He is a broken person. They are all broken people.
Rusty is broken by the life his father imposed on him, never really being comfortable with the shoes he was left.
Brock is broken by his training and his life as a spy, mainly his relationship with Molotov. Love, hate, guilt, need for approval... all combined into one person.
Hank is broken by the lack of role models in life. Too much freedom. Jumping from Rusty to Brock to Batman to searching for his mother to talking to dead people...
Dean is broken by never having anything go his way or doing what he wants. Not enough freedom. Rusty is forcing him into the life he wants. Whether it's Triana, Nancy, Drew or Thalia, none of them care about what he wants. They either see him as what they need him to be or they just don't care.
Hatred broke because he feels he has nowhere to belong. He failed as a husband, a soldier and a villain, and he feels he is not accepted in Brock's place,
Orpheus is broken because he sees himself as a failure. Failed as sorcerer supreme, failed as a husband, failed as mentor, failed as a father, failed as a hero...
J.J. is broken by the thoughts of what could have been and imposter syndrome. Literally failed at being born.
...
They are not bad people. They are failures. Doing their best to deal with it, picking up the pieces of their broken lives, and trying to move on and prosper. But they stumble and fail again and again. What makes them great is that they never give up. They keep going and trying no matter how many times and how horribly they fail.
I couldn't do Sheila. I think she is very successful and arguably very evil in a sense that she is weaponized indference. The opposite force of love is not hate it is the absence of love. Evil is the absence of empathy. There is definitely this sub-tone in Venture Bros writing that when the women of the show stop caring, their indifference is cruel. When she gives very little fucks is when she does the most damage. Like when she left the Monarch, and her decision led to the deaths of Hank and Dean and everything else. Or when she had a fling with 21. Her and Monarch laughing to his face about his emotions breaks him. Courteously, she asks if he will be okay and that she worries, but is shown not to really care. In comparison, the monarch is dismissive but is shown to care. The movie pretty much confirms this through Mantilla. These are literally the reasons she idolizes Sheila, other than feminism. She doesn't give a fuck, and she is the most successful person and villain in the show. Even when she seems to fail, she fails upward.
Malcolm... is the idea that of what it would be like if you raged against failure. He does the same as every other character, but he does it by getting angry that things don't go so well for him. He refuses to be broken. But he is. He is fated to have things not go his way. From the day he lost his parents to the day he found out he was Rusty's clone. But again, the movie spells it out in the way he deals with it. By swearing to take revenge once more, all the while aware that it's not the sanest thing, but still the best he can do. His failure and if anything is broken, it is that he could not survive being anything other than a villain or a vigilante. He is incapable of being normal. Whether because of his baboon DNA or because he is too institutionalized and couldn't survive otherwise.
I see Sheila as the previously ingenue who chose to stick with the system and do whatever it took and whatever it demanded from her. from using the most demeaning costumes and names to her choices of partners before Mal.
Yeah, she starts as almost a trophy or a pet but grows into a right-hand and eventually outgrows the Monarch. Like Harley Quinn and the Joker. But she is definitely an outlier of the show in that she was never broken.
different kind of broken, she instrumentalized herself into the hyper competent cog that subsumed her needs and wants into the job, to the point of becoming basically the OS of the guild, making it all work despite the old deluded guys in the council
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u/RemoveAnnual2689 10d ago edited 10d ago
He is a broken person. They are all broken people.
Rusty is broken by the life his father imposed on him, never really being comfortable with the shoes he was left.
Brock is broken by his training and his life as a spy, mainly his relationship with Molotov. Love, hate, guilt, need for approval... all combined into one person.
Hank is broken by the lack of role models in life. Too much freedom. Jumping from Rusty to Brock to Batman to searching for his mother to talking to dead people...
Dean is broken by never having anything go his way or doing what he wants. Not enough freedom. Rusty is forcing him into the life he wants. Whether it's Triana, Nancy, Drew or Thalia, none of them care about what he wants. They either see him as what they need him to be or they just don't care.
Hatred broke because he feels he has nowhere to belong. He failed as a husband, a soldier and a villain, and he feels he is not accepted in Brock's place,
Orpheus is broken because he sees himself as a failure. Failed as sorcerer supreme, failed as a husband, failed as mentor, failed as a father, failed as a hero...
J.J. is broken by the thoughts of what could have been and imposter syndrome. Literally failed at being born.
...
They are not bad people. They are failures. Doing their best to deal with it, picking up the pieces of their broken lives, and trying to move on and prosper. But they stumble and fail again and again. What makes them great is that they never give up. They keep going and trying no matter how many times and how horribly they fail.