History Headscratchers / TheBoys2019

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[[folder: Hughie saving his team-mates in The Boys with teleportation and super-strength and saving Annie with his teleportation is bad, but Kimiko using powers to save her French boyfriend is good?]]
* Why is Hughie using his new powers to save his friends and his girlfriend treated as bad, but Kimiko using her powers to save her French lover treated as good?

* Why was A-Train just left after his leg was broken? This was the guy Hughie was most keen on getting revenge against who has just threatened the life of his father. I was anxious to see what the team was going to do with their newly crippled prisoner, I was particularly looking forward to them showing Butcher their catch, but then nothing... and A-Train is suddenly shopping in an athletics store despite The Seven being in full crisis mode and his leg being broken. A-Train would have certainly been easier for The Boys to deal with than Translucent. At the very least, they should have killed him where he fell - it makes no sense to leave him alive. They know he is a remorseless killer, dangerously unhinged, and with a personal vendetta.
** This one is pretty simple. With Translucent, they had precautions. A cage to contain him, a room guarded against broadcast from his chip, plus he was unconscious. The scenes with him showed they know nothing about Supe biology. They don't know how fast someone like A-Train would heal, or if he had to be killed a special way. Also, their identities were burned by Homelander and Vought. They were focused more on getting family to safety than killing a Supe. If they'd had more time, they might have made an attempt to kill him.

** Stormfront is clearly portrayed as highly intelligent, and extremely image conscious herself. It's likely that she has been extremely careful to avoid overt public racism, and to keep even her dogwhistling very, very subtle. Also, she's portrayed by a Jewish woman, and seems based off Laura Loomer. So, as others have said, she can likely get away with claiming that her name is based off of her weather powers, and that she's reclaiming it from racists. Hell, she might not even be exactly lying, as the actual Laura Loomer despises the Stormfront organization, despite agreeing with them on every issue except Jews.

** He was born in the 80s. At that time, spanking was still acceptable and school bullying was seen as harmless 'kids will be kids' stuff. People just weren't as aware of how abuse suffered as a child can really eff them up later in life. Vought didn't want a happy, well-adjusted child. They wanted someone who could be their lifelong puppet.

** The Russians wouldn't kill them because killing collaborators is counter-productive, and Vought isn't going to let go of 5-6 potentially profitable heroes when they've already lost one of their main cash cows.

** A-Train is black, but he is also a supe. Blue Hawk probably seems to think, "he's one of ''us'', not one of ''them''", and in fact can use that to justify his crimes with SomeOfMyBestFriendsAreX. He could be classist as well, since the neighbourhood he's terrorising appears to be a working class one (A-Train and Nate specifically come from poverty).

** Because R and D takes time. Frederick Vought literally had access to millions of unwilling test subjects and no oversight. Vought Inc had to proceed carefully and under the Rader. Not really a headscratcher as realistically scientific advancement usually develops in coalition to funding, time and work.

Why is Hughie using his new powers to save his friends and his girlfriend Annie treated as bad, but Kimiko using her powers to save her French lover treated as good?

** Because R and D takes time. Frederick Vought literally had access to millions of unwilling test subjects and no oversight. Vought Inc had to proceed carefully and under the Rader. Not really a headscratcher as science and development develops in coalition to funding, time and work.

Why is Hughie using his new powers to save his friends treated as bad, but Kimiko using her powers to save her French lover treated as good?

** Vought has created telepaths far more powerful than Mesmer. Cate Dunlap in ''Series/GenV'' is a telepath who is significantly stronger than Mesmer, since she doesn't have to touch people to read their thoughts. She can also [[CompellingVoice mind control people into doing things]] (although she has to physically touch the person in question first). Dean Shetty is shown to have regulated Cate's powers by prescribing her pills that dampen her telepathy, and used her to regularly wipe Golden Boy's memories while they performed experiments on him and his brother Sam.

* In the climax of the second season, how did Queen Maeve find the cabin and The Boys? I don't recall anything connecting her to it, she cannot fly, so she couldn't have followed Stormfront there, and she didn't know anything about the Ryan situation, so she couldn't have even followed the Vaught security team.

** It's also important to remember that, while the events in the scenes unfold very quickly, it would take The Boys a lot of time to go back and forth from the various places - so Maeve would actually have a bit of time to make it to the cabin and help once Stormfront was outed as a Nazi.

** And if she ever had a moment of revelation by herself, not under the supervision of either the orphanage or Vought, then she must have killed her first victim discretely. Say in an alleyway, with no witnesses (basically the circumstances under which she kills Tony), and this would lead her to not want to use the power without some degree of care and discretion. That murder could easily be brushed off as some gangland violence or a mugging which ended up in a gunshot wound to the head (and if Vought discovered it fast enough, they could even plant evidence to that effect).

** Soldier Boy saying “I see you getting out of line again, trying to ''move on up'', I will put you in the fucking ground” (to Noir, who is black as in African American) is definitely a reference to ''Series/{{The Jeffersons}}''. He’s clearly a racist.

** Made even ''worse'' is that when M.M states why he wants revenge for his family, Soldier Boy callously asks, "which one?" implying that he's killed other families before. Considering he was tasked to crack down on Civil Rights protests and participated in the Kent State massacre, and the American government has quite the history of cracking down on such protests with swift brutality, including murder and arson, [[FridgeHorror one has to wonder what exactly he was doing in a black neighbourhood so late at night to begin with when he was targeting the black people who stole a car, even if M.M's grandfather was collateral damage.]]

* If Fredrick Vought could make a power-granting formula, why couldn't any scientist at Vought make the Temp V formula in a way that would have NO major side effects?

** The revelation that Stormfront was Vought's husband also implies that, having been part of Vought Industries from the beginning, she has enough contacts and influence to wield her own power inside the company (unlike Homelander). She has to stay out of sight because she's TheAgeless, so it's convenient to let others like Stan Edgar run things until she's in a position to implement her own plans. Edgar is likely ignorant of her true ambitions.

** The address was handwritten by Raynor on the back of an old Budweiser advertisement featuring a celebrity endorsement by Liberty. Grace had no idea what this meant and so sent The Boys to check out the address. They just assumed they were going to meet Liberty, which was the justification for bringing Starlight along.

** Mesmer was convicted of insider-trading long before the start of the series, so clearly they have NOT managed to prevent all public knowledge of superhero corruption. What they HAVE done is used their media power to prevent the public from realising that there is widespread SYSTEMIC corruption. An individual supe like Deep or Mesmer gets caught doing something corrupt, and Vought simply fires them and puts its media power behind portraying them as a rogue bad apple. So long as they can hide their SYSTEMIC corruption, individuals being caught means nothing.

** It's also shown that supes in the military really just aren't good. There's a reason the army don't just recruit people who already know how to shoot and send them out immediately. They train them to work as a team, follow the chain of command, use judgment and have discipline on their weapons. We see in a flashback to the 80s what a hindrance supes are in combat zones - Swatto gives away their position because he flies around too high, Crimson Countess accidentally kills some of her own comrades and the whole thing is a disaster. And with it being the 1940s and all, maybe Liberty being a woman made them reluctant about allowing her in a combat zone? There's a whole complicated discussion about women in combat zones that wasn't really resolved until the 2000s - not necessarily that women couldn't keep up with the men, but that the men would default to protecting female comrades and disrupting the functioning of a unit. And from what we see of Stormfront, she's the ultimate opportunist, so if she sensed that the public opinion was turning against the Nazis, she and her husband might have defected once they saw the Allies were winning the war.
** In defence of Stormfront as a weapon, the Wermacht might not even need to protect her given her powers. She might not even need to be fighting side-by-side with them, she could be sent in as a lone wolf special operations solder and devastate Allied camps and supply lines. She may be vulnerable to conventional weaponry to some extent, yes, but then the element of surprise would be crucial to take out the enemy before they can field an effective response. The idea of her being developed too late, combined with a counter in the form of Soldier Boy and other Allied Supes, is sufficient for why she wasn't able to turn the tide.

** And in Season 2, The Deep uncovers a video taken on a Go Pro of the incident that survived the crash.

** There's one thing you're forgetting about Hughie: he's still a human being. Yes, he killed Translucent. Yes, he wants revenge on A-Train. But he's still human. The fact is that A-Train said something to him shortly before he got kneecapped: "What I did to your girl was an accident. What you did was on purpose." (or something along those lines). It's entirely possible that line was weighing in Hughie's mind after A-Train said it, making him question and doubt his actions up to that point. Not to mention, [[SaveTheVillain Hughie ended up trying to help A-Train by giving him CPR after his heart attack later on]]. Hughie may be a killer, but he's not hard as stone like Billy and the others (yet). He's still human.

** It is entirely possible that she was just saying that to make Starlight lower her guard and to become more appealing to her. Stormfront has shown the ability to manipulate both social media and people. She projects the personality of the laid back, "one of the guys just being honest" kind of person that draws people. However as we saw in episode three of the second season, [[TheSociopath that’s all it is, just a projection.]] She is a social chameleon. To Homelander she’s the perky, nothing bothers her, irrelevant and challenging without actually challenging him. To Ashley, she’s a nightmare not following the script. To her followers she is a breath of fresh air, the rowdy best friend. And to Starlight she became a person who she can trust, whose approval she would seek thanks to Stormfront pretending to be disappointed in her. Classic manipulation which fits her personality, sometimes she lets the mask slip like when [[EvilAllAlong she gloated at Homelander at the press conference after killing Kimiko's brother.]] But basically her statements to Starlight were likely not genuine, just manipulation.

** Vought are also dealing with the negative PR from the Deep admitting to his sexual assault of Starlight. A second accusation against another member, especially against the leader and golden boy at that, would be disastrous in the short term. For all Stan knows, he and Becca planned this between them and she was lying in wait to go public and back the story up.

** Made even ''worse'' is that when M.M states why he wants revenge for his family, Soldier Boy callously asks, "which one?" implying that he's killed other families before. Considering he was tasked to crack down on Civil Rights protests and participated in the Kent State massacre, and the American Government has quite the history of cracking down on such protests with swift brutality, including murder and arson, [[FridgeHorror one has to wonder what exactly he was doing in a black neighbourhood so late at night to begin with when he was targeting the black people who stole a car, even if M.M's grandfather was collateral damage.]]

[[folder: Giving Soldier Boy to Russians]]

** The Russians wouldn't kill them because killing collaborators is counter-productive and Vought isn't going to let go of 5-6 potentially profitable heroes when they've already lost one of their main cash cows.

[[folder: Why did The Deep stay with Cassandra Schwartz?]]
* He said himself that he was frustrated to basically have an arranged marriage to this woman who is "a weirdo who gives terrible blowjobs". And if there's one thing The Deep wants, it's ''good'' head. I get that he had to keep up a public image as a happily married man to rehabilitate his PR, but his self serving nature would be better indulged without her, one would think. And he must get that she was only using him to exert some influence with his celebrity. Why didn't he wait until he got back into the Seven, then dump her and begin dating one of the women the cult had interviewed who he would be more attracted to? Hell, he may even have been happy to go single and play with that squid.
** Because The Deep ''doesn't'' just want "good head". He seems to mostly use women sexually for the power trip and to alleviate his own hangups, not just [[AllMenArePerverts because he's horny]] (which is a common misconception of rape and sexual assault, as [[EvilFeelsGood power over another person is the goal of it,]] ''not'' sexual pleasure). Also, The Deep isn't quite smart enough to think that through: He is LethallyStupid and will cow to someone else if he thinks it benefits him (even if it doesn't in reality), and that extends to his ShamMarriage.
** Also, Cassandra demonstrates some seriously controlling tendencies, so The Deep sticking around with her may be because he's convinced that he still needs her around even when he really doesn't, only sticking up for himself when he legitimately has hit a breaking point. [[DomesticAbuse Cassandra is not a good wife, but, like many abusive relationships, it's quite likely that The Deep stays married to her because of his own insecurities.]]

Seriously, what does Cassandra want with Starlight? Does she actually want Starlight to be her "sister-from-another-mister" or is she trying to manipulate Starlight in some way?

If Fredrick Vought could make a power-granting formula, why couldn't any scientist at Vought make the Temp V formula in a way that would have NO major side effects?

If Fredrick Vought could make a power-granting formula, why couldn't any scientist at Vought make the Temp V formula in a way that would have NO major side effects?

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[[folder: Why did Cassandra give Starlight the creepy hug as if she wanted something else?]]

[[folder: Why did Cassandra give Starlight the creepy hug?]]
Seriously, what does Cassandra want with Starlight? Does she actually want Starlight to be her "sister-from-another-mister" or is she trying to manipulate Starlight in some way?

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[[folder: End of WW2]]

** Ryan doesn't even know about Youtube or NBA, and with Becca's overprotective nature and insistence on keeping him out of the real world I highly doubt Ryan knows anything about WW2. And as for why Ryan just decided to forgive Homelander he's a kid, and as long as you show your kid a little bit of kindness after mucking up they'll start to forgive you.

** We all saw what happens when Homelander is really pissed off. Even if it was in his imagination, you don't need to be a genius to understand how easily such a gory scenario could become a reality. He never exactly hid his propensity for lethal force. On the other hand, he could easily claim that he recognised the guy as a terrorist and that he was protecting the crowd from him (which is how Vought probably going to spin it), and why shouldn't people believe him? The guy did attack a child after all.
** There is a theory that Todd started cheering knowing it would be safer to do so in case Homelander started targeting the rest of the crowd instead. So in that event, it would be an act of self preservation.