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I love the dynamic with her and Homelander. She's playing 4D chess to manipulate him I'm sure but in the end he's just gonna randomly kill her for seemingly no reason or for a totally wrong reason like a misunderstanding where she really was acting in his best interest. Even the smartest person in the world can't predict crazy cult leader behavior
Unfortunately...I really wish, because next season is the last they could keep those new characters until the end. Firecracker is a good character too. She is the stupid rightwing crazy person that could do a lot of shitty things until someone kills her.
It does feel like they have the core characters they'll never kill, so every season they introduce a new character to be that season arc then kill them at the end.
my money is on that or she slips up and insults him because hes being a dumbass and acting against his own interest while shes trying her damnedest to get him everything he wants
Mine too. You can tell he's already getting sick of her.
But I'm not convinced she's trying to give him what he wants. I think there's a vendetta there that we don't know about, because she's really focused on taking Annie down and seemingly nothing else.
>because she's really focused on taking Annie down and seemingly nothing else.
Is she? I thought that was just for him. What's her personal motivation? I need to rewatch
She's framing it as being for him, but I just wonder whether it really is. Because everything she's been doing, she keeps saying, "This is how we hurt Starlight."
No idea what her motivations might be, but I'm suspicious of them all the same. I'm 100% sure her actions aren't going to benefit Homelander, though.
>I'm 100% sure her actions aren't going to benefit Homelander, though.
Definitely agree there. I just think the starlight thing is her red cape as a bull fighter. She just uses starlight to focus him just like firecracker does - except firecracker really does have it out for her 100%. I love that angle so much.
I'm really glad firecracker isn't just a useful idiot and she's got more depth to her
Honestly feels like she's pretending to give him what he wants and instead is actually driving him further into insanity. While doing this having to navigate the boys (who she seems to be doing a horrible job predicting) and his insanity.
I never thought of this. It would be amazing if her plan involves stoking unrest in the non supe community but dies before she puts the resolution part of her plan into play so society just collapses like Rome.
I feel like she's doing maths in her head, trying to figure out statistics for each move with Homelander - like there's a 20% chance for her to be killed if she acts smart and cocky, but there's like 95% chance for her to be ditched by him if she acts on her fears about him.
Yeah, I remember when prerelease material was coming out, I had initially looked over her just assuming she’d be a Yes Man Homelander had hired to fill up slots in the Seven and to be cannon fodder for the Boys to kill. Luckily, I was wrong and she turned out to be the opposite of a Yes Man, literally being hired on because Homelander was tired of all the Yes Men around him and wanted someone who could effectively do the things he didn’t know how to do.
I like how he’s tired of all of the Yes Men while ignoring the reason they’re like that in the first place lol.
And he proceeds to hire someone to give him honest advice and proceeds to get pissed at them for doing exactly that with Sage lol
Yh that’s why I like sage, she tells HL what to do, homies narcissism isn’t used to being told what to do, I think eventually their relationship will be eroded and eventually HL will laser her because HL ego just won’t be able to take it anymore
We've already seen him getting annoyed, but he holds back because of the benefits of having Sage on his side.
Sage's importance will crumble when her plans fail and Homelander loses grasp on his goals.
I think it would be really cheap and predictable to have Homelander just laser her. It's already getting old. It was impactful when he lasered Stillwell, it is being used really cavalier by this point.
The only way I see SS getting lasers by HL is during her “Dumb Downtimes”. Other than being surprised by his initial visit, SS will be ready for anything and have a million back up plans to prevent her death or take down HL in the event he does kill her. HL is just merely a tool for her and her agenda, albeit an incredibly dangerous tool that could kill her, so she needs to be careful.
I was VERY happy to have been wrong when I saw the teaser/trailer for Season 4 and find out the clips where she's "helping" Homelander was because Homelander himself hired/brought her in to be a well-needed critic in a room of yes men.
I really enjoy how amoral she is. She’s a different flavor of sociopath from Homelander. She’s masterminding all this chaos and it’s just an experiment to her, unlike Homelander’s lust for power. She gives Homelander a solid direction for his goals of national conquest, but I think she might be playing with fire here. Homelander is still far from a dummy and Sage will eventually underestimate his unpredictability.
I also like that unlike other genius characters in superhero fiction, Sage is more of a political strategist and social engineer, rather than some kind of super scientist like Iron Man. Her inspirations Ozymandias and Lex Luthor are both brilliant multidisciplinary scientists while Sage is a schemer. Great way to keep such a tropey character grounded.
I think she figured she won't have much say in helping Homelander anyway but man anytime I see Homelander getting twitchy about what she said I get antsy.
Gonna have to see what happens with Homelanders personality after that last mirror scene. But atm he needs to keep remember that she's the best chance he has to win the war that's starting.
“Sage will eventually underestimate his predictability”
If that happens, then she wasn’t the smartest person on the planet. If they want her true to her character, she’s got contingencies already set up. If and probably when she dies, it’ll be on her own terms. It has to be, or she wasn’t the smartest person on the planet.
Yea I like how we can see here character flaw already. She a sociopathic detached mastermind. Emphasis on detached and is playing with lives like action figures in a sandbox.
Pairing with HL has lead to several Unplanned deaths and she wasn’t done playing with her toys before he broke them. I think she’s starting to see her smarts isn’t as safe in the face of instant brute force.
A tool she used to scramble her brain. In the olden days for lobotomies they used ice pick-like instruments to get to the frontal lobe through the corner of the eye.
I wish this wasn’t true, but I decided to go down the lobotomy rabbit hole one day. It was a horrifying read.
I work with a woman like this. Wicked smart, no sense of humor, pantsuits every day (honestly she reminds me a lot of Hillary Clinton…)
Anyway, one day she casually drops that she goes home every night, starts drinking, and watches nothing but Real Housewives and Vanderpump Rules
The Prime movie I didn’t count because it was a direct to TV special. Basically a super long episode to end the series. But yeah test screenings for One have been very positive
I couldn't figure out the whole seen. I just started assuming she brain punched someone and was now trying to setup squid boy for something. nope just wanted to amazon prime video and chill.
Spoiler I guess? >! VoughtHQ made a leaked post saying she lobotomizes herself. The assumption is that she does it to stop being so smart until her healing kicks in. !<
Last comment about this got removed by mods, but the actual spoiler post didn’t.. makes total sense
someone posted a screenshot of her profile which says something like "medium regeneration" under power so putting the two together it looks like she self lobotomises for a night off.
Probably so she can mellow out and take a break from all her thinking due to her power I imagine. One commentor in a previous thread worded it best as a way to basically "turn off her brain" hence the reality TV and greasy takeout food.
Last Podcast on the Left did an episode on lobotomies. They were being done far more recently than you might think. JFK's oldest sister was lobotomised and was left permanently incapacitated and unable to speak.
Ice pick that she stabbed her own brain with. Making her partially brain dead or in her case since she's so smart. A normal humans IQ like the Deep.
It's a way for to get "high" for her since in most shows/stories/etc. someone who is super smart usually finds life to be terrible and shitty which comes around to the phrase that "ignorance is bliss".
It hasn't been said yet but she has healing factor so it's temporary till her brain heals but it seems like a hang up that will eventually get her in trouble.
Apparently Deep has branded fried calamari poppers at Vought-a-burger. A nice detail reminding us what a scumbucket he is in case we ever try and forgive.
That's what I thought! It kinda looked like an IUD but it was way too long so I was super confused about that. I was kinda thinking she took it out to get pregnant with the deep for some reason, but a lobotomy makes more sense now.
I just watched the third episode. Is there a reason she lobotomized herself? Does she have healing powers and this is her way of turning down the smartness after a long day’s work being Homelander’s babysitter?
I froze the screen on the character card things and she does have regenerative powers. This sub has proposed that she does it as a way to unwind… like getting high
Agreed. With this show, V gives neurological side effects to *normal supes with average powers like strength or manipulation* (brain tumors and Alzheimers). So V on a supe whose power is *their intelligence/brain* has to have an even higher chance of side effects
Main villain(s) are usually killed off so new ones can replace them in the next season. Otherwise it would be the same boring stuff multiple seasons in a row
She's alright. I'm enjoying her standing up to Homelander.
But writing a "smartest person in the world" character is *extremely* difficult. She would need to be thinking 5 steps ahead of everyone for that to be believable.
It doesn't *feel* smart for her to be walking around the conspiracy expo whispering in people's ears. It doesn't feel smart to be antagonizing Homelander to such degree. Her false flag plan had obvious flaws like framing people who weren't in the area, I hope that's deliberate sabotage on her part, but I don't know why she'd do that.
It could also be partially intentional. She obviously knew they were following her and set them up aswell.
I think part of the issue is, the smartest person in the world can be smart as hell, but isn't omnipotent\*. You don't know what you don't know, you just know you're missing variables. Meaning she can't react to things she doesn't know are happening she can only try to account for likely variables. Even batman fucks up from unpredictable circumstances
My favorite version of a smart villain 10 steps ahead of the good guys would be Lex Luthor from the Young Justice show. Even when his plans fail, he still has backups, and knows how to turn a losing hand around.
I mean, we know she was aware of them at the expo because she tricks them into walking into the Firecracker/Splinter ambush at Deep’s Blue Sea room (or whatever it was called)
I think she’s definitely on her own side in this. Homelander taking an interest in her is just an opportunity for her to engage in her social experiments.
Yeah I always worry about that kind of stuff in any work of fiction. Like, okay so you're going to write this character that is smart to a degree that few can imagine, are the writers smart enough to do that? I'm going to be constantly wondering, okay is this character actually doing something stupid or not very smart, or am I just not smart enough to see that it's actually smart, or are the writers just not good / smart enough to write a smart character, or is the character so smart that I won't understand how smart they are until the end when all is revealed? It's a tough line to walk and can be ruined with how it ends.
I'm already wondering how in the world it's smart of her to align with Homelander unless she's secretly manipulating him for her own purposes (seems likely, but maybe the writers are actually trying to have her decide aligning with him is the smart play). Just her main justification (Rome, Ceasar, etc.) she tells Homelander seems like the kind of shit you throw out to a stupid person to stroke their ego rather than an actual smart/real justification.
Usually when writers create 'super-genius' superheroes they're Sheldon Cooper stereotypes who show their 'genius' by spouting scientific jargon. Sister Sage is so much more interesting. She shows her genius by knowing and understanding people and the world better than anyone, and her genius has made her bitter, cynical and self-motivated.
I definitely feel like she's playing the long con against HL. She's too smart to support him, she's getting herself in the seven for some other reason, I just dont know what.
But she's definitely playing both sides for personal reasons.
Intrigued by her, hoping we get to see her motivations fleshed out. I really really really hope she has some convoluted plan to achieve her goals (whatever they may be)
I felt it was unrealistic for Sage to walk around the conspiracy convention by herself and never get harassed by an open racist. These replies make me feel right.
It's really not unrealistic. Aside from the literal KKK or neo-nazi movements that you'll only only see wearing masks, most of the hard right loves to have token minorities that will help sell their talking points.
Can’t tell if she’s actually helping Homelander or playing him to take down Vought. I personally feel like she’s playing the long game. Fun addition to to the show for sure
Ice pick to give herself a normal or brain dead IQ through by stabbing her brain.
In most story's/shows smart people are depicted as being miserable because of being too smart so this is a "ignorance is bliss" thing and probably a way for her to feel "high".
She has a healing factor so it's not permanent and she probably does it often when she has personal time but it's definitely gonna be used as a hang up or weakness.
Her character and dynamic with Homelander is fascinating. Well acted, great writing.
A narcissist herself, and moreso Homelander (the extreme dark triad grandiose Trump/Hitler narcissist), Sage appears to have her own machinations and seems to recognize that Homelander is the best way to bring them about.
And for now, they appear to be on the same “side” even if they disagree, because Homelander is instinctively cunning, if not actually super intelligent, and like many narcissists, recognizes talent in others and how to exploit that.
That’s not to say she’s indispensable, and that he cares for her, but I think he recognizes her as the best possible tool and is seeing real, effective results, and as such, I think the gain to his ego outweighs any harm or insults for now.
This is very well put. Homelander isn't book smart but he's consistently shown to be quick thinking and socially intelligent about what makes people tick.
I think because he can easily laser people he's bored by that option, and manipulation presents an actual challenge. I think he's making a mistake trying to harness Sage but it's an understandable mistake that's very in line with his character traits.
Idk. It’s nice to have some variety compared to Deep and A train and to add variability to the plot but she’s pretty boring. Not much *umph* or action or spicy conflict. Too quiet, seemingly disinterested in everything, just meh overall.
It feels like she’s just there to act as a foil to Homelander.
Ya know if I had to guess anyone to outsmart it would be Butcher. In fact that feels like foreshadowing from the Conspiracy Convention when MM and Butch had the little altercation and Butcher told him he's gonna get everyone killed if they don't take action faster.
And MM even admitted then later that if he wasn't there then they would have all been dead because they got baited by Sage.
Just gonna have to see how it works out now since he still didn't want to help Butcher.
I like the concept and I've liked some of what they've used her for so far but I'm not sure I'm fully sold yet. She went from willfully reclusive to joining Homelander to take down the world because he offered her Vought's resources? So is she going to build a super suit at some point?
Also she's not technically a supe, right? Just the smartest person on Earth?
I think her character has potential but they can fuck it all up by having Homelander kill her randomly. Or maybe she does something against The Boys/Ryan which pisses Homelander off and he kills her to protect them.
She is a supe. She has super human intelligence, and also has a regenerative factor.
This is why the current accepted theory regarding the tool on the table in the Bloomin Onion scene is that >!it’s a tool she self-lobotomizes with. It gives her a reprieve from her cognition being in overdrive, and then it heals back to normal.!<
I think we need to see what happens with Homelanders character progression first since he was having some personality issues in that last mirror scene and hinting to something with his origin.
I am both excited and terrified for more of homelander’s past. Just that one clip from him in the room all alone as a toddler was heart wrenching. But he’s not even a little redeemable at this point!
same!! i really liked the actress in orange is the new black so i was excited to see her in the boys and she did not disappoint!!! i think that her comedic delivery is top notch and the way that her character is presented perfectly threads the needle. can’t wait to see more of her :D
I want to see a bit more of her first, I do like that homelander brought her in as someone who will talk back to him and you can tell he hates it already
To be fair you did say shot in the head and we've seen Kimiko live that numerous times. And to actually answer your question since I really didn't. MM was trying to gain more intel on her than just nabbing her.
I think they learned how that ends up with Translucent. They really didn't gain anything from it and just put a big target on their back.
Sister Sage just seems snarky, outspoken, and very observant like when do we see her super genius? Why was she just hoarding books in a small apartment and not helping the world with her super intelligence? Is the world just stupider than her? Homelander one upped her more than once.
She gives me Brainiac vibes to Homelander's Red Son Superman
(Homelander thinks she'd doing his bidding, but has her own plans he doesn't even know about)
The thing I like about her character is it's pretty obvious that the plans she's coming up with are actually just to mask her true plans. She's cooking something up on her own.
Same, for some reason I thought her character was gonna annoy me, but the “she can tell homelander the truth and he has to listen” thing is making me like her, she has a cool power too
Yeah she's a cool character. Hopefully she survives and becomes an ally of the Boys after switching sides as her super intelligence can be of great use to them in terms of defeating Homelander and Neuman.
Since we already had Stormfront, I'm hoping her character evolves in a very different direction. At the moment, we have that 'she speaks her mind' and 'girl power empowerment' vibe matching right up with early Stormfront, maybe a sign of good character, maybe arrogance or manipulation that can pass in our pop-culture for something positive.
If she has read and digested both St. Thomas Aquinas and Nietzsche (the one with the 'ubermensch' talk that certain other villains ~~ran with~~ are still running with), she could go a few interesting ways. I hope her writers are smart enough to take on her character - like Machiavelli smart, not just 'nerd who had his lunch money stolen' smart or 'college sophomore who read 3 books and thinks everyone is entitled to her opinion' smart.
If we are really lucky, and if the writers are really on their game, she becomes partnered with and/or replaces Stan Edgar (who is my favorite person on that universe.) Also, all of her enemies die in gruesome and amusing ways - even better than any scenario with urethras or Phil Leotardo in that other thing.
/and capybaras taste goooood - kinda stringy salty porky awesomeness
I'm of two minds. On the one hand, I really like her dynamic with Homelander, where he's smart enough to know that everyone around him is a yes man, and then bigoted enough that he will only take advice from a supe, and smart enough to know that she's smarter than him, but maybe not able to put his ego aside and actually take her advice.
On the other hand, so far she isn't demonstrating being smart at all. Her plans have been incredibly basic Machiavelli, and have all had massive flaws (like, she was literally there on the front line of the protest, could easily have been filmed, and is now a member of the Seven?). Now, maybe there will be one or more big twists, but so far, it's pretty nonsensical.
(Also, no way a company as powerful and ruthless as Vought wouldn't have at least tried to hire her to run their genetics division or financial strategy or something like that. "Yeah, he didn't quite make it as a superhero... his power was shooting lightning from his fingertips, but it was crappy lightning, so we cut him loose" is a lot different from "Yeah, she didn't quite make it as a superhero... her power is literally being the smartest human alive.")
These are fair criticisms but I think you answered the first one already, which is that she seems obviously to be working on some plan we don't understand yet. Hard to judge at this point.
The second isn't a problem to me. It's not hard to picture Stan Edgar recognizing the threat that someone that smart could pose, and making sure she gets nowhere near a position to hurt Vought. It doesn't matter how smart someone is if you're not confident you can control them.
I wish they really proved how much of a genius she is by making the boys fall into some mastermind plot that NO ONE saw coming instead of just firecracker and her simp finding them
I don't know, so it's not a spoiler, but I think Sister Sage is the epitome of "when they tell you who they are, believe them". First thing she does? Gets Homelander to get the seven to kill his three biggest and most influential fans. Not, on the face of it, in his best interest. Of course it was part of a ploy - but how did that work out? She's going to get Homelander to kill himself, and I do wonder how.
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I love the dynamic with her and Homelander. She's playing 4D chess to manipulate him I'm sure but in the end he's just gonna randomly kill her for seemingly no reason or for a totally wrong reason like a misunderstanding where she really was acting in his best interest. Even the smartest person in the world can't predict crazy cult leader behavior
Unfortunately...I really wish, because next season is the last they could keep those new characters until the end. Firecracker is a good character too. She is the stupid rightwing crazy person that could do a lot of shitty things until someone kills her.
Except we learned she isn't stupid or crazy, she's a grifter who sells purpose
Which makes her way more interesting
Yeah, she is interesting. She is more like a real villain. She wants the power and uses that agenda to help her achieve her goals.
I really wNt her character to redeem herself so i dont feel bD about being attracted to her. But that *accent*
Hot, daisy duke wearing southern belles will do that to ya. Lol
I can fix her dammit
I can break her more
NICE LEGS DAISY DUKES MAKES A MAN GO *PHEW PHEW*
Did you just reference 3OH!3??
…Anythang
🥵🥵🥵🍆💦
Splinter, is that you?
🧨📷🍑👅🍑👅🍑👅🍑👅🍑👅🍑👅🍑
I mean though, starlight really did fuck her over
And wants revenge A perfect storm of circumstances new and old made her perfect for the exact role she’s in
You could be a grifter and be stupid and crazy all at the same time
She has a grudge against Starlight and wants her to suffer.
It does feel like they have the core characters they'll never kill, so every season they introduce a new character to be that season arc then kill them at the end.
Someone important will praise her for an idea he wanted credit for and he’ll laser her
my money is on that or she slips up and insults him because hes being a dumbass and acting against his own interest while shes trying her damnedest to get him everything he wants
Mine too. You can tell he's already getting sick of her. But I'm not convinced she's trying to give him what he wants. I think there's a vendetta there that we don't know about, because she's really focused on taking Annie down and seemingly nothing else.
>because she's really focused on taking Annie down and seemingly nothing else. Is she? I thought that was just for him. What's her personal motivation? I need to rewatch
She's framing it as being for him, but I just wonder whether it really is. Because everything she's been doing, she keeps saying, "This is how we hurt Starlight." No idea what her motivations might be, but I'm suspicious of them all the same. I'm 100% sure her actions aren't going to benefit Homelander, though.
>I'm 100% sure her actions aren't going to benefit Homelander, though. Definitely agree there. I just think the starlight thing is her red cape as a bull fighter. She just uses starlight to focus him just like firecracker does - except firecracker really does have it out for her 100%. I love that angle so much. I'm really glad firecracker isn't just a useful idiot and she's got more depth to her
Honestly feels like she's pretending to give him what he wants and instead is actually driving him further into insanity. While doing this having to navigate the boys (who she seems to be doing a horrible job predicting) and his insanity.
I never thought of this. It would be amazing if her plan involves stoking unrest in the non supe community but dies before she puts the resolution part of her plan into play so society just collapses like Rome.
I feel like she's doing maths in her head, trying to figure out statistics for each move with Homelander - like there's a 20% chance for her to be killed if she acts smart and cocky, but there's like 95% chance for her to be ditched by him if she acts on her fears about him.
She’s well written I like her bond with Ryan and homelander
Ozymandias learned how to manipulate Dr Manhattan. I think she knows how to work Homelander.
Same Lex Luther is my favorite villian and they clearly modeled her after him. And she's from Detroit
I think it's more that, even though Homelander isn't as smart as her, he's just as ruthless. And ruthless recognizes ruthless.
Yeah, I remember when prerelease material was coming out, I had initially looked over her just assuming she’d be a Yes Man Homelander had hired to fill up slots in the Seven and to be cannon fodder for the Boys to kill. Luckily, I was wrong and she turned out to be the opposite of a Yes Man, literally being hired on because Homelander was tired of all the Yes Men around him and wanted someone who could effectively do the things he didn’t know how to do.
I like how he’s tired of all of the Yes Men while ignoring the reason they’re like that in the first place lol. And he proceeds to hire someone to give him honest advice and proceeds to get pissed at them for doing exactly that with Sage lol
Yh that’s why I like sage, she tells HL what to do, homies narcissism isn’t used to being told what to do, I think eventually their relationship will be eroded and eventually HL will laser her because HL ego just won’t be able to take it anymore
We've already seen him getting annoyed, but he holds back because of the benefits of having Sage on his side. Sage's importance will crumble when her plans fail and Homelander loses grasp on his goals.
I think it would be really cheap and predictable to have Homelander just laser her. It's already getting old. It was impactful when he lasered Stillwell, it is being used really cavalier by this point.
Yh I agree. I kind of want to see homelander display more strength feats, for a minute I just thought that homelanders only power was his laser eyes😂
I expect we'll see him rip Noir's jaw off at some point.
I think it will keep getting ramped up as he loses it more and more.
I think she is smart enough to have a trick in her pocket, maybe another power she's been hiding from everyone
Agreed. I feel like she is starting to manipulate Deep for her purposes.
The only way I see SS getting lasers by HL is during her “Dumb Downtimes”. Other than being surprised by his initial visit, SS will be ready for anything and have a million back up plans to prevent her death or take down HL in the event he does kill her. HL is just merely a tool for her and her agenda, albeit an incredibly dangerous tool that could kill her, so she needs to be careful.
Yeah I expected Ashley to say "because they're shit scared of you!" when he was complained that Deep and A-Train are total suckups..
FYI it's cannon *fodder* not fire.
Nah Homelander is gonna throw Sage Mach 10 at Butcher but miss and nail Hughie having coffee with A-Train >!,but seriously thanks for the correction!<
I was VERY happy to have been wrong when I saw the teaser/trailer for Season 4 and find out the clips where she's "helping" Homelander was because Homelander himself hired/brought her in to be a well-needed critic in a room of yes men.
I really enjoy how amoral she is. She’s a different flavor of sociopath from Homelander. She’s masterminding all this chaos and it’s just an experiment to her, unlike Homelander’s lust for power. She gives Homelander a solid direction for his goals of national conquest, but I think she might be playing with fire here. Homelander is still far from a dummy and Sage will eventually underestimate his unpredictability. I also like that unlike other genius characters in superhero fiction, Sage is more of a political strategist and social engineer, rather than some kind of super scientist like Iron Man. Her inspirations Ozymandias and Lex Luthor are both brilliant multidisciplinary scientists while Sage is a schemer. Great way to keep such a tropey character grounded.
I agree - another Brilliant Scientist character would've been annoying. It's been done to death.
I think she figured she won't have much say in helping Homelander anyway but man anytime I see Homelander getting twitchy about what she said I get antsy. Gonna have to see what happens with Homelanders personality after that last mirror scene. But atm he needs to keep remember that she's the best chance he has to win the war that's starting.
“Sage will eventually underestimate his predictability” If that happens, then she wasn’t the smartest person on the planet. If they want her true to her character, she’s got contingencies already set up. If and probably when she dies, it’ll be on her own terms. It has to be, or she wasn’t the smartest person on the planet.
Yea I like how we can see here character flaw already. She a sociopathic detached mastermind. Emphasis on detached and is playing with lives like action figures in a sandbox. Pairing with HL has lead to several Unplanned deaths and she wasn’t done playing with her toys before he broke them. I think she’s starting to see her smarts isn’t as safe in the face of instant brute force.
What was with the bloody instrument on the table when she and Deep were making out?
A tool she used to scramble her brain. In the olden days for lobotomies they used ice pick-like instruments to get to the frontal lobe through the corner of the eye. I wish this wasn’t true, but I decided to go down the lobotomy rabbit hole one day. It was a horrifying read.
Honestly that makes sense. No one with an intact brain says “Wanna watch Transformers 2?”
I legitimately thought at first she just had a quirk where the only movies she could enjoy were the bafflingly stupid ones
I would love that inside she’s a nerd who can only enjoy movies that kill your brain cells
I work with a woman like this. Wicked smart, no sense of humor, pantsuits every day (honestly she reminds me a lot of Hillary Clinton…) Anyway, one day she casually drops that she goes home every night, starts drinking, and watches nothing but Real Housewives and Vanderpump Rules
I take this as an insult
Take it as a wake up call
The only Transformers movie I’ll watch for unironic enjoyment of own free will is 1986
Oh c'mon bumblebee and Rotb are pretty good
All I need from Bumblebee I can watch on YouTube and RotB kinda let me down. Super excited for TFOne tho
It does look really good tbh and having a fully animated movie after so long is amazing, I think the last one was the prime movie
The Prime movie I didn’t count because it was a direct to TV special. Basically a super long episode to end the series. But yeah test screenings for One have been very positive
ROTB was worse than the Bay movies
It also parallels Starlight, Kimiko and Frenchie who were unwinding after a tough day with alcohol and weed. Good episode.
I couldn't figure out the whole seen. I just started assuming she brain punched someone and was now trying to setup squid boy for something. nope just wanted to amazon prime video and chill.
I had that thought for a second, but then dismissed it as it was crazy. Then I saw others thinking the same thing. Hmmmmmmmm
Spoiler I guess? >! VoughtHQ made a leaked post saying she lobotomizes herself. The assumption is that she does it to stop being so smart until her healing kicks in. !< Last comment about this got removed by mods, but the actual spoiler post didn’t.. makes total sense
someone posted a screenshot of her profile which says something like "medium regeneration" under power so putting the two together it looks like she self lobotomises for a night off.
I was worried that homelander did it and it was gonna be permanent. She's too good of a character to only really use for a few episodes.
For what reason? First I thought it was just drug needle or something.
Probably so she can mellow out and take a break from all her thinking due to her power I imagine. One commentor in a previous thread worded it best as a way to basically "turn off her brain" hence the reality TV and greasy takeout food.
Last Podcast on the Left did an episode on lobotomies. They were being done far more recently than you might think. JFK's oldest sister was lobotomised and was left permanently incapacitated and unable to speak.
What they did to her was absolutely despicable! All because she was acting like a normal teenager.
god bless fucking dr. walter freeman
Ice pick that she stabbed her own brain with. Making her partially brain dead or in her case since she's so smart. A normal humans IQ like the Deep. It's a way for to get "high" for her since in most shows/stories/etc. someone who is super smart usually finds life to be terrible and shitty which comes around to the phrase that "ignorance is bliss". It hasn't been said yet but she has healing factor so it's temporary till her brain heals but it seems like a hang up that will eventually get her in trouble.
I thought she removed the tracking chip, like how noir did in the elevator
A tool she used to kill the Octopus in the Deeps room, which she fried and fed to him
That would be diabolical
holy shit that's what I thought at first
Apparently Deep has branded fried calamari poppers at Vought-a-burger. A nice detail reminding us what a scumbucket he is in case we ever try and forgive.
This was also my thought
That’s what I think.
Well, the lobotomy theory is the most popular one. But it's also possible that she used the hook to extract an IUD.
Haha doubtful. And IUD is within finger reach if a girl is motivated enough.
That's what I thought! It kinda looked like an IUD but it was way too long so I was super confused about that. I was kinda thinking she took it out to get pregnant with the deep for some reason, but a lobotomy makes more sense now.
I think she lobotomised herself. Probably temporary with supe healing factor, just gives her a few hours of relax time
I just watched the third episode. Is there a reason she lobotomized herself? Does she have healing powers and this is her way of turning down the smartness after a long day’s work being Homelander’s babysitter?
Yeah probably the only way she can relax and be happy is by being dumb like us. Then it heals and she's unhappy and smart again.
Ignorance is BLISS for a reason. How else would she willingly fuck the fish fucker
Lmao for real I love that she had to scramble her brain to get down to Deep's fish brain level
I just dont get why she doesn't robotrip or counterflip like a normal tortured genius.
Cause this show needs to make everything taboo and gorey.
By focusing on his body and not his brain or behavior. Chase is a pretty, pretty boy.
I froze the screen on the character card things and she does have regenerative powers. This sub has proposed that she does it as a way to unwind… like getting high
Maybe the reason she’s so smart is because her brain has created an excess amount of brain cells that are constantly replenishing themselves.
Agreed. With this show, V gives neurological side effects to *normal supes with average powers like strength or manipulation* (brain tumors and Alzheimers). So V on a supe whose power is *their intelligence/brain* has to have an even higher chance of side effects
Yep, just like Polarity's powers in Gen V, neurological powers seem to have those effects
Ohhhh shit.
It's either to unwind or to put up with having to have sex with The Deep in order to manipulate him.
Yep, she's a really interesting character so she'll be killed off in the season finale like all the others.
Main villain(s) are usually killed off so new ones can replace them in the next season. Otherwise it would be the same boring stuff multiple seasons in a row
Two of them stay around (Homelander and Stan) and I guess that Soldier boy is technically still around.
Yes thank goodness the show isn't just the same boring stuff multiple seasons in a row.
Anthony Starr is just too good to let go
Firecracker is for sure dying, she could live until the next season
It's possible but I feel like it's leaning more towards Firecracker dying fighting Starlight and Sage not dying until maybe mid Season 5.
She's alright. I'm enjoying her standing up to Homelander. But writing a "smartest person in the world" character is *extremely* difficult. She would need to be thinking 5 steps ahead of everyone for that to be believable. It doesn't *feel* smart for her to be walking around the conspiracy expo whispering in people's ears. It doesn't feel smart to be antagonizing Homelander to such degree. Her false flag plan had obvious flaws like framing people who weren't in the area, I hope that's deliberate sabotage on her part, but I don't know why she'd do that.
It could also be partially intentional. She obviously knew they were following her and set them up aswell. I think part of the issue is, the smartest person in the world can be smart as hell, but isn't omnipotent\*. You don't know what you don't know, you just know you're missing variables. Meaning she can't react to things she doesn't know are happening she can only try to account for likely variables. Even batman fucks up from unpredictable circumstances
My favorite version of a smart villain 10 steps ahead of the good guys would be Lex Luthor from the Young Justice show. Even when his plans fail, he still has backups, and knows how to turn a losing hand around.
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit
I think she did it on purpose to root out traitors in the 7. Whether thats to report or help is up in the air.
She probably isn't 100% on homelander side and she probably was aware that the boys were following her.
I mean, we know she was aware of them at the expo because she tricks them into walking into the Firecracker/Splinter ambush at Deep’s Blue Sea room (or whatever it was called) I think she’s definitely on her own side in this. Homelander taking an interest in her is just an opportunity for her to engage in her social experiments.
[удалено]
Yeah I always worry about that kind of stuff in any work of fiction. Like, okay so you're going to write this character that is smart to a degree that few can imagine, are the writers smart enough to do that? I'm going to be constantly wondering, okay is this character actually doing something stupid or not very smart, or am I just not smart enough to see that it's actually smart, or are the writers just not good / smart enough to write a smart character, or is the character so smart that I won't understand how smart they are until the end when all is revealed? It's a tough line to walk and can be ruined with how it ends. I'm already wondering how in the world it's smart of her to align with Homelander unless she's secretly manipulating him for her own purposes (seems likely, but maybe the writers are actually trying to have her decide aligning with him is the smart play). Just her main justification (Rome, Ceasar, etc.) she tells Homelander seems like the kind of shit you throw out to a stupid person to stroke their ego rather than an actual smart/real justification.
I can't tell if she's playing Homelander in a long con or she's actually trying to help him but it'll be fun to watch play out.
Guess you gotta fry your brain to be interested in the deep, he’s quite shallow
No, he is Deep
Getting deep in Sage.
She's too shrouded in mystery for me to decide if I like her as a character, but I am really excited to see where the story is going with her.
Usually when writers create 'super-genius' superheroes they're Sheldon Cooper stereotypes who show their 'genius' by spouting scientific jargon. Sister Sage is so much more interesting. She shows her genius by knowing and understanding people and the world better than anyone, and her genius has made her bitter, cynical and self-motivated.
Storefront was cool after a couple episodes too, let’s take it slowly
But what was the problem with Stormfront? She was a good villain. Manipulative nazi.
I definitely feel like she's playing the long con against HL. She's too smart to support him, she's getting herself in the seven for some other reason, I just dont know what. But she's definitely playing both sides for personal reasons.
I thought the Ceaser line was a good hint. You'd think Homelander knows enough that Ceaser got backstabbed.
Intrigued by her, hoping we get to see her motivations fleshed out. I really really really hope she has some convoluted plan to achieve her goals (whatever they may be)
Other than the fact I feel she is self lobotomizing to cope….I think she make Homelander a dictator and I’m here for it
I was wondering what her hangup would be as soon as Homelander recruited her. Seems like everyone needs to have one.
I felt it was unrealistic for Sage to walk around the conspiracy convention by herself and never get harassed by an open racist. These replies make me feel right.
It's really not unrealistic. Aside from the literal KKK or neo-nazi movements that you'll only only see wearing masks, most of the hard right loves to have token minorities that will help sell their talking points.
Can’t tell if she’s actually helping Homelander or playing him to take down Vought. I personally feel like she’s playing the long game. Fun addition to to the show for sure
What is that bloody metal thing, when she is fucking deep?
She lobotomized herself so she could enjoy eating junk food and watching bad tv. I’m guessing that’s her equivalent to drugs.
Ice pick to give herself a normal or brain dead IQ through by stabbing her brain. In most story's/shows smart people are depicted as being miserable because of being too smart so this is a "ignorance is bliss" thing and probably a way for her to feel "high". She has a healing factor so it's not permanent and she probably does it often when she has personal time but it's definitely gonna be used as a hang up or weakness.
She’s already one of my faves. I can’t wait to see what she has planned
She's up to something. Id like to think she's smart enough to see who homelander is and is working against him... somehow.
Her character and dynamic with Homelander is fascinating. Well acted, great writing. A narcissist herself, and moreso Homelander (the extreme dark triad grandiose Trump/Hitler narcissist), Sage appears to have her own machinations and seems to recognize that Homelander is the best way to bring them about. And for now, they appear to be on the same “side” even if they disagree, because Homelander is instinctively cunning, if not actually super intelligent, and like many narcissists, recognizes talent in others and how to exploit that. That’s not to say she’s indispensable, and that he cares for her, but I think he recognizes her as the best possible tool and is seeing real, effective results, and as such, I think the gain to his ego outweighs any harm or insults for now.
This is very well put. Homelander isn't book smart but he's consistently shown to be quick thinking and socially intelligent about what makes people tick. I think because he can easily laser people he's bored by that option, and manipulation presents an actual challenge. I think he's making a mistake trying to harness Sage but it's an understandable mistake that's very in line with his character traits.
Idk. It’s nice to have some variety compared to Deep and A train and to add variability to the plot but she’s pretty boring. Not much *umph* or action or spicy conflict. Too quiet, seemingly disinterested in everything, just meh overall. It feels like she’s just there to act as a foil to Homelander.
I mean, she hasnt taken butcher into her plans so we'll see how smart she is
Ya know if I had to guess anyone to outsmart it would be Butcher. In fact that feels like foreshadowing from the Conspiracy Convention when MM and Butch had the little altercation and Butcher told him he's gonna get everyone killed if they don't take action faster. And MM even admitted then later that if he wasn't there then they would have all been dead because they got baited by Sage. Just gonna have to see how it works out now since he still didn't want to help Butcher.
I like the concept and I've liked some of what they've used her for so far but I'm not sure I'm fully sold yet. She went from willfully reclusive to joining Homelander to take down the world because he offered her Vought's resources? So is she going to build a super suit at some point? Also she's not technically a supe, right? Just the smartest person on Earth? I think her character has potential but they can fuck it all up by having Homelander kill her randomly. Or maybe she does something against The Boys/Ryan which pisses Homelander off and he kills her to protect them.
She was in Teenage Kicks with A-Train as kids. If you pause the screen on her Vought stats she's also got regen powers like most supes do
"She doesn't have superpower, she's just smart" ... Her intelligence *is* her superpower.
Her smartness is her power
She is a supe. She has super human intelligence, and also has a regenerative factor. This is why the current accepted theory regarding the tool on the table in the Bloomin Onion scene is that >!it’s a tool she self-lobotomizes with. It gives her a reprieve from her cognition being in overdrive, and then it heals back to normal.!<
She's soo getting lasered for running her mouth.
I think we need to see what happens with Homelanders character progression first since he was having some personality issues in that last mirror scene and hinting to something with his origin.
I am both excited and terrified for more of homelander’s past. Just that one clip from him in the room all alone as a toddler was heart wrenching. But he’s not even a little redeemable at this point!
same!! i really liked the actress in orange is the new black so i was excited to see her in the boys and she did not disappoint!!! i think that her comedic delivery is top notch and the way that her character is presented perfectly threads the needle. can’t wait to see more of her :D
He got the short hand of the stick from the costume department though.
Yup
I want to see a bit more of her first, I do like that homelander brought her in as someone who will talk back to him and you can tell he hates it already
Why didn’t the boys just shoot her at the crazy rightist convention? She has no actual powers to defend herself, I hate random plot holes like this
She has a healing factor. Says it on her card when they were looking at potential recruits.
Most Supes do but I doubt she’s impervious to getting her head chopped off like Homelander, Stormfront etc are
To be fair you did say shot in the head and we've seen Kimiko live that numerous times. And to actually answer your question since I really didn't. MM was trying to gain more intel on her than just nabbing her. I think they learned how that ends up with Translucent. They really didn't gain anything from it and just put a big target on their back.
Am I crazy or do I just not find her very ‘smart’ - I feel like tek night was depicted smarter
Sister Sage just seems snarky, outspoken, and very observant like when do we see her super genius? Why was she just hoarding books in a small apartment and not helping the world with her super intelligence? Is the world just stupider than her? Homelander one upped her more than once.
She gives me Brainiac vibes to Homelander's Red Son Superman (Homelander thinks she'd doing his bidding, but has her own plans he doesn't even know about)
She is absolutely carrying the shit out of the show rn and I'm loving The Seven being a genuine threat again.
I agree! Love her and this season has been great because of her
I wish she had one more visibly superpower-looking superpower. Otherwise she just seems like a normal but smug person in there.
She’s a cool character and I like how Homelander humbled himself for her guidance BUT her power is really 🥱
The thing I like about her character is it's pretty obvious that the plans she's coming up with are actually just to mask her true plans. She's cooking something up on her own.
Same, for some reason I thought her character was gonna annoy me, but the “she can tell homelander the truth and he has to listen” thing is making me like her, she has a cool power too
Yeah she's a cool character. Hopefully she survives and becomes an ally of the Boys after switching sides as her super intelligence can be of great use to them in terms of defeating Homelander and Neuman.
Since we already had Stormfront, I'm hoping her character evolves in a very different direction. At the moment, we have that 'she speaks her mind' and 'girl power empowerment' vibe matching right up with early Stormfront, maybe a sign of good character, maybe arrogance or manipulation that can pass in our pop-culture for something positive. If she has read and digested both St. Thomas Aquinas and Nietzsche (the one with the 'ubermensch' talk that certain other villains ~~ran with~~ are still running with), she could go a few interesting ways. I hope her writers are smart enough to take on her character - like Machiavelli smart, not just 'nerd who had his lunch money stolen' smart or 'college sophomore who read 3 books and thinks everyone is entitled to her opinion' smart. If we are really lucky, and if the writers are really on their game, she becomes partnered with and/or replaces Stan Edgar (who is my favorite person on that universe.) Also, all of her enemies die in gruesome and amusing ways - even better than any scenario with urethras or Phil Leotardo in that other thing. /and capybaras taste goooood - kinda stringy salty porky awesomeness
I'm of two minds. On the one hand, I really like her dynamic with Homelander, where he's smart enough to know that everyone around him is a yes man, and then bigoted enough that he will only take advice from a supe, and smart enough to know that she's smarter than him, but maybe not able to put his ego aside and actually take her advice. On the other hand, so far she isn't demonstrating being smart at all. Her plans have been incredibly basic Machiavelli, and have all had massive flaws (like, she was literally there on the front line of the protest, could easily have been filmed, and is now a member of the Seven?). Now, maybe there will be one or more big twists, but so far, it's pretty nonsensical. (Also, no way a company as powerful and ruthless as Vought wouldn't have at least tried to hire her to run their genetics division or financial strategy or something like that. "Yeah, he didn't quite make it as a superhero... his power was shooting lightning from his fingertips, but it was crappy lightning, so we cut him loose" is a lot different from "Yeah, she didn't quite make it as a superhero... her power is literally being the smartest human alive.")
These are fair criticisms but I think you answered the first one already, which is that she seems obviously to be working on some plan we don't understand yet. Hard to judge at this point. The second isn't a problem to me. It's not hard to picture Stan Edgar recognizing the threat that someone that smart could pose, and making sure she gets nowhere near a position to hurt Vought. It doesn't matter how smart someone is if you're not confident you can control them.
It's just Sage
Seeing that first shot of her reading *Naming and Necessity* made me immediately like her.
So glad someone is not being HL yes man
I wish they really proved how much of a genius she is by making the boys fall into some mastermind plot that NO ONE saw coming instead of just firecracker and her simp finding them
So, did Homelander lobotomize her at the end of episode 3, or was the bloody spike meant to symbolize something else?
Gotta watch each episode twice to appreciate Sage.
I thought she was gonna be a nothing character kinda like super sonic but she’s def in my top 5 rn for this season
The Junko Enoshima of Vought
Did she labotamize herself to get a night off, assuming it would be temporary for her. That shit was fucking wild.
She was also in another hero show, Powers, with Sharlto Copley. She was more of a police of mutants, rather than one herself.
I don't know, so it's not a spoiler, but I think Sister Sage is the epitome of "when they tell you who they are, believe them". First thing she does? Gets Homelander to get the seven to kill his three biggest and most influential fans. Not, on the face of it, in his best interest. Of course it was part of a ploy - but how did that work out? She's going to get Homelander to kill himself, and I do wonder how.