I also don’t hate Tony! I think he’s a complicated, fascinating character – though I confess I am a little frustrated with the direction the writers took with his character by undoing a lot of his growth in Iron Man 3 (which I thought was a good movie) in order to shoehorn him into the center of AOU and CA:CW, though that’s my own personal peeve. But man, I remember watching Iron Man (2008) a gazillion times when it came out and loving it to bits! And I love the ways in which he is the model of an Aristotlean Tragic Hero Archetype. RDJ’s performance is spectacular to boot.
And you’re spot on about people boiling things down – inaccurately – into being about Bucky. Part of the problem with the CA:CW discourse, I think, is the amount of focus on fandom around Stucky – and this isn’t a criticism of Stucky! Just about how fandom distortions around ships can alter perceptions:
There’s this myth in fandom that 100% of everything Steve does and thinks is completely about Bucky all the time. And while Bucky is absolutely an important part of Steve’s life, they are both individuals with their own priorities and their own choices. Steve has a strong sense of right and wrong, and a lot of experiences with corrupt institutions outside of Bucky on which he bases his decisions. But the fandom echo chamber reframes everything as being Bucky-centered in CA:CW for the romance of it, when…. that isn’t really accurate. And so Team Iron Man folks who are also exposed to this fanon then frame Steve as acting irrationally and making everything all about Bucky, because that’s the exaggerated fandom shipping narrative dominant on tumblr, despite that not being what happens in canon.
The thing about the Accords is – I don’t think ANYONE thought that some kind of agreement for ensuring More Bad Shit didn’t happen was a bad idea. Steve makes it clear that the structure of this specific law – which completely deprives the Avengers of any agency while putting dangerous amounts of power in the hands of a few countries’ governments (mainly the former-imperialist nations who have permanent seats on the UN Security Council) and denying human rights to Enhanced Individuals – is not something he’s comfortable with. And then there’s no compromise available, because the thing is being railroaded through with no time for deliberation, amendment, discussion, or even a fucking lawyer to look it over. This is misrepresented by the other side as Steve refusing any kind of oversight ever.
And part of the reason both sides end up talking past one another is that one side is arguing about whether or not the ideal of legislation like the Accords – and what they are allegedly supposed to accomplish – is right, and basing a pro-Accords argument on that, while the other is arguing against the reality of the Accords – and the agenda Ross actually designed them to accomplish – to point out that the actual implementation of the Sokovia Accords is an Authoritarian disaster. And those are two different conversations, and two positions that can be simultaneously right. The idea of some kind of legal framework that the Avengers should have to abide by in order to defend the rights of nations and individuals isn’t a bad one. The Accords are also not the right framework to make that happen.
Because I’m sick to death of anyone making Team Cap’s intention during the airport battle about anything other than Cap and company trying to get to Siberia to stop five other Winter Soldiers, here’s some dialogue from the movie for ya…
STEVE: Hear me out, Tony. That doctor, the psychiatrist, he’s behind all this.
TONY: Anyway. Ross gave me 36 hours to bring you in. That was 24 hours ago. Can you help a brother out?
STEVE: You’re after the wrong guy!
TONY: Your judgment is askew. Your old war buddy killed innocent people yesterday.
STEVE: And there are five more super soldiers just like him. I can’t let the doctor find them first, Tony. I can’t.
Then, later…
BUCKY: We gotta go. That guy is probably in Siberia by now.
STEVE: We gotta draw out the flyers. I’ll take Vision, you get to the jet.
SAM: No, *you* get to the jet! Both of you! The rest of us aren’t getting out of here.
CLINT: As much as I hate to admit it… if we’re going to win this one some of us might have to lose it.
SAM: This isn’t the real fight, Steve.
So anyone saying that Team Cap had any drive other than stopping five enhanced Hydra agents from being awakened by Zemo and wreaking havoc, or so they were led to believe, should probably get their ears checked.
Say it with me, folks. The airport battle was not about the Accords. At least not from Team Cap’s perspective.
This
^^^^ All of this.
Theres this common tumblr joke that Steve was allll about irrationally believing Bucky to be an angel, or inappropriately shielding him from the consequences of his actions.
When… that doesn’t happen. At all.
Steve was ready to believe Bucky could have set off that bomb, and went after him before the SWAT team got there in order to take Bucky alive and try to save SWAT lives doing it. Not because he was certain he was innocent. (He said to Nat, “If he’s this far gone, Nat, I should be the one to bring him in…”)
Steve, as you say, is motivated through the entire airport sequence to *stop the other soldiers,* the unleashing of which he fully believes is Zemo’s plan.
Steve does literally everything he can to simply stop Tony’s murderous rage, and only begins to lose his temper toward the end of the fight… a temper he relocates himself, before he goes too far.
Steve is consistently one of THE most level headed people anywhere in the film. Its the rest of the situation around him thats pitting his and Bucky’s needs against that of some of his friends. Steve’s morals around consent and authority and his position on the Accords may not line up with yours. But that doesnt mean he isnt sensibly following his own compass (and besides that, the Accords actually aren’t playing into his motivations for a surprisingly large chunk of the film. He’s got other fish to fry.) He may also have a reputation for sass and splashy actions. But that doesn’t make his motivations in CW that of a hothead.
“Well, it certainly seems like a mass casualty event to me.”
“…okay, yeah, but we didn’t have any deaths or serious injuries either, so the news reports are still probably accurate.”
(For those of you who aren’t in Alaska, we had a 7.2 earthquake this morning and everything is a big mess, much worse in many places than some spilled action figures, but we also didn’t have any deaths or major injuries, which is pretty amazing under the circumstances.)
Voting registration deadlines are coming up really soon (tomorrow, in several states). Go use a site like iwillvote.com or turbovote.org to register or check your registration, and then commit to vote. Otherwise you make Captain America sad and frustrated, and nobody wants that.
“Captain.”
“Hi. Mind if I sit?”
“Feel free. Are you, ah, really intending to consume…all of that?”
“If I’m really lucky, a whole bottle of wine and a case of whatever this is might be enough to give me a buzz, and if that doesn’t work I can at least get a quick sugar high from all this ice cream. So yeah.”
“…bad day?”
“Frustrating. I’m doing some ad spots for a campaign to get out the vote—”
“Of course you are.”
“—and, shut up, they’re not as awful as the ones I did a few years ago, and it’s really important so I’m glad to help, but I see all this garbage online and my god I’m pretty sure I deserve a medal for sticking to the script and not saying something like, I don’t know, how dare you skip voting just because you’ve decided it doesn’t matter, good people died to give you that right, do you have any idea how recently huge numbers of Americans weren’t allowed to vote, and in fact there are lots of people in this country right now who want to exercise that basic right but can’t for one reason or another, and you want to sit here and tell me you’re perfectly capable of getting to the polls but you’re just not going to bother because you’re convinced it doesn’t make a difference and all the candidates are equally bad? Get off your ass and get to the voting booth, I don’t care if the candidates don’t thrill you and you think it won’t matter. This country’s a mess and voting is the very least you can do to start cleaning it up.”
“I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised to find you’re so passionate about this.”
“You’re damn right I am. Pretty sure I’ve earned that. No cracks about how we should’ve let you rule us?”
“And interrupt a rare Captain America rant? Never.”
Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Captain America (Movies) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Wanda Maximoff & Steve Rogers, Clint Barton & Wanda Maximoff, Wanda Maximoff & Vision Characters: Wanda Maximoff, Steve Rogers, Clint Barton, Sam Wilson (Marvel) Additional Tags: Wanda Maximoff Needs a Hug, Pre-Wanda Maximoff/Vision, Missing Scene, Maximoff Fic Exchange, Steve Is a Good Bro, He also needs a hug, The Raft Prison (Marvel) Summary: Steve finally goes to Wanda’s tiny room and taps on the doorframe, although it’s hardly necessary, with the slightly warped floorboards creaking under his feet. “Hey,” he says. “Got a minute?”
Wanda’s been a little withdrawn since Steve broke everyone out of the Raft. She’s had a lot to think about.
Resharing because I think this got a little buried in my focus on my Grandthorki fic. I know @ramblingredrose saw it but @portraitoftheoddity and @veliseraptor might also be interested? and now I’m totally blanking on who else I know that likes Wanda >_<
I'm a defeatist but I don't have to be 