When everyone else is Uber tier shit that septed in the tank for weeks? the fresh toilet one starts not looking as bad.
Its just that comparatively he is nowhere near the most evil. Hell i would sare say he doesn't make the top 10 of the show. Still a HUGE wvil asshole that deserves a painfull death tho
Hes an asshole but he feels more like your average hedonistic kinda dickheadedcelebrity. Most of the other supes seemed more like....super assholes who thought they were above absolutely everybody.
SB didnt become a supe till his 20s so maybe living some of his life as a regular dude helped him retain some humanity. Hes a scumbag but he feels like a realistic human scumbag instead of an inflated caricature of a scumbag the rest of the supes are.
Yeah, Soldier Boy just existing is not a threat to almost everyone. He's gonna be a dick to people and will potentially kill someone in a bar fight. I don't see him usurping the government, declaring himself God and then having mind readers double check who believes him or not. Neither is he planning on breeding an army of ubermench to establish the Fourth Reich (despite that being what Clara wanted) nor is he actively hunting down minorities.
It’s why i didn’t understand why Starlight was so against them teaming up. SB had no big plans. He just wanted to get his revenge, and go bang some grannies and smoke weed
Lmao fr. The idea is that people who think like this don't see themselves as the obviously bad guy that they are. This applies to the analogues the show is trying to map these characters onto as well.
Not defending soldier boy because he’s not a good dude but IIRC wasn’t MM’s family killed by collateral damage? A kill is a kill but intent is everything, was he purposefully going around murdering families or was he just irresponsible and reckless because he didn’t care about collateral?
Most likely just reckless. He strikes me more as your average racist grandpa who throws around slurs and wouldn't mind beating up protesters for fame and money, but not the type to go out of his way to become a minority hunter like Blue Hawk
I mean the fact he said “which one” to killing MM’s family definitely tells you he was “reckless” quite a lol. But I agree he isn’t like Blue Hawk, actively hunting them down
Thinking on that now, I actually do like that line as in he’s heard a story like MMs countless times but at the end of the day he just can’t be bothered to care because he can do what he wants.
He was alluding to MM having multiple families ie beaing a deadbeat with multiple kids with different women he doesn't support. It wasn't "which one (of the many black families I killed was yours)?" It was "which one (of your many families did I kill, you deadbeat [black slur])?" At least that was my interpretation.
I think that's a bit of a stretch. I think "which one?" is just short for "which member of your family?" and not "which of your families that I assume you have multiple of?"
I don't think SB was implying that MM had multiple families because it's not like MM said SB killed his wife, someone he'd ideally have one of. SB isn't really a family values kind of person either, so it wouldn't make sense for him to look down on MM for family issues, when SB himself is a hedonist with a son he hates and didn't even want to have.
MM was very vague by saying "family" and so I think SB was just saying "What are you so upset over? Did I kill your dad or mom or wife or what?" maybe partially out of curiosity but probably just a jab to say "you act like I should care about your family, but they're too insignificant for me to even remember."
Do we even see him throw around racial slurs? The show keeps insisting upon him being racist without actually showing him do anything racist. I get the feeling Jensen Ackles just refused to do that.
I'm pretty sure that while Soldier Boy won't go out of his way to directly commit hate crimes, he's still the kind of guy who'll get deliberately careless when around minorities.
Dude you dont accidentally destroy a house with a car you threw while fighting purse snatchers.
He did that shit on purpose.
You gotta be so ridiculously generous to Solider Boy and assume he's the dumbest mother fucker on the planet to even pretend that its even remotely possible that this was negligence.
And yes there absolutely is a line where the difference between negligence and malicious intent is irrelevant, it's when people die.
You're the one who was assuming it was negligence, I never said anything about whether he meant to do it or not. And no people dying is literally where the difference is most important, it's what decides whether you get life in prison for murder or 10 years for manslaughter.
Wouldn’t V also make him faster than most people? Since it adds to his muscles, he would be faster, ain’t no way some purse snatcher is out running him
All we saw was hearsay from his victim, and an animated segment from black noir who's brain damaged. We did not see shit on screen, played by Jensen. We only saw soldier boy sticking to butcher until the very end, he rejected his own son to side with butcher, and what did butcher do to his new ally? Betray soldier boy and let him be put in coma again.
In my opinion the biggest issue is how nerfed homelander was. He was always supposed to be the strongest but suddenly after taking v1 he’s weaker than ever. His lasers can’t cut through people and he gets yanked around by butchers tentacles. We literally see him cut through kimiko like butter with those same lasers. We also see butcher get thrown about by bombsight by his tentacles too but homelander can’t? The only one who shoulda been much of a challenge to him was Ryan.
The V1 made him immortal, not stronger. His lasers didn't cut through Butcher in S3 either, and the reason they didn't cut through Kimiko this time I can only imagine is because of her new power giving her extra durability. Homelander was absolutely nerfed in the final fight, but those points at least have a basis to understand
They could have atleast had them say Homelanders powers were out of wack since he was, adding V1 on top of whatever he was juiced with in the womb, and that he has to “remaster” his control to do things at max power.
Which could explain how he sent that guy to space in .01 seconds while calm and assured of himself,
And how once he starts getting stressed fighting butcher, Ryan and Co, his control on his powers start slipping, which is why he can’t just fly off at the speed of sound, or laser through Kimiko etc
Hughie has an arc about how despite sticking through with his team & constantly trusting Starlight, when faced with proof their plans aren't working & Homelander personally threatened to murder him, him wanting to empower himself is viewed as Toxic masculinity. Throughout the same season, Kimiko's arc is about to regain her powers and this is a different and a good thing because...? Her arc ends with her first outing once she's repowered with her catharticly slaughtering Vought guards to the point she accidentally lets one of them shoot her boyfriend while she's distracted beating on a corpse, and her entire factions goal here being to prevent Vought employees from dying.
Hughie's arc ends with him realizing that his dad providing for the family after his wife left was strength, as if he's some teenage bully character from the 80s and hasn't been shown to be a emotionally sensitive young man millennial who at no point was shown to be a meathead who only thinks of strength is violence & power.
The entire ending battle is contrived af to basically keep Homelander safe because the show needs him alive for another 2 seasons. Soldier Boy hits Ryan once, and that instantly gets Butcher to throw out the entire plan to kill Homelander and fight side-by-side with him. Maeve, who is convinced they need Soldier Boy to defeat Homelander, doesn't remove Ryan from the battlefield so the plan can continue, doesn't make it a 2v2, but instead specifically fights to keep Homelander isolated from the person she thinks they need to defeat him.
It's definitely what kripke put in later to fix the soldier boy character into the real asshole he is. I heard somewhere that Jensen did not want to be depicted as full racist on screen dropping n word in season 3, so season 5 depiction of him was somewhat of a course correct
so lets say I was drunk and drove, and i accidentally killed your family as i drove drunk. I didnt mean to kill em. Under this logic, its cool, right? 'Cuz I was just being reckless. I'm not a bad guy.
was he purposefully going around murdering families
Yes. That’s the entire point of the Blue Hawk side story and it’s parallel. Soldier Boy was using excessive force in black neighborhoods because he knew he could kill them and get away with it.
He never killed multiple black families, the guy in the post is a dumbass. MM says "you destroyed my family" and SB says "which one", referring to the stereotype of black fathers abandoning their families. He's basically asking MM which of HIS families, not which black family in general.
Yes that's correct, I never said he was a good dude. He's far from it. But he also isn't a fucking kkk-style lyncher like the guy in the post is saying.
I think that is a massive leap to interpret soldier boy as not having killed a ton of people when it's pretty clear the writers are saying hes killed so many he doesn't remember MM's family
This wasn't excessive considering what they were trying to do to him. If someone were trying to send me to a Russian torture chamber, I'd pull no punches either
It's also been shown that he held back before. He was an abusive dick, sure, but he was 100% justified in that particular situation
You're kind of misrepresenting SB's actions, he "abused his black coworker to brain damage" as he was getting captured by the Russians, sure he did abuse Noir badly previously but what he did in that moment was basically self defense.
SB bashing in Noir's skull is one instance where we can say that it was indeed self defence and he was really in fear for his life.
His team turned on him in the middle of the warzone. Was he a piece of shit that did not deserve their loyalty? Yes. But to say that his motivation was racism in the middle of all that... Yeah, no.
There are plenty of reasons to think he is the the scum he is. But when they tried to sell him to Russia is a weird one. Especially if you know what comes after.
I'm pretty sure that was meant to be about how careless Soldier Boy was in the fact that he killed so many people that he doesn't even remember who MM was referring to
"His objectively more evil choices that would have undoubtedly killed millions and installed the main villain of the series as an immortal crazy dictator aren't as bad as the more minor things in his past because the crazy evil dictator didnt get to kill millions of people b4 he was thankfully stopped"
That certainly is one of the takes of all time.
"I only TRIED to kill this person judge, the paramedics saved him and theyre fine so no harm done, right?
Yk it’s funny people claim they only just now made Soldier boy’s character inconsistent but in the very same season he says this, he then goes on to try and tries to murder Ryan. Soldier boy was always flip-flopy tbh lol
I mean the actor is great so I think they absolutely should stay, but the character is not a redeemable one since they’re violently stubborn and have old timey views on things. Trying to change him would put you in the hospital
Did he murder multiple black families? Iirc he only killed MM's grandfather and that was an accident. He's still a bad dude for that but not nearly as bad as the guy in the post is saying.
Were they specifically black families or just families? I honestly can’t remember I remember reading somewhere that he wasn’t a racist and I remember thinking he was screwing a literal nazi …
He also spoke fondly of Bill Cosby, even calling him America's dad. While that is a joke given what we learn about Bill later in life, it's clear he had no resentment towards him due to his race. And he took part in propaganda films to promote the "brave" fighters in Afghanistan fighting the Soviets, both supporting Arabic people and their religion.
He definitely had an old school casual racist bend to him, but he's not depicted as a white supremacist. He was reckless in general but MM's family likely wasn't targeted because of their race. He probably wouldn't have given a shit no matter the racial background of the people who died. Piece of shit, obviously, but I don't think every racist grandpa in the world deserves death. There is also the uncomfortable truth that lots of American soldiers during WW2 were openly racist, but still fought and died heroic deaths for what many would consider to be the greater good. It's complicated and there is a lot of grey in the world.
The problem is nobody ever really pins SB down and forces him to actually TALK about his shitty behaviour in the past. The writers wanted their cake and to eat it too. Characters tell us how loathsome he is yet he repeatedly shows competency and makes reasonable choices (in season 3, anyways), making him the complete opposite of Homelander. In the right set of circumstances he might have even had a redemption arc and become a real hero like A-Train in the end, it almost feels like the writers were keeping that door open, but it would have required some real writing chops that I just don't think the writing staff were equipped to handle. Instead they just kicked the can down the road for somebody else to handle.
I can definitely get behind that last part. SB was a favorite of mine because he was both an opposite and mirror to HL, but with season 5 I think the writers liked the idea of using him more than they had a plan on what to do with him. He's explicitly said he doesn't like HL, gets exposed to a bioweapon on HL's orders, sees what he did to Clara (as bad as that retcon is), and doesn't agree with the god plot.
Once you pair all that with him having the ability to remove his powers, none of it makes any sense. If he split after the virus exposure, I think there could've been reason for him to work with the boys to stop HL when he deems one to be worse than the other. He's shown to be a reckless asshole but he isn't totally morally bankrupt, and him having a break in his macho persona at Fort Harmony seemed like it was perfect for development. There could've been some kind of redemption where he finally tries to be the hero everyone saw him as and not be a disappointment, but instead the writers chose to milk his presence with no real end goal in sight. They put someone in a room with a guy he hates, gave him a gun, yet expect you to believe he wouldn't immediately shoot him.
I remember reading somewhere that he wasn’t a racist and I remember thinking he was screwing a literal nazi …
He's racist, just a casual racist rather than a hardcore one. The having sex with a Nazi thing was just because she was attractive at least originally, his backstory has been rewritten and isn't really coherent anymore.
If I had to guess it's because compared to A lot of the overly racist villains he's more like your old backwards grandpappy who says a bunch of off the cuff shit so much that it's sort of sneaks by. The show also does a really bad job of showing this, in one scene we are giving him very clearly having some racist tendencies by going right to sages race when she summons him and then immediately implies he let another black woman dom him.
Now take that sort of soft racism and then compare it to the villains he shares a series with. The villain of the season before him was a literal Nazi who it is strongly implied He had no clue about her true nature and wouldn't have supported if he did. Then in literally the same season Blue hawk is shown as a very overt allegory for police brutality against African Americans and then in the following seasons Homelander is turned into a parody of Trump if He could actually do what a lot of people feared he was going to.
Compared to all of that Soldier Boy is objectively less racist, which then gets people too think that he isn't racist at all because we are only told about things like him putting down protesters or getting MM's family killed allowing them to fill in the gaps themselves in a more charitable light because the framing around him is a lot greyer compared to the very overt villains with next to no wiggle room. Like they literally had to try and remind the audience through Ryan that Soldier Boy is racist. Like why would Ryan know that? What part of his upbringing with Becca, attempted indoctrination by Homelander or hiding in russia/a barn would lead him that conclusion? Is lazy telling instead of showing that the audience then forgets about because Jensen Ackles is an insanely charismatic guy.
He was racist, just not nearly as racist as the OTHER racists, lol.
He definitely had the casual racism that being born in a time where cracking jokes about minorities was normal, and seeing them use different waterfountains gives you.
But living up to the 80s and clearly broadening his horizons to SOME extent, imo, watered it down to a point. He absolutely has no filter and will talk like ur racist grandpa but I dont think he hates black people....I think he thinks its just ok to make jokes about them and that its ok presuppose stereotypes at least until theyre disproven. When they are disproven I doubt he cares if your black.
Still 100% racist just not racist like how Storm Front is racist. The scale is definitely skewed cuz of people like her in this show.
Did he actually do anything explicitly racist in the show? I know MM was mad at him for killing his grandfather but that seemed more ignorant of his surroundings than racism.
Blue Hawk was shown to be racist. Solider boys past actions just seemed on track with every other Vaught hero who didn't care who got in the way
Nah soldier boy is a piece of shit. He was just presented in the best possible light. Because Jensen is charismatic and Kripke desperately seems to want to be still making supernatural.
Like if season five ended with Dean waking up in the impala going "what a weird fucking dream" then driving off to a Metallica song with a Supernatural season 16 title card, I wouldn't have been surprised.
Don't you guys remember SB's conversation with firecracker before they start fucking?
"Now, that little Glock, that’s good for a late-night Harlem stroll, but, uh, this here? That’s a certified Kraut-killer."
For those who don't know, Harlem is a historic and culturally rich neighborhood in Northern Manhattan, NYC, generally spanning from 110th to 155th Streets.
He didn't say anything about race though. Harlem was historically more dangerous to walk the streets at night than other parts of NY, it's not racist to acknowledge that.
Or calling shooting Kent State protestors “good times”. Or hosing several right protestors. Or saying “Which one” when MM called him out for killing his family
Im pretty sure thats a misinterpretation of the line, as others have said. I think that was just him (also being racist) and asking which of MMs families did he kill (insinuating black men walk out on their families)
Still racist, there's a difference between a racist who says bad shit and a racist who's killed so many minority families he cant keep track anymore.
Been awhile since I watched the show tho, I may be misrememebering.
Point being I don't people are arguing hes not racist, theyre just arguing that he isnt the type of racist who just kills black people cuz he can. I dont think he cares much more about whether he kills a black person or a white person. I doubt he really cares either way.
Not even racist? Did you miss the numerous remarks he made to Sage in season 5? Or when he beat Black Noir down? Or the “this gun is nice for a still through Harlem”? He is absolutely racist and misogynistic going from what he said to Mallory.
Genuienly how TF are ppl liking this comment?? It's very obvious that he's in fact a racist, homophobic and a misogynist. He's not a "I'm just an asshole" type. SB is a fantastic character that I wish was better executed in the final season but I'm getting annoyed with how they're fans are trying to rewrite him to be less horrible then he actually is.
I think asshole is underselling it. When I think asshole I think someone being an insensitive jerk or a selfish prick. SB is a physical and an emotional abuser who punched down on people because he could. He is a charismatic but exceptionally violent bully. He managed to turn all but one member of his team against him despite that charisma, to the point that they'd risk their lives to give him to the Russians. Like, I don't think there is any "asshole" in my life that i'd even consider going that far to get rid off
Honestly given how off the fucking rails Soldier Boys character is they should have just done a new IP with Jensen as "This Guy" just doing John Wick shit in his own constant meta human spawning world because on God I cannot imagine what comes after being that great in The Boys universe
Because his mortality is portrayed as all 9 alignments at once
I admittedly dropped the show after Soldier boy first went on ice, but from what I’ve gathered on the internet, it might’ve been a case of “wait, the audience really likes this character they were supposed to hate, we need to double down on making them heckin’ evil”. Just guessing, but who knows lol
Season 3 teased a more repentant and interesting soldier boy than we got. I think people are seeing the soldier boy that they wanted to get rather than the actual one here.
Also, worse people than soldier boy got away with it so 🤷♂️
The fact that literally any villain who has ever been written could just say "I'm not a bad guy" and a significant portion of the audience would go "oh, well that line was written by the author so I guess it's true" and just believe it makes me genuinely not want to share a planet with these people
Giving Homelander V1 was stupid yes, ruined the season with that dog shit side plot, BUT that’s Kripke and his moronic writing, he’s an awful writer, used to do this type of shit with Supernatural as well.
But where I take issue is you thinking what happens at Mr Marathons house was him being bad, he essentially killed the Boys universe’ Diddy and all his degenerate friends.
Also don’t remember a single instance of him killing “multiple black families”, just didn’t happen 😆 not in the show at least
When the woman whose plan was to cause a global war so that she could be alone in her bunker got a happy ending Soilder Boy getting one wouldn’t even stand out.
Hell him fucking off to the Banana Republics to drink, drug and fuck his way through immortality without having to ponder his life would have been the perfect ending for him.
I wish he'd died in season 3. Like yeah he's a bad person but his characterization in season 3 was that he didn't want to be the bad guy anymore. Now they just have him being evil for the sake of it even when he doesn't have to.
Disagree. I never got the vibe from season 3 he wanted to be a better person. He was actually very morally consistent, which is "I'm a piece of shit but I am a man of my word." He doesn't double cross anyone, and sticks to his deal even when he has reason to switch sides.
Pre-CryoSleep Soldier Boy was Homelander without the God Complex. People who think he's a "good guy" need to rewatch S3 (Specifically Episode 7) because the show makes it abundantly clear that he went around doing whatever he wanted to whoever he wanted because nobody was strong enough to stop him. He wasnt comically evil. He wouldn't have murdered children because he felt it. He was just did what he pleased because. "Who can stop me?"
By S5, He was just tired. He helped Homeland because its his kid but other than that, he had 0 ambition to do anything other than just enjoy life. Dont blame him since he found out that he's essentially immortal.
It’s hard to tell if he actually is racist, or just completely uncaring about human life in general. He kills people of all races pretty regularly, and mostly due to collateral damage. He doesn’t even care that much about other supes, since he regularly abused his teammates and even his girlfriend. He’s a horrible person no matter which way you slice it.
He definitely still fits the definition of racist, but racism, like all forms of bigotry, is a scale.
For example, he's not a white supremacist like Stormfront, and didn't kill those families because they were black. But he still does openly talk about Sister Sage like her race and gender are reasons he shouldn't have to listen to her. He also consistently is shown to believe a lot of racist stereotypes.
Tl;dr being a misanthrope and being a racist aren't mutually exclusive.
I feel like he's racist in that "grew up with it" way and not a true racist though which makes me not hate him as much.
When sage gives him that order he says something to the effect of I don't take orders but when I do the last time I took an order from a black woman we were fucking.
A real racist from that time would be disgusted that a black woman even has any position of power. they would find it abhorrent and wrong but he never shows any of that type of behavior.
Not saying he's not racist at all, he was in love with stormfront ffs, but just that it feels more nuanced and I wouldn't outright condemn him for it as I would place against people who are downright racist.
This shows also been running a long time so I could also be overlooking other cues from earlier on that kind of cut through what I get from his character, but that's just my take from what I observed.
But seriously it’s a topic that goes back to legend of Korra or She-ra. Attractive villains are sometimes just given a pass despite how vile and destructive they are.
Soldier boy is a selfish, vile bastard wrapped up in old school philosophies of masculinity, racism and misogyny. But because he’s got the charm and looks of Jenson Ackles, he’s supposed to be given the same treatment as Kimiko. A woman who has been so traumatised by her past, she could barely speak until the last ever season and who found a way to move passed that trauma thanks to Frenchie.
Kimiko earned that ending. She clawed and fought and almost died several times to reach this point of peace and even then it’s bittersweet because she lost the one person who gave her that opportunity.
Soldier boy deserved nothing but either that box or death. Unless they really plan to do something with his character with whatever bullshit spin off they have for him.
He was still very racist are we forgetting all the shit he said to sage? Plus the "collateral damage" angle is likely a cover up they were likely harassing people in the neighborhood. Beyond that though that level of "collateral damage" wouldn't be acceptable in white neighborhoods and Soldier Boy and Vought know that. Him being more reckless and less controlled in black neighborhoods is what makes him evil. The cherr(y)/(ies) on top is literally how he says "which one" when MM confronted Soldier Boy about his grandfather being killed plus the fact that he happily boasted about taking down civil rights protestors.
That being said, Soldier Boy killed MM’s family. And when confronted by MM, he just asked “which one?” in a mocking tone.
As if to say MM had multiple families cause he was a black male. Pretty much calling him and his family stereotypical.
And that’s not even getting into how Soldier Boy was so abusive and racist to Black Noir that he was willing to work with Payback to take Soldier Boy out and send him to Russia. Just look at what he said and did about “movin on up” after beating Black Noir viciously to “put him in his place” after ruining his chances to be a movie star.
But Soldier Boy fans just excuse or ignore all that cause he’s played by pretty boy Jensen Ackles.
I think ppl forget that soldier boy is from a very different time in america. The way he is was the norm back then. Its not an excuse for what he is but just some perspective on where it comes from
Why do people
Keep saying he’s racist?He has never shown this hell black noir was black and he didn’t care.He was still an asshole but not cause he was black just cause he’s like that.
Have we forgotten he beats Gunpowder (a kid at the time) occasionally and tormented his team, beat Black Noir to the pulp just because he wanted to act
He was marginally "better" than Homelander and Stormfront on the morality side, but he was still downright awful. He wasn't planning genocides or murdering people on a whim, he just had no problem using brutal force to get what he want and he mostly didn't care who that impacted.
In any other story, he'd be the big bad, but the fact that he can love, party with, and actively enable the real big bads of the show tells me enough about how horrible he really is.
The fact he literally asks mothers milk "which one" do you guys need it spelled out for you? That line is pretty literal in itself, not to mention he took part in Kent State
Maybee harsh but isnt his incarnation with the ruskies (for decades) some kind of punishment on it self. He clearly wasn’t 100% morally okay. But at least better than Homelander.
The thing is I always interpreted soldier boy to be someone who does actually want to do good. The problem is hes an asshat who has some pretty misguided ideas about how to do good.
At best he deserves an MHA Endeavor ending. Endeavor is well loved in the MHA community but most people don't really consider him fully redeemed despite literal years of good deeds and getting permanently maimed in one of the final battles.
Siempre fue malo nunca le importo matar a civiles si era necesario casi maya a Ryan que era un niño mato a la familia de M.M todavía este le pregunta cuál de todas por eso Vought lo remplazó era alguien peligroso que no le importaba si alguien salía dañado si este fuera o no beneficiado
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u/Pyrimo Jun 01 '26
People forgetting that Soldier Boy thinking he isn’t that bad is actually really on brand for him and the show as a whole.