swooping barbarian

i have been certain since season 3 that the seasons-long buildup of annie's powers would be justified in the final season and she would deliver a debilitating blow against homelander in the final battle. she is a believable counter given that her powers are externally sourced and therefore theoretically limitless (it would not break any powerscaling logic for her to incapacitate him), she was raised to be a shiny commercial product just as he was, she is nonetheless the series' truest "superhero", and she is the symbol of national resistance against him in an arduously long political plotline... so i am genuinely in complete disbelief that she was instead relegated to the deep duty. in the finale. her arc has moved so far beyond him, he has been in her periphery for ages now. is there literally any reason for this writing choice other than annie being a Woman who once suffered sexual violence? regardless of how pertinent it is to her character journey (not at all) it is assumed that it is appropriate and fitting for her second-last scene to be spent fighting her rapist. lol. it's just insultingly lazy

homelander really was just a mirror of the world he's endured. his final seconds were spent regurgitating every possible bribery or need he's ever sought out or had inflicted on him. a cheap replacement for what you've lost. the humiliation of another for your satisfaction. sexual abuse. he couldn't understand why none of these things mattered to butcher. just like he couldn't understand why none of these things ever made him happy. why was he made to suffer all of this himself if none of it ever really mattered to anyone? he was so incredibly broken.

one more thing. if a character ascends to godhood/divinity/some form of power that makes them practically omnipotent and no longer human. and they had a partner before that who didn’t rise with them. you are legally required to make that situation as terrifying as it would rightly be. it’s bad enough to get the attention of a god. it is ruinous to be loved by one. that is not the person you knew anymore. that is something that never has to let you leave, or have secrets, or disobey it. it will fix every problem you so much as glance at, and it will shower you in grace and gifts until you drown, and it will make you a holy artifact in its own story. you have to understand, it doesn’t remember how horrible death is, so it strikes you to cinders like a snide comment and brings you back with an apology it needs you to accept. that is how it’s going to love you forever, because it might not be inclined to let you die.