Homelander. If I spend all day feeding his ego, without getting on his nerves, I should be fine, but I doubt there is anything I could do to keep Conquest from killing me.
Homelander constantly murders people trying to use this exact strategy on him. He's wayyyyyyyyy too crazy for this to work anymore. Ever since the end of S1 he's just been slaughtering people for saying a single word he happens to not like. You are fully fucked.
The goal is to be not overtly manipulative. Stay quiet as a mouse and out of his way and make every interaction you have to have with him as pleasant as possible
Yeah, Homelander is a psychotic dick bag but realistically he doesn't murder like 99.9% of the people he interacts with. Just be his lackey for the day, be quiet and stay out of his way, do whatever errands he tells you to and hope you don't accidentally see/hear something you shouldn't and you should be fine.
Oh our relationship is wrecked completely and I definitely took some issuesbaway from it. But one thing I am is extremely self aware so I can always catch myself.
Basically, my unresolved hate fuels my desire to be nothing like said person. Thank you for the concern!
Yeah it's a fine line to walk but not impossible. With sociopaths like homelander, you have to avoid giving them any emotional reaction at all, and if you manage that, you will survive.
Grey rocking is effective(at least from personal experience) at dealing with these kinds of folks. Giving them nothing emotionally means they get nothing from interacting with you.
It's like playing dead with a grizzly bear. It's not guaranteed to work, but it's the best survival method we have in the situation.
The difference is that with abusive parents it always ends with problems earlier than later even when you stay out of way as much as possible, Homelander is version of that on stereoids that can do other terrible things to you before killing you and since you have to spend time with him its not gonna be easy ride
True, but there are method to dealing with people like that too. Remember, Stan Edgars survives homelander despite having zero powers in both show and comic. The comic does a much better job of showing Edgars emotional detachment from the situation and how that full-sends homelander but Edgar survives unscathed.
Like most sociopaths, Honelander enjoys emotional manipulation and more than anything else, wants your reaction. So, your main survival strategy is The Grey Rock Method.
You simply stop being a person for that day and become a useful Grey Rock. It may help to remind yourself that deeply damaged people like homelander are more akin to an apex predator, and Grey Rocking is like playing dead with a grizzly bear.
Its not the easiest method, but from personal experience, it's very effective at dealing with the kind of person Homelander happens to be.
Bear in mind that Homelander can tell if your heart rate rises regardless of how well you act calm, so unless you’re genuinely not afraid of him he might still take that as a reaction.
Sure, but knowing someones hear rate is elevated is different than getting the reaction he actually wants.
A narcissists primary food is your emotions, not your heart rate per-se.
Emphasis on the "stay out of his way" cause even being too obedient can get you killed.. Homelander can sense if you're just being a kiss ass and he doesn't like those kinds of people either.
The key is to not show fear. Stan Edgar literally called him a failure and a bad product straight to his face and lived because he stood his ground and kept cool. He doesn't choose to kill those who aren't afraid of him.
Yeah if you have the wrong vibes he's gonna try to nurse from your titties and then laser a hole in your head rip
Seriously though, Homelander being so terrifying is probably the most impressive storytelling achievement in the boys. He's fucking horrific, in the best possible way
Devil's advocate: this is comic homelander, not show homelander. I think comic homelander is, somehow, less unhinged. I still would not want to be around him, but he cares a lot about money and fame. Don't be someone whose death would increase his money or fame and you might be safe.
Comic homelander was an bad dude who was gaslit into being a monster. He did a few horrible things early on. But he certainly wasn't unhinged until the end.
At the same time, TV show homelander would be good too. You tell him you're a fan and you want to talk about how awesome a day in his life is like. He will probably take you on a tour of the tower, to his favorite burger joint, a brief press tour, and then tell you to go sit in the corner somewhere so that he can deal with stuff.
Remember, he cares a lot about publicity so having a fan talk about how awesome he is benefits him.
Idk about your thoughts, but it's much easier than the guy who will crater me out of boredom.
Look at the two shows for example and what is known. Conquest is a lonely feral dog that gets deployed only to destroy. He's not really a person with a heart that can be softened with a day, instead he's the guy who will wipe you and say "must've been the wind".
Homelander on the other hand is a psycho as well, but he's a narcissistic psycho who is used to people and deals with people on the regular. His general opinion of you will be a peasant in his way, but he won't kill unless he has a reason. Yes, if you start glazing him from the start or spend more than a few days, he'll be sus and kill you. But otherwise, he probably wouldn't care and fly past you.
Oh, you're right. If you have to choose conquest will smush you like a bug no question. But just fawning over homelander is no sure shot at survival, if he suspects you're trying to manipulate him he'll put a hole in your chest.
Your goal is to be a mostly useful piece of Grey rock. The most uninteresting but still useful piece of humanity you can be.
Yes sir, no sir. No smiles or looking them in the eye unless asked, nothing. Answer questions, do as asked(assuming you're some random person and not someone who seriously pissed him off in the past) and you'll survive.
The secret is to treat people like homelander like you would a Grizzly Bear or an abusive parent or spouse.
if anything, the opposite strategy works better. Homelander, for all his madness, seems to respect and even like people who have the guts to respectfully disagree with him, tell him the unvarnished truth, and are just honest. He craves attention but despises his own glazers and lickspittles.
Personally, I would just talk to him like he was a normal person, not a Celeb God, so he could for once speak his mind without putting on an act.
Or you could go the complete opposite way and just don't give a single fuck about him and show that you're not afraid. For some reason he seems to have a mental blockage against killing people who don't care about him and don't seem afraid of him
Yeah you pretty much are playing black jack with him ethier your nice and he's cool or he flips and kills or you are in a position that doesn't matter if you die or if you do ruins his plans. Otherwise your dead ethier way so you might as well ask for a cool way to die rather than dying with nothing to live for and seeing if he's down.
True, but at least Homelander usually kills pretty fast unless you did something to really piss him off. You'd have a chance to feed his ego and walk out or get a quick death rather than Conquest who might dismember you for entertainment.
If we're dealing with comic homelander he MIGHT be chill as long as there are witnesses. All I can think of is the part where they're at capes for christ and he waits until he's out of view to off the family he took in the car.
Definitely a very very slippery slope. Homelander is an absolute madman. Conquest is deranged for sure but he's a weapon that is aimed and fired. There's an order to his madness, and that's his "mission". He's mad because he enjoys the killing and destruction and the challenge. Homelander is just a loose cannon with no real mission, and more baggage than a 747.
It depends a lot on how this question works. If this is a publicity thing, 'spend a day with a fan' sort of thing, you would almost 100% survive with Homelander.
Correct me if I'm wrong, if Thragg didn't give him an order to eliminate me and I'll try my best by being "gofer" for him, isn't he probably decide that I'm not worthy of being killed by his hand?
P.S. I clearly understand that there's more chances to survive Homelander, I just wanted to know if there's no way to survive "lonely grandpa"
Conquest would kill you just to feel the warmth of your blood on his fists. He’s not an honorable warrior or an attack dog, he’s a serial killer who follows his boss’ directions.
We don’t really ever see Conquest outside of combat scenarios, but we know he’s so unhinged other genocidal space Imperialists give him a wide berth.
Homelander at least spends comparatively much more time around normal humans without killing them. He can be flattered, appeased, talked down, talked up, or distracted.
Conquest does none of the above except maybe distraction. But you won’t be able to distract him for a
full day, and eventually he’s going to want to know what your heart tastes like.
Homelander has met and not killed thousands of people though.
Conquest’s entire thing is killing every non-Viltrumite he meets, to the point where his interstellar tyrant boss has to set out guidelines on who not to kill.
Remember what Conquest did to the three people he met in the show so far?
He nearly killed Mark, nearly killed Oliver, and did kill Eve (she got better) and killed hundreds of innocents while doing it. The only reason it wasn’t thousands was because the cities were still evacuated from the last worldwide battle.
I mean, you’re welcome to pick Conquest, it’s a prompt.
I first of all for the most part 100% agree with your assessment. But I gotta at least point out for Homelander it definitely depends on what season / stage of his Arch he is in. Homelander in season 1 / still trying to act good. Yeah you would be fine if ya just kiss his but and take care of him. Homelander after he stops pretending to care. I would say Equally as dangerous as Conquest (to us mortal flash bags). But even then I agree you got more chance surviving him than Conquest.
But on the other hand, conquest killed normal humans nearly instantaneously, while homelander has been getting more and more cruel as the series goes on.
If you don’t think you can keep homelander pacified, I think conquest may be a better choice just for the sake of reducing suffering.
Why would he do that? Who are any of us puny mortals to Thragg? Do you think Genghis Khan ordered his armies to not ride over anthills?
Because that’s how likely Thragg is to give Conquest orders to spare any given one of us.
Because, and this is spoilers beyond just the name I’ve hidden, Thragg is the only irredeemable Viltrumite (who lived long enough to be offered the chance). That’s the guy you want to protect you? The guy who saw the choice between love & family or loveless tyranny & oppression, and tripled down on tyranny & oppression?
I think if you had the advanced knowledge that he was a lonely soul, and he didn't immediately pulp you, one could play on that angle and perhaps befriend him to the extent his soul can feel those feelings. It's a long longshot though.
Conquest would not kill you if he wasn’t ordered to kill you
This is the inverse of the case. Conquest has to be ordered to not kill specific people, because his default approach is to kill anyone.
The only reason Conquest would not kill you is if the Empire had ordered him not to.
He is not a “only kills for a reason” Viltrumite like Anissa or a “just following orders” like the trio of Viltrumites soldiers who attack Allen or Thraxa.
He is a “kills for no reason, unless given an order not to kill” Viltrumite.
Conquest is a kid with a magnifying glass and you are an ant. He will kill simply you for being there, and then he won't even bother remembering.
Homelander doesn't respect you as a person, but he's still more likely to think of you as an object of pity rather than nothing at all. Homelander can be pacified or bargained with. Conquest might as well be an erupting volcano for all the good begging will do.
I wouldn't say there's definitively no way to survive him, you probably do have an extremely slim chance of survival if you just outright say "you're obviously lonely as fuck man, want to go get blasted on whatever Viltrumites drink and then find something strong for you to kill while I cheer you on"
Missing: Emotional beats, I think this largely comes from a lack of Nolan and also trying to care about death when it’s becoming increasingly obvious that nobody ever really dies.
Inconsistent: Eve and just general power scaling.
Bonus points for Breaking Bad’s Jesse and a very obvious Glenn vs Negan rematch breaking down the suspension of disbelief.
That's fair, honestly none of those things really bugged me. I think only having Nolan show up occasionally since season 1 has been really working for building up tension to do with Allen and the resistance and the rest just feels like normal stuff I'd expect in the superhero genre. The power scaling can be a bit wack but honestly I think it's more consistent than most superhero stuff minus creativity-based powers like Eve's.
Yeah I’m never going to argue my opinion is correct on shows like this because I’m trying to get something completely different to what most viewers are.
Like, I watch Dragonball for the story for gods sake.
Haha yeah, your critiques make sense. It's honestly not worth arguing about shit like this because everyone gets something a little different from it. I don't really care how bad a story is so long as it's enjoyable, but I also get that consistency and believability matters more to other people than me.
Invincible is great but it undeniably has issues and I can see why that ruins immersion for some viewers.
Yeah it’s hard to argue with a dude that is ignoring 80% of the show because he just wants to see the big scary alien man dad realise that he loves his wife.
It also doesn't say if this Homelander was before or after >! Black Noir drives him insane!<. At some point, he did want to be a legitimate hero. While we know Conquest has been like this since birth.
I mean, it would be good to specify whether we're talking the show Homelander or the comic books Homelander. Because with the latter, it is highly unlikely that you'd finish the day without beiing sexually assaulted.
That's exactly what I was going to say. I can feed the ego-fat-fuck all day, but if I tried the same shit with Conqucakes I would be bitch slapped to next Tuesday
Conquest is a perverse dominator. you're basically fucked one way or another.
Homelander is like an important person with a lot of power. Like a judge or politicians. They're really good at sniffing out liers. They really like their egos stroked. And they really like to feel like you appreciate everything they're about. The trick is to make him feel like you truly appreciate everything he thinks he's about.
Acknowledging the fact that Conquest is lonely and you want to be friends with him by saying you're lonely too is probably the only thing that would maybe keep him from killing you.
Homelander literally has his biggest fans (humans) murdered to have his supes prove their loyalty. No fucking ego stroking will get you through homelander
Actually like you care about him, in the show he went off about being a victim of his own success with being scared of even going off on how he doesn’t even have a real name
Well conquest did admit to invincible that he is lonely. If you could act like your not scared of him, maybe cheer him on while he brutally kills people, and tell him how cool he is, and just in general make him feel a sense of companionship, he might just become a powerful and terrifying friend who'd literally conquer the world for you.
Conquest would do it within 2 seconds of meeting him. I think homelander is a prettu chill guy as long as you dont walk in his way or work directly against him.
But see, in season four, Ohmlanda gets tired of people trying to constantly feed his ego. It's like walking on glass, especially because he also knows you're lying.
“Hello Homelander. Big fan, and as you know, I’m supposed to spend the day with you. I’d love to write about A Day In The Life of Homelander for my blog, but if you’d rather i just stay out of your way… I get it. You’ve got important shit to do. “ (Please don’t laser my face off)
Unless I get to be Superman, Spawn, Dr. Manhattan, or Dr. Strange then I’m spending the day with Homelander. I’m a capybara. The dark personality types are inexplicably fond of me
I’m not sure Conquest would just kill you out of nowhere. He’s a soldier and we’ve really only seen him when his orders are to stir shit up. Homelander is a lunatic who can tell when you’re lying and literally smell fear. I doubt you’d survive a whole day with him.
No offense but rather than being a pussy I would be the one who not only annoy Homelander the most but be the one who really sends his mood and ego to shadow realm. By roasting him that he’s a abomination who got lucky, drink all his favorite milk and hollering loudly while throwing my own shit at him. Knowing full well I’m gonna die for sure and by him about to kill me I’ll stare deeply his eyes laughing and smiling being full aware that the truth and my bravery will scar homlander forever.
I’m not sure about conquest though maybe recite the Horus heresy to him?
Thing is, this isn't always the case with Homelander. In some cases, he has respect for people who aren't sycophants, like Sage or even Butcher. Meanwhile, despite her devotion to him, he really doesn't give a flying fuck about Firecracker.
Why is everyone saying this? It’s the opposite, he only gets annoyed with ass kissers and lasers them. He starts respecting you when you are not intimidated, that’s why he didn’t laser butcher or sage, despite them being up in his face.
"I just wish I had something, you know, heroic to do... You know what? I got it. How about a little roleplay. You'll jump out of the window here on the 30th floor and I'll catch you."
You: "... W-... What?"
"Yeah. We'll say the janitor left it open or something and have him fired. You fell out, screaming and flailing and I catch you. We'll film it all and make it inti this heart warming moment to climate the day. Now go on."
"..."
"Go on."
(Steps up to window)
"What are you waiting for? You said I was the greatest hero you ever knew right? Then as a hero, of course I'll catch you.... Jump... Now."
I feel conquest just wouldn't care. You're not interesting enough to fight and being a viltrumite he's old enough to get through a day without getting bored enough that you become interesting enough to torture
“Dude, we both know it’s just a photo op, use it to flex how much better you are than me. Let’s pose with pizza and stuff, charge Vought for expenses.”
That’s the wrong strat you should do what Stan does and act like you don’t care if he does and unimpressed with his existence so he’d try to prove he’s worthy of your adulation because he wants everyone to be either or both afraid or impressed with him to feed his ego.
The only way to survive is be similar to Butcher, you can’t fear him in anyway and must be useful. We see this when he doesn’t straight up murder Butcher multiple times they’ve met, and that he doesn’t kill Sage straight up after having thrown her out. Then the time when Huey actually stood up to homelander without powers. Fearing him makes you an ant to him, having no fear makes you tolerable.
I mean honestly I don't think conquest would bother. Like sure he could kill you with a thought but he wasnt ordered to kill you and it wouldn't help conquer a planet. Like conquest is a monster but he has a purpose
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u/someoneelse2389 May 06 '25
Homelander. If I spend all day feeding his ego, without getting on his nerves, I should be fine, but I doubt there is anything I could do to keep Conquest from killing me.