It has occurred to me in a brand new way how messed up Homelander's story was morally. I don't mean ethically because that has long been known, but as in the moral of him as a character in a story.
In college I had a professor that believed all writers need to have a moral behind their stories. At the time, I found this trite but as I grew older I realized she was correct. Because even if a writer decides a story is not going to impart any message, the audience will find a message within it anyway. One that the writer never meant to send.
The moral of Homelander is that if the world turns its back on you, you should become worse.
There is no point in Homelander's life where he could have had a regular life or chosen a better way. It all comes back to Vought. By intentionally making him incapable of functioning normally in society they engineered a situation that gave them absolute control over him. He was too socially incompetent to survive outside Vought, so they were able to manage everything and everyone around him. He was told the Seven would be his family but his two closest relationships within his team were with a man with severe brain damage and a woman who resented her place in Homelander's life. Outside of the Seven, he had his manager, a skilled manipulator who benefited from him staying exactly as he was.
Besides going rogue in order to help advance Madelyn's career, which he only did to earn her approval and be rewarded, he had no reason to fight the leash. Save for one: Ryan.
Without that exterior pressure on Vought's fence, Homelander never would have broken out of his paddock. The discovery of his son is what spurred Homelander to turn against Madelyn. The frustration and anger over losing access to Ryan, the blackmail over the plane, and Stan's petty mishandling of Homelander over his actions in the previous seasons (including his killing of Madelyn) compounded in him finally bucking Vought's control entirely. Without Ryan, none of that comes about, none of it leads to him getting out from under his abusers' thumbs.
However, due to Vought's control of his social life and Homelander's belief in his own inability to have children, Ryan's existence could really only come about as it did. Same as the additional pressure over Flight 37 and over him trafficking V. Via heinous crimes that would result in Homelander's eventual destabilization, downfall, and death.
He could not have freedom without these events happening as they did. Because there was never anyone in his life that cared about what happened to him or what was still being done. There was never anyone in his orbit that was capable of saving him and wasn't only interested in him for their own ends.
Once he was free of Vought, the death he had courted drew closer. At that point, the clock was ticking. The second to last nail in Homelander's coffin was Ryan's inevitable discovery of the rape that lead to his birth. The final nail was Soldier Boy's rejection, which came about due to Vought's machinations to replace Soldier Boy and how they raised the child they created.
There was never a helping hand that would not be retracted. To gain his freedom, Homelander could only be monstrous. To survive, he would have had to become more monstrous still. Become cold like marble. Cold enough to slaughter the Boys and their allies without delay. Cold enough to kill his son when he turned on him.
For Homelander there was never a better path he could've taken to get free from his abusers. There was never a way he could've gone home after crossing the Rubicon. Not without shedding his humanity entirely, that is.
That's the moral of his story: if you respond to trauma and isolation by being bad, you best be as bad as inhumanly possible.
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