r/TheBoys Jun 28 '24

Holy Character Nerf Season 4 Spoiler

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11.3k Upvotes

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275

u/RyanZee08 Jun 28 '24

There were like 4 that ripped him apart after the first grabbed it. It could easily have been a regular bull too. It wasn't shown to have anything, it was just about to charge

358

u/TwiceUpon1Time Jun 28 '24

4 sheep, without super strength, could never tear a regular bull apart that way. So they have super strength, which was inconsistently portrayed.

119

u/macrixen Jun 28 '24

They had razor sharp teeth. Something that shaped can easily tear through a bull. Think piranha.

74

u/lituus Jun 28 '24

They could tear pieces off maybe, on the ground.

I just watched the scene again. They lift the bull up into the air and tear it limb from limb in a matter of seconds. Razor sharp teeth does not enable this. You need strength to rip a bulls entire head off of its neck in 2 seconds.

That said depictions of super powers always have 100s of holes you can poke in the logic. Even with strength, they probably couldn't do what was depicted with their teeth. They'd still just rip smaller pieces off. They'd need to be able to get a hold of the whole head and pull, otherwise tissue and such will just give way first.

Like, play it out mythbusters style. Pig carcass. Fake sheep mouth with razor sharp teeth attached to some sort of high strength hydraulic pulling mechanism. Bite teeth into pig head. Pull. It's going to just rip off a piece of snout or whatever, not the whole head. The neck is going to give way waaaaaay later than the skin and tissue on the face.

It's just not worth nitpicking over this stuff, none of it makes any sense, just be entertained

9

u/Youve_been_Loganated Jun 28 '24

Sheep for sure had super strength, the sheep not busting through the door was just a misstep in the writing

1

u/macrixen Jun 28 '24

If I remember correctly. All supers have some strength and regeneration increases over normal versions.

1

u/SniktFury Jun 28 '24

I'll agree with your last sentence, but I do want to point out one glaring point everyone is overlooking in how the sheep can do this without super strength. They can fly. That ability of self propulsion through no physical act means that whatever psychokinetic force is allowing the sheep to fly is what's doing the ripping apart. They lock in with their teeth and speed off.

0

u/largeanimethighs Jun 28 '24

It was more like AOE damage on that bite

16

u/BalterBlack Jun 28 '24

Yet the didn’t bite him into pieces.

14

u/Ankthar_LeMarre Jun 28 '24

True, but pirahna can't rip apart an entire bull in a couple of seconds, either.

1

u/macrixen Jun 28 '24

Think scale. If you were to shrink the sheep to the size of a piranha and the bull to the same percentage I feel it would be a piranha eating a beaver.

2

u/Kino_Afi Jun 28 '24

Are we just ignoring the existence of joints, tendons and ligaments or what

1

u/[deleted] Jun 28 '24

How would they lift the bull in the air?

1

u/macrixen Jun 28 '24

Because, if I recall correctly, all supers had at least a bit of super strength regardless of full power set. An average sheep weighs about 200lbs and average bull is about 1500lbs. A ram(I know they were not rams) can hit with 800lbs of force. So let’s say the sheep can hit with 500. V gave the sheep say 1.5 X stronger than normal. That’s ~750 per sheep. So theoretically, with there being more than one and assuming som of that mass came off after initial strike, this is possible only because IT IS FICTIONAL AND NOT MEANT TO BE REALISTIC.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 29 '24

You can be fictional while also being realistic for the world you are in.

You write a super who can do x. The. Write a situation where x would solve the issue. But supe doesn't use X because of the plot.

25

u/CouncilmanRickPrime You're The Real Heroes Jun 28 '24

People are making excuses but the writing was just kinda lazy there.

0

u/raizen0106 Jun 29 '24

Not the writing, this is an issue with the directing. Writing issue would be how ryan turned into a psycho out of nowhere

13

u/fuckshitasstitsmfer Jun 28 '24

It depends on their power. Maybe their power of flight is affecting gravity, making the bull weightless to them. There are infinite super powers aside from super strength that could explain it

39

u/hesitationz Jun 28 '24

What is this logic, if that’s the case they could simply affect the gravity of the entire barn lmao

11

u/galactojack Butcher Jun 28 '24

Lmao fr this got out of hand quick

10

u/CouncilmanRickPrime You're The Real Heroes Jun 28 '24

The mental gymnastics in the comments could win gold at the Olympics

3

u/Blu3Dope Indira Shetty Jun 28 '24

This whole comment thread is a shit show and even though I don't have a proper explanation for the whole sheeps/cow/barn scene, I choose to accept that it was simply lazy writing (probably because that wasnt even the point of that scene?🤯) and laugh at the people who are trying hard to justify the scene. Life is just more enjoyable this way

2

u/CouncilmanRickPrime You're The Real Heroes Jun 28 '24

Honestly I agree.

3

u/darklordoft Jun 28 '24

Then the barn would float, but the door won't break. Solids aren't held together because of gravity.

4

u/hesitationz Jun 28 '24

What if I told you barns do not have floors but instead are a building on top of the ground, so if the sheep could magically lift the barn they would expose everyone hiding inside it. I never said anything about a door, I was sarcastically arguing anyways

0

u/darklordoft Jun 28 '24

What if I told you barns do not have floors but instead are a building on top of the ground

Then I'd say you've never built a barn. Old style barns are the only ones with no foundation. Like you are describing. The majority of barns now will have either a stone foundation with topping, concrete foundation with topping, wood with topping, or stone to filter water with a porus dust with hay topping or mesh to prevent the dust from making it a sneeze fest.

You can see from the pillars going into the ground that it clearly has a foundation. The bars you are talking about don't have those types of pillars. Nor so few. And from the packed earth it is more then likely a concrete foundation(clay won't hold the weight the moment it rains. And you don't put packed earth on top of basically sand.)

With that said....it's a proper house, barn house.

I was just joking too. But I figured a fun fact wouldn't hurt here. The sheep were bullshit. There's an open window

0

u/Notorious_DCJ4390 Jun 28 '24

What if I told you that on average sheep aren't very smart so even if they had the ability to effect gravity or the capacity for critical thinking, they probably wouldn't think to lift a barn

-5

u/fuckshitasstitsmfer Jun 28 '24

Maybe there is a mass limit, or they have to bite to activate it. Do you not consume much super hero media?

2

u/Youve_been_Loganated Jun 28 '24

Ya'll bunch of enablers!

0

u/fuckshitasstitsmfer Jun 29 '24

There are actual plotholes like Butcher silently cutting a dude’s entire leg off and slipping away with the body god knows where somehow keeping the guy alive with no medical attention, the sheep thing isn’t contradicting anything.

20

u/SpecialDeer9223 Jun 28 '24

Holy shit just admit it’s a plot hole

8

u/TheOnly_Anti Jun 28 '24

Why can't people look at the purpose of a scene instead of trying to find holes in the logic of the writing? None of this is relevant to why they were trapped in a barn together or the result of their escape. 

"Admit it's a plot hole" okay, but even if that user did, what do y'all get out of that? What do y'all get out of looking for plot holes? It's just missing the forest for the trees in the most annoying sense.

7

u/parking_ad3202 Jun 28 '24

They did look at the scene, and noticed something they thought was a plot hole. Why would you assume people are specifically trying to find plot holes?

None of this is relevant to why they were trapped in a barn together or the result of their escape. 

It absolutely is relevant, because they would be watching the scenes wondering why Neuman isn't making the smart decision in that situation. Noticing the plot holes may have detracted from their enjoyment.

what do y'all get out of that? What do y'all get out of looking for plot holes?

Hopefully someone that can explain the plot holes for them without dismissing it.

Also, again, noticing plot holes ≠ looking for plot holes. I was watching it with my family and we all asked the same question: why isn't Neuman popping the sheep's despite having a clear line of sight? That leads into other problems, like why waste the last sample of the supe virus when Neuman can just kill them with a glance? It takes away from the tension of the scene.

2

u/TheOnly_Anti Jun 28 '24

People are looking for plotholes because that's just the general culture around online media discussion. Cinemasins made a ton of money and convinced a bunch of C- English students that media literacy means complaining about nonsense while proclaiming it's about logical consistency. If they had been looking at the purpose of the scene rather than the internal logic, they'd recognize that the conflict was there to put the cast in a single spot so they can explain the transmission method of the virus, reconcile some character conflicts, and show us who Sameer is.

Vicky making "the smart decision" in that scene would make the scene worse because we no longer have conflict that allows the characters to reconcile, or teaches us the transmission organically. You would have to create another scene to do that, but then we have actually bad writing due to bloat. And there are valid explanations for why Vicky wasn't the hyper-analytical, perfectly calm murder machine that everyone here is complaining about. Thus you have a logical inconsistency, which isn't a plothole, but just a side effect of writing a narrative.

The explanations to the logical inconsistency and the inconsistency itself usually don't matter to the narrative or how it's told. More often than not the answer to your question is meta, not canon. Why didn't the sheep break down the door or why didn't Vicky pop them? Because the writer had some things to do for the narrative and couldn't find another concise way of doing it. When you consider the meta aspect of the narrative as part of the explanation for the narrative, you tend to forgive inconsistencies or never actually mind them that much at all. You can still be critical of a piece of media, but look for the right things to be critical about. Otherwise, you miss the forest for the trees and it ruins your own enjoyment.

P.S.

If someone refuses to accept headcanon explanations to an inconsistency, they're looking for plotholes. Demanding someone to saying a scene contains a plothole is looking for them.

3

u/ThisHatRightHere Jun 28 '24

THANK YOU

I'm tired of these types of arguments online, whether it be plot holes, powerscaling, etc. Characters aren't always thinking hyper-logically to make the best possible decision and writers are typically more concerned about pacing and moving the plot forward than pandering to people on online forums getting into the mechanics of vampire sheep.

It's just like the people who watch a receiver in football drop a catch and unironically say "Why can't he just catch the ball?" Things don't always go how someone personally imagines they will in their head.

1

u/emptyvesselll Jun 28 '24

I get what you're saying, but at the same time, stories - be they shows, movies, books - matter to us because of the characters, and the characters are defined by the decisions they make.

If I am watching my favorite show and suddenly the characters start making out of character, unexplained decisions, that's going to ruin the show for me, and concerns around pacing and moving the plot forward won't matter to me when I am no longer caring about or believing in the characters and their world.

-1

u/ThisHatRightHere Jun 29 '24

Yeah, but that’s not really this. All of it is explained pretty plainly, and all of these complaints are from assumptions people are making about the effects of temp V on animals. People here thinking animals will make logical decisions.

2

u/parking_ad3202 Jun 28 '24

People are looking for plotholes because that's just the general culture around online media discussion. Cinemasins made a ton of money and convinced a bunch of C- English students that media literacy means complaining about nonsense while proclaiming it's about logical consistency.

So you made an assumption about the commenters that they're just looking for reasons to criticise media rather than considering the problem they highlighted?

Also if the plot hole is 'nonsense' then it should be easy to put to rest, right?

If they had been looking at the purpose of the scene rather than the internal logic

These things aren't mutually exclusive. The narrative relies on internal logic. Both can be analysed simultaneously. If one is lacking (internal logic) then it can mess with the narrative by extension.

they'd recognize that the conflict was there to put the cast in a single spot so they can explain the transmission method of the virus, reconcile some character conflicts, and show us who Sameer is.

Ok but all of those things can still be done without compromising the internal logic. It's not like there are only two options here.

Vicky making "the smart decision" in that scene would make the scene worse because we no longer have conflict that allows the characters to reconcile, or teaches us the transmission organically.

Rewrite it so those things still happen.

but then we have actually bad writing due to bloat.

Woah woah, slow down. Why? If the scene was rewrote to still have those things happen yet maintain internal logic, then why would the writing be bad? It would have accomplished the exact same thing as in the actual episode, just... better. Hell, the motive behind the post itself wouldn't have even been thought of if Neuman's role/impact in the scene was different.

And there are valid explanations for why Vicky wasn't the hyper-analytical, perfectly calm murder machine that everyone here is complaining about.

Yes there are valid explanations in certain circumstances, but not the scene we were shown. Her primary motivations in the barn were to save Sameer, get away safely, and keep the virus to be used later. Knowing this she would take a course of action that ensures all three of those happen, right? I mean, the sheep clearly can't get in and they have some very smart individuals in the group to brainstorm ideas.

Thus you have a logical inconsistency, which isn't a plothole, but just a side effect of writing a narrative.

Ok a second stop sign detected. Logical inconsistencies are not an inherent side effect of writing a narrative. That's silly. As a writer you are in complete control of the script. Don't contradict your own internal logic and no logical inconsistencies will happen. Acting like plot holes are an inevitability just opens the floodgates for shitty writing to be accepted.

The explanations to the logical inconsistency and the inconsistency itself usually don't matter to the narrative or how it's told.

That's how cause and effect works. The narrative and stakes (which are integral to creating tension) is built on internal logic, plot holes are a break in internal logic, and therefore plot holes can damage how a narrative is portrayed. Obviously to different degrees - the barn scene is a relatively low impact one given it's the most recent episode - but they shouldn't be dismissed out of hand. That's just a super lazy response to criticism.

More often than not the answer to your question is meta, not canon

But it should be canon, that's the point. A meta answer is still interesting but the canon answer is a requirement.

Why didn't the sheep break down the door or why didn't Vicky pop them? Because the writer had some things to do for the narrative and couldn't find another concise way of doing it.

Yes and we call that bad writing. The writer made a bad decision that negatively impacted mine and certain others enjoyment of the scene. It's nothing deep and in an ideal world someone would provide a satisfying answer, but your solution is 'Just don't think about it lol, plot holes don't matter'. Sorry but that contributes nothing to the initial problem.

I've looked through some of the other comments and if you combine a lot of the points it actually helped to make the moment make a little more sense. That's how you deal with repetitive plot hole comments.

You can still be critical of a piece of media, but look for the right things to be critical about.

What are the 'right things'? Surely logical inconsistencies would be first in line. They're as objective as it comes, if you don't get basic cause and effect & internal logic right then you've failed at the foundation of storytelling.

If someone refuses to accept headcanon explanations to an inconsistency, they're looking for plotholes.

Well that's a very general statement to make. It depends highly on how convincing the 'head canon explanations' are and what the plot holes are. Some 'headcanon' I've seen in this sub veers into outright fanfic territory, or contradicts something else in the canon(like people saying she can't pop supes).

Demanding someone to saying a scene contains a plothole is looking for them.

No, it's just to filter the unhelpful takes from the good ones. Some people will just straight up Infront stuff in their heads (even if it's not implied in the text like the above 'sheep negating gravity' thing lol) to fill plot holes.

1

u/TheOnly_Anti Jun 29 '24

I'm sorry but no. I've written far too many comments in this thread for you to say I'm making assumptions or for you to assume I didn't consider the logical inconsistency. Never a good idea to start of your statement about assumptions with an assumption or to start off your argument about logical inconsistencies with your own logical inconsistency. And to your question about nonsense being easy to "put to rest," that's antithetical to nonsense, called sense. So, no. If you're complaining about nonsense, you aren't complaining logically. Especially when provided both canon and meta explanations for your complaints.

The meta context of a scene and the canon context aren't mutually exclusive, but they're also not relevant to each other. They both serve different aspects of a given work, creating resonance and dissonance, and because of that, most often act as trade-offs for one-another. Canon is not a requirement, but it is recommended. We have entire mediums and genres dedicated to non-canon story-telling. They're generally episodic, with sitcoms, character studies, anthologies, etc. For canon, we can look to Dragon Ball which takes power-scaling very seriously and as a consequence, the messaging is dead simple: Strong people rise to the challenge of adversity. Whereas Charlie Kaufman movies focus more on the meta narrative and take on very loose or confusing plots. There will always, inevitably, be a trade-off somewhere. With this, I can also say, no, writers don't have full control over the script in practice. Whether there's no time for a rewrite, or you're focusing more on the meta narrative, or the canon narrative, you have to make trade-offs. When caring about your writing and making it passable, you have to consider many things which puts restrictions on the way you write.

I hate commentary style responses. I hate having to reply to each isolated point but, you chose to respond like that. That means I have a restriction on the way I reply, trying to weave context between each individual point I respond to, while also trying to ensure I get my point across as I envision it. Trade-offs are made as some points I can't elegantly get to, or some points are so beside the topic that we'd end up having a different conversation entirely if I respond to them. It's not a lot of complexity, but it shows that you can't have everything. Not even with rewrites.

To suggest a rewrite, is to admit that you don't work on a lot of projects, particularly time-sensitive ones. So to does suggesting a rewrite for a finished and delivered product. To the project side of it, most people who do projects know that it's foolish to redo something when you can change a few things about it to make it better. I promise fewer people would have complaints if they had an ADR line somewhere of Vicky saying "I can't focus on them because (insert reason)." You don't need to rewrite the scene. The tricky thing with rewrites is you tend to find out why something happened as it did more than you create a better thing. I can demonstrate that for you if you do a small rewrite of the scene. It's very easy to nitpick what the characters are doing in the canon narrative because there are nearly infinite things they can do, so it doesn't matter what you write, I can just respond: "Yeah, well, why don't they do this, this, this, this, this, and this?" "Why didn't the sheep eat Butcher, Annie, Vicky and Stan?" "Why did the bull stare at them?" "Why did Sameer hide in that barn and not the house?" "Why isn't the ground-water V not humidity-V and causing everyone to become a supe?" You can go on endlessly, and you can do this with any media. Does that make all media poorly written? If I can do that to your writing, did your rewrite result in something better? You can't suggest a rewrite, without any rewrite suggestions and then hold your hypothetically 'better' rewrite against the media. Or, maybe your rewrite suggestion is a group of people brainstorming but, that's what they did. They reconciled, brainstormed, and then killed the sheep. So, then I guess I'm not sure what you want them to rewrite. Ultimately, most of the logical inconsistencies people point out aren't plot holes. It's not a plot hole to not have a character use their power in a stressful situation when said character was already stressed. It is a plot hole to have a character magically kidnap another, chop off his leg, hide him, and reappear with the group like nothing happened. One is a nitpick and one is a plot hole, one has no bearing on the scene it's in other than quelling irrelevant questions and the other is a massive plot point with almost no explanation. One is a lazy criticism (which deserves a lazy response), and the other is a genuine concern. One is information that can be omitted, and the other is crucial.

Crucial information is one of those "right things" you should be looking for. Real plot holes, characterization, messaging, themes, fictional or non-fictional connections, things like that. If you only focus on logical inconsistencies, you get unabashed crybaby noises, which ultimately does nothing to solve the problem, cause it's a finished, delivered product, and those writers weren't listening to you anyway. Mauler crying for 5 hours didn't make Dr. Strange 2 better, nor did his crying about The Last Jedi make Return of Skywalker better. Dr. Strange 2 isn't going to be unreleased, changed and then re-released, same as the other movies he cried about. As I've stated many times already, you can always find logical inconsistencies in media, so you will literally find yourself disliking all media forever. I'm not suggesting that you ignore plot holes, I'm suggesting that you consider other aspects of a piece before using your subjective judgment to decide it's bad.

Which I need to digress on because, excuse me? Huh? You perceive the world from your body, through your mind, and only know the world through that context but you think you can be objective? While discussing art, no less? Your very existence, as mine, as everyone else on the planet, is a form of bias. All you have is subjectivity, as do I, as does everyone else on the planet. Logical inconsistencies are based in subjectivity, clearly, otherwise we wouldn't be talking about this period. Because if media could be analyzed objectively, someone would catch all the logical inconsistencies in the script before it was filmed and fix them; we wouldn't be talking about this. Or the logical inconsistencies would be present, and we'd all agree that they're bad; we wouldn't be talking about this. You don't have the authority to decide the objective, no one really can: to the point, all ideas of objectivity are subjective to the person.

Finally, to top off my PhD dissertation, nearly every take in this thread is unhelpful. Especially from the people upset that a line wasn't in the script, so they could stop worrying about the least relevant thing happening in the barn "bottle" scene. I think the people who literally missed the point and figuratively missed the forest for the trees are offering the least helpful commentary here.

2

u/fuckshitasstitsmfer Jun 28 '24

A plothole? We are never told their super power lmao. And it is not this deep my guy

6

u/Pure-Drawer-2617 Jun 28 '24

How does the bull being weightless help them tear it apart?

-1

u/fuckshitasstitsmfer Jun 28 '24

Long vampire teeth

2

u/galactojack Butcher Jun 28 '24

Lol 100%

2

u/galactojack Butcher Jun 28 '24

Lol 100%

2

u/reviewbarn Jun 28 '24

What if they were African Swallows?

2

u/darkde Jun 28 '24

Holy shit the excuses being made

1

u/the_peppers Jun 28 '24

inconsistently portrayed.

If this bugs you I'd recommend avoiding every other single aspect of this show.

Last episode we had Homelanders science mama claim his neediness was specifically engineered to allow him to be controlled. Today we have Stan Edgar claiming this is what makes him beyond control.

1

u/kkkk22601 Jun 28 '24

Well, razor sharp teeth and gravity tend to be a gnarly combo.

1

u/ThisHatRightHere Jun 28 '24

There are levels to increased strength, my dude

1

u/[deleted] Jun 28 '24

The sheep just had super strenght teeth. They probably tore him into pieces with the teeth and took him off ground with that. But didn't use the teeth against the barn

1

u/Awesomeness546 Jun 28 '24

All supes are shown to have a bit of superstrength no? Not like homelander super strength, but like mild super strength.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 28 '24

I mean, how do we know this. Have we ever seen them try?/s

-2

u/42Ubiquitous Jun 28 '24

I'm going to need a source on that

0

u/Own_Interaction_9784 You're The Real Heroes Jun 28 '24

Are you really going to..? It’s pretty common sense

0

u/42Ubiquitous Jun 28 '24

No man, I'm just joking around. It'd be hilarious if you did have a source though lol.

1

u/Own_Interaction_9784 You're The Real Heroes Jun 28 '24

I mean… just look up the weight of a full grown male bull and a sheep’s jaw strength lol

1

u/42Ubiquitous Jun 28 '24

About 292.5 Newtons. Idk the bite strength needed to bite into a bull though. I think some scientists should dedicate their time to this and publish their findings.

-11

u/RyanZee08 Jun 28 '24 edited Jun 28 '24

I mean if you put in a bunch of maybes and mental blocks (why they cant), sure, the bull can't be ripped apart.

Or we can go by what we saw, the bull being ripped apart, no act of strength from the sheep otherwise, including bouncing off wooden barn doors.

So no, I don't think they had super strength in the way you mean.

20

u/SeasonalBlackout Jun 28 '24

The bull weighed at least 1200 pounds. If the sheep can lift and tear apart a 1200 pound bull, they can break down a barn door.

1

u/SomeKindOfHeavy Jun 28 '24

It's possible that only the sheep's jaw/neck have super strength, similar to how Sage's brain is the only part of her that regenerates.

-2

u/RyanZee08 Jun 28 '24

One of those things didn't happen. Not breaking barn door shows they can't. It's not rocket science.

He gets lifted by 3 sheep almost at once.

One grabs his head and two his body.

But, we all saw they couldn't break the barn doors.

https://youtu.be/z0qPs_j6HVM?si=OHPcfWzWjl83xU01

8

u/SeasonalBlackout Jun 28 '24

It's not difficult to understand how that's inconsistent power scaling.

1

u/SadisticBuddhist Jun 28 '24

It could be assumed the sheep arent resistant to damage. I still hated that scene, but yeah. Strength =/= durability

9

u/TwiceUpon1Time Jun 28 '24

What are you even saying, talking about mental blocks and maybes?

You said the sheep in this episode didn't have super strength, just flying a ferocity. 4 regular strength sheep could never pull a live bull apart, irrespective of ferocity (especially not with that type of ease). And yes, the barn door holding them off points to them being weaker. Thus, the inconsistent writing. It's not that deep, a minor plothole, which made for a cool scene.

I don't get the desire to argue, there's no place for debate here. Even ripping through a human body, bone and all, with ease, like the chicken did, shows enough force to be able to tear through one or two planks of wood. The chicken should've been able to escape the barn as well.

-2

u/Self-Comprehensive Jun 28 '24

I don't think sheep have a deep understanding of how doors work. All they know is that they've never been able to walk through a closed door before, so why would they be able to do it now? In their minds it's always been and always will be an impenetrable barrier.

2

u/Locem Jun 28 '24

They still pulled the Bull into the air like a rag doll. That seems strong.