So many people coming for Soldier Boy's writing being ass this season, when he's just a man with no moral compass.
His conviction comes from a mix of info he has and his feelings, like most humans. He's a foil to Homelander, who was raised as a lab-rat, conditioned to always wanting approval and never getting it; someone who doesn't understand that actions have consequences because that's human. And Homelander's not a human, he's God.
Soldier Boy grew up as a boy and then man who also wanted approval but never got it, until he got the golden chance to get the V1 in his system. Then, he was a star and no-one could touch him, except people did and tore his trust to pieces. Not saying he's a great fucking guy, because no-one in this show really is, but he's got a heart and it's been churned like butter and poured to shit. So, yeah, SB's got more feelings than he does information, because every new info is treated as mistrust, and then judged as untrustworthiness, and then baked into half-thought decisions that seem right at the time.
Ep 4, he got emotional and angry at the tree dude, blasted said dude to literal death, and let The Boys go believing he's gonna have his son kill him once he does get free from the uranium chamber. Instead, Homelander saw his crying face (something which I believe made SB fall from the pedestal in his mind, he's a mere human who has emotions, and also, he's someone i want to be proud of me, and also, i think, we loved the same woman. that's got to amount to something for him) and let him live.
SB chose to see this as an act of grudging respect. A kind of approval from his blood, and from the woman he loved, who must have seen something in Homelander to have chosen him. I don't think he realized then, that Homelander loved Stormfront, like H rightly guessed about SB (because he's been smart, but he's putting his superiority and his conviction of being correct over fact recently).
Then, ep 5. A budding father-son outing to kill people, gather V1, the family business you know. SB's already made up his mind about his son, and we get to see that in this ep with his, "he's my fucking asexual weirdo," while looking at Malchemical. (A wild Jacting choice, lol, to look at the angel whilst saying that). There's also the parallel of a woman, Fire-Cracker, becoming the bridge to, heh, bridge the gap between the two completely.
SB's also smart, he knows H's temperament, but he, imo, did not think beyond the fact of "bonding with my son" and spilled the beans on that one. Homelander, too, in a moment of utter shock to everyone, gave her the chance to pack up and leave. But she didn't have anyone outside on her team, because she burned her bridges, she was desperate, you see? And desperation means keep talking, and assuming her faith will save her, but ultimately its Homelander and he's got his conviction of being a Higher Being, but he doesn't have the compassion for it. He has a complex instead, and she misspoke, called him a man; We see her dead body in ep 6, and there's that consequence, which SB probably didn't care enough to ponder on when he started with "pillow talk."
Ep 6, SB is proud of Homelander but doesn't want to show it to him. He's warming up to the guy, accepting him against all weirdness, and then he sees the goddamn sex video of amputee Stormfront/Clara and Homelander, the woman they both love, and realizes that the base of that love was always Clara telling him he's the strongest fucking Supe, except at that time Homelander wasn't born yet, and in this video he's obviously there and Clara's there and the glass shatters and makes SB bleed.
Homelander realizes this is Sage's trick, tells SB so, but the anger burns and they split. Well, SB lives. What do you do when you realize you changed who you are to become strong, to become the best, and were treated so for a long while, and then the person who made you feel so special actually found someeone better than you and it's your goddamn son?
You're not special. You were just a placeholder. And then, you see your friend from ages ago, also immortal, whose love is alive and denying V1, a chance of immortality together, and you realize love is difficult no matter who it is. It's a stupid agony inducing heart palpitation.
Basically: Bombsight's and Geisha's lasting love, and that little speech about, "You were everything that Clara wanted," was a narrative set-up to put two wolves inside SB. One who hates Homelander because Clara loved him more, and the other who loves Clara too much and sees her vision more than he sees his hatred.
And there it is. The man with trust issues and volatile moments of emotional epiphanies, who thinks of now and not the consequences, and the V1 needle is handed over to Homelander and his insatiable, psychological, nerve-wracking delusion of being God himself when he's nothing but an experiment gone awfully wrong. He's the product of humans playing God and unleashing the flood, except there's no Noah's Ark this time.
SB isn't changing sides. He has none. He doesn't have a purpose, and its narratively woven, rather than being genuine "ass writing." Kripke has many flaws, but nobody can deny that S1-S5 of Supernatural weren't narratively tight.
