Analyzing The Abilities Of Characters From The Boys Pt. XI

Analyzing The Abilities of Characters From The Boys Pt. XI

🦗Emma🦗

Little Cricket, more regularly known as Emma, is a child star turned influencer who’s actress impressed me purely by taking a character I otherwise would roll my eyes at and making me adore and root for her.

Emma’s ability is size manipulation. Much like Alice in Wonderland, when she eats she grows, and when she makes herself vomit she shrinks. This is tethered to an eating disorder that’s been perfectly tailored by her mother’s obsessive hand. Her mother carries a tape measure around to make sure her daughter isn’t too small or too big, which makes for an obvious metaphor for the unloading of generational body image issues.

The most important aspect of Emma’s character is that in the Gen V S1 finale, it’s revealed that she can shrink by simply feeling small after Sam yelled at her. This proves that her ability isn’t truly dependent on food, but rather on the feeling of being too big or too small whenever she binges and purges.

-Psychology Major Moment-

“Killing Us Softly” is a series of documentaries put out by Jean Killbourne about the unsettling and frankly murderous nature of the beauty industry towards young women. Jean said in one of the documentaries something that stuck with me to this day, and reminds me deeply of Emma’s situation. She had said that while men are encouraged to be the largest of them all, the biggest man in every room they walk into, women are taught to be a perfect size 0, or in other words, “to not even exist”. Emma is repulsed by how huge she becomes after saving her friends, and ignores how in her giant form she’s stronger than Sam, capable of pressing him to the ground and holding him there with no obvious effort. She’s been indoctrinated and manipulated into truly believing that being petite is being valuable, and I’m praying that come the end of the show we get to see her become a giant woman yet again.

This whole ordeal reminded me so much of “I Like Giants” by Kimya Dawson, purely because when all is said and done, she’s a kickass hero and devoted best friend to Marie, but even then “all girls feel too big sometimes, regardless of their size”.

The Umbrella Academy S4 (thoughts & opinions)

- HOT TAKE: The issue I had with Five and Lila getting together wasn’t the bizarre age gap or insensitivity of Five sleeping with his brother’s wife, but how they don’t resolve the tension properly before they all cease to exist. Specifically Diego and Five don’t get to hold hands the way Lila and Five did, even though it wasn’t really up to Lila to “forgive” Five, but whatever. I thought that had this affair been treated with an ounce of consideration it would reveal a lot more about both characters shared desperation for affection and emotional stimulation. Five spent decades in complete social isolation to the point where he legitimately fell in love with a mannequin and you want me to believe that, given the similar scenario that most certainly triggered the same “well I guess I’m stuck in this shit now for an indefinite amount of time” area of his brain, he wouldn’t have resorted to falling in love with the fist available person regardless of what it meant outside of the subway? Lila too seemed to get with Diego because while they did click in S2, she had never lived a life that allowed her to experience romance or starting a family like she could with Diego. She pumped out three kids to seemingly force herself to enjoy what she knows could be taken away from her at the throwing of a time traveling briefcase, but her behavior this season is baffling because what do you mean after seven years of searching for a way home she never once brings up missing those three children until the opportunity to return home presents itself? She tries to wipe her hands of the situation, but then the show just kind of ends without meaningful conclusion, so…

- The ending was sloppy. I know you know that, but my issue wasn’t the actual end. The Hargreeves having to sacrifice themselves in a way indicative of the S1 finale makes perfect sense, especially with the painfully shallow Five Diner down in that unexplained subway station where they all indirectly allude to the fact that there’s never a condition where at least one of the family doesn’t end the world. Had the Fives took time to explain that each Hargreeve possesses earth shattering abilities that eventually snowball out of control regardless of the condition, and all resistance is futile, I would accept that the ending makes more sense than just blaming the marigold despite the fact that Victor can/has been able to syphon marigold out of people, and could’ve just taken it all himself but you know, whatever.

- I also deeply resent that a show about familial trauma and bonding despite the shared adversity ultimately concluded on everyone giving up. No. You don’t get to say that they “didn’t just give up” because yes, them saying “oh no, well, there’s ten minutes left of the episode, guess we should cease to exist now” is the definition of not even trying to venture down into the subway as a family and fix the other timelines one at a time, using their newfound familial unity to solve every timeline until they converge into one. I’m not saying that needed to happen at all, or that they should have succeeded even if they tried, but AT LEAST THEN THEY WOULD HAVE TRIED. The writers gave up, the characters gave up, and the metaphor of grief and family issues the show spent so long to cultivate were just abandoned.

- Klaus regressed with no substantial reason or impact other than to provide slapstick humor and comedic relief antics that didn’t amount to any of what he had spent the last few seasons building and working towards. Ben shouldn’t have been brought back after his noble and meaningful sacrifice of S2 only to be made into the most obnoxious version of himself. Allison didn’t even get to say “I heard a rumor” this season nor did she address attempting to sexually assault Luther, and Diego’s relationship with Lila was the absolute worst case scenario for both characters. Viktor was the only one with an arc worth watching this season, which is why I thought him having a solo sacrifice would have been even more gut wrenching but whatever.

- There is an insurmountable amount of plot holes that prove this show just got lazy. There should be a kugelblitz in the finale’s timeline. If Lila/Allison were never born then there could never be Grace/Lila’s children. You don’t get to say “well what about the subway” because that doesn’t protect them from the grandfather paradox, unless outright stated which the writers didn’t even bother to do.

- Why didn’t they just kill Jennifer? Who put her in the squid? If it was Reggie’s wife then why didn’t she just kill her? Why didn’t Reggie kill her when he built the town to “protect” her? Why did she react with pure terror when shown the squid? How did Jean and Gene get their hands on it? Was it a normal giant squid or an alien? Was it her mother? No, because then how did she speak English when she emerged from its stomach? Why did she say “the cleanse” like she knew what it meant when she didn’t? Ben should’ve been able to remember in the OG timeline how he died because absolutely every other spirit does and the show can’t just rewrite its own lore to cater to a last minute subplot that went nowhere. I don’t want to be mean but Jennifer never should have existed as a S4 add in because she did absolutely nothing for the plot other than confusing the audience with the persistent question of why didn’t they just kill her to prevent the cleanse from happening. Reginald said one of them had to die, but in the OG timeline he killed both just to be…cruel? What’s the point of writing that it just had to be one of them if you’re just going to act like it’s a package deal? This entire plot line made me truly believe this season was written by AI, I’m sorry.

'H2O: JUST ADD WATER'

Just wanted to say that your supe power analyses for The Boys characters are genius. Truly just well thought out and put together. I love analyzing things like this but am hardly able to put it into words and you did that so well. Great posts. Hope you have a good day! 😎👍❤️

Thank you so much! I appreciate that you don’t think I’m overthinking! This specific trope of characters getting abilities indicative of their personalities is one of my all time favorite things to read into, so I’m glad to hear someone else enjoys it!

rikki!!

Analyzing The Abilities of Characters From The Boys Pt. IX (Campbell Edition)

🚀Hughie🚀

Hughie’s honestly such a lovable character in my opinion, so seeing him get to shoot up with Temp V was so pleasureful for me.

While the first episode establishes he lost his girlfriend in an instant from A-Train running through her, he was left holding her severed hands on the sidewalk. He had been searching for a way from that point on to find out how to grab the people he cares about and instantaneously escape from danger.

This is where teleportation comes in. He’s capable of teleporting himself or anyone he’s holding onto away from a crisis, the same way he couldn’t do for Robin. He uses this to aid Butcher in Russia, Annie from Soldier Boy, and even Mindstorm that one time. In every scenario he’s squeamish while being made to fight, and instead opts to blink in and out, in a useful manner. His ability is inherently complimentary to another fighter, or at least his application of it is.

While he forgoes injecting himself with Temp V to help Annie fight in the S3 finale due to the lethal health effects of another dose, his newfound “ability” is supporting his significant other while she kicks ass.

👤Hugh Sr.👤

Hughie’s father had a minor role, and yet, analyzing his ability provides more clarification on the nature of Compound V’s effects on individuals.

After being resuscitated from brain death by Compound V, he was initially fine with no changes, until he discovered his ability to phase through solid objects. He walked through hospital walls, cutting through patients in a gory body horror scenario. As he states, his wife Daphne abandoned him with their child son, walking through Hugh Sr. like he didn’t even exist to her. He is now capable of mimicking the person who hurt him most, much like Butcher.

In the case of Maverick, Andre, and kind of Ryan, they all match their specific abilities of their supe fathers exactly. This is because they were all babies when they were injected/born with V. This may imply that had Hugh been injected and gained intangibility, and then had Hughie injected as a baby, Hughie would have mimicked Hugh instead of developing his own ability.

To make matters potentially even more fascinating, intangibility and teleportation aren’t entirely unrelated powers. Both include averting danger by supernatural escape means. While both can escape harm, Hughie can blink away from danger, while Hugh is forced to trudge through solid terrain, much like how when Daphne left, he was forced to endure the pain of her leaving. However, when Robin died, Hughie had to watch as everything ended in the blink of an eye.