There's something I've picked up on lately and it's probably not new and is a recognized trope with name. I don't feel like trying to look it up though, so I'm just going to call it the Irredeemability of Cringe.
My thesis is that Cringe is a spectrum and any character that is too Cringe and is classified as cringy becomes Irredeemable.
Of course, this phenomenon only caught my eye because of Homelander but The Boys gives me more material. Including the Deep and A-Train, but I will focus on the two biggest examples for brevity.
Homelander is a villain and, despite how he was treated in season 5, he was the villain that was framed throughout the series as being the most physically threatening. Though the role of ultimate villain was rightly Stan Edgar's, Homelander got saddled with it due to the showrunner's and writers' political fixation and skewed view of what the narrative of the series conveyed.
Homelander though powerful, threatening, and cunning is cringy. He drinks fresh cow's milk from a bucket. It has not been cleaned or pasteurized, so the audience can know that there is fur in it. He breastfeeds from a woman that he is not sleeping with or even romantically interested in. He bathes in stolen breastmilk from the NICU. Though there are deep psychological reasons behind why he does this and why he loves milk so much in general, the visuals make the audience cringe. Homelander is also often childishly petulant and insecure in a distinctly "unmanly" way compared to other characters. He behaves submissively toward some women, who were mostly villainous themselves, but was the rapist of a Good Woman. He flees from fights that he feels he stands a chance of losing, despite the advantage his superpowers give him. Which, as it is done by Homelander who is clearly defined as pathetic, is a sign of cowardice rather than intelligence or good sense. This is a villain that is plainly Cringe to most people, and in a way that makes him Irredeemable.
Now let's consider Soldier Boy. Soldier Boy was said to take advantage of some faceless women that were far too young for him. He is guilty of stolen valor; he is racist; he is in love with the same Nazi Homelander loved. But Ben gets to be charismatic and very cool too. His appreciation for older women is not some hunt for a mother figure as Homelander's tendency to fall for slightly older or only physically young women is, but simply is Ben's preference. Soldier Boy just still goes for ladies closer to his age even though he can pull young bombshells just as easily. He is mostly effortlessly charming to any woman he desires and his lovers are satisfied in bed by him (despite what lousy editing would imply). He gets to say cool lines. He gets to be clever in fights and never runs even when he should, which is brave and not ever lampshaded as stupid. When he is outsmarted, he still looks cool and always comes out the other side all right in the end anyway. He doesn't fret and cry after losing like Homelander does, he gets mad and he gets even. He has some cringe aspects but he does not slide toward the level where he becomes Irredeemable. It doesn't matter that Ben is as much an unrepentant monster as his son or that he is nihilistic and cruel. Soldier Boy is Redeemable because he is more Cool than he is Cringe.
To further illustrate my point, I only need look at fan and fan-to-fan responses now and how they compare across media.
There is a trend of thought, mostly among the male audience, that it is silly to expect every villain to be redeemed. I agree with this. It is perfectly acceptable for there to be stories that are good versus evil and for the evil to be uncomplicatedly vanquished in those stories. It is also more than acceptable for a villain's life and death to be framed as tragic but for their fall to need to happen anyway to resolve the story. That's all well and good. However, sometimes this cry for simplicity is misdirected. As it is when it comes to Homelander.
Homelander was not pure evil or really intentionally evil at all as he was never given anyone good to model morality from. He did what he was created to do and then he acted out in the destructive manners he knew. Still, he was not a born evil creature the way a Tolkien Orc is. Some fans treat him as if he was though. Granted, that is how the show tries to treat him via not letting anyone that might care learn anything solid about his past and by neglecting to explore it further in season 5. Even though the writers claimed to be tying up loose ends they failed to reveal Barbara Findley's fate (something even Antony Starr was uncertain of), because they wanted Homelander's past out of the audience's mind so they could kill their Trump parody.
It is a bit ironic how Homelander and other Cringe villains are treated in comparison to, say, Darth Vader or Roy Batty. Even though those men's plights and sins are really not so different from Homelander's. They both killed and tortured many people. Darth Vader also killed children and stood by while an entire populated planet was obliterated. Yet no fan will argue that Darth Vader should have died evil rather than return to the Light right at the end. No fan will argue that Roy Batty's final lines were unnecessary and took away from the narrative weight of Blade Runner. Because Darth Vader and Roy Batty, despite their struggles, flaws, and pain, were Cool Characters. They got that redemption because they were awesome, strong, brave, and powerful. They did not cross the Irredeemably Cringe line.
Not like Homelander did. His lack of Coolness is what doomed him to a brutal death without any last minute Redemptive Act or Tragic Framing. That is the cost of the Irredeemablility of Cringe.
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