A-Train is such an interesting character, because is season 1 he is clearly the bad guy. He is basically Hughie's arch enemy because he killed Robin and barely cared, it's not just enemy stuff because they're on different sides, it's personal for them. That caused Hughie to join the boys and created their feud, where the Boys blackmail Popclaw, A-Train kills her and blames Hughie for using her, A-Train goes to his house and threatens his dad, Hughiehas Kimiko break one of his legs, when A-train is healed up he goes after Hughie personally and has a heart attack after beating Starlight. Hughie however saves his life but they aren't even in A-Trains eyes, but they're both alive by the end. That's kind of the last time A-Train specifically is 'the bad guy' in the show because once season 2 rolls around, he has other problems than Hughie to deal with and so does Hughie. They don't like each other, but they're forced to ally up for their own advancement.
The things is, as the show goes on, we see how dark the world is and unfortunately, while Hughie hates him personally, A-Train is one of the better Supes, and even people in the main cast. It doesn't make him a good person by any means, but just by showing how terrible the rest of the world is, it changes the curve and puts him on the better side, despite his actions being very personal. As far as we know, his 3 big sins are killing Robin, killing Popclaw, and betraying Supersonic to Homelander so he killed him. There might be more but that's why I can remember. I'm not counting standing aside to let Deep and Newoir kill the homelander stans, or taking Bluehawk to the community meeting because while that was dumb and ended tragically he was trying to do some good with it. And don't get me wrong, he's done plenty of terrible things and threatened to do more, but wasn't able to follow up on it so it's hard to judge. I'm not downplaying what he's done, it's just that 3 people are a lot less compared to what other people have done. And yes, the implication is that Robin wasn't the first or last person A-Train killed like that, but it's hard when it's just the implication of something that happened off screen.
Everyone in the Boys has blood on their hands on both sides and it's hard to judge A-Train given how horrible the other characters are. Because the thing is, there's a difference between personal and actual when it comes to judging a person. You hate the person who bullied you in school more than someone who committed a mass shooting hundreds of miles away. It's not that you like the shooter more, it's just that while you condemn them, it's not personal, you don't hate them, you think they're horrible and but you stop thinking about it because it doesn't impact your life. Whereas even if you adulthood you might hate your childhood bully for what they did to you, you might never actually recover or get closure for it. That's what it's like Hughie/the viewer and A-train. Because Hughie is the audience surrogate and we see the shit that happens between him and A-Train, we're trained to hate him. However he's still only the middle of the pact in the Seven that we meet. Homelander is homelander, The deep is a serial rapist, Black Noir has killed a lot of people on missions and cleaning up after Homelander, but is also Edgars hitman until he's ousted. Then there's Translucent who I'd put on the same horrible level as A-Train, he's a pervert who sexually harrasses at least his teammates and went to silence Hughie, but we don't really see him (for lack of a better word) do anything else as horrible as the other 3, partially because he dies so quickly. Below A-Train's level are Maeve who is apathetic, but does still do hero stuff and is more broken than evil. And finally Starlight who genuinely wanted to do good in the Seven, but then realized what they actually were.
The thing is, even Starlight has blood on her hands. She murdered someone in season 2. It was to save Hughie's life and he drew a gun on her, but she still killed him. You can't even call it self defense because the only reason why he drew the gun on her was because he didn't want to get his car stolen, and even then a handgun wouldn't have hurt her anyway. He died so she could save Hughie. I don't think it makes her a monster, but it does mean she has blood on her hands that she kind of ignores for the rest of the series so far. The point isn't that she is a monster or just as bad, but she has done bad stuff to protect herself and the people she loves, or in the name of the greater good.
The rest of the boys are even worse because MM is probably the cleanest besides Hughie, he is still an accomplice to a lot of horrible stuff that they do for the sake of taking down Supes. Butcher, like Homelander is Butcher, he's willing to do horrible things to get what he wants, he has more restraint than his arch nemesis but he's still done a lot of horrible things to kill Homelander, murder included. Frenchie has done tons of horrible stuff when he was working for Nina, he is trying to make up for it or at least do good and be kind now, but it doesn't change he murdered innocent people because his boss told him to. Kimiko murdered a lot of people, most were bad, but she didn't do it because ti was the right thing to do, she did it for money and because they were bad so it made it okay. And let's not even get started on the stuff she did as a brainwashed child soldier of the Shining Light.
But it's okay that the Boys are doing bad things, because for the most part supes are worse. Every Supe that is mentioned is horrible unless they're a joke of fodder. Racists who kill black people because they're 'criminals,' or target migrant workers because they know they can get away with. Rapists who know vought will pay to cover up their crimes and keep their victims silent one way or another. the list goes on.
The point isn't that A-Train is innocent or not a bad guy, he's done both and has been sympathetic since season 1. then kind of became the butt monkey of the show that no one really respects by season 3, before getting his powers back. He is a complex character in a gray world. The more time goes on, the more messed up the curve is. He isn't a saint, but I think he's sympathetic and it does mean that it seems like currently he seems to be on the path to redemption, and I hope he is redeemed and survives switching sides.
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