The One Ring, Compound V, and the Natural Enhancement of Evil
Hey Tolkien Poppers!
Back to our regularly scheduled program of original longform posts where I explore aspects of Tolkien and how it either impacts or can be put in dialogue with a particular piece of media! This week’s post is on The Boys and Tolkien’s legendarium—particularly about how Compound V and the One Ring are tools of dominating power that corrupt those who look to possess them for their own ends. It’s dark and deep and I am excited for you to read it and let me know what you think!
Just another reminder that I will be hanging out with Matthew Distefano from the Heretic Happy Hour podcast and Quoir this tomorrow Sunday, October 27th at 12pm CST/1pm EST on the QuoirCast Network: https://youtube.com/@quoircastnetwork2404?si=Avc3wf5nPuiK_R0Q, where we will be talking all things Tolkien (with a sprinkling of heretical spirituality I’m sure). You won’t want to miss out on the fun!
This post is brought to you Heretic Happy Hour. Are you tired of mainstream religious podcasts that dodge the real questions? Tune in to Heretic Happy Hour, where we tackle the burning questions—not people! With our main show every Tuesday—which features panelists like Rainn Wilson, David Bentley Hart, Lisa Sharon Harper, Bart Ehrman, and many more—a bonus show every Friday, and a livestream every Sunday in the Heresy After Hours Facebook group, we’re here for all the faith seekers ready to challenge the status quo. Subscribe now, wherever you get your podcasts, and join the conversation that's redefining faith.
Now onto the rest of the article!
Power. It’s a word that often comes up, almost tritely so. This is particularly true in an election year in the United States. What is its worth? Who has too much of it? Too little? Who should wield it and to what degree? Who needs to be stripped of it? These questions of power are shrouded by media spin, a variety of ideological extremisms, and an unending condensation of global events both catastrophic and beneficial.
Questions pertaining to power are dealt with in political parties, think tanks, and religious institutions. But even more so, it seems to me, people wrestle with power primarily through art. This is famously true in The Lord of the Rings and Tolkien’s legendarium. The rings of power, their origins, and their purpose set the stage for the events of The Lord of the Rings, which are being explored through the Amazon adaptation The Rings of Power. Ironically, and possibly, not by coincidence, another Amazon adaptation, The Boys, also explores the nature and impact of power. It seems that we as a species are obsessed with this concept and what we are to do with it.
Most of us feel the burden of the impact of our current realities such as our climate crises and being caught in the middle of wars over land to dominate. With this comes the pressure of doing something about anything and everything. The news, influencers, and politicians tell us to simultaneously relax and save the world. Our global knowledge overwhelms our localized bodies, causing most of us to stay frozen in place, going through the motions to stay as sane as possible so that we can survive the day-to-day.
Art provides us a safe space, relative to our historical context, to deal with these global problems. What if there were a Dark Lord that was attempting to cover the world in darkness and there were a group of heroes that looked like us, who had the chance to stop this Dark Lord? What if there were superhumans who portrayed themselves as “heroes,” but whose hidden and villainous acts were the root cause of global problems? What if we had the means to stop these superhumans and change the world for the better? The page, whether it be a novel, comic, or screenplay serve as frames for us to spill all our anxieties, joys, and sorrows in a complicated world.
The orphan and WWI veteran J.R.R. Tolkien would come to understand this feeling all too well during his lifetime. In the midst of a world filled with sorrow, he articulated that there was also joy to be experienced and one of the best ways to experience this was through the writing and reading of good art - particularly fantasy. This experience of joy intermingled with and emerging from sorrow is what Tolkien termed a eucatastrophe or what is commonly called “the Happy Ending.” In order for there to be a happy ending, there has to be deep loss in the context of evil so that we may feel the fullness of the joy of deliverance from that evil. Eucatastrophes are strewn throughout The Lord of the Rings. There are both mini-eucatastrophes and the climactic eucatastrophe of Gollum falling into the fires of Mt. Doom with the One Ring that releases Frodo from its grasp and leads to the freeing of the Free Peoples of Middle-earth.
Tolkien’s work provides us with both a realistic way of dealing with residue of evil power by providing us with episodes of people dying, being corrupted, and hurting others as well as a hopeful one, where in the end, evil will bring about its own end and good will survive another day as long as there are those willing to do the difficult job of adventuring. I would argue that this is part of Tolkien’s charm and lasting impact on popular culture. However, there are those that do not share the same perspective or engage in the same narrative framing as Tolkien. The Boys, for example, has a more pessimistic view of power and our relationship to it.
Here is your spoiler alert for The Boys TV show as well as the comic. Not dissimilar to Tolkien’s conception of corrupting power, The Boys attributes corrupting power to individuals, corporations, and governments who intend on monopolizing that power and using it to dominate, control, and kill others. Plans and strategies are devised and carried out pertaining to this power, but to an arbitrary degree, i.e., for the sake of gaining and exercising more power. It is an end in and of itself without any real reflection on what having that power means.
Before diving into these themes in the steaming series, the viewers begin with Hughie Campbell, who is a salesman, a fan of superheroes, and taking a walk with his girlfriend Robin Ward. Suddenly, Robin explodes, seemingly out of nowhere. In the midst of the stressful trauma, it is made clear that a Flash-like character named A-Train accidentally ran into Robin at a superhuman level speed, causing her to burst from the impact. It’s a gruesome scene, but one that shows how the lack of care from those in power causes the most devastating harm to those with less power. Disenchantment, rage, and sorrow overtake Hughie.
No news coverage about Robin’s death is conducted and Vought, the company that basically owns and creates superheroes, later, only offers Hughie $45,000 for damages as long as he signs an NDA. With nothing to do and nowhere to turn, he, like many of us would, goes back to work. During one of his shifts, he is approached by Billy Butcher, who claims that he is in the FBI and offers Hughie the opportunity to get revenge on A-Train and the superheroes with the protection of the FBI. He then becomes part of a group nicknamed “The Boys” that eventually consists of Butcher, Hughie, MM “Mother’s Milk,” Frenchie, and Kimiko/The Female. Finally, those who are not superpowered, collectively come together to form power of their own to keep inhuman power in check.
Although corporations, lobbyists, and politicians are all in collusion with the superheroes and their multi-billion dollar industry that fuels the United States’ goal for global domination in The Boys universe, Hughie and The Boys are given the means and the protections to work against Vought and the superheroes with any means necessary. The first mission of the show leads to the partnering with Annie January aka Starlight, who joins the top superhero team that serves as the face of Vought: The Seven. Annie, like many aspiring superheroes, has dreamed of joining The Seven. However, once she begins to peak behind the curtain, she learns that Homelander, the leader of The Seven, is murderously insane and that sexual harassment is normative within the interworkings of The Seven–to which she falls victim to. This realization motivates her to partner with The Boys to put a wrench in the operations of Vought and The Seven.
The Boys are able to kidnap a member of The Seven named Translucent, who can turn invisible as well as harden a translucent shell that covers his body, making him near-indestructible. Translucent is revealed to be a Peeping Tom and all-around pervert. Imprisoned in an electrically charged cage so that he cannot escape, Translucent is eventually electrocuted by The Boys to the point of knocking him out. While he’s unconscious, The Boys put a remote explosive up Translucent’s rectum, threatening him to trigger it if he doesn’t give them the information they ask for. Eventually, he is given the opportunity to escape and attempts to kill Hughie, who is holding the detonator to the explosive residing in Translucent’s body, which leads to Hughie detonating the explosive and therefore to his first kill ever. Hughie is horrified and feels the complexity of taking a life–even if it is one of a terrible superhuman person.
Where MM, Frenchie, and Kimiko have a more nuanced approach to their work, Butcher brings an attitude of brutality, fueled by revenge for what Vought and the superheroes have done to his wife Becca. We find out later that she has been raped by Homelander and has a son from him named Ryan. Homelander keeps her hidden so that she can raise Ryan alone without any interference from the outside world. During this time, Billy believes that Becca is dead and is unaware of Ryan’s existence until he discovers that she is alive and where she is being kept prisoner.
Everyone has a personal stake in their work to combat Vought and the superheroes. This leads to the fighting of White Supremacist eugenicists within Vought, hurting the corporate interests of those who have financially invested in fueling the global war industry, and undercutting corrupt politicians, not to mention doing some serious damage to evil superheroes. Over time, each member of The Boys wrestles with their relationship to wielding violence against those who also wield violence. With each head of the evil Hydra of Vought severed, it seems that more replace it, leading to cynicism and exhaustion. How much power and violence will it take to out-power and out-violence Vought and its superheroes? And at what point does this become a power pissing match rather than an attempt to prevent evil from being imposed on the innocent?
This question raises its head constantly and, in the show, it comes to a head when The Boys learn of a substance called Temporary V, which can be injected into non-superhumans to give them enhanced abilities for a temporary amount of time. This is in contrast to the substance Compound V, which is a serum developed by Vought that, when injected into a person, causes them to permanently transform into a superhuman. Both have a cost. Compound V demonstrates that it causes intense negative psychological effects on those who are injected with it. Temporary V or “Temp V” as it’s called can only be used 3-5 times before it can cause fatal symptoms in its user. In the show, Hughie and Butcher take Temp V in an attempt to stop Homelander and another superhero named Stormfront. Other members question the use of Temp V by Hughie and Butcher because this is the same power that has allowed for Vought to dominate the world. Hughie stops taking Temp V. Butcher does not, leading him to develop a sentient cancerous worm in his body. This sentient worm bolsters Butcher’s hunger for violent revenge, seemingly pushing him over the edge to fully embrace his inner monstrosity so that he may continue his quest for blood against superheroes.
In the comics, Butcher and members of The Boys have taken Compound V and are superhuman. Towards the end of the run, we learn that Butcher has been pulling the strings behind Vought, the production of Compound V, it’s continual distribution across the world, and the development of weapons to specifically target and kill superhumans. Butcher has been manipulative and a big player in the game of Vought for the sake of satisfying his bloodlust.
How and when Butcher becomes addicted to the continuous murder of superheroes for its own sake differs in the comic and the show. In the comic, Butcher takes Compound V early and is already a superhero when he meets Hughie as opposed to the show that has Butcher as a non-superhuman until he takes Temporary V. However, the continual violent war against superheroes with revenge as the primary motivator and the increase in the acquisition of power leads Butcher to be as evil and murderous as Vought and the messed up superheroes they create. No longer are their plans to make the world better, but only to manipulate and kill as many superheroes by any means necessary.
Compound V serves a similar function as the One Ring in Tolkien’s legendarium. It may not give all its wearers “superpowers,” although it makes Bilbo, Frodo, and Sam invisible in the physical world when they wear it, but it does bolster the inherent abilities that those who wear it hold as well as the negative aspects of the ring bearer. Sauron created the One Ring alone with the intention of using it to dominate the entirety of Middle-earth and its inhabitants. Because of this, it is entirely evil and corrupts the user towards the ends for which it was created. There is no “good” use of the Ring, even if good is accomplished by it. In the end, all its bearers succumb to a deadly fate–either through literal death or full surrender to the corrupting power of the Ring to drive one’s decision to dominate all to their ideal for the world.
Both Compound V and the One Ring are tools of power, created by those in power, to spread and maintain that power. They are not things to be sought, but things to be thrown away. This is not to say that either The Boys or The Lord of the Rings promotes inaction against domineering power. Rather, it is humility and the embrace of our humanity without the compromise of our humanity in our fight against evil power that is the key to successfully facing the enemies of our world. Becoming the enemy to defeat the enemy is an absurd paradox that leads to the continuous cycle of power, domination, and death. We see this with Saruman. And we see those who use and attempt to use the tools of the enemy like Denethor and Boromir also fall into ruin. Let’s embrace the love of our friends and family to work together to cultivate change for a better world rather than running away to our Shires or putting on our Rings of Power to destroy our enemies.
Pre-orders for the e-book version of my upcoming book Tolkien and Pop Culture: Volume I are live! This book is a selection of my Substack posts from the past couple of years, cleaned up, and formatted for publication. For the first time, you can get all these essays in print or in your Kindle library. It’ll look great on your shelf and be available for your own Tolkien purposes! Use the QR or the link to pre-order the e-book, available October 31st and be on the lookout for the link when the paperback releases on November 1st: https://a.co/d/eBE7jiH