Reddit's Unpopular Opinion on Butcher is Brutal but Completely Accurate
Fans of Prime Video's The Boys took to Reddit to debate their unpopular opinions about the show.
When one Redditor gave their opinion on Billy Butcher, several anti-Butcher comments replied down the thread. No one held back.
Billy Butcher – The Boys ' Worst Character?
The original post on the thread claimed that Butcher was the worst character on the show. The user said that the show's main protagonist held back Hughie, Frenchie, M.M., and the rest of the Boys from ever getting anything of substance done because of his ulterior movies: His hatred for supes.
This was especially apparent in Season 3 when he brought back the psychotic killer Soldier Boy to take out Homelander, willingly putting many innocent civilians in the crossfire. Redditors said that he doesn't care about his friends or saving the world. He's just hell-bent on revenge. And that, some users argued, makes him a devil as bad as Homelander.
Sympathy for the Devil
Other users were a little more sympathetic to Butcher. He's not an evil person; he's just a casualty of his surroundings. He always falls back to violence because that's all he's ever known – his father was abusive, his wife was raped by Homelander and accidentally killed by her son, he's been on a single-target manhunt for almost a decade that's led him to do some dastardly things. While they didn't debate Butcher's cruelty, they argued that it was a little more nuanced than that.
One user noted that Butcher has been so desperate not to become his father that he's become him in the process. And with that, the cycle of abuse continues.
Just as his father tormented his brother Lenny to the point of suicide, Butcher constantly puts Hughie (who was called Lenny's "spitting image" by Butcher's aunt) into harm's way.
Defending the Portrayal
Other users found Butcher's portrayals by the showrunners to be brilliant. Specifically, they said that just because he might be the worst person on the show doesn't mean he's the worst character. It's the dichotomy of good and evil in Butcher that causes so many Redditors to love the show.
The showrunners set Butcher up as a tragic hero complete with a devastating backstory. They give him Hughie, a morally perfect sidekick. They constantly give him the chance to learn from his mistakes and grow, particularly when he succumbed to the forced therapy session by brain-melting Mindstorm. He's constantly put in a place to become a better person but constantly shifts back to the violent murderer with one thing in mind: Killing Homelander. Several users appreciated the consistency of character in a genre that is often defined by character growth.
Has Butcher Grown?
Several users noted that despite him always resorting to vicious violence, he has actually changed for the better as the show progresses. For instance, he tried to save Hughie from his addictions when the Temp V was revealed to be deadly.
More importantly, he'd given up on his sole mission – killing Homelander – when Soldier Boy tried to kill Butcher's wife's son Ryan in the process. He'd teamed up with Homelander to defeat Soldier Boy, which – to many users – was evidence of tremendous character growth and a capacity for love that fans hadn't yet seen.
Fans are excited to see where Butcher progresses in Season 4, slated for a 2023 release.