@@cooperchappell8310 I'm not really a fantasy person unless it takes a deconstructivist approach and I had plans for the 90s Spider-Man show, but I really want this current season of Spidey essays to be mainly focused on Stan Lee's work, so it probably won't happen any time soon.
The thing I love most about The Boys is that no matter how violent or vulgar it gets, it's also pretty genuine and sweet. For every super hero Nazi or Superman with a mommy kink, there's Kimiko and Frenchie having a dance number or Annie and Hughie bowling.
Because that is the whole point of the show - powers and acts (even something as “taboo”/seen as evil as killing) are neutral in nature. It is more so that they are defined by circumstances and causality. If you were to process people though indoctrinated celebrity-fest (where people are treated like products to be sold) by a monopolies, corrupt, late-stage capitalism company - you get mud. If you let people be people, you can see the shimmers of their humanity, regardless of just how dire their circumstances can be. Outside influence matter. People are defined by their environment a lot more than they want to admit - but all we are is a product of our exposure to interests, and our personality traits (humor, wittiness etc) are just by-products of social circle and media we consume as well. Boys depict one very simple truth - people CAN be good individually, but tend to be grotesque collectively. Powers are just a metaphor, in a sense. But showing powers having a direct result, physical, tangible result is a lot easier than trying to map the ability of one person to affect their environment and others. It is more digestible and a lot less difficult to mistake. I assume given how little an average fan of this movie comprehends about this underlying (albeit obvious) moral message, if “The Boys” was written not about metahumans but about people with influence/power….. people would 100% miss the intended meaning and resort to political mumbo jumbo (siding with one side, and their treating all of their acts as good without thinking, since you are in a direct opposition with another group and people have cavemen mentality of trying to belong to a group, especially groups tied by beliefs).
Cynical but with a heart. It's what I enjoyed about Peacemaker as well. I thought The Boys would be a parade of cynicism (seeing how it's a violent adaptation of Garth Ennis' work) but I was actually surprised by the amount of hopeful and human moments.
Homelander is surprisingly a contributor to both of these traits. A disgusting, vile monster with such a tragic life that you can still almost feel sorry for him
@@maxthescarecrow4038 Being cynic and human at the same time is good. Its impossible for a perfect balance, but it is good to feel the good and the bad.
I like the show more than the comics, and is simple 'cause it approaches the supers with respect and simpathy; while the comic goes into full cynism, just points a finger at something in the superheroes media and says "this why I hated this." Parody and Cynism are easy to make, but making something with respect while making a commentary about the genre (like the tv series), requires much more work... I still like the comics, but I prefer the show.
Yeah I agree. The comic feels a lot more mean spirited and spiteful towards superheroes whereas the show feels likes it’s more just trying to do a “realistic” take on what superheroes would be in our real life, imperfect world. I think something that shows this in particular is that in the comic pretty much every single superhero is extremely incompetent at being superheroes to the point they all come across as the biggest idiots that could possibly exist. Whereas in the show whist some of them are incompetent (like the deep) in general they do come across as highly capable when they’re trying to be.
I sort of treat them as 2 seperate things now, cuz the comics are so deeply tied to Garth Ennis' personality and British humour (particularly 80s counter culture), while the show is so American and tuned to modern concerns that they fill out 2 totally different moods! :)
I fricken love all the actor's in this show, which is something i can't say about every show, that isn't Man In The High Castle, or some kind of genre media show.
8:58 I think eating babies wasn't Homelander's doing in the comics, but it was Black Noir whose a Homelander clone in the comic and is doing horrifying things wearing Homelander's uniform. And no, this isn't spoiler since we already know Black Noir is very likely African-American and played by Nathan Mitchell who we thought was just a stunt double.
Yeah it is probably not to avoid spoilers for the show but to try and not spoil something found in the comic, when someone truly likes something and wants to convince people to engage with it, they try their best not to ruin any surprises, which is what i'm guessing he did here.
I love the moment where starlight replies to the comments on her addition with “I meant it” it shows from the get go how different she is and how rare it is for a genuine superhero in the world of the boys
I loved it when she said she doesn't think hopeful should mean naïve. Since cynicism is actually easier - under the Seven Deadly Sins as originally defined, cynicism fell under the 'Sloth' umbrella, because it's a moral laziness. Being hopeful and optimistic is actually harder.
"Trauma is when an event is so painful and contradictory to your sense of safety and meaning that it creates a wound in your mind. A wound that you're always drawn to scratching ... Life after a traumatic event can often be defined as a test of how willing you are to live with your new skin, and if you can without yourself from reopening the old wounds." -Implicitly Pretentious
I strongly disagree with that. It suggests that trauma should be left alone, suppressed even further rather than dealt with. That is not letting go by any mean, but a misuse of the phrase. Trauma happens when something so overwhelming and unthinkable happens to a person in early years of development that the person can not deal with it and HAS TO put it aside so to speak. It is a survival mechanism. The point is to heal wounds later on in life as a full functional, better-equiped, wiser adult by revisiting the trauma. Exploring memories and emotions associated with trauma in a mature way, which in process rewrites meaning of what happened and heals the individual. The letting go part comes down to letting go off ego / identity that individual has built around trauma to escape it. THAT is difficult. You would be surprised how much of our identities and what we think we are is just an early, defensive response to most random situations.
6:06 Watching this video after finishing the first half of season 3, and it's worrying how MM might lose so much progress in moving past his trauma due to the revelation that Soldier Boy is still alive. Great video, thank you for the thoughtful analysis!
It does make sense through. MM’s trauma was never healed, and that’s apparent through his OCD and relationship problems. That’s what makes his character so fascinating; He found successful ways to cope, but never healed the wound, and occasionally it gets prodded, leading him to become self destructive before starting to cope again. With Soldier Boy back in the picture, he has the ability to begin healing, but he now has to confront it, instead of ignoring it. It’s a brilliant take.
@@theradiantdehd3997 this, i noticed it after rewatching the clip where butcher told mm that a guy like him is wasting his talents in the therapy centre, where he wasn’t really making any progress. he was just avoiding facing his trauma which we can see in his outburst in s2 where he just couldn’t take it anymore. love how season 3 covers this in depth now that soldier boy’s back.
@@theradiantdehd3997 I never realized that until now, good point! It just goes to show that there is a difference between coping with your trauma and confronting it. It also goes to show that sometimes it's not obvious when someone is still in pain.
When I watched how Stormfront explained how she hires others to make memes and sway the public to Homelander I genuinely felt a shiver down my spine. I think younger people like me feel like they can see through companies and media quite easily, we're usually not the target audience and when we are it feels so obvious we can't help but laugh about it. We feel safe on the internet because we grew up with it as part of our lives, how many posts are there about the absurdly specialised language memes and internet culture is becoming? We feel as if all these companies and governments couldn't possibly trick us in our own domain, so when I heard Stormfront explain, I heard how easily she was doing it, I felt horror, because I realized they can. They absolutely can and we haven't noticed, and that is fucking terrifying.
They dont need to trick us when they can trick all the 35+ crowd. Then they raise their kids in the bullshit and the process repeats. First it was talk radio now multiple media facets
The big challenge is to stop pointing fingers outwards at "them" in the 'media' and government and look in the mirror. People aren't being 'tricked', they trick themselves because that's what they want.
Yeah it literally starts with a meme, first you like leafyishere, then you move on to FilthyFrank, slowly and slowly radicalizing you as you grow up. It's a pipeline and it was always there were just getting older and realizing and for some it's too late
@@mikehunt3420 if you believe that delusion you already lost the war my friend. They will absolutely trick you and likely already have. Both sides of congress and businesses all do it. It’s not just one sided
your writing is really compelling, i especially loved how you said “STARLIGHT becomes disenchanted…but maeve protects ANNIE”, very subtle but lots of nuance in that phrasing!
Damn I nearly teared up when you spoke about letting go of the you who hates, and trusting the support of the people who care about you to help move you forward. That hit me real deep. Deep stuff, Trauma boy.
I think I hate Stormfront more than Homelander because she represents what I hate the most of the Internet (twitter) that people won’t make their own opinions, that people won’t do their own research and just let misinformation guide their lives because they want to appear as good people rather than being good people and when it turns out that they are mistaken, they either won’t let it down or act like no harm was done. and when a person turns out to be a vile piece of shit, you see people defending it and people that “care” they forget in the span of a fucking week or less. when Homelander killed a boy in Africa, the mainstream media forgot in one or two days because Stormfront knows the media game, making memes and echo chambers to make the issue become more and more insignificant and irrelevant
After watching his the invincible and the boys videos, i wonder, do people as a collective can also feel shame that they become defensive when they are confronted about their controversial take? Also i feel that stormfront is much more scarier because she also have the backing of a huge company to alter the tide of opinion of the mass. It's quite realistic
Okay, that's... Kind of almost funny. I hate Stormfront for pretty much the polar inverse reason. She's the representation of the manipulation of mass media, of the death of argument and reflection, and the systematic annihilation of open discourse. I don't hate her because she represents the people, quite the opposite, i hate her because she exploits the people by playing them as tunes to her clarinet; Stormfront is the vile and insidious representation of all that twists and corrupts ideals into their most extreme and violent form, and enslaves the public with it. ... Two sides of the same coin i guess. Also, because of the way media is shaped these days, with upvotes and likes and shares, people don't want to be wrong anymore. To be wrong is weakness, to apologize apostasy. 'Extreme reasoning leads to incorrect assumptions leads to more extreme reasoning to make up for the incorrectness because you were actually right after all.' type shit. The media plays the public like a fucking fiddle. Both ways, preferably at the same time to generate conflict if at all possible. 'Incinerate the middle ground with nuclear hellfire, the middle ground is boring, extremes get clicks.'
As much as I love Ennis, his work does reek of edginess of the period of comic books it came out in. I think the show is more maturely written, though I have sincere love for the comics. I feel largely the same about Preacher as I do The Boys in this regard.
Have to agree on this. Have read The Boys and there is a good portion of it that just comes across as just edginess for the sake of edginess, it kinda takes you outta the story when you get to that. Although, that does seem to be a staple of Ennis' work. Particularly the Crossed comics...
@@Mad_IntellectI feel different. For once, I like both the comic and show. While as to the boys, I wasn't feeling the comic, enjoyed the shit out of the show and the development it's got.
It's interesting that you talked about Mother's Milk's trauma having healed because this is exactly what the 3rd season tackles head on, there's much to him that actually wasn't showing and he's still processing regarding Soldier Boy
I don't do therapy since the pandemic bcs i lost my intership on( imagine) a television newsroom. So The Boys was a show that hit me had because it reflects lots of the things i had to deal with every day and, like Starlight, a lot of times i saw myself trying to stay true to waht i think journalism and media should stand and was a really dificult and pain ride, even i knowing i would tray again the moment they offer me a chance. But concluding my point, your videos sometime feels like a therapy session to me. Your interpretation and analysis is really calm and relaxing and i almost always finished the video with a sense of joy and and confort about life. By the way, can't wait for Spider Man No Way Home video (y all know it's gona come)
How were you challenged to stay true to your self as a journalist? Was just curious, because depending on your beliefs on one end there's no challenge and on the other end cancellation.
The scene where homelander takes Ryan to a convention and sees him getting overwhelmed is so well done❤ It shows Homelander’s care for his son, but in a way that makes sense to his character. He sees himself in Ryan, his anxiety of the world, not Ryan’s fears
On the surface this show is grotesque and gut wrenchingly tragic, while that maybe be true, as you really read into it you can see more and more that, that is what makes it so beautiful. It's disgustingly real, goddamn masterpiece.
Thanks for this. It was terribly astute and illuminating. You really managed to articulate the central themes in a way that crystallized a lot of half formed ideas I had roaming around my subconscious. It also illustrated why work like The Boys matters in a way that straight product/content does not. It has something to say that is actually worth hearing, and thinking about. Great work.
Your season 3 video led me here. I'm officially a fan and blown away by your ability to break down these themes to a molecular yet simple way that any decent minded individual can understand. I thought your kind was a dead breed. Keep up you're amazing talents. You have a future a bright one
really interesting watching this while season 3 is airing because of you talking about MM's trauma and how he got through it only for the wound to open again in season 3
spoilers for episode 6 You could say that he does overcome that wound, putting aside his hatred to help the injured after the homlander vs soilder boy fight
See I like the show more then the comics because its not a constant grim dark world where its constant pain and suffering that only the most edge lords would decry as the best series ever. It has those moments where it lets characters have happiness and I think that makes the show infinity better.
In my Abnormal Psych class half my life ago, I learned that "trauma" is when someone is wounded by a psychological crisis without sufficient support. This is an interesting definition to me because it includes the possibility that we can both heal from a wound, and also the immense value of support in our lives. We CANNOT do this alone.
Something I've never seen anyone talk about is when starlight faces off against a train we see him seeing the world in slow motion which raises the question if he can dodge starlights blasts so easily and quickly how couldn't he do the same with robin
After watching all of season 3, I gotta say I'm now excited to see if you'll make another analysis of the themes that persisted and the new developments.
Interesting how you say Mm is the one who overcame his trauma and in season three he loses that because it turns out soldier boy is still alive and this unhealthy lifestyle starts to consume him, I just think that’s really interesting
I think I could defiently compare the boys to the manga 'Gantz'. Both stories are ridiculously gory, sexual, and edgy, but both have a real heart to them, with gantz being about the beauty of human relationships and being a story of hope, and the boys being about healing wounds
LMAO when Starlight said "if Billy Butcher can do the right thing there has to be a higher power" I died cause literally everyone knows how ruthless Billy is. He's just as bad as Homelander imo but he's somewhat justified
This was beautifully done, Sir ❤ My favorite parts were your soft, psychological insights about the characters, their trauma and how it mirrors humanities wounds and mistakes. It actually made me cry~ and I hadn't _seen_ these things while watching.... I'll have to re-watch with your insights in mind! Big hugs! Keep up the amazing videos, friend!
It has. It's just that most manga/anime writing is autistic, cliché-riddled trash (and I've watched 70+ anime, so this isn't coming from an outsider who doesn't get it). Even the best only have tolerable writing, but the dialog is mostly inhuman cringe that I can only look past in certain moods.
How dare you describe a show based on a Garth Ennis work in a way that makes me cry about how understanding it is of personal trauma and growth. I really dislike Ennis' shock-jock writing approach, especially towards superheroes, to the extent I've refused to watch The Boys. But the way you talk about it... Well now I gotta.
What evil person are you feeling sympathy for? Cause there is basically no innocent characters in this show lol. Everyone is pretty shitty in some way.
I remember someone told me Clark Kent is the alternate persona of superman. No his not! If Clark Kent was the alternate persona of superman he'd be Homelander.
Watching this got me reliving my own trauma, past and present. Can't say that most shows and especially superhero films (as much as I love them) bring that much emotion out of me but this has. Haven't even watched the show yet, but I can confidently say it's great. I thought it was a superhero parody cash grab, but it's sooooo much deeper. I'm getting Prime just to watch this
my only problem with the entire series seems to be the inconsistency with how strong some of the characters are. Maeve basically going one on one with Homelander really makes him less terrifying. Makes you question why people were so afraid of him in the first place, same thing with starlight, she feels utterly weak. Feels like one minute they can stop a train with their big toe then the next they're afraid of a gun. My take on things anyways
I started watching this show just this year (missed out on it, I know) and I was hooked by the first and blown away by the second episode. It's full of really dark humour, gross gore and very vile but also very genuine moments. But it feels so real it is actually a very unpleasant portrait of the real world. The characters feel real, not just like sketches of themselves. My heart drops every time a character goes into some major trauma mode. Every trauma is different, and so are the motivations and partly crooked thoughts of the individual behind it. I love how they made this show a perfect mix of gut-wrenching thriller, subtle romance and total violence. Just everything where/how it needs to be without being cringe or overdrawn at any time. Watched all seasons availabble in two weeks and I CAN'T WAIT FOR THE NEXT ONE!
Media is a beast that chews the innocence and beauty of the best people and spits out broken lost self centered children. This show shows the effects of media and to me that's what makes the show genius.
A train had no villain in the scene at all. He was running somewhere delivering something and didn't pay attention for an instance and he ran through her. I'd say more but it's spoilers from fairly late and I'm not sure if it's been covered in the series. I stopped watching the series.
@@dammagrilla it's a question of intent. Intent makes the difference between first-degree murder and manslaughter. (And FYI A Train was traveling up to 1600 mph (800 meters/yards) per second. So if he were distracted for a tenth of a second, he would travel 240 feet.) Dangerous power for sure.
@@macmcleod1188 Manslaughter or murder, those both sound fairly villainous to me... he also appeared to show very little, if any, remorse afterwards. They also explain what he was really doing when it happened later, not sure if you watched that far
@@dammagrilla Yes i watched it that far. I read most of the comics tho. Atrain was more of a villain there. In the law we distinguish between someone who kill someone for pay and someone who kills someone accidentally while committing another crime and someone who kills someone accidentally through negligence. It sounds like in your moral system, gross negligence is equivalent to intent.
If there is a show with the theme of Trauma embedded in it's DNA is The Leftovers, if anyone is interested with a show with a lot of misery, tears and dealing with loss, then it's your cup of tea
would have been cool to lean even harder into the invincible title card style joke, with a blood spurt onto a "trauma" title card in the exact style of that show
![ละลาย (LALALYE) - DAOU PITTAYA ต้าห์อู๋ พิทยา [OFFICIAL MV]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/wo6r9TgausI/mqdefault.jpg)
This video should've been out last week, but I literally rewrote and re-arranged 80% of it so there'd be a stronger emphasis on trauma.... 🤪
can you make a video on the lord of the rings trilogy or the 90s animated spider man show also great content
@@cooperchappell8310 I'm not really a fantasy person unless it takes a deconstructivist approach and I had plans for the 90s Spider-Man show, but I really want this current season of Spidey essays to be mainly focused on Stan Lee's work, so it probably won't happen any time soon.
@@ImplicitlyPretentious ok and thanks for responding excited to see the rest of your spidey essays i've been enjoying them.
You're giving me trauma over trauma. Lovely.
@@ImplicitlyPretentious But think of the trauma angles!
The thing I love most about The Boys is that no matter how violent or vulgar it gets, it's also pretty genuine and sweet. For every super hero Nazi or Superman with a mommy kink, there's Kimiko and Frenchie having a dance number or Annie and Hughie bowling.
Because that is the whole point of the show - powers and acts (even something as “taboo”/seen as evil as killing) are neutral in nature.
It is more so that they are defined by circumstances and causality.
If you were to process people though indoctrinated celebrity-fest (where people are treated like products to be sold) by a monopolies, corrupt, late-stage capitalism company - you get mud.
If you let people be people, you can see the shimmers of their humanity, regardless of just how dire their circumstances can be.
Outside influence matter. People are defined by their environment a lot more than they want to admit - but all we are is a product of our exposure to interests, and our personality traits (humor, wittiness etc) are just by-products of social circle and media we consume as well.
Boys depict one very simple truth - people CAN be good individually, but tend to be grotesque collectively.
Powers are just a metaphor, in a sense.
But showing powers having a direct result, physical, tangible result is a lot easier than trying to map the ability of one person to affect their environment and others. It is more digestible and a lot less difficult to mistake.
I assume given how little an average fan of this movie comprehends about this underlying (albeit obvious) moral message, if “The Boys” was written not about metahumans but about people with influence/power….. people would 100% miss the intended meaning and resort to political mumbo jumbo (siding with one side, and their treating all of their acts as good without thinking, since you are in a direct opposition with another group and people have cavemen mentality of trying to belong to a group, especially groups tied by beliefs).
Cynical but with a heart.
It's what I enjoyed about Peacemaker as well. I thought The Boys would be a parade of cynicism (seeing how it's a violent adaptation of Garth Ennis' work) but I was actually surprised by the amount of hopeful and human moments.
Homelander is surprisingly a contributor to both of these traits. A disgusting, vile monster with such a tragic life that you can still almost feel sorry for him
@@maxthescarecrow4038 Being cynic and human at the same time is good. Its impossible for a perfect balance, but it is good to feel the good and the bad.
Sounds like real life. There’s absolute horror in the world. But life can have its highlights.
"make the world bleed, so their own blood will make sense" is way too raw of a line
Well said huh
When the show is better than the comics. Allowing it to have the character development that was never given in the book
The comic is painfully 2000s
@@judeconnor-macintyre9874 the comic reminds me of edgelord teens. Hand carrying the book so peers could see
I think they are both good i really like the comics and i enjoy the telemovie
@@rhy45bianchi31 There's a telemovie?
@@judeconnor-macintyre9874 i mean the series
I just saw Vought news earlier, and it's great to know that Black Noir is A-okay!
Hahaha, yeah...don't worry...still totally fine.
Late
@@AaryanFowl-uq1li s4 is lit so far
I like the show more than the comics, and is simple 'cause it approaches the supers with respect and simpathy; while the comic goes into full cynism, just points a finger at something in the superheroes media and says "this why I hated this." Parody and Cynism are easy to make, but making something with respect while making a commentary about the genre (like the tv series), requires much more work... I still like the comics, but I prefer the show.
Yeah I agree. The comic feels a lot more mean spirited and spiteful towards superheroes whereas the show feels likes it’s more just trying to do a “realistic” take on what superheroes would be in our real life, imperfect world.
I think something that shows this in particular is that in the comic pretty much every single superhero is extremely incompetent at being superheroes to the point they all come across as the biggest idiots that could possibly exist. Whereas in the show whist some of them are incompetent (like the deep) in general they do come across as highly capable when they’re trying to be.
I sort of treat them as 2 seperate things now, cuz the comics are so deeply tied to Garth Ennis' personality and British humour (particularly 80s counter culture), while the show is so American and tuned to modern concerns that they fill out 2 totally different moods! :)
That's bc the author openly hates superheroes, so yeah, it's a bit of a unload
Did you finish it though? Then goes around and turns that entire concept you are talking about on its head with Hugie taking over
@@actuallySHRIKEthe tv series or the books?
“Let the person who got hurt inside you die so someone new can grow” man that hit on a personal level
I fricken love all the actor's in this show, which is something i can't say about every show, that isn't Man In The High Castle, or some kind of genre media show.
Honestly they were all perfectly chosen
Man in The High Castle had such violent highs and lows for acting
@@rileysmith7763 In my opinion the acting was pretty consistent, they just entirely fcked up the last season.
@@homelander4375 ahhh, the Homelander. We gonna get to see you do some crazy shit in S3?
8:58 I think eating babies wasn't Homelander's doing in the comics, but it was Black Noir whose a Homelander clone in the comic and is doing horrifying things wearing Homelander's uniform. And no, this isn't spoiler since we already know Black Noir is very likely African-American and played by Nathan Mitchell who we thought was just a stunt double.
Yeah it is probably not to avoid spoilers for the show but to try and not spoil something found in the comic, when someone truly likes something and wants to convince people to engage with it, they try their best not to ruin any surprises, which is what i'm guessing he did here.
@@Nobody-zl3kk at that point I would just not bring it up though, as it simply doesn't apply to homelander's character outside of it gaslighting him.
@@thesnowmiser6728 true
Canonically, it was so noir could do his one job (kill homelander) by driving him insane and making him do something
GOD these comics fucking suck
I love the moment where starlight replies to the comments on her addition with “I meant it” it shows from the get go how different she is and how rare it is for a genuine superhero in the world of the boys
I loved it when she said she doesn't think hopeful should mean naïve. Since cynicism is actually easier - under the Seven Deadly Sins as originally defined, cynicism fell under the 'Sloth' umbrella, because it's a moral laziness. Being hopeful and optimistic is actually harder.
"Trauma is when an event is so painful and contradictory to your sense of safety and meaning that it creates a wound in your mind. A wound that you're always drawn to scratching ... Life after a traumatic event can often be defined as a test of how willing you are to live with your new skin, and if you can without yourself from reopening the old wounds."
-Implicitly Pretentious
I strongly disagree with that. It suggests that trauma should be left alone, suppressed even further rather than dealt with. That is not letting go by any mean, but a misuse of the phrase. Trauma happens when something so overwhelming and unthinkable happens to a person in early years of development that the person can not deal with it and HAS TO put it aside so to speak. It is a survival mechanism. The point is to heal wounds later on in life as a full functional, better-equiped, wiser adult by revisiting the trauma. Exploring memories and emotions associated with trauma in a mature way, which in process rewrites meaning of what happened and heals the individual. The letting go part comes down to letting go off ego / identity that individual has built around trauma to escape it. THAT is difficult. You would be surprised how much of our identities and what we think we are is just an early, defensive response to most random situations.
6:06 Watching this video after finishing the first half of season 3, and it's worrying how MM might lose so much progress in moving past his trauma due to the revelation that Soldier Boy is still alive. Great video, thank you for the thoughtful analysis!
It does make sense through. MM’s trauma was never healed, and that’s apparent through his OCD and relationship problems. That’s what makes his character so fascinating; He found successful ways to cope, but never healed the wound, and occasionally it gets prodded, leading him to become self destructive before starting to cope again. With Soldier Boy back in the picture, he has the ability to begin healing, but he now has to confront it, instead of ignoring it. It’s a brilliant take.
@@theradiantdehd3997 this, i noticed it after rewatching the clip where butcher told mm that a guy like him is wasting his talents in the therapy centre, where he wasn’t really making any progress. he was just avoiding facing his trauma which we can see in his outburst in s2 where he just couldn’t take it anymore. love how season 3 covers this in depth now that soldier boy’s back.
@@theradiantdehd3997 I never realized that until now, good point! It just goes to show that there is a difference between coping with your trauma and confronting it. It also goes to show that sometimes it's not obvious when someone is still in pain.
@@theradiantdehd3997 agreed, plus MM has some of the coolest t-shirts lol
When I watched how Stormfront explained how she hires others to make memes and sway the public to Homelander I genuinely felt a shiver down my spine. I think younger people like me feel like they can see through companies and media quite easily, we're usually not the target audience and when we are it feels so obvious we can't help but laugh about it. We feel safe on the internet because we grew up with it as part of our lives, how many posts are there about the absurdly specialised language memes and internet culture is becoming?
We feel as if all these companies and governments couldn't possibly trick us in our own domain, so when I heard Stormfront explain, I heard how easily she was doing it, I felt horror, because I realized they can. They absolutely can and we haven't noticed, and that is fucking terrifying.
They dont need to trick us when they can trick all the 35+ crowd. Then they raise their kids in the bullshit and the process repeats. First it was talk radio now multiple media facets
The big challenge is to stop pointing fingers outwards at "them" in the 'media' and government and look in the mirror. People aren't being 'tricked', they trick themselves because that's what they want.
Yeah it literally starts with a meme, first you like leafyishere, then you move on to FilthyFrank, slowly and slowly radicalizing you as you grow up. It's a pipeline and it was always there were just getting older and realizing and for some it's too late
@@magnifcently_shai FilthyFrank didn't radicalize anyone.
@@mikehunt3420 if you believe that delusion you already lost the war my friend. They will absolutely trick you and likely already have. Both sides of congress and businesses all do it. It’s not just one sided
your writing is really compelling, i especially loved how you said “STARLIGHT becomes disenchanted…but maeve protects ANNIE”, very subtle but lots of nuance in that phrasing!
Damn I nearly teared up when you spoke about letting go of the you who hates, and trusting the support of the people who care about you to help move you forward. That hit me real deep. Deep stuff, Trauma boy.
Time stamp
Cap.
@@_V.Va_ you don’t know what’s going thur his head dude
real
Me too, thanks.
Welp, one season later and it turns out M.M. *does* have trauma, the pattern laid out holds up even more
Was just about to talk about this. Good catch!
M.M had kinda healed his wounds until the return of solider boy. The pattern continues
I think I hate Stormfront more than Homelander because she represents what I hate the most of the Internet (twitter)
that people won’t make their own opinions, that people won’t do their own research and just let misinformation guide their lives because they want to appear as good people rather than being good people
and when it turns out that they are mistaken, they either won’t let it down or act like no harm was done.
and when a person turns out to be a vile piece of shit, you see people defending it and people that “care” they forget in the span of a fucking week or less.
when Homelander killed a boy in Africa, the mainstream media forgot in one or two days because Stormfront knows the media game, making memes and echo chambers to make the issue become more and more insignificant and irrelevant
After watching his the invincible and the boys videos, i wonder, do people as a collective can also feel shame that they become defensive when they are confronted about their controversial take? Also i feel that stormfront is much more scarier because she also have the backing of a huge company to alter the tide of opinion of the mass. It's quite realistic
Which country? Africa is a continent. Let's be more specific.
@@sseraphim2818 It's a damn show, mate
The real enemy in the end is mainstream media. Delusional ppl who are easily decieved almost like they’re a lost cause.
Okay, that's... Kind of almost funny.
I hate Stormfront for pretty much the polar inverse reason.
She's the representation of the manipulation of mass media, of the death of argument and reflection, and the systematic annihilation of open discourse.
I don't hate her because she represents the people, quite the opposite, i hate her because she exploits the people by playing them as tunes to her clarinet; Stormfront is the vile and insidious representation of all that twists and corrupts ideals into their most extreme and violent form, and enslaves the public with it.
...
Two sides of the same coin i guess.
Also, because of the way media is shaped these days, with upvotes and likes and shares, people don't want to be wrong anymore.
To be wrong is weakness, to apologize apostasy.
'Extreme reasoning leads to incorrect assumptions leads to more extreme reasoning to make up for the incorrectness because you were actually right after all.' type shit.
The media plays the public like a fucking fiddle.
Both ways, preferably at the same time to generate conflict if at all possible.
'Incinerate the middle ground with nuclear hellfire, the middle ground is boring, extremes get clicks.'
"He's got to make superman" what a brilliant way to put it I hadn't thought of it like that but it's spot on
As much as I love Ennis, his work does reek of edginess of the period of comic books it came out in. I think the show is more maturely written, though I have sincere love for the comics. I feel largely the same about Preacher as I do The Boys in this regard.
Have to agree on this. Have read The Boys and there is a good portion of it that just comes across as just edginess for the sake of edginess, it kinda takes you outta the story when you get to that. Although, that does seem to be a staple of Ennis' work. Particularly the Crossed comics...
No way...the Peacher comic is much better than the show for me, especially the "Saint of Killers." In the show he's not nearly as OP.
different mediums and different purposes but still great tbh
@@Mad_IntellectI feel different. For once, I like both the comic and show. While as to the boys, I wasn't feeling the comic, enjoyed the shit out of the show and the development it's got.
“say the magic words, Bart!”
😂
Trauma
Conan O'Brien "Just say the line"
I cannot wait for season 3. This show combines everything from comedy to fantasy to drama to action and does it all pretty damn well.
It's interesting that you talked about Mother's Milk's trauma having healed because this is exactly what the 3rd season tackles head on, there's much to him that actually wasn't showing and he's still processing regarding Soldier Boy
Exactly. His OCD and need for medication suggests he is more traumatised than anyone in The Boys
I don't do therapy since the pandemic bcs i lost my intership on( imagine) a television newsroom. So The Boys was a show that hit me had because it reflects lots of the things i had to deal with every day and, like Starlight, a lot of times i saw myself trying to stay true to waht i think journalism and media should stand and was a really dificult and pain ride, even i knowing i would tray again the moment they offer me a chance. But concluding my point, your videos sometime feels like a therapy session to me. Your interpretation and analysis is really calm and relaxing and i almost always finished the video with a sense of joy and and confort about life. By the way, can't wait for Spider Man No Way Home video (y all know it's gona come)
Aww I hope you find peace and another opportunity! And thank you so much for the kind words, these videos are oddly cathartic to make for me too!
How were you challenged to stay true to your self as a journalist? Was just curious, because depending on your beliefs on one end there's no challenge and on the other end cancellation.
@@mikesendec3972 Absolute fucking cringe.
Wtf does you losing an internship have to do with not going to therapy? Wtf?
@@thinkinyblinko6666 money, bro.
Cynicism is cynicism's sake gets old. It's why the show outshine the comic, it sprinkles in enough optimism & hope to give the cynicism real punch.
The scene where homelander takes Ryan to a convention and sees him getting overwhelmed is so well done❤ It shows Homelander’s care for his son, but in a way that makes sense to his character. He sees himself in Ryan, his anxiety of the world, not Ryan’s fears
Lol so no one is going to acknowledge that VideoGameDunkey jab? I died lol
That's Fat Neil from Community
Too good, love Dunker
18:40 that shot at Dunkey was absolutely fantastic
On the surface this show is grotesque and gut wrenchingly tragic, while that maybe be true, as you really read into it you can see more and more that, that is what makes it so beautiful. It's disgustingly real, goddamn masterpiece.
Thanks for this. It was terribly astute and illuminating. You really managed to articulate the central themes in a way that crystallized a lot of half formed ideas I had roaming around my subconscious. It also illustrated why work like The Boys matters in a way that straight product/content does not. It has something to say that is actually worth hearing, and thinking about. Great work.
''Stop scratching your wound and let it grow back"....what a great line...
Ive been waiting so long to hear you talk about "The Boys"
Yeah I ended up binging the entire second season like 2 weeks ago, so I kinda had to do it!
Several weeks later, IP finally lands. Brilliant
Your season 3 video led me here. I'm officially a fan and blown away by your ability to break down these themes to a molecular yet simple way that any decent minded individual can understand. I thought your kind was a dead breed. Keep up you're amazing talents. You have a future a bright one
oh yeah another banger video!!!!!
Thanks! ☺️☺️
really interesting watching this while season 3 is airing because of you talking about MM's trauma and how he got through it only for the wound to open again in season 3
spoilers for episode 6
You could say that he does overcome that wound, putting aside his hatred to help the injured after the homlander vs soilder boy fight
This is a great essay. Love the description of trauma. The empathy for the characters that I hadn't seen before
Always the way you interpret shows makes me appreciate them even more. Thank you!
This video essay is beautiful. Thank you for creating this.
See I like the show more then the comics because its not a constant grim dark world where its constant pain and suffering that only the most edge lords would decry as the best series ever.
It has those moments where it lets characters have happiness and I think that makes the show infinity better.
I love how unapologetic the show was, they did what many can’t and took the original content to a completely new level for better
In my Abnormal Psych class half my life ago, I learned that "trauma" is when someone is wounded by a psychological crisis without sufficient support. This is an interesting definition to me because it includes the possibility that we can both heal from a wound, and also the immense value of support in our lives. We CANNOT do this alone.
I just had to take a sec to say how astonished I am with what amazing things bach can to with just a couple of broken chords. Every time.
I swear I love your channel more after each video. Keep up the outstanding work.
Something I've never seen anyone talk about is when starlight faces off against a train we see him seeing the world in slow motion which raises the question if he can dodge starlights blasts so easily and quickly how couldn't he do the same with robin
V
After watching all of season 3, I gotta say I'm now excited to see if you'll make another analysis of the themes that persisted and the new developments.
DUDDEEEEE, I’ve been looking for someone like you, this video was made so good and made me look at the boys way differently
Trauma is back 🙆♂️
getting myself ready for Shang Chi 😂
@@ImplicitlyPretentious can't wait! 😁
Surprised you didn’t cover Black Noir’s trauma❤ That was pretty well done too
That was season 3 and he made this before season 3
@@jordanford9320 ik yeah, realised that when I watched his next one👍🏼
Interesting how you say Mm is the one who overcame his trauma and in season three he loses that because it turns out soldier boy is still alive and this unhealthy lifestyle starts to consume him, I just think that’s really interesting
Amazing/accurate analysis of seasons 1 and 2 of the boys. I love this show.
Implicitly Traumatised, and I love it
I’ve will never look at The Boys the same again. Really, such a fantastic job with this video.
Thank you for doing a The Boys video!!!
damn I didn't even realize that they swapped out child actors between seasons 1 and 2 for the kid who plays Homelander's son until watching this video
A truly powerful analysis. I sobbed, thank you.
I think I could defiently compare the boys to the manga 'Gantz'. Both stories are ridiculously gory, sexual, and edgy, but both have a real heart to them, with gantz being about the beauty of human relationships and being a story of hope, and the boys being about healing wounds
LMAO when Starlight said "if Billy Butcher can do the right thing there has to be a higher power" I died cause literally everyone knows how ruthless Billy is. He's just as bad as Homelander imo but he's somewhat justified
I truly truly don't think he's as bad as HL
I had to compare Homeland and Frankenstein (the creature) in an exam and the conclusion was that they are basically the same.
You’re literally my favorite TH-camr, always making totally banger videos
This was beautifully done, Sir ❤
My favorite parts were your soft, psychological insights about the characters, their trauma and how it mirrors humanities wounds and mistakes. It actually made me cry~ and I hadn't _seen_ these things while watching....
I'll have to re-watch with your insights in mind!
Big hugs! Keep up the amazing videos, friend!
Can't wait to see this channel blow up. Such great work as always!
I think this is the first 10/10 video I've ever watched. I feel better just from watching
The west should really recognize manga and anime.
No
It has tho
It has. Manga consistently sells better than Comic Books.
It has. It's just that most manga/anime writing is autistic, cliché-riddled trash (and I've watched 70+ anime, so this isn't coming from an outsider who doesn't get it). Even the best only have tolerable writing, but the dialog is mostly inhuman cringe that I can only look past in certain moods.
How dare you describe a show based on a Garth Ennis work in a way that makes me cry about how understanding it is of personal trauma and growth. I really dislike Ennis' shock-jock writing approach, especially towards superheroes, to the extent I've refused to watch The Boys. But the way you talk about it... Well now I gotta.
You like it?
The show is nothing like the comics
The Boys is fantastic, its probably one of the deepest and most captivating shows ive ever watched (2 seasons in)
This was one of the best video essays I've seen in a while. Thanks, my dude.
lmao i like how he called the radicalized stormfront fan videogamedunkey
I legitimately can’t even look at a picture of Toni Starr in real life without being even a little fearful anymore.
This made me cry. I enjoy this show for the sympathy it forces you to feel for the most evil people even if it’s just a little sympathy.
What evil person are you feeling sympathy for? Cause there is basically no innocent characters in this show lol. Everyone is pretty shitty in some way.
I remember someone told me Clark Kent is the alternate persona of superman. No his not! If Clark Kent was the alternate persona of superman he'd be Homelander.
Well superman is the real him
@@friedfrog5447 No, Superman is not the real him. He views both Clark Kent and Kal-El as his true identities when under the lasso of truth.
@@centricthemedic1517 He doesn't have 2 personalities. One is a disguise and the other isn't.
When he wakes up every day he’s not Clark Kent he’s Kal’El. Clark Kent is Superman’s critique on Humanity
@@robadob55 that's only the tarantino take I believe
broo that was a pretty epic analysis, and it made me appreciate the show even more
Watching this got me reliving my own trauma, past and present. Can't say that most shows and especially superhero films (as much as I love them) bring that much emotion out of me but this has. Haven't even watched the show yet, but I can confidently say it's great. I thought it was a superhero parody cash grab, but it's sooooo much deeper. I'm getting Prime just to watch this
Well.. now I'm really going to go ahead and binge this series. Thanks😊
How you liking it?
Another great video dude! Well done!
Thank you!😁
Coming back after season 3 turns out MM didn’t get over his trauma as wel as we thought
The last clip though ... really touches your ideals on what superhero really is .... an American dream ...
my only problem with the entire series seems to be the inconsistency with how strong some of the characters are. Maeve basically going one on one with Homelander really makes him less terrifying. Makes you question why people were so afraid of him in the first place, same thing with starlight, she feels utterly weak. Feels like one minute they can stop a train with their big toe then the next they're afraid of a gun. My take on things anyways
"you have to let the person hurt inside you die so you can let someone else rise from it" needed to hear that so bad.
I love this show and I love this video. Great work.
I started watching this show just this year (missed out on it, I know) and I was hooked by the first and blown away by the second episode. It's full of really dark humour, gross gore and very vile but also very genuine moments. But it feels so real it is actually a very unpleasant portrait of the real world. The characters feel real, not just like sketches of themselves. My heart drops every time a character goes into some major trauma mode. Every trauma is different, and so are the motivations and partly crooked thoughts of the individual behind it.
I love how they made this show a perfect mix of gut-wrenching thriller, subtle romance and total violence. Just everything where/how it needs to be without being cringe or overdrawn at any time.
Watched all seasons availabble in two weeks and I CAN'T WAIT FOR THE NEXT ONE!
Very well analyzed and so perfectly said!!!!!
Hughie in that scene where he saw all the A-Train stuff hit too close to home, that’s all I can say now.
Did a famous person do something shitty to you, bro?
Amazing work, as usual!!
*comic spoilers*
The images at 8:58 are actually Black Noir dressed as Homelander.
This show depicted good and evil and bad really well
This video was so awesome! I love your take on the show!
Really nice work. Kinda nailed what we’re going for. Bravo. 👏🏿
Media is a beast that chews the innocence and beauty of the best people and spits out broken lost self centered children. This show shows the effects of media and to me that's what makes the show genius.
A train had no villain in the scene at all. He was running somewhere delivering something and didn't pay attention for an instance and he ran through her.
I'd say more but it's spoilers from fairly late and I'm not sure if it's been covered in the series. I stopped watching the series.
Killing someone because you "didn't pay attention" while running ~ 250 mph sounds kinda villainous to me
@@dammagrilla it's a question of intent. Intent makes the difference between first-degree murder and manslaughter.
(And FYI A Train was traveling up to 1600 mph (800 meters/yards) per second. So if he were distracted for a tenth of a second, he would travel 240 feet.)
Dangerous power for sure.
He gets worst later
@@macmcleod1188 Manslaughter or murder, those both sound fairly villainous to me... he also appeared to show very little, if any, remorse afterwards.
They also explain what he was really doing when it happened later, not sure if you watched that far
@@dammagrilla Yes i watched it that far. I read most of the comics tho. Atrain was more of a villain there.
In the law we distinguish between someone who kill someone for pay and someone who kills someone accidentally while committing another crime and someone who kills someone accidentally through negligence.
It sounds like in your moral system, gross negligence is equivalent to intent.
As a wise man once said _"Believe in the me that believes in you!"_
If there is a show with the theme of Trauma embedded in it's DNA is The Leftovers, if anyone is interested with a show with a lot of misery, tears and dealing with loss, then it's your cup of tea
I LOVE Mother's Milk's Hip Hop tshirts 👑
God the first season is so masterfully crafted compared to the other 2
Really amazing video man. Brought me joy.
Implicitly TRAUMATIC!!!!!!!
Hughie and Annie's relationship is I think my favorite romantic relationship in hero movies to date
I burst out laughing for a minute because I kid you not, imediately after the section on Homelander finished I got an ad for milk
would have been cool to lean even harder into the invincible title card style joke, with a blood spurt onto a "trauma" title card in the exact style of that show
Made me tear up at the end. It most definitely is ideal.
"Mother's milk wound did heal" uh oh season 3 kinda retconned that
It is awesome ! Easily the best show out there !