you know. sometimes i think. in the face of tonyโs obvious trauma and ptsd. in the face of the more obvious pain that bucky has suffered. we forget that steveโs motivation in the film isnโt just his tendency to hold stubbornly fast to his ideals, to do what he feels is right and damn the rest.ย
steveโs hurting too.
like. guys. we are so ready to give weight to tonyโs emotional boiling over point at the end of the film, to sayย โthis is why he tried to kill bucky, and itโs not right but itโs understandable.โ 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 steveโs 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 futureย is a few days after watching his best friend fall from a train and he was unable to stop itย 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?ย
this dude, he wakes up seventy years in the futureย 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 heโs now operating under the thumb of shadowy organization that heโs not 100 percent does good things and that continuously lies to him. thereโs no war to fight, but thatโs all this body is good for. itโs all he knows.ย
he doesnโt 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 whoโsurprise!โwas actually captured after falling and losing an arm and his brains were scrambled to turn him into a murder assassin.ย 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 steveโs head. the idea of what his friend suffered. remember when rhodey fell from the sky and tony blasted sam in the chest? imagine the angerย in steveโs heart at the idea of what buckyโs suffered and the unwillingness to let that go unchecked and unsaved.
oh, plus. that shadowy organization heโs been fighting for? the people heโs been taking orders from? the top dog in the neat little hierarchy thatโs arranged his world? yeah. hydra. everything steve has known turns upside down.ย he canโt 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 heโs tasked with leading this motley crew of superheroes in a world heโs 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 heโs confronted with loss, because itโs 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.ย so steve is grieving, he is confused and conflicted, and now he feels doubly guiltyโthatโs the person he has been looking for, should he have already caught him? did he do it? he couldnโt 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 shouldย he do? steve might act like he always knows whatโs right, but a decision like this isnโt easy. it messes with a person. and when youโre dealing with all that mess in your head, sometimes you donโt think. sometimesโฆyou act.
like when bucky is triggered, when steve stops a helicopter with his bare fucking hands, you can feel the desperation. thatโs not ordinary heroics. thatโs not steve just trying to stop bucky from escaping and possibly hurting others. itโs 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.ย
and when they go on the run, when they know they have to stop the supersoldiers, when they clash with tonyโs team, can you imagine steveโs sheer frustration that no one gets what is at stake? that no one is willing to listen? and yes, he didnโt even tryโbut 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,ย โpal, so are we.โ when steve acknowledges to natasha that heโs 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 youโve become a weapon when you are still longing to rediscover the man you were? steveโs not just cap. steveโs steve, and he doesnโt know what makes him happy you guys. heโs a guy, heโs a human, and heโs dealing with A Lot.
i get that he makes some bad calls in the movie. so does tony. my beef is that while tonyโs 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,ย โheโs my friend,โ so simply, so sadly, without any righteousness, just clean tired truth, thatโs steve as steve. when he hid the truth from tony, thatโs steve as steve.ย when he drops the shield, thatโs steve reclaiming himself as steve. we expect cap all the time, because often, steve is cap. itโs 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.
^This
And can I just bring up a tiny little point that my nasty, suspicious mind threw in about Peggyโs death and the timing thereof? ย She was old. ย She was expected to die at pretty much any time. ย Who would perform an autopsy for such a frail patient dying in her sleep? ย Who would bother to run a drug tox screen to figure out if she was helped along in order to put pressure on Steve at a critical time? ย Ross would absolutely stoop that low. ย He proved it in the Hulk movie.
Lets also not forget that Howard Stark was Steveโs friend. He watched his best friend Bucky kill Howard, and of course, he had become friends with Howardโs son in the meantime.
And while Steve was fighting to save Bucky, he was also trying to save Tony because Tony would regret it, when it was over.
And a few other things.
I know this has been stated multiple times, but Steve fought in WWII. A lot of people didnโt get to go home. A lot of peopleโs bodies didnโt get to go home. The death count was so high that if somebody died, there body was left and the family found out through a letter. The tomb of the Unknown Soldier (established in 1921 for World War I) has two tombs dedicated to those lost in World War II, filled with ashes of soldiers whom weโll never know the names of. It was a horrible war.
And Steve found out Howard died through Zola in the secret underground facility, having been killed by the Winter Soldier first. Then he found out the Winter Soldier was Bucky. His best friend, whom Steve feels that he let die, but no it was worse. He was tortured by an enemy who was supposed to be dead and gone, but instead was a part of an organization he was working for that was set up by Peggy. (Guys, theres so much about Steve tooโฆ.Heโs had it hard. )
You raise an interesting point, and one I think a lot of people forgetโฆ the sheer enormity of theย horrific nightmareย that was WW2. In some battles they were still engaging in trench warfare. The amount of deaths, on a global scale. Theย deployment of horrible weapons never before used. The new and inventive ways mankind found to kill and torture one another.
Steve was special ops. He wasnโt spared ANY of the more terrible aspects of the war. And the serum gave Steve an eidetic memory, that was one of the serumโs properties. So not only did he live it, but he has to remember the entire thing, everythingย he witnessed first-hand,ย with clear contrast. Heโs not affordedย the luxury of time healing all wounds.
Honestly, itโs a testament to Steve that heโs not catatonic - I probably would be! Let alone the fact that the time difference between waking up in the 21st century and the events of Avengers 2012 was literally justย days. He had almost zero time to adjust before being thrown back into the line of fire. And with Thanos coming, if they follow the Avengers vs. Thanos battleย from Infinity Gauntlet in all its gruesome detail, heโs about to be traumatized even more.
My father fought in WWII. ย He could NEVER talk about. ย NEVER. What he saw, what he experienced, was so horrible that it never left him. Not even after 60+ years.
Steve Rogers never got a chance to process that trauma or heal from it. ย Then the horror of being thrown 70 years into the future, with everyone he ever knew dead or dying, was heaped on top of that. He never got a chance to process or heal from that.
And he just keeps soldiering on. So most of the fandom ignores or dismisses his pain.
Reblogging for @feliciates excellent addition. My dad fought in a different war (Vietnam) but same. Never talked about it and would be dismissive when asked. The only time he willingly spoke of his service, that I can remember, was once, he mentioned randomly that he hated this dish he called SOS (โshit on a shingleโโฆ some kind of meat gravy over toast) because they served it a lot when he served and he couldnโt ever bring himself to choke it down afterwards. Thatโs it, thatโs all I ever got.
My uncle, different war yet (Korean), underwent a complete personality change according to my aunt, and my mother, and everyone who knew him before. He has a Purple Heart and a lifetime of being haunted. My husband and I lived on Oahu for a few years, and we took my uncle to the Arizona memorial on Pearl Harbor once when he visited. We thought, because heโs both a veteran and a history buff with an interest in WW2 history especially, that heโd appreciate it. Big mistake. There were some tourists on the memorial, laughing and taking pictures and Iโve never seen my uncle so livid. He left, more like stormed out really, so disgusted by their behavior he couldnโt speak and scarcely did the rest of the day. To be fair the Arizona is a tomb and that behavior was disrespectful. And there are signs everywhere reminding people that while it may look like just a sunken ship it is actually very much a graveyard. Heโs not one who usually shows anger so readily. It was the first time Iโd ever seen him that mad, and I was an adult and married. His reaction has stayed with me. And my fathers silence - his way of saying it all by not saying anything.
Steve really is a well done character. It might not be so obvious to those who donโt know a veteran, particularly the young who are generations removed from a major war, but he is. There is a chord there that touches people.
@shazrolane @praximeter
