He (Tony) really wants to murder Bucky with his own hands in this scene. That’s really the thought process we were following…
…We wanted this to be a brutal grudge match between these characters. And obviously this wasn’t the case but for the smallest fraction of a second we wanted to make you believe that the shield might go in Tony’s face. But Cap is not that kind of person. Cap is the kind of person that, no matter how much he loses control and the end of the day he is purely trying to end the fight. If you go back and look at the sequence just about everything he does, every move he makes, is to disable.
Director and writer commentary (aka directors Joe and Anothy Russo and writers Chris Markus and Stephen McFeely) regarding the final battle between Steve and Tony in Civil War.
Pretty damn sick of reading meta that paints Steve as supposedly the overly violent one in that final battle scene in Civil War. It is especially precious when such blatantly wrong meta is tagged in Steve’s tag with zero regard to basic fandom politeness and common courtesy. So here you go, concrete, empirical evidence that no, STEVE wasn’t the overly violent one in that scene.
Source (like literally you can download the director’s commentary and listen to it FOR FREE so there is no excuse to post such blatantly wrong meta, in the character tags no less, unless you’re purposely going out of your way to be an ass).
Tony was straddling Steve’s chest earlier in the fight, and he threw a punch at Steve’s head which shattered the concrete when Steve ducked aside. Yes, Tony was mad with grief. Yes, Ross had pushed him to the breaking point. Yes, Zemo poked his big red shiny candylike button to get him to go off, but at the end of the day, Steve had to fight Tony to keep him from committing cold blooded murder, and I think by the time the phone arrives, both of them realize that. They both know they’d been shoved into the worst possible place by the end there, and they both have the hindsight to be feeling stupid about having gone there, but Steve and Tony both know that Tony was teetering on an edge he couldn’t have recovered from if Steve hadn’t stopped him in Siberia.
Here’s some information and resources you might like to have for when you’re writing about male WWII-era characters undressing each other and engaging in sweet, sweet, pornographic activities:
US military field uniforms in WWII didn’t have zipper flies. Modern ones don’t either, actually, though there were eras (like Vietnam) when they did use zippers. I’m not actually sure why they originally did button flies or why they went back to them… I imagine it’s just because a lost or broken button is easier to repair in the field than a broken or jammed zipper? But that’s just a guess. The point is, embrace the button fly.
US Army characters like Bucky would have several uniforms issued, and would have mostly worn a primarily wool field service uniform while on the front. He seems to be wearing the tattered remains of that uniform when Steve rescues him in Azzano. The uniform Bucky’s wearing at the beginning of The First Avenger, before he ships out, is the Class A dress uniform or garrison uniform. This is also the uniform that would be worn while in the garrison, as the name implies, so it’s normal for soldiers to wear when they aren’t in the field, which is why we see Bucky wearing it in New York, and both Steve and Bucky wearing their respective dress uniforms while in London or otherwise in the office, so to speak.
You can see a list here of everything he’d have been issued upon induction, which idek I just found really interesting. Mmm, sexy Army underwear! Yeah, get it! They could also buy additional gear to supplement what they’ve been given, and they’d buy that stuff from the base PX (that’s the Post Exchange, essentially the base general store). That may have also included items like these leather photo wallets and other stuff to help them remember the folks back home, but more commonly they’d be buying stuff there like soap, candy, gum, and beer. Did you know there’s a whole freaking book about the PX system in WWII? I fucking love history nerds, group hug, get in here.
So Bucky’s got his standard issue gear when he’s out with the 107th in the deleted scene from TFA. Obviously by the time they become the Howling Commandos, Bucky is sick of Army issue and they become customized as shit. (Most of the other Howlies are still wearing fairly recognizable kit from their respective countries.) They’re probably also not regular Army anymore at all and are totally under the umbrella of the SSR, considering they also wear SSR insignia, so maybe it was the SSR (or Howard, he’s got some style) who hooked Bucky up with his sweet new duds.
Here’s Bucky in his Howlies uniform, which just personally speaking is my favorite uniform for Bucky because he looks hot as helllllll. I can’t find a single piece of standard issue in this (maybe his underwear, only Steve would know for sure).
He’s gotten himself some trousers with additional pockets and they don’t really look like the standard wool to me, either. Maybe they’ve got some slightly futuristic Stark-style waterproofing, I don’t even know. (Regular field trousers would only have side and back pockets, plus a watch pocket; I know there are trousers from the period that do have cargo pockets, but they were for paratroopers and possibly tankers had them too, not infantry.) Just bear in mind that he’s probably still got a button fly. And I’m not at all reminding you of that because I have yet to read a single WWII-era story that describes Steve slowly unbuttoning Bucky’s fly (maybe with his teeth? go wild!), and I’m dying with the lack of it. It’s not that REALLY I PROMISE.
He’s also wearing leather leggings/gaiters, which is interesting because by this point the US Army has abandoned the leggings used in WWI/early WWII and have switched over to a double-buckle combat boot, which was probably what Bucky was wearing in Azzano. These gaiters have buckles instead of the bajillionty hooks of canvas leggings, though, so they’re probably not too laborious to take off. Just if you’re having Steve undress him don’t forget that he’ll need to remove the leggings as part of that process, is all. (God please somebody write me like at least 5K of beautiful hurt/comfort with Steve tenderly undressing Bucky post-mission PLEASE SOMEBODY PLEASE.)
This video is from a reenactor, but it’s helpful because it shows you close-ups of some stuff like the fastenings on the field jacket (zipper and buttons) and the lining inside and whatnot. It’s these little details that really help when you’re writing me that fic I requested above oh god please somebody anybody. It also shows some cool stuff like shaving kit and some toiletry items. Look at the tiny handy roll of toilet paper! The tiny box of cigarettes and the match case! It shows some cool paperwork and books and things a soldier might carry, too. This reenactor video also shows the person opening the pants and you can see how the button fly looks, though the uniform shown is airborne, not regular Army.
Anyway I can’t believe I just wrote this long a post when really my point is please write less zippers and more button flies, kthxbai.
(Disclaimer: I am not in the Army and am not from the 40s. Hopefully most of this is correct anyway.)
The pants are waxed cotton canvas, a waterproof and heavy-duty material that was frequently used by sailors and the military since the mid-18th century. It needed a lot of tlc between wears, but was dependable and is still used by many outdoorsman today, despite synthetic fabrics being available with the same or improved properties.
The coat is not standard for any military that I know of, but it resembles a cross between a French Air Force Officer’s Jacket, and a U.S. Naval great coat. The weird part for me is that he’s tucking a coat with material that thick INTO his stiff waxed trousers, methinks it’s to keep Little Jimmy from freezing over. The uncharacteristic for the time period (BDUs being much more economical to produce on demand without the craftsmanship that tended to go into Dress Uniforms) embellishments in the chest areas and down around the overcomplicated double-breasted fasteners probably denotes either armor sewn into the material, or simply quilting for warmth. (It’s also a thematic choice for him, since that pattern carries over to his weird bondage-y one-sleeved uniform HYDRA made him wear).
As for the gaiters, those are easy to explain, that style of gaiter was worn by the British ATS, colloquially known as the Home Guard, and would have been easy to acquire during any of their stops to England.
Time for some more rambling. I’m not sure if this is something that’s already been touched on in the fandom, but I was rewatching the The First Avenger recently and I’m pretty sure the train was set up by Hydra to be a trap for Bucky…
Let’s start by looking at the scene where Steve rescues Bucky from the Hydra munitions factory. When Schmidt sees that Captain America has infiltrated the facility, he sets the building to destruct. Zola sees what Schmidt is doing and he freaks the hell out.
Now, Zola is normally a groveling worm when it comes to Schmidt. He knows better than to stand up to him; but there’s something that tips him over the edge here–if just for a second.
We already know there are a handful of other munitions factories across Europe (which is part of the reason Schmidt can be so casual about blowing up this one). Wanting to save the weapons might be part of Zola’s reaction here, but that really isn’t reason enough for him to risk Schmidt’s anger (which can be deadly). At this point in time, there’s nothing in the factory they can’t afford to lose.
Except for Bucky.
Sergeant Barnes is the first one to show signs he might survive his stint in the isolation ward. He’s the first one to show signs that he might be responding to Zola’s attempts to create his own super soldier. That research is only located in one place, and Schmidt is about to send Zola’s breakthrough up in flames. The moment Zola realizes he can’t stop Schmidt, he makes a break for the lab to try to rescue his notes. Of course there’s no way he can carry Bucky out of there, so he has to make do with what he can get.
In a painful twist of fate, Steve does Zola a favor by saving Bucky.
Take a look at this standoff on the scaffold. Here the audience is meant to focus on Steve and Schmidt going head-to-head for the first time; but pay attention to Bucky and Zola. This is their standoff, too. Follow their line of sight. They’re not looking at Steve and/or Schmidt through most of this scene. They’re looking at each other, and you can almost see the realization on Zola’s face that his experiment might just be saved.
Don’t you dare look at Bucky like that, you asshole.
Also, can I just point out the look on Bucky’s face when he spots Zola?
If looks could kill.
Not to mention his face when he sees what Schmidt looks like under the mask. Sure, Bucky’s line asking Steve if he has “one of those” is meant to be a joke for the audience; but I think Bucky’s experience as a character is a lot different from our experience outside the fourth wall. He’s genuinely scared–for Steve, for himself. You can see the trace of tears in his eyes.
Bucky knows something awful has been done to him at the hands of Hydra, and he doesn’t know if he’s going to lose his humanity, too.
Jump ahead and Captain America and the Howling Commandos are now laying waste to anything and everything Hydra. Things are looking bad for our villains.
This is an interesting line, because the movie doesn’t exactly tell us what Zola’s mission is. Maybe we’re supposed to think his mission is to make sure the weapons are finished in time to meet Schmidt’s timeline for world domination. Or maybe it’s to kill Captain America. And maybe those things are part of his job, but as Zola himself says, “I merely develop the weapons. I cannot fire them.” His primary job is research and development, not tactical planning and defense.
Now that Hydra is up against a super soldier, it’s likely that Schmidt is anxious to get his own super soldiers into combat. The easiest and fastest way to complete that research, of course, is to retrieve Sergeant Barnes. (In theory, Zola could use Steve for experimentation if he caught him; but he would have to start the experiment from scratch. Peggy made it clear earlier in the film that it would take them years to find out the formula using Steve’s blood. Chances are good the same would apply to Zola. The work on Bucky is already underway, it’s Zola’s own handy work, and Bucky’s still weak enough to be an easy catch compared to Steve.)
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that, directly after Schmidt gives Zola the ultimatum to “finish his mission,” we cut to the Howling Commandos laying in wait for the train. They’re hoping to catch Zola, whose location has somehow been leaked, and it quickly becomes clear that the scummy doctor hasn’t been caught by surprise. In fact, everything indicates that Zola was the one laying in wait for them. He’s surveilling the entire train from a command center and issuing orders to strategically placed Hydra soldiers.
When Steve and Bucky board the car, Zola deliberately separates them.
Divide and conquer is a tried and true tactic, but look at the difference in the opponents sent after them. Steve is given a huge opponent armed to the back teeth with a Tesseract energy gun. But Bucky? Bucky faces off against onetraditionally-armed guard. (EDIT: In a subsequent viewing I noticed he actually faces off against two guards, but the second one is barely seen and is removed from the equation fairly quickly.)
Why wasn’t that guard given an energy weapon too? My guess would be because Zola didn’t want his guinea pig harmed too badly. Bullet wounds can heal, but disintegration is forever.
It might also be telling that when Steve and Bucky are back in the same compartment together, Zola screams “kill him” not “kill them.” It’s up for debate who Zola meant for the guard to target; but since he was initially sent after Steve, it’s my assumption that’s who Zola meant for him to shoot.
As we all know, the plan goes horribly awry on both sides and Bucky falls to his seeming death. Zola is captured and, when Colonel Philips tells him that “the last guy you cost us was Captain Roger’s closest friend,” Zola barely acknowledges it with a creeptacular grin.
He knows. He knows whatever he did to Bucky would keep him alive. And, as it turns out, even as a captive Zola will gain the means to finish his little experiment.
Hmmm. Look at that Ross is a jerk. Maybe Tony shouldn’t have trusted him with those 3 inch thick Accords. Maybe Ross was playing into Tony’s guilt. Maybe Tony should have taken a minute and listened to the guy who worked for an agency that ended up being his arch nemesis. Oh but no, let’s all trust Ross now for NO GOOD REASON.
Agreed. So much. And the thing that gets me about fandom’s short-term memory loss when it comes to Ross is that there was so much contained within The Incredible Hulk that explains things for the entirety of the MCU.
For example: Ross’ ‘super soldier’ program that resulted in the Hulk was United States government funded program. In fact, it was heavily implied that Bruce wasn’t the first casualty. When General Gellar confronted Ross about the Hulk issue his exact dialogue was: “Are you telling me ANOTHER one of you super soldier experiments has gone haywire?! Is there ANYTHING that came out of that program that didn’t turn into a mess?!” (I posted the clip of that exchange here).
Secondly, Ross’ idea of dealing with the Hulk situation was to create Abomination, who then proceeded to take out half of Harlem (which makes Ross lecturing the Avengers on collateral damage freakin’ hysterical).
So how on earth was this man appointed Secretary of State? A job that puts him in-charge of (the quoted are directly from the state.gov site) “negotiates, interprets, and terminates treaties and agreements” (a power he used to further his own agenda via the accords) and “ensures the protection of the U.S. Government to American citizens, property, and interests in foreign countries” (which he didn’t do. No instead he locked up team Cap without due process, had shoot-on-site orders on James Barnes, an American citizen and veteran, and, when Bucky was caught, was perfectly willing to go along with Everett Ross and deny him a trial… and not only did all this go against the rights and privileges of US citizens, for which Steve Rogers, James Barnes, Sam Wilson, Scott Lang and Clint Barton most definitely are, it went against the Geneva convention, as James Barnes is a long standing POW thus any crime he committed during his decades of captivity are thereby accorded review).
And lastly, and this one is the one that should send up the MOST red flags… “The Secretary also serves as the channel of communication between the Federal Government and the States on the extradition of fugitives to or from foreign countries.” A power Ross used to build a prison in the middle of the ocean and lock up Avengers without due process. The “THE"part of "channel of communication” being the most telling part of that, as in he could hide bodies and no one would be the freakin’ wiser because his office is solely responsible for the ‘extradition of fugitives’ without so much as a check and balance.
We know via Winter Soldier that Hydra had infiltrated the Senate. We know via Iron Man 3 that the Vice President was involved in a plot to take out the President. We know that the world gave Alexander Pierce, Mr. Hail Hydra himself, a freakin’ Nobel Peace Prize. Conclusion: either Ellis is naïve as hell or the US government within the MCU is corrupt as the day is long and the appointment of Ross is a part of that. Either way, Ross is not a good guy and never will be.
ok a followup from my irony post: one of the things i love most about steve rogers as seen in the mcu is that he doesn’t do the thing that ‘feels right’ or looks most virtuous or american or whatever, he’s not sentimental, he knows what hell is like because he has been there and it’s called the western front. he grew up sick and poor and irish catholic when there was no kindness for those things in the american narrative, he is not the kind of guy who thinks everything will turn out okay if you just believe in yourself.
he doesn’t do what he feels is the right thing, he does what he decides is the right thing. and sometimes it feels terrible, and has terrible consequences. at no point in ‘civil war’, for instance, does he seem to think his decision is The Right Choice and tony’s is Wrong. he knows there was no right answer, only two wrong ones, and he picked the one he could live with. and people bled for it.
i wouldn’t say he’s a ‘logic’ character, he’s not that trope, but he is secretly, subtly, ruthlessly thoughtful.
so when he does something like, say, become a fugitive from the entire world within minutes of hearing there’s a shoot-first order out on bucky, it’s not that blind emotional panic that drives so many heroes. it’s as cold and unstoppable as a glacier.
an emotionally driven hero has, inherently, a sense of entitlement about the outcome of their choices. if you believe in your friends, if you tell the truth when you ought to lie, if you refuse to take the kill shot because heroes don’t kill, things will definitely turn out okay in the end somehow. and of course the narrative always supports this, because that’s the genre, that’s the trope set. there’s no room for a counterpoint in their universe.
and then there’s captain fucking america.
look, i’m sleep-deprived and haven’t planned this post out at all so it’s probably kind of a mess, but what i’m getting at here is that the ‘golden boy’ of superheroes, the star spangled man with a plan, this corny, schmaltzy, old-timey character, isn’t light because the darkness hasn’t touched him. he’s light because he set his jaw and marched into the darkness and he set it the fuck on fire.
are there any ww2-era cap fics, or even modern fics, that discuss/deal with the the widespread, military-supported use of amphetamines in their forces? the germans had pervitin–but the allies had benzedrine sulphate; benzedrine, i think, is still actually used to this day.
there’s a section in this old paper that goes “As the drug raises
the level of physical performance in the course of
prolonged effort by lessening the appreciation of
fatigue, it was considered wiser, when the emergency
was acute, to resort to the use of a drug
which makes men temporarily immune to fatigue
than to abandon the exhausted (Fetterman).On many a dangerous mission benzedrine helped
tired men to win the battle against sleep, when
they could not be replaced by rested reserves.”
if regular infantry kept popping energy pills to keep going, what about the theoretical drug usage of the howling commandos? From that same paper: “The responsibility
for the tactical use of benzedrine rests
with the commanding officer, who must decide
when the situation demands it. Distribution and
administration, however, is the responsibility of
the medical officer. When it should be used, how
much is needed, and what the effects will be are
matters of interest to every member of a tactical
organisation.” did all of them, including bucky, have to take above-average doses to keep pace with actual-superhuman captain america? did steve himself take benzedrine to stave off sleep when the mission stakes were too high to take an hour off to rest? would it be ineffective for him because of his metabolism?
what about the postwar consequences of prolonged drug use in returning servicemen? how did that affect the howlies when they went home, since they might have taken way, way more than was standard issue? was howard also on benzedrine to keep up his rapid R&D during the war? did that contribute to his postwar instability? did bucky go through a serious crash withdrawal with the russians during the early days of his confinement after his recovery, because they didn’t have supplies of benzedrine? what kind of supplementary dosing did HYDRA give him during the torture and reeducation? is modern-day bucky at a high risk for relapsing to amphetamines or other substances due to decades of drug dependency and experimentation? is he currently a drug addict? if he’s been ‘clean’ for at least a year, is he still suffering from various addiction-related psychological and health issues on top of his traumas and preexisting conditions?
what about steve? what’s his standpoint on performance-boosting drugs and drug dependency, given that his life was so fundamentally altered by the military-supervised application of an extreme and permanent performance-boosting chemical concoction into his body? his frequent dependence on medicine and health aids before the Rebirth procedure? smoking as a cultural norm during his original time period? would the serum have killed his nicotine addiction too, or would steve have kept smoking during the war as a social activity in the same way he kept drinking alcohol that wouldn’t get him tipsy? does he ever sneak away to smoke now when the nostalgia hits him, or is it the nostalgia that prevents him from finding comfort in the habit? (probably the latter. smokes aren’t the same nowadays anyway, just like bananas.)
My coworker is gun obsessed and she was telling me about snipers and how exceedingly rare it is for someone to be a successful sniper. Of course my mind immediately applied these random tid bits to Bucky Barnes.
As most of you may have already known there’s this thing called the coriolis effect. Basically, a long distance target, even if completely still, is technically a ‘moving target’ because the earth is rotating while the bullet is maintaining a relatively straight path. Thus, when shooting over 1000 yards (.56 miles) this needs to be factored in. (I’m not even going to go into spin drift: the rotating motion of the barrel of the gun).
Out to 1000 yards you could have nearly a full minute of correction because of coriolis effect depending on which direction you are shooting. Ie if you are shooting East your target is going to be dropping. If you are shooting towards the West your target is going to rotate up.
So, now-a-days we have automatic calculators for figuring out the coriolis effect quickly and accurately. Long distance shooters use daily updated data to build a drop chart or ballistic compensations. But, back when Bucky was a sniper they still used the mathematical formula for the coriolis effect to position their shots accurately. Bucky would have needed to know the relative motion of the object, the motion of the earth, and the latitude he was shooting from (as well as wind speeds etc) and then he would have had to compensate each shot almost to the tee in order to hit his targets.
Here’s the vector formula for the impact of the coriolis effect:
Bucky had to calculate this every time he positioned himself from his sniping position. In our fictitious MCU there is probably a tiny notebook floating around with Bucky’s scribbled equations.
If this doesn’t prove Bucky’s a fucking brainiac I don’t know what does.
“That line was an interesting moment. At the time, the choice I was making is that [Bucky] had realized there was no way he was getting out of there, and someone was gonna die, whether it was gonna be him, Steve or Tony. When he says that line, to me, it was a turning point
—
he was, like, ‘Okay, I know what you want me to say, and I’m just gonna say it.’ When someone comes at you over and over again, and they can’t hear you, they can’t see you’re pleading with them, you’re trying to figure out how to get through to them and they just won’t accept it, at some point you just give in, and you go, ‘that’s right, that’s what you want.’ Of course [Bucky] didn’t remember them all.”
—
Sebastian Stan
Wow. I had
honestly taken this statement at face value but if this is true then Bucky
lying about the extent of what he remembers isn’t an isolated incident, it becomes
a pattern, a strategy: Bucky intentionally
and deliberately using his memories, the only thing he truly owns at this
point, as a bargaining chip throughout the entire course of the movie to steer the
events if not in his favor, then at the very least toward what he considers an acceptable
outcome, namely sparing everyone else, and especially Steve, the pain of having
to deal with his shit. We talk a lot about Bucky’s lack of agency, but this right
here? This is him seizing and wielding the only tool at his disposal to exert
some influence on the narrative, despite having been left with almost no options.
In
Bucharest, he lies to make Steve go away. He wants Steve to distrust him, to
give up on him, and the only way he can see of accomplishing that is to pretend
that there’s not a “Bucky” anymore. He tries to shut Steve out completely, tries
to not even look (and fails, but he’s only human) as Steve is escorted away from
the glass cage. When he’s alone with the alleged psychologist though, he has no
reason to think Steve’s listening and no reason to lie, so he tells the truth,
a truth that is very important to him, especially in the face of being once
again trapped and examined by people who look at him and see only a weapon: “my
name is Bucky”.
Later, as
he wakes up with his arm trapped in the vice, he is hurt and disoriented and so
relieved when he sees Steve, that he can’t hide it. But it doesn’t matter,
because he quickly realizes that there’s no point in pretending anymore: Steve has
just done exactly what Bucky feared from the start: compromised himself for
Bucky in a way that he can’t take back. And Sam too. They made their choice, stupidly,
impossibly: they’re here for him. They need Bucky’s honesty now, or it will be
all for nothing. So Bucky gives it to them. He finally tells Steve that he
knows him, that he remembers him (the fact that it makes him so desperately
happy to be able to recite every trivial little detail, every hard won scrap of
memory that is a testament to how much Steve means to him, is made all the more
heartbreaking by the fact that he only does it because it’s become necessary). He
tells Steve and Sam about his encounter with Zemo, about the Siberian facility,
about the making and training of the other Winter Soldiers. The three of them
have a common objective now, a mission, and Bucky needs them, wants them, to
trust him.
It’s clear that
Bucky put a lot of effort into stitching together all the bits and pieces of
memory he could dredge up. And he did a good job of it. Does he already
know that there are still things he’s missing? Or does he realize that only when he sees the
beginning of that video? Given how committed he is to record and preserve in
writing whatever comes back to him, does that realization make him feel like he’s
failed all over again those people he couldn’t even remember killing?
Whatever the
answer, if we believe Sebastian’s words, in that moment up there Bucky is choosing
to lie again. Telling Tony what Tony wants to hear. Giving Tony the excuse Tony
clearly is looking for to just go ahead and murder him. He has reached the
conclusion that someone is going to die in that place, and he says what he
hopes will ensure that that someone will be him.
Hi! Tony was emotionally compromised, absolutely. It honestly can’t be argued, because the first 30 minutes of the movie were devoted to setting up his fragile emotional state. That being said, high emotions don’t make his arguments wrong. Tony did have a point in needing oversight. I think they show, though, that his actions came purely from fear/guilt, and that’s where he went wrong.
Because government oversight sounds completely logical; no one wants the Avengers running around doing whatever they want, and all of Tony’s points about ‘we need to get a handle on this before they force us’ make perfect sense. The problem comes from Tony’s conclusions. He wants government oversight… in any form it takes. He wants to look good for PR purposes… so he signs immediately and hopes to fix it later. He doesn’t want Wanda to be extradited… so he locks her in the compound until she signs. He doesn’t feel he has the numbers to fight Cap’s side… so he brings some random kid into the fray. None of these actions are reasonable responses – they’re coming from a place of pure fear, and Tony doesn’t stop to think about the consequences. He doesn’t listen to Steve’s warnings about how groups have agendas and how oversight shouldn’t mean absolute control. He’s letting General Ross manipulate and use him because he’s so struck by guilt over Sokovia he just wants that responsibility taken out of his hands.
Tony wants the Accords because he believes in accountability, which is understandable, but he doesn’t think about what they’ll mean or how they’ll be implemented, which we see towards the end of the film. His high emotions make him unable to see other’s perspectives (I wrote a little about that here), so he just barrels through in his desperation for the end result. This is why Tony is the antagonist of a Captain America film, not the protagonist of an Iron Man one.
Maybe I’m in the minority on this one, but I don’t feel like Steve was compromised by Bucky. His beliefs and moral compass have never changed, from CATFA to CACW. He didn’t even know where Bucky was when the Accords were being set up and signed, so I don’t know how he could be biased. He listened to Tony’s arguments, he read the Accords, he watched the presentation… but he didn’t feel like the Accords were the answer. Even when Steve found Bucky – he didn’t stop him from being arrested, but merely stopped the government from trying to kill on sight. I never had the impression that Steve was throwing it all away for Bucky, because it’s pretty clear that he’s standing up for his own beliefs and threw the shield away for himself.
Instead, Bucky is more… a representation of Steve’s fears. Bucky is the result of complete government control of Supersoldiers. Bucky’s arrest is how we see the government’s power under the Accords: no trial, no lawyers, and complete loss of autonomy. Despite his proven innocence, the government goes after him anyway. What happens to Bucky is what cements Steve’s beliefs, which he’s had all along. So Steve isn’t changing his mind or being emotional because of Bucky – it’s really Bucky that helps the audience see why Steve’s thoughts are reasonable.
“It doesn’t just suddenly all come back to him, just because he(Bucky) is learned certain things about himself. It’s not like he immediately has all these emotions and feelings and point of views about people and families that he’s dealt with — or Steve. The knowledge is there, but the emotions aren’t explored yet, which also makes it very interesting to play.” Sebastian Stan.
I love to see this quote paired with this moment because you can really see what Stan was talking about here.
And it makes 100% more sense than the
bullshit “I think (You think???? You wrote the movie) then he remembers
more than he remembers here” comment from Markus.
Everything in this scene, including the
actual dialogue (that Markus presumably wrote?) suggests that Bucky does indeed
remember, but chooses to lie because, for him, it always ends in a fight, and the
less people get involved the better are the odds of no one else getting hurt aside
from Bucky himself.
But seeing Steve clearly throws him off balance. He
stays there, rooted to the spot, staring at Steve’s back for several precious
seconds when he knows he doesn’t have time to spare, when the sensible thing to
do would be to just go before Steve notices him. But he can’t. It was one thing
to look at pictures of Captain America from newspaper clippings and museum
flyers, it’s definitely another to have him standing there in the room.
And then Steve turns, and Bucky panics,
and he lies, very badly, in a last desperate attempt to stave off everything
Steve represents. “I read about you in a museum”. “I don’t know [why I saved
your life]”. But he does know. That’s why he gets progressively more pissed off as
Steve keeps pressing him for answers, keeps refusing to go along with the
charade. it was easy to stay away, to keep his distance, when Steve wasn’t a solid
presence a few feet from him. It was easy to pretend all those happy memories
from a lifetime before belonged to a man long dead.
But now that Steve is here, Bucky knows that he won’t
be able to pretend anymore. He won’t be able to convince himself that he’s ok
with never seeing Steve again. That he doesn’t miss him. That just the sight of
Steve doesn’t make him long for all the things he doesn’t think he’s allowed to
have anymore: friendship, family, love. He won’t be able to convince
himself that he’s ok with Steve thinking him dead, or a traitor, or a
criminal. ”I wasn’t in Vienna. I don’t do that anymore” is the first thing he
says unprompted. He didn’t have to say anything, Steve didn’t ask about that.
But it matters to Bucky what Steve thinks of him. It matters so much that he’s outright
offended that Steve would worry that “[he’s] gonna kill someone”, and he takes
the time to not only scare the shit out of Steve in retaliation, but also to
pause, look him right in the eye, and tell him, pointedly: “I’m not gonna kill
anyone”. (It matters so much that later, on the plane, he will all but beg
Steve to please, please tell him that he’s still worth something.)
And when the police breaks in, it’s instantly clear
that Bucky still knows how to anticipate and take advantage of Steve’s every
move. As demonstrated by him kicking the bomb toward Steve so that he can cover
it with the shield, throwing Steve at the policemen, and even, yes, throwing
the policemen down the stairwell knowing that Steve will catch them.
It’s a good thing Sebastian Stan came up with his
own interpretation of the character’s state of mind and motivations, as it’s
clearly thanks to him and his performance alone that Bucky’s characterization
manages to be both compelling and coherent throughout the course of the movie.
vvinterdumpling.home.blog 