…Or why Captain America: Civil War left us slightly unsatisfied
Look, we all liked Civil War, bar several scenes that inspired a few ‘…sure. I guess. Why not’ reactions. However, most of us were left with a feeling of ‘that’s it?’ when we left the cinema. The movie was not bad in any way, it just wasn’t what we expected exactly. Just a slight discontent after it was all said and done. But fear not friends, it’s not you: it’s them!
But first, what is circular plot structure? Basically, the plot starts at point A, goes to point Z, but point Z is actually an “echo” of point A – things are in a similar state to what they were at the beginning, only to show the internal journey of the main character. Basically, circular plot is that saying – “the more things change, the more they stay the same”. It doesn’t mean the plot hasn’t advanced, it just means that it’s (usually) a fun house mirror image of the beginning.
The Captain America trilogy does this very well between The First Avenger and The Winter Soldier but falters in Civil War. The echoes between TFA and TWS are very clear – the most obvious one being Bucky falling in the Alps – Steve falling in the Potomac. Or the widely discussed fact that Bucky is Steve’s inverted image. One is a symbol, the other is a ghost, but they both shaped the century. The Captain America Trilogy being a movie trilogy lends itself to visual echoes – like, for example, Steve getting out of the chamber when he gets the serum and Bucky’s brainwashing in the bank vault. It’s not the same, but it’s enough of a call back to think of it as a parallel.
And here comes Civil War. The expectations set by the previous two movies are not met, because the movie doesn’t let the plot come a full circle. Had the movie ended when Steve giving up the shield to leave with Bucky after the fight with Tony, it would have satisfied our subconscious expectation of the plot structure. Steve picked up the shield to save Bucky and put it down so he could leave and live with Bucky. That end would lead us to believe that they will return to their lives as they were before any of them got super soldier-ed – while they may still go out to fight the good fight, they would live normal lives as they did back in their time. It would be an echo – this time Bucky won’t be saving Steve, but similar enough to parallel the beginning.
However, the movie did not end there. The movie ended with Bucky getting frozen in Wakanda, fridged until the plot needs him again. That most certainly does not satisfy the expectations of the circular structure that the audience has, even if they are just on a subconscious level. Civil War didn’t disrupt the status quo – Steve now basically runs the Secret Avengers, Bucky doesn’t get redemption or, you know, any opportunity for closure and the Avengers still exist in a similar state they did going back to the original movie, they are just based in different buildings.
All in all, the problem is not that Civil War is a bad movie – it is probably the best superhero movie we’ve seen so far, it’s just that it wasn’t a good conclusion to the Captain America trilogy as much as the Russos wanted it to be. The plot was good, but it was just good enough – works for the casual viewers, but not for the people invested in Steve Rogers as a character and his emotional journey.
you know. sometimes i think. in the face of tony’s obvious trauma and ptsd. in the face of the more obvious pain that bucky has suffered. we forget that steve’s motivation in the film isn’t just his tendency to hold stubbornly fast to his ideals, to do what he feels is right and damn the rest.
steve’s hurting too.
like. guys. we are so ready to give weight to tony’s emotional boiling over point at the end of the film, to say “this is why he tried to kill bucky, and it’s not right but it’s understandable.” we are so ready to acknowledge the fact that bucky was a victim and motivated to run by his fear of further persecution and hurt from nefarious forces. what about steve, though? when do we acknowledge that steve’s not just acting with righteous arrogance, but a deep anger, isolation, fear, loneliness, sadness, and hope?
steve died. like, his last memory before waking up seventy years in the future is a few days after watching his best friend fall from a train and he was unable to stop it he willingly flies a plane into the fucking Arctic, ostensibly to his death.
guys. guys. tony was fucked up for years because of untreated ptsd after falling from space and thinking he was dead. why is it so hard to remember that steve probably is fucked up, too?
this dude, he wakes up seventy years in the future and he has to make his way without really anyone or anything familiar, and the only person who is familiar is suffering from memory loss, and he’s now operating under the thumb of shadowy organization that he’s not 100 percent does good things and that continuously lies to him. there’s no war to fight, but that’s all this body is good for. it’s all he knows.
he doesn’t know what makes him happy. guys.
and so he goes through another trauma when he discovers this villain who is trying to kill him is in fact the dead best friend who—surprise!—was actually captured after falling and losing an arm and his brains were scrambled to turn him into a murder assassin. we know for a fact steve feels tremendous guilt over this. but imagine beyond guilt, the sorrow, the nightmarish possibilities, that are turning over in steve’s head. the idea of what his friend suffered. remember when rhodey fell from the sky and tony blasted sam in the chest? imagine the anger in steve’s heart at the idea of what bucky’s suffered and the unwillingness to let that go unchecked and unsaved.
oh, plus. that shadowy organization he’s been fighting for? the people he’s been taking orders from? the top dog in the neat little hierarchy that’s arranged his world? yeah. hydra. everything steve has known turns upside down. he can’t trust anything. imagine the paranoia. the suspicion. imagine the fear that must take seed at that betrayal.
and then! of course, then he begins fighting these battles with the avengers where the collateral damage is on such a bigger scale than it was at war. where there are aliens. aliens, you guys. and he’s tasked with leading this motley crew of superheroes in a world he’s still getting used to and people die, lots of people die, and we know that even if it doesnt visibly affect him like it affects tony (who always seems shocked when he’s confronted with loss, because it’s presented to him on a personal, individual level) it does affect him. that steve feels the guilt of lives lost. imagine that burden. imagine the weight of the shield, the mask, the responsibility. imagine the loneliness. the fear.
so then. then. in the space of a few days. steve deals with more guilt from the deaths in lagos. he shoulders that burden. then he deals with the moral quandary of signing the accords. he wrestles with that decision. peggy dies. he grieves, oh goodness does he grieve. vienna fuckin blows up and that elusive best friend is now the suspect. so steve is grieving, he is confused and conflicted, and now he feels doubly guilty—that’s the person he has been looking for, should he have already caught him? did he do it? he couldn’t have. does he bring him in? does he shoulder this responsibility too? what will they make him do when he catches up to bucky? what should he do? steve might act like he always knows what’s right, but a decision like this isn’t easy. it messes with a person. and when you’re dealing with all that mess in your head, sometimes you don’t think. sometimes…you act.
like when bucky is triggered, when steve stops a helicopter with his bare fucking hands, you can feel the desperation. that’s not ordinary heroics. that’s not steve just trying to stop bucky from escaping and possibly hurting others. it’s steve fighting for bucky. for this piece of his past. for the possibility of an end to loneliness. for the possibility of redemption for letting him fall.
and when they go on the run, when they know they have to stop the supersoldiers, when they clash with tony’s team, can you imagine steve’s sheer frustration that no one gets what is at stake? that no one is willing to listen? and yes, he didn’t even try—but why is that, you think? is it possibly because steve is used to institutions and those in power ignoring what he thinks is right and causing disaster anyway?
when steve says, “pal, so are we.” when steve acknowledges to natasha that he’s 90 not dead, when he openly references the fact that he and bucky are 100, can you imagine knowing that? adjusting to that? being 20-something in body and memory but 100 in actuality? living in a body that people perceive as a weapon so strongly that you’ve become a weapon when you are still longing to rediscover the man you were? steve’s not just cap. steve’s steve, and he doesn’t know what makes him happy you guys. he’s a guy, he’s a human, and he’s dealing with A Lot.
i get that he makes some bad calls in the movie. so does tony. my beef is that while tony’s decisions are often supported by his very obvious trauma and emotional burden, we rarely seem to give enough weight to the very real and very similar turmoil that is going on inside of steve.
when tony is fighting him in siberia. when steve says, “he’s my friend,” so simply, so sadly, without any righteousness, just clean tired truth, that’s steve as steve. when he hid the truth from tony, that’s steve as steve. when he drops the shield, that’s steve reclaiming himself as steve. we expect cap all the time, because often, steve is cap. it’s easy to see him as the moral police that way, if reductionist.
but we forget to see steve as steve. that he is a kid, in some ways. and a grieving, lost, lonely kid with a lot of anger, sadness, confusion, and power boiling under the placid-seeming surface.
i’m willing to bet that the flashback scenes we get of the starks’ murder intercut with the static footage and tony, steve, and bucky’s reactions are bucky’s vivid, simultaneous recollections of that exact mission. tony and steve only see the blurred, soundless security cam video, but bucky? he sees more than that. he remembers more than that.
it’s bucky who suddenly remembers the smell of fire and smoke. he remembers how howard crawled out onto the road, how howard had gasped ‘please help my wife.’ he remembers howard recognizing bucky’s face underneath the emotionless mask of the winter soldier. he remembers howard’s last two words were bucky’s military title–’sergeant barnes’–hearkening back to the years in which they were both young in heart and young in face. he remembers hearing howard’s wife sobbing weakly, too injured to move. he remembers hearing her cry out her husband’s name in despair. he remembers that she wept helplessly as the winter soldier smashed in howard’s forehead and propped the corpse back into the front seat right next to her.
bucky remembers that he looked at her only to be sure of the placement of his hand around her throat–but he used his right hand to strangle her. he remembers the feeling of her warm, wrinkled skin and her fluttering, fading pulse under his fingers.
small wonder bucky gets weepy. zemo created a situation where he’s shown concrete, irrefutable proof that he’d killed a friend who recognized him and that friend’s innocent wife in cold blood. bucky was forced to relive, in terrible detail, the memory of an event that was outside of his control and in which there was no escaping the fact that it was his hands that were responsible.
bucky replies to tony’s anguished demand that indeed, he remembered all of his victims, all of his actions as the winter soldier now that he had been free of mind control for an extended period of time. but knowing that you were responsible for a certain outcome is different from reliving the context and detail of the actual circumstances in which you were present to create that outcome.
it’s true, like steve says, that hydra made him do it. bucky was a tool, a victim, and the starks were likewise casualties that he was not responsible for–but, like bucky says: it doesn’t matter whether or not he had a choice, whether or not he knew at the time what he was doing, or who even he was doing it to.
he still did it. that much is indisputable.
tony sees the truth behind the greatest unresolved long-term emotional and psychological trauma of his life–a massively formative tragedy and outside of his torture in afghanistan, probably the worst thing that has ever happened to him–reduced to grey static footage with barely any insight into the why. the winter soldier shoots out the camera before seizing the serum from the trunk. all tony sees is a blurry hit. he doesn’t hear his father’s last words, he doesn’t hear his mother’s whimpers. all tony sees is a man with bucky’s face taking out their vehicle and walking up to kill them by hand.
bucky doesn’t see any of that. bucky just sees what he did, and suffers through the lucid memory to back up the proofin front of him. bucky knows, intimately, terribly, that what happened that night was far worse than what tony or steve could infer from the tape alone.
Oh man it was cathartic just reading this. I genuinely enjoyed the movie, but it left me stressed out. The people I’ve talked to about this movie have said to me “as such a huge Marvel fan, that’s really strange.” They wonder why am I not gushing about this movie.
Like… I hold Marvel to high standards and don’t want to blindly love everything they throw at me? I left the movie stressed out because all the characters had their stress dialed up to 11 and there was no moment to come down from that.
We get that Bucky feels guilty. We get that Steve is fighting for Bucky’s freedom. Why did we only get in depth explanation on Tony’s actions? I know the point of this movie is that it was adhering to an actual plot driven timeline so it was hard to fit moments of quiet into this already super packed movie, but literally 2 more minutes of MEN EXPRESSING EMOTION wouldn’t have killed anyone.
I left this movie stressed out because it winded me up and then just let me hang there with no wiggle room. Just me and my stress because nothing that happened was talked about? Or shown the grief that this is putting on these characters?
During Peggy’s funeral, this wonderful woman who has taken such a stance as a force of nature and a gentle place in Steve’s life, she becomes a prop for Steve to connect with Sharon? Like the funeral is a jumping off place for them to start something. During Sharon’s speech, yeah it was Peggy’s words, but it was shot and framed in such a way that Sharon was basically a newer model of Peggy and it really fucking irked me out. We literally just saw Steve barely holding it together as he was carrying Peggy to the front. That emotion is gone in literally seconds as his sadness converts to confusion and surprise and that’s the emotion we are left with on Steve’s last interaction with Peggy. That was it.
That scene could have been shot a thousand different ways and I would have come to terms with Peggy’s passing but this… this was all about introducing Sharon, not paying respects to Peggy, and that is one reason why I am disappointed in the use of Sharon’s character. We barely have any time to grieve even though there was ample time and space to do so.
What about Steve and Bucky though? Yes their actions on behalf of each other are admirable, but it’s usually in the form of fighting people. Their meeting was cut short, and I get it. Here the lack of a heartfelt reunion is actually kind of endearing because they trust each other off the bat without much being passed between them so this short interaction given the circumstance I can understand.
But after this, what about Steve’s headspace? What about Bucky’s? Bucky is heavy with guilt about what he’s been forced to do and we have a few clips of him acknowledging so… but what does that mean to those who don’t yet see Bucky as a victim? He tells Steve as much on the quinjet, and yeah ok that was a lovely line, but where’s Bucky’s headspace during this? Isn’t he fucking scared out of his mind that he’s going back to this hell hole??
Yeah the movie is fast paced but they are literally on this thing for hours so couldn’t they have gone a little more in depth about what they are feeling? There is so much regret in their eyes and yet that’s all the actors, not the actual script. They arrive in Siberia and there’s definitely some tension there, but not enough to fully convey what this actually means to Steve or Bucky.
The very first scene of the movie shows that the Siberian lab is essentially Bucky’s torture chamber, where he was imprisoned in ice, was wiped of his humanity, and had to watch, train, and get beaten up by other soldiers who were stripped of personhood just like he was. For the fans who already understood Bucky to be a victim of circumstance, the significance of going back is monumental. Bucky has every reason to sit this out, let Steve take the reigns. But Bucky swallows his fear and marches forward because if he can stop what happened to him happen to other people, he’s going to do it.
But let’s be real, not everyone is going to put that together. Sure we see them walking in the labs, but when do we ever really get the importance of this to Bucky? Some indicator of Bucky being scared to walk into this place, or Steve’s unbridled anger upon seeing the chair that Bucky was tortured in? Something other than a few flashes of Bucky (and thank god for Sebastian for conveying as much unease and fear as he could with his limited screen time).
For Bucky sympathizers, this scene is awful because we understand how horrible this much be for Bucky. But those who come out of there saying Bucky is a villain? it’s because they never blatantly saw Bucky’s humanity. He didn’t show fear, so the audience didn’t feel fear for him.
Where is his humanity? Where is Steve’s sympathy? They are stepping into Bucky’s hell, then Zemo uses Bucky as a pawn once again. Bucky isn’t causing the conflict; he is the one that conflict storms around.
When the Steve, Bucky, and Tony watch the clip of Tony’s parents’ death, the majority of the emotions are given to Tony. I get it, it’s his parents, but for just as much anger that Tony has about this, Bucky feels just as much guilt and self hatred. He gets one flash and a quick shot of watery eyes, but the focus is on Tony and the rest is left lacking.
From here, anger is the only thing fueling this fight. It stresses me out because the fight itself is so emotionally driven, and it’s not from anger. The brawl is one of tossing around masculinity and the lines do not match up with why this is happening. Well, other than “I remember everyone” by Bucky, but that is a throwaway line to Tony so it becomes a throwaway line to the general audience. When Bucky loses his arm and collapses, where is Steve hurting for his friend? Where is his reaction? Instead he “shows” this by wailing on Tony, but concern for Bucky would cause concern from the audience, but for some reason it gets glossed over.
I want to hope that by only capitalizing on the anger aspect of grief, this can cause awful things to happen. T’Challa is in a similar position as Tony in this story arc, and he manages to wrangle his anger and becomes one of the most empathetic and likable characters because of it. He does acknowledge that this behavior is damaging, but does Tony ever learn this?
This movie was fun and I did enjoy it, but it made me anxious and confused when I walked out. The audience takes cues on what they should feel from the characters, and by not giving the characters time to think, the audience didn’t have time to either, and left a lot of interpretations at face value.
I keep seeing a lot of posts about how Steve was in the wrong in CACW because while Tony had a plan, Steve didn’t offer any alternative to it, he was just like NOPE. The thing is though, something that immediately struck me when I watched the movie was the timing of everything. Ross and Tony bring Steve and the others the Accords THREE DAYS before they are to be signed. Those Accords were not drafted, approved and supported by 117 countries in a week. This was 100% intentional. This is also very, very common in American politics. When politicians want to pass a bill they don’t want people to look at closely, they schedule votes at weird times or when a large # of people are away from the Hill (Capital Hill). So you get these 11th hour bills that are hundreds of pages long that no one has had a chance to read, ask questions about, or negotiate on about changes. These bills are stuffed with completely unrelated stuff that gets passed as well because the whole thing has to be signed off on/approved. It’s called “pork barreling.” Those are the questions Steve tries to bring up to the group. When he’s like ‘what happens when…?’ And Tony brushes aside his concerns like ‘oh, I’m sure we’ll get to make changes later when everything dies down.’ But Steve is like what are we agreeing to NOW though? And practically as soon as they are given the “generous” 3 day warning, Peggy dies. Steve flies off to London and everything goes to hell. What time is there to propose or discuss an alternative plan??
The timing was 100% intentional to make sure the Avengers would be subject to the Accords as written–no matter what was lurking on the bottom of page 440 in fine print. Steve is 100% right to be suspicious. This is one of the dirty tricks of American politics that Steve would be totally aware of. And sure, maybe there’s a chance that everything was above board, reasonable, and so on, but you would NEVER sign a thing like that w/o actually checking/reading it. that would be foolish. I mean, did we forget that Project Insight was authorized and approved by The World Council? I guarantee you that Steve hasn’t. I absolutely believe that Steve would have been willing to talk everything out, negotiate, listen to everyone’s pov, and really consider everything carefully…but there’s no time given to do that. It’s all last minute, non-negotiable, and shady. Steve is a master tactician, natural leader, and a reasonable, thoughtful person who is a Big Picture thinker. It’s weird that people just assume he rejects the Accords because he’s being childish or something. That’s not Steve Rogers at all.
I came away from Civil War really struck by how overwhelming the theme of guilt was. It motivates people to do selfless things, it motivates people to do selfish things, and it’s the driving force behind the ultimate showdown between Bucky and Tony. What the movie does though is contrast the fashion people deal with their guilt.
Tony and Bucky are both people consumed by guilt. In both cases it’s guilt over things they ultimately had no control over. Tony couldn’t have predicted that his parents would die with so many things left unsaid between them and him, yet when we first see him he’s reliving that moment over and over. Tony is steeped in even more guilt when his actions in creating Ultron are thrown back in his face by a victim’s mother. He’s even guilty that his teammates hold him responsible for their containment. The crux of the issue is that Tony just can’t let it go. He’s willing to stare his flaws in the face, but he’s unwilling to forgive himself for those flaws, which leads to an issue I’ll get to in a second. Tony is stuck in an endless guilt loop. His attempts to fix things always seem to lead to more issues that lead to more guilt. He’s understandably frustrated because he’s just so driven to try to make things RIGHT that he’s willing to clash hard and often with people who don’t agree with his ideas. Ultimately the government might be right that the Avengers should have some limitations put on them, but Tony is so desperate to try to fix or at least ease his mind over what he feels like he’s responsible for that he makes agreements and does things without looking at every angle. He flogs himself over his mistakes, but he can’t even really articulate the real problem: acceptance that sometimes things happen no matter what and you’re going to have to live with them.
It’s Bucky who actually voices what is Tony’s issue as well as his. As Steve tries to tell his friend that it was Hydra’s fault and that “it wasn’t really you doing those things” during his assassin days, Bucky calmly and quietly looks up and says “but I did it”. It doesn’t matter to Bucky who MADE him do it. It doesn’t matter to him that he was just the weapon. What matters to him is that he did it. He has to live with that. He has to see something he caused happen in his mind over and over again. He ultimately takes responsibility, and in doing that he echoes something Steve says earlier about being willing to shoulder the blame over things that go wrong. What Steve doesn’t address is not just being willing to bear the consequences of mistakes, but being willing to move forward from there.
That’s the real issue. Not whose fault it ultimately is, but the fact that both Tony and Bucky, in their minds, DID IT. They have to live with that. They have to live with something that no amount of reassurance from outsiders can fix. All the love and understanding in the world can’t help someone who won’t move out of the guilt cycle. And in the end that’s why Tony, in spite of knowing Bucky had no control over his actions in killing the Starks, attempts to kill him. I think it would be easy to claim Tony is motivated purely by revenge, but I think it’s more than that. Tony of anyone should be able to understand someone causing something horrible inadvertently. He’s been in Bucky’s place. He’s caused damage without really knowing it. He KNOWS Bucky was programmed, even calls him the “Manchurian Candidate” at one point proving he completely believes Bucky had no control over his actions. Part of the reason Tony can’t accept Bucky’s moral innocence in what he did is because he can’t accept his own. Tony can’t consider forgiving Bucky because he can’t forgive himself. Tony’s generally a reasonable person, but he’s willing to flat out murder Bucky in the end even though he’s aware Bucky was just the weapon that HYDRA used to kill his parents. Bucky didn’t have a choice in the matter, Tony knows that, but he violently tries to hold him responsible in the same way he mentally holds himself. “Do you even remember them” he lashes out at Bucky, sure that the person involved in causing the determining factor in his life can’t understand the magnitude of what he’s done. Can’t understand the weight of feeling responsible for some many lives. He unwittingly echoes the woman who cornered him in the elevator earlier in the movie. He’s suddenly in her place reacting the exact same way.
“I remember them all.”
That line, right there. If Tony had been able to pause in his rage and grief for a second he would have realized that out of ANYONE he’s come across, Bucky gets it the best. Tony lives with all the ghosts of what he’s caused. So does Bucky. Bucky voices what Tony can’t. No matter what people tell you, you are still going to feel guilty that you did something no matter the reason and every incident can still be fresh and painful and seared on your memory whether it really deserves to be there or not. Maybe you had false information, maybe you didn’t have control, but it still happened. You still did it. You’re still going to have to live with it. And if you don’t forgive yourself to some degree you’re not really going to function. You can see Bucky trying to figure out how to live with himself. He can at least voice that he’s not sure he’s worth it, voice his uncertainty. You see him cringing at the scythe of destruction he is (ie. “what did I do”). You see him figuring out how to live with guilt without needing to punish himself.
Tony says the problem without really saying it. “And then, and then, and then”. The cycle over and over and over. He pushes people away because of it. He tortures himself because of it. And it will eat him alive until he is able to step forward.
Can someone come talk to me about how they have to wipe Bucky every time he gets out of cryo before they even send him on a mission
Because I always imagined that him coming out of cryo would kind of be a blank slate state
But nope
He gets wiped and reprogrammed /every time/ they take him out of cryo – why. Has it happened before? At the beginning maybe, or further down the road, where they would not wipe him after cryo and realized that the asset had began reforming consciousness? Did he try to get away? Did he try to fight them? How many tries has it taken Hydra/Red Room before they figured out they needed to wipe him or he’d destroy the lab and everyone in it?
I was always uncertain on when Bucky would be forced to get his mind wiped; was it before or after cryo? Hydra would have wanted enough of a vessel to do their bidding, but an asset that can still be hyper effective in the field without any agency of his own.
For Hydra’s convenience, sticking Bucky in the ice without a wipe doesn’t make sense to me because of the lingering memories of the previous mission; those could fester during the time in the ice and release an extremely hostile Bucky Barnes on the other side.
Wiping after, which is confirmed by the movie, suggests that Bucky is a completely blank slate when they send him on whatever mission Hydra needs him for. He reverts to total submission (readiness “to comply”) to those who are able to trigger his Winter Soldier programming. His default is call sign is “soldier” with Russian trigger words and response.
I don’t think these words would work the same way if said in any other language or else Zemo would have said them in German (/Sokovian) or something. I think that Bucky’s default after wiping is Russian but is capable of conversing in several languages after the programming is reset.
Does Bucky as the soldier believe itself to be a Russian asset? It is the default in Captain America: Winter Soldier when speaking to the STRIKE team, though he knows when to switch to English when given a prompt to speak in that language. Bucky as the soldier must see itself as something other than regular Hydra agents or military personnel.
Does Bucky see himself as human? Is he a tool with human characteristics? As the soldier/asset, Bucky is allowed no sense of agenda beyond what Hydra puts into his head. Bucky is so smart and empathetic though, wouldn’t the asset pick up on not being able to have the same control of himself that others seem to have? He is stripped from any sense of self, and as a human, I couldn’t see Bucky being complacent with letting that happen for long.
Bucky as a tool, something other than human, something that only knows of being controlled and being the extension of others, is a state where Bucky takes on this pain as inevitable and continues to exist accordingly. The mind wipes took away Bucky’s connection to his humanity and left a shell to be filled with Hydra’s controlling force. Bucky has the ability to regain this humanity, and in congruence his defiance to Hydra, the longer he goes between mind wipes.
From Civil War, I believe that Bucky was wiped every time once he was taken out of cryo. The “Soldier” is at its weakest state, recently thawed and probably mentally in shock.
So going from that, does Hydra wipe Bucky before putting him into cryo as well? We have been told that a long enough time out of cryo proves to be dangerous, with the return of memories and the increased risk of rebellion. Bucky could go into the ice without any sort of mind wipe, but allowing the memories from the previous mission to sit in Bucky’s brain long enough in order for him to realize what is happening to him is not okay seems like a dangerous situation for Hydra to put themselves in. They would likely take as many precautions as necessary to keep Bucky under their control.
The way I see it, Bucky was wiped before cryo to keep him from thinking too much about what the asset was made to do just previously (the longer Bucky sits on these memories the more I see the guilt of it tearing him up inside and causing trouble). After cryo, Bucky was then wiped again so that Hydra could inject the new mission into a clean state of mind.
Maybe Bucky wasn’t wiped before going into the ice, but I could only see that causing problems for Hydra in the long run. I see Bucky’s ability and healing factor being able to pick apart what he was forced to endure connect it to hate aimed toward his oppressors. If there is any form of dreamlike state in cryo, Bucky’s brain must be doing some serious healing during this time. Leaving Bucky with as little as possible to build from during his time in cryo would be the path of least resistance for Hydra.
So that leaves Bucky with two different states between mind wipes:
Out in the world, Bucky is actively in the field, taking direction from others and being filled with evil intentions. He takes this on as an unknown burden and continues forward despite his own comfort. The trigger words do not seem to last for long, or they are less effective when not used on a regular basis, or when not coupled with the mind wipes (or Bucky hit his head on the helicopter and was already out of the winter soldier mindset so there’s not really a clear answer here). But Bucky’s memories are actively forming, he is recently wiped, but is making new memories and in a state of hyper awareness, only allowed to pull on information in his head that would be deemed beneficial for Hydra’s uses.
If Bucky is wiped before cryo as well as after, that leaves Bucky as a blank slate while he goes into the ice for an undetermined amount of time. I don’t think Bucky has a quiet brain when this is happening. When initially entering cryo, Bucky is compliant and weak from the electricity. But every single time he goes in with nothing, and delves into his own head and rebuilds his world and what he knows. The horror builds inside his head until the ice melts again and the soldier might not know who he is but he knows he doesn’t want to be here, but he’s thrown in a chair that makes his stomach twist and the screams of his terrors and thoughts of rebellion are quieted down to a murmur until he’s out in the world for too long again.
In the bank vault scene in Captain America: The Winter Soldier, when we first see Bucky, he’s being bombarded with fragments of memories of Steve and his own “death.” When I was watching it recently, I noticed that one of the things he doesn’t do much of at first is blink. When Pierce enters the vault, Bucky’s not even blinking at all, simply staring straight ahead, completely lost in his memories and confusion, and trying to piece things together. But if you look at the gif above, you’ll notice that right after Pierce backhands him across the face, Bucky’s staring off toward the right, unblinking, until he begins to say, “The man on the bridge…”
In the dim recesses of my minor in speech communication brain, I remembered some information about cognitive function and blinking, so I looked up what might be going on in this scene, and it’s really fascinating. Blinking (aside from its physical requirement of keeping the eye moist) is related to certain cognitive processes; most people punctuate their speech with blinking between phrases and at the ends of sentences. People also time blinking so as not to interfere with receiving new cognitive input (less blinking while they’re solving a problem, for instance, and then blinking more when they’re done).
A 1933 study showed that the rate of blinking was low during tasks requiring concentration and intense mental activity. However, “unfocused or rapidly changing internal states such as disorientation, emotional excitement, frustration, and anxiety seem to be associated with high rates of blinking.”
In the above gif, you can see that Bucky doesn’t blink at all while he’s more focused on the memories that are assaulting him, but then as his internal state starts to change and he wants to talk, he blinks repeatedly when he says, “The man on the bridge.” He keeps blinking in quick succession as he remembers Steve saying, “Bucky?” and continues, turning his gaze up to Pierce: “I knew him.” The blinking has slowed at that point.
Once Pierce lies and then starts in on his little carrot speech, Bucky goes back to blinking only when his eyes change focus or he moves his gaze. Sometimes it’s not even a full blink, just a small movement of his eyelids, like below.
An example of these processes the researchers mentioned was: “While searching one’s memory for a name, one tends not to blink; then, when the name is located, blinking occurs.” Bucky basically, throughout Pierce’s bloviating, is continuing to process his internal emotions and retrieve information, so he doesn’t blink much at all. The researchers believed blinking is inhibited when activities are not dependent upon visual input – and here, all Bucky really does is half listen to Pierce yammering, not entirely focused on him, only glancing at him occasionally. And even more interestingly in terms of this scene, the lower blinking rate extends to visual memory as well, not just receiving new input. All those thoughts and feelings roiling in his mind are Bucky’s primary focus, not Pierce’s empty rhetoric. Until…
Bucky says something about Steve, and his memories, again. Then he blinks multiple times in rapid succession.
Here you can see him blink slowly once, turn his attention to Pierce’s face, and then say, blinking rapidly, “But I knew him.” He’s accessed those visual memories, he knowshe knows something, and he doesn’t care about the new input from Pierce, so the higher blink rate is indicative of his emotional turmoil every bit as much as that little grimace is.
“The rapid changes in visual input level resulting from the closing and opening of the lids may cause massive interference in visual processing areas.” I mean, all I can do here is make flaily hands while I sit in a bathtub filled with the crystalline tears I’ve cried for Bucky.
When Pierce gives up on the carrot and goes for the stick, Bucky goes back to not blinking much at all. Even when they shove him back in the chair, he doesn’t blink.
I don’t know if Sebastian Stan or the directors knew any of this, or if Sebastian did this blinking thing deliberately as part of his acting process, but damn. He just deserves all the awards for such a subtle, amazing performance here. This incredible fucking movie: 16 months later and we can still find stuff to talk about. It’s agonizing and heartbreaking and I don’t think I’ll ever be over this scene.
When I look at Bucky’s face in this scene, I just see terror.
He’s trapped on the same train as Arnim Zola, and he’s terrified of being recaptured and experimented on again.
Ever since his rescue from the Hydra facility, there’ve been signs that he’s not ok.
Bucky stops faking a smile the moment Steve turns away from him.
At the bar when Steve is recruiting the Howling Commandos, Bucky sits apart from everyone, tossing back whiskey like someone struggling with bad memories. He’s already got the thousand yard stare. And when he talks to Steve, it’s with an edge of false bravado.
When Steve first finds Bucky, he was repeating his name, rank and serial number like a mantra, a sign that he’d probably been interrogated and/or tortured. Another blogger pointed out that the bruises on his cheek and forehead look like they were caused by the equipment used to wipe him in CATWS. Zola, in all likelihood, had already begun the process of breaking Bucky down.
Can you imagine the courage it took for Bucky to follow Steve onto that train?
When Bucky said “I’m with you to the end of the line,” he meant every single word.
And yet he manages to pass it off with the Coney Island Cyclone joke! You KNOW Bucky just wants to vomit, and not from the ride down to the train, but from what’s waiting for him there.
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