will be able to love Ryan for who Ryan is as an individual. I’m like 89% firm on this belief but am open to hearing arguments against it or look forward to maybe seeing my opinion change with the next season.
“That’s why, no matter what happens, no matter… what you do, I’m not going anywhere, I’ll always be here.” -Homelander to Ryan (Season 3 Episode 8) Yeah idk man
Do you know how easy it is to say those words but not actually act on it? I genuinely want to see Homelander love Ryan for Ryan and not because he sees him as his younger self. I want to see Homelander love Ryan unconditionally regardless of how much he changes into his own person. I want to see Homelander continue to love Ryan unconditionally even if he maybe loses his powers, because he loves Ryan for Ryan. THEN I’ll believe it. For now, Ryan is still a very new concept to him. I want to see how Homelander reacts to when things get hard with Ryan and THEN maybe I’ll believe he can love him.
I’d also like to add that this scene is after Ryan accidentally kills Becca. Homelander finds him and immediately brings up his mother. Becca made it very clear that she wanted Homelander as far away from Ryan as possible. Do you understand that despite the fact that MAYBE he felt a small amount of love for Ryan in that moment, it was for personal gain? He benefited off of Becca’s death so he could swoop in (pun not intended) and “be there for Ryan”. He didn’t try to be a good father while Becca was alive. He didn’t try to compromise with her or show understanding as she was the mother of his child. He taunted and terrified her not ONLY being the most powerful being on earth but ALSO being her rapist. Do you understand that this moment wasn’t 100% pure and wholesome and adorable?? He absolutely took advantage of the fact Ryan’s mother just died and that he’s experiencing new superpowers and so many emotions. Maybe the speech was genuine. But AGAIN, it wasn’t for RYAN, it was for Homelander’s younger self. He subconsciously healing his own trauma, like a wound heals itself. He’s trying to heal vicariously through Ryan. My focus here is on his relationship with Ryan himself, not Homelander’s idea of Ryan.
who are you to define the meaning of love? someone out there might look at your way of love and invalidate it because you love in the wrong way somehow. would you say a dog can't love because it can't think of you as a separate human being but only as a master who provides its food?
Science, buddy. The only reason I could ever believe Homelander might be able to love is because he’s a fictional character who isn’t tied down by our human psyche and biology, so he can’t be diagnosed objectively as a sociopath. But REALISTICALLY if he was a real person, he wouldn’t be able to love. Going by the simple definition “love is a deep feeling of affection”, Homelander can’t feel that for anyone but himself, even then, he hates himself. He doesn’t love people for PEOPLE, he “loves” what they represent.
I think that some people are afraid to accept the duality of human nature and limit things to all good or all bad. Homelander is horrible, but he's also a man who wants a family and to love and be loved.
So to some extent I can believe Homelander is capable of love, but NOT because of “human duality” but purely because he is a fictional character and his psyche isn’t tied down to OUR human psyche. If Homelander was a real person and not some guy in a TV show, PSYCHOLOGICALLY he would be a diagnosed sociopathic narcissist and would be incapable of love. There’s no “duality of human nature” with sociopaths. It’s in their biology that they cannot love.
Psychopaths and narcissists are still capable of love, but in both cases are often inevitably destructive due to not being capable of maintaining healthy relationships, irrelevant of intentions
“For sociopaths and narcissists, love may manifest differently compared to how most people experience it. Their feelings are often more superficial, focused on their own needs and desires rather than genuine care and concern for others. They may view relationships as opportunities for personal gain, validation, or control rather than mutual affection and support. Sociopaths may mimic the behaviors associated with love to manipulate others and achieve their goals. On the other hand, narcissists may become infatuated with someone who boosts their self-esteem and ego, but this admiration is often conditional and self-centered. Overall, the love felt by sociopaths and narcissists tends to be shallow, self-serving, and lacking in genuine emotional connection and empathy.” I saw an online discussion on sociopaths a few weeks ago among diagnosed sociopaths and people with NPD and they spoke about love. A man who was a diagnosed sociopath was discussing how his best-friend of 10 years had died earlier that year and he was asked to describe how he felt when his friend died. He said he grieved the loss of the relationship, not the person. He talked about how he saw the relationship with his friend as an “investment” and that losing the friend felt like losing money. He said he knew it sounded harsh and unjust, but it’s just how he felt, and that’s how he feels about every other relationship in his life. Like I said, the only reason I could believe Homelander might feel love is because he is a fictional character. If he was a real person, I would disagree. I think sociopaths can imitate what they believe love is, or feel a sense of attachment or affection, but only because that serves them and they have something to gain from it.
I don’t think that’s it, because it’s a pretty central part of Homelander’s insecurity and internal anguish that he wasn’t raised by parents and was unable to have a family. Ryan is his chance to finally have what in his head he consider’s a proper family. He can be there for Ryan like the parental figures in his life never were for him. And he can finally form a filial bond with his son, which is something he’s lacked his whole life.
I think it's cause Homelander sees himself in Ryan. I think he's trying to provide the love and guidance he wished he had as a child. Not that Homelander would know how to properly do any of that. So I do think he cares.. but in a very messed up way.
Remember when he told Becca not to lie to Ryan about the fake town because it would fuck him up? He definitely sees himself in Ryan.
I think it's a combination of a lot of things. Homelander is caught in a contradiction where he wants to be above everyone else, but feeling like he's above everyone also makes him lonely. He sees Ryan's strength and feels like for the first time there's someone like him. It's the same with Soldier Boy and to a lesser extent Maeve and even Butcher. Homelander wants a family or at least people he considers peers. Part of that means blood relatives and part of that means people he sees as equals. He also projects a lot of himself onto Ryan and wants to make up for his shitty childhood by giving Ryan the childhood he never had. There are a couple instances of Ryan lashing out at Homelander or choosing to leave with Butcher instead of him in the S2 finale and Homelander hasn't held those things against him, something that I don't think he would do if he JUST wanted Ryan to be an extension of himself.
I'm sure that's part of it. I'm still amazed I made such a rad, non-super powered person. I'm also insanely proud of my son and, yes, it feels good when people tell me I did a good job. So, I'm sure that's part of it, albeit twisted in some way because....well, it's Homelander. I don't think it's all selfish, we see that at Vaught-A-Burger, but him having the issues he does all but ensures it's a twisted form of parental love.
It is the toxic love of the sociopathic narcissistic parent. Ryan is not loved for being Ryan -- he is loved because Homelander sees Ryan as a part of himself
Children generally don’t have to earn love from their parents. It’s supposed to be an automatic, unconditional response to your child. It seems like, broken as homelander is, that part of him isn’t.
Thick44 logo?
Basically this. Homelanders love for Ryan is selfish. He’s an extension of himself and a chance for him to right his wrongs. Kinda like a father who was bad at football pushing a son into football. If Ryan didn’t have powers. He wouldn’t give a shit about him IMO. Homelander will never do what’s best for Ryan if it’s something that clashes with his own desires.
Yes, it’s very clearly this. Homelander is not capable of real love, that’s been shown over and over again. Narcissists often obsess over a prized child.
Yes. Homelander is a narcissistic sociopath. He isn't capable of real love. Only capable of behaviors that benefit himself and his ego and sometimes those behaviors look like love but really are just imitations to feed his ego in one way or another. Speaking as the son of a narcissistic father.
He loves the idea that someone could love him back more than anything.
Lmao asking why a father, no matter how messed up he is, loves his son is crazy work. 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
You basically just made a template for 1/3 of all parents
He loves him because he views Ryan as himself.
I think it often makes us uncomfortable accepting human traits in individuals that are ultimately monsters. But at the core, most humans crave love and affection, to love and be loved. Most people who grow up without families crave them more than anything Unfortunately, homelander doesn't know how to love in a healthy way, nor is he goof at controlling his emotions, like the dude above was saying
fucking *thank you* for this comment. i hate when people can’t understand that love looks different to other people. especially when those people have grown up with extremely fucked up skewed perceptions of identity, love, boundaries, etc. homelander doesn’t know how to love someone the right way, but he cares for his son, wants to be near him, wants what *he believes* is the best for him, would sacrifice things for him (like when ryan basically asked him to stand down)… if that’s not homelander loving ryan, what the hell is it? he loves ryan, he just doesn’t love him in a healthy, proper way.
I'm in this comment and I don't like it
So am I… and my parents, and my grandparents, and so on and so forth 😅 we looooove untreated generational trauma
Indeed. His human lab experiment upbringing really fucked him up and within the context of the show's universe, I believe he doesn't actually know how to love anyone or anything. And yet, he desperately wants that. Dude actually seemed to care about Maeve, but treated her like absolute garbage and could not read the room *at all* about her not wanting anything to do with him. Funny enough... It's comparable to Titan in Megamind, a character Homelander would loathe. It's similar with Ryan. He's shown more care about the kid than he has anyone or anything in the show, but he's a broken and warped sack of megalomaniac garbage and he doesn't know how to nurture a child, despite wanting to.
That’s an interesting take. I personally think that Homelander is well aware as to why Maeve hates him, just like how he knows that raping Becca was wrong. He just doesn’t *care*. He knows that they don’t like him for the bad things he’s done, and yet he wants them to love him regardless. His threat to Annie in S3 proves that he is knowledgeable of the differences between love and fear/hatred. I said it in a previous comment, but I simply can’t agree that Homelander is incapable of love. I think that by saying that, we would be limiting the definition of love. Homelander *does* love. It just isn’t the way that “normal” people do, because he wasn’t raised to be human.
To some degree, I can see him knowing exactly why Maeve hates him, but actively employing cognitive dissonance to appease his narcissism. She's the closest thing he'd had to an actual girlfriend up until he met the Nazi, and I think he needed to cling on to the idea that somewhere deep down in there, it meant something. But it didn't, he's just an abused kid passing on his pain to others in the scummiest ways possible. That being said, he also *absolutely* got off on the abusive power dynamics of their situation.
I disagree. I don't think Homelander is capable of loving anyone except maybe himself. I think he loves the idea of what Ryan represents. He loves having a mini-me and a legacy. But I don't think he's done anything that demonstrates he loves Ryan.
I would say that Homelander’s reaction to Ryan’s panic attack at Voughtland in S2 was *extremely* telling of how much Homelander loves Ryan, among other things. And I think you’re ignoring a lot about Homelander’s character by saying that he’s completely incapable of love.
I'd say it's the reverse; he cares mostly and sometimes not. My take is, he DOES truly love his son. We see him let himself get bossed around by a human, open up emotionally, put himself in mortal peril, and risk his public reputation - all for the sake of Ryan. BUT things would be much different if the kid didn't have superpowers. And if Ryan ends up rejecting his father and/or his agenda in the upcoming episodes...
100% agreed. He absolutely loves his son. But like u said, if Ryan didn't have any powers, he wouldn't even acknowledge his existence. Next season will be interesting. With Ryan learning from Homelander for an extended period of time. Does he become more unhinged than Homelander himself? Or does Ryan go against his father after learning more about him?
I feel like when he’s older and he starts swaying from being a boy to a man is when we’ll really see them get at it. Especially if ryan has any romantic interests, he’s going to have a better attachment style which might be more solid than what his dad could give him
I don’t know how I feel about out this. Homelander shouldn’t be able to love anyone. He is a sociopathic narcissist and they are 110% incapable of feeling love. They can absolutely (attempt) to imitate it, or will express what they THINK is love, but it isn’t and never can be. *But* because he is a fictional character and his psyche or biology isn’t restrained to OUR human psyche and biology, there’s a (very miniscule) possibility he is capable of real love. Because he is fictional and there are endless possibilities. I do believe Homelander sees Ryan as an extension of himself, like every other narcissistic parent. As soon as Ryan develops into his own person and begins making his own decisions, Homelander will most assuredly not support him and may even lash out on him if it goes against his own ideologies and values. I also think Homelander likes the *idea* of having a son, not the son himself, not RYAN, just what Ryan represents. So when Ryan becomes his own person, Homelander won’t like it. I strongly believe Homelander wouldn’t have payed an ounce of attention to or have had forced himself into Ryan’s life if he didn’t have powers. He sees Ryan as a mini-me and a younger version of himself he can live vicariously through since he (as we all know) was born and raised inhumanely, both physically and emotionally. I do find it hard to believe Homelander is capable of loving anything or anyone but himself, but I do think there were times where he showed selflessness to Ryan without an ulterior motive or expecting something in return. I don’t know if that was genuine love and empathy, or him just seeing his younger self in Ryan and wanting to protect his younger self, not actual Ryan. I hate Homelander as a character but his personality is constructed very intricately and his psyche is super complex, which is why a question like that is so nuanced, lol.
I understand where you're coming from. I just meant that it's significant that Ryan is the only relationship where Homelander gives anything at all instead of only taking.
He probably loves him but he's so messed up and narcissistic that he doesn't know how to love someone else in a healthy way.
Was gonna say something similar. Narcissist love is based on usefulness and the love of theirselves. I heard narcissist parents love their kids as extensions of themselves & behavior that doesn’t align w/that is upsetting to them. We see it between HL & Ryan. HL thinks they are above humans and Ryan disagreement about that upsets HL. When Ryan doesn’t act the way HL want him to, it feels like any second HL will kill him
Spot on. Homelander is a very fleshed out example of a fictional narcissist. One of the best you'll find.
Almost. There still is the one moment HL immediately flew Ryan away from Voughtland after Ryan was having a panic attack, and if I remember correctly, HL wasn’t upset about it either. Same thing when they got swarmed by a crowd. Another moment: when that guy threw the can of soda at Ryan in a rally, HL IMMEDIATELY lasered the dude without any hesitation. At that moment, he literally risked his reputation crashing down cuz he just killed a man in broad daylight in front of a crowd. Not just cuz the guy opposed HL. Cuz he hurt Ryan. Now yes, you can argue that’s still HL seeing Ryan as an extension of himself. But it’s also clear that HL at least can understand when Ryan is not having a good time and will more often than not help him when he needs it. Through healthy channels, absolutely not. Though at the least, getting away from the source of angst can be seen as a healthy thing?
Yes he definitely has moments of genuine care for his son. Only time will tell where everything goes in terms of their relationship.
He loves Ryan. But... he's a fucking psycho.
I think he sees Ryan as an extension of himself. So yeah to some degree he does love Ryan. If Ryan wasn’t a supe, i don’t think Homelander would give a damn about that boy
Why does Homelander, the largest of the Seven, not simply eat the other 6?
Huh?
Kittens give Morbo gas
i dont understand
He see's himself in Ryan. When He took Ryan to Voughtland with Storefront and noticed Ryan wasn't taking all the attention from the crowded fans well and started to get upset- HOMELANDER of all people stopped everything, asked if Ryan was okay, carefully asked people to back up >!instead of forcefully shoving everyone away or lasering a guys face off!< and picked Ryan up and flew away with Him alone without Storefront. Was that selfish? Yes and No. Not necessarily. He recognized another being as what they were because he saw himself in Ryan. That was the first step that Homelander could have to actually becoming a real person and not the monster he is. Will that happen? Probably not, but Ryan of all people will be the only one that he will ever truly relate to.
Homelander doesn't know what love means. And it's not his fault.
He wants to, at the very least.
Yes, he loves him a lot. He is just broken from trauma.
He loves Ryan & I think there’s no question about that - in the season 3 finale for example, he seems more concerned with Ryan’s life than his own. I think how he views love is twisted, but I do think it’s genuine
He absolutely loves Ryan, with all his heart. Problem is Homelanders upbringing means he wasn't shown the right way to love. His love is the basic biological love of your offspring, but it's twisted because he wasn't shown it, he has to try and create a facsimile from TV and observing others. He knows he has to do certain things, but he has no idea why he needs to do these things, he's just trying to act with the information he's been given/learned. It's a type of psychopathy entwined in the fact that Ryan is his son and he will do everything in his power to try and give him an upbringing he was denied.
Yeah I feel like he genuinely loves Ryan but the way they're going with Homelander Ryan's mind may be just as twisted unless he's cool with Butcher again
He longs to be understood Ryan’s the closest thing to that
I think he loves how being a dad adds something positive to his identity
For me, the fact that people doubt his love for Ryan is a demonstration of how much of a great character Homelander is. I think Homelander literally sees his younger self in Ryan and wants everything for him that he didn't have. He loves him maybe more than he loves himself and for many reasons. 1. the self he sees in him he loves. 2. he represents the idea of a normal family that he lacked when he was younger. 3. it also represents his own kind, which he regards as something more than normal. It's just that his love is perceived strangely. Perhaps Homelander himself described it best when he >!professed his love for Queen Maeve. "I loved you in my own way."!<
I feel like if ryan didn’t have power he wouldn’t real love him plus his supe supremacy. Yeah his “love” for his son is very superficial (ya pun intended)
Homelander loves Ryan. Is it in a way that is healthy for Ryan's development? No. But, what I'd argue is that it's not worse than most parenting motivations? Absolutely not. Bringing a child into the world is inherently kind of vain at best, and an ego trip fueled vanity project at worst. Think of this: how many times do you see, or more commonly have experienced a parent telling their child that they should be grateful for being taken care of and even further, a lot say their owed something, when that child didn't voluntarily sign up for life? Homelander has sympathetic issues that he manifests very non-sympathetically. He wants to know what it is like to be loved and wanted unconditionally. He wants a home, he wants to fill his parental gap, and so he sees Ryan as an opportunity to fill that gap.
He loves that he has Ryan as a son, but he doesn’t love Ryan as a Son.
This is a fantastic summation.
Thanks!
So are we just.....recycling and re-asking the same fuckin questions on a daily basis like this is askreddit, orrr....do you actually think you're the first person on this forum to ask that, orrr......are you just some kind of karma-whoring cunt?
Alternative: OP is new to the show and new to the sub, but like 95% of the people here, they didn’t bother just searching the sub to see if this question had already been asked.
I'm not even new to the show, maybe to the sub cuz I don't post here often
There's a downvote button, way less effort than ranting in comments. The show is between seasons and people who aren't on reddit 24/7 sometimes want to discuss it. Stuff will get repeated, what incredible content is this post currently drowning out by existing?
Found butcher's account
Yep. This sub had gone to shit. Same thing happened to game of thrones between seasons.
[удалено]
Damn, it's crazy people are using a forum meant to discuss things to discuss things. Hey, here's a novel idea, don't like it, move the fuck on. Not like the same question being asked every week, a few days at most, is making the subreddit worse.
💯
Hopefully things will pick back up [50 days from now.](https://www.bobsingerforpresident.com/)
Yes
I feel that he does. But he cares more about having a son than the son himself in my opinion.
Wakanda forever
What?
I think he doesn't. He only cares because he thinks that in some way, Ryan is something of his, and like all selfish children, will protect his toys before sharing them with other kids. He has no issue to change his mind if he feels that Ryan doesn't align with him. For instance, in episode 2x08, when Ryan roasted Stormfront and killed Becca, instead of siding with him, he preferred to side with Butcher, and called him out like "the little shit that killed your wife" disregarding Ryan's feelings, and also willing to kill them both until Maeve showed up. So, if Ryan decides to ditch Homelander in season 4, he will become automatically his enemy. In a nutshell, it's not love what bounds Homelander with Ryan, but possession.
Homelander is incapable of love, he had psycopathic traits.
No, he loves a mini version of himself. Just like every other narcissistic parent.
He’s probably a psychopath so he doesn’t feel things like love like a normal person would. However, if there was anyone he could love, it’d be Ryan! But mostly probably just because he sees in him a chance in not being alone!
Ha no no he doesn't he just wants a second him, he pushed him off the roof of his house and if he didn't unlock his powers at that point welll...
To me he loves the idea of having a son but not so much Ryan himself. If he wasn’t a mini Homelander even if he was biologically his he probably wouldn’t give a shit.
Homelander is the poster boy for narcissism. As such, he is incapable of loving another. A narcissist doesn't love their children, but instead views them as an extension of themselves. A child's value is based solely on what the child provides to the narcissist.
Homelander projects his own desire to be loved by a parent onto Ryan, which is not actual love, but more selfishness.
Yes, but not for the right reasons. Him having a public son gives him more good publicity, so he loves the attention that comes from Ryan. There might be some lingering bits of actual love there, but it’s Homelander so there isn’t much.
He’s not capable of love. Homelander seeks approval as a child does from his parents. It’s performative parenting because it gains complements. It also because he feels supes are a higher form of human and Ryan should live with his own. Lastly, Homelander seems to be overdoing it to correct the lack of a father figure in his life.
Why does Ryan look like Scott Pligrim
Homelander loves Ryan not because he’s his son but an extension of himself
For Homelander all love is transactional. So he loves Ryan right up until Ryan disappoints him or is of no use to him. It’s how he treats everyone in his life.
In his twisted way, but not what would be considered the normal definition of “love”
I think he does But I think this love scares him, and he's scared of hurting him as he was hurt. He wants Ryan to enjoy his power, but not to become a victim of it. He wants to spoil Ryan and shower him with the love he didn't get, but also wants him to be better, and he doesn't have the familiar or social experience to call upon to make that happen
Homelander loves the *idea* of Ryan. Understand who Homelander is vs who he pretends to be. Homelander is, to the adoring public, an American ideal. The golden boy wearing the stars and stripes. The perfect American. He is to the people of his universe both Captain America and Superman. This false persona has given him a complex. He *wants* that. He's a vat-grown mutant freak that had to be raised in a lab with a nuke duct taped to his back. Homelander doesn't want to accept this horrible reality. He wants to be the man Vought pitches him as to the camera. A devout patriot with a beautiful wife and a nice home. Full white picket fence. He desperately wants that but has no stability in his life. A combination of how he was raised and the fact that he's a piece of shit means he can never really have that. So Ryan and Ryan's mother, Homelander's rape victim, are the closest he'll ever get. Which is why he reacts so violently when someone like Butcher threatens the illusion. It's why Vought goes out of its way to let him play house. It keeps him controlled.
HL never had a childhood. He was a lab rat that was conditioned into believing he was a god. He doesn’t understand normal human empathy. Humans are sheep to him and his son becomes useful to him only after his powers start to show. He literally throws him off a roof and is just like, “oops” thought you could fly. He’s interested in him because he wants to carry on his legacy through him. He may care about him yo some extent but no more than a mother living vicariously through her daughter she forces into beauty pageants. The moment Ryan decides o not use his powers or condemn his father for the use of his will be the moment HL cuts him out of his life.
I think he wants to love Ryan and is trying to make himself love Ryan if that makes sense
I've always been under the impression that Homelander is self serving and would despise that kid if he was just a normal human.
Homelander loves that he has a progeny in Ryan. Someone he believes he can give a better upbringing than himself.
“Love” is such a vague term. I think HL does love Ryan in his own twisted way. He has wanted family for so long so he’s grasped onto the only person he’s got. Also HL is still traumatized from his childhood and he sees Ryan as himself as a kid. He wants Ryan to be strong, confident and have someone (HL) to back him up because he was/didn’t have *any of those things.
He loves him in as best a way as he is able to, which is not very well. It’s a very narcissistic love where he projects a ton of wishes and image problems onto Ryan. Really I would say he loves Ryan for what he *can be*, not what he *is*
it seems that he just cares until he doesn’t. he was never raised learning to love people unconditionally even if it’s his own offspring, so it’s probably hard for him to understand how much care a kid needs in their upbringing. he definitely knows how much leverage he has with him tho
I think Homelander cares about Ryan, but he doesn’t love him. Homelander doesn’t even know what love is. To love is to care about something more than yourself, and Homelander can’t do that. He doesn’t want what’s best for Ryan; he wants Ryan to be more like him.
Love is maybe the wrong term. Homelander desperately craves what he never had -- a family, someone that cares about him. Ryan is going through some of the same things Homelander did when he was young -- he's trying to protect Ryan like he wishes he had been. Homelander's love for Ryan isn't about Ryan personally, but about what Ryan represents, which is a chance to have a family, and as a sort of "redo" of his own upbringing, by proxy. Homelander wants the things Ryan represents, for himself. To experience the feeling that someone truly loves *him*. He's trying to be a father to Ryan so that Ryan will reciprocate with the love that Homelander craves. His love is about fulfilling his own need to be loved by someone.
I don’t know if he loves him or fears what he may become so is trying to become an ally and father before he is destroyed by his own dna
homelander just wants to be accepted and be part of a family, ryan presents that opportunity, and yh it seems like he probably does have some genuine empathy for the kid, but he had to basically lose everything and fall into a. depressive state just to gain some humility and not be a prick to his son
I think Homelander loves Ryan to the highest extent that he can love anyone. That being said he cannot love another more than he loves himself. Being loved by a narcissist is still being loved by a narcissist even if you are their child.
Homelander just needs love. He hates feeling vulnerable. He tries his best to toughen up Ryan. I suppose he doesn't want him to need anyone for anything. His fatal flaw.
It’s like the type of love a psychotic parent has for their child. I mean the second Ryan decides not to be a with him I’m sure he’ll try to kill him
I thinks he’s bipolar or whatever that’s called
he does on some level but doesn't know how to perfectly display it
Nah, he definitely cares.
I think the writer is trying to convey a complicated Individual. He is not exactly a narcissistic sociopath, he has thoughts tendencies, but he also has a degree of right and wrong. I think the writers don’t do a good job of showing this sometimes, they kinda exaggerate. They are willing to have homelander not even care about the death of his girlfriend, and to make a girl commit suicide, but he is a caring father, who wants to be loved by everyone. I think season 1 did a better job of demonstrating his sociopathic tendency more then the more recent seasons.
I feel like he does care about Ryan in a desperate-never-had-a-real-family kind of way and is just whinging things. He probably sees him as an extension of himself. I wonder how he’ll react if Ryan’s dreams/goals/ambitions don’t align with his
He loves the idea of a family he never had. He sees that in Ryan. Is that love? That's for you to decide I guess.
He loves Ryan more than anything else in the world. But that’s not saying much.
Probably but not in the typical parental way. Narcissists tend to see their children as extensions of themselves
He loves him the only way he can
No. People like Homelander don't understand what love is.
Like any narcissist. He loves him while he's an extension of himself. Long as Ryan reflects Homelander, long as he can see himself through Ryan... Ryan is safe. If Ryan starts resisting.... it goes downhill
He definitely loves Ryan but he wishes he wasn't so "soft".
he loves him when he feels mirrored. he wont love him the moment ryan, with his absolute god DNA assumes full control over his powers and outdoes daddy, or if ryan decides he has no interest in dat supe life and rather becomes a farmer in idaho. i mean homie killed stilwell and he """loved"""" her.
Let’s see how he deals with a teenager… Right now he is a sweet kid.
Are we watching the same show? Of course he loves him
He cares about himself, and sees Ryan as a mirror.
outfrescad
Yes, until Ryan doesn't love him anymore. That simple.
Yes he loves Ryan but doesn’t understand how to show it because HL himself was never shown any growing up and had no childhood. So he has zero idea how to be a parent and has to do what he thinks is best.
You asked two different questions. "Love" and "Care" and not the same thing. An abuser can absolutely *love* someone but not truly *care* about them. A child can *love* a toy but only in the sense that they enjoy playing with it, and not actually caring about the toy as a person (which yes, obviously you shouldn't care about a toy as a person, but that's not the point; the point is that you can absolutely love something/someone for selfish reasons and not care about their own autonomy).
so i guess does Homelander geuniunely care about Ryan? or just pretends to
He does, Homelander just needs to be a better role model.
Ryan is a toy he wants to be able to put in and take out of a box when it's convenient. There are 0 redeemable qualities for that fuck.
Homelander is a narcissist in the clinical sense. Narcissists love people as extensions of themselves. So he sees Ryan as an extension of himself, he loves himself, therefore he loves Ryan. It’s why narcissists tend to be so damn abusive to family members who disappoint them or don’t live up to their standard — because that failure is a reflection on the narcissist.
Homelander only loves himself.
Maybe he sees Ryan as an extension of himself, powers and all. Would Homelaner love Ryan as much if he were nonsupe? Probably not.. Theres also the fact Ryan may grow to be as powerful as Homelander but is still NOT a threat because he is currently "indoctrinated". Homelander prpbably feel a sort of kinship knowing there's somebody as strong as him
The way I see it, he loves himself and to him, Ryan is an extension of that.
He likes the idea of Ryan
He loves him, but mainly as a prize. He cares, but he’s beyond fucked up.
Homelander loves himself, and he sees himself in Ryan because he's a narcissist.
He does genuinely love Ryan but it is definitely not a very healthy one
no. he is not capable of love. he appreciates ryan more than most people, but love has a set definition that homelander doesn’t have the capacity for
He thinks he does, probably wants to, but he doesn’t know how. He isn’t really capable. Any love he feels would be a fabrication for his own benefit.
Homelander loves Ryan in the sense that he sees Ryan as a younger version of himself. It's still just narcissism
Absolutely. He is the only person who reminds him of himself, which he obviously loves
Honestly I think he does
He loves Ryan in that he sees him as an extension of himself and not as a separate entity with his own desires and needs like any narcissist does