#pro john walker

"Everyone in the world expects me to be something, and I don't want to fail them." for @captainpikeachu

An often-overlooked aspect of Nico's death scene in TFATWS is that there was literally nothing preventing him from thwarting John's attempt to kill him, and keeping it from being a death scene; he just didn't so that there would be a reason for the Captain America title to be stripped from John and given back to Sam. I feel like a major reason why a lot of people don't pick up on this fact, and instead perceive Nico to be defenseless (aside, of course, from the shamelessly manipulative framing) is that in the Siberia incident, the incident Nico's death scene is frequently compared to, Tony, after he lost the upper hand, didn't really get a chance to do much before Steve disabled his suit. It thus didn't stick out too badly when Nico also didn't do much before John attacked him with the shield, even though there was a lot more he could have done. Therefore, let's examine the two situations to see how they are different.

This is how the shield incident played out in Siberia. Near the end of the battle, Tony had managed to gain the upper hand and inflict serious damage on Steve. After Steve refused to stop defending Bucky, Tony prepared to straight up blow Steve out of the bunker and down the mountain: but right before he got the repulsor shot off, Bucky grabbed his leg. Irritated, Tony turned and kicked Bucky in the head with his metal boot. Then, before Tony had the chance to do anything else, Steve grabbed Tony and hoisted him into the air; Tony tried to use the jet packs on his boots to get out of the situation, but too much damage had been inflicted on them at that point for them to be of use, and Steve threw him to the ground. Steve then immediately rushed on top of Tony and punched his face mask three times out of sheer fury, after which he broke the helmet by hitting it twice more with his shield and then tore it off. He subsequently raised the shield, which caused Tony to frantically raise his arms to cover his face, and this allowed Steve to have a clear shot at the arc reactor, which he brought his shield down on and broke.

Now, considering how thoroughly biased Civil War is against Steve, and how much it sought to act like he was the one in the wrong—even though the entire Siberia fight was literally just Tony having a temper tantrum and Steve and Bucky trying to survive it—the creative team certainly wouldn't have minded if Tony had cried out in fear like Nico did, as it would be quite useful for the propaganda efforts. Therefore, there is clearly some reason why he didn't.

And it appears that there are two main reasons for this. The first reason seems to be that everything simply happened too fast. Indeed, the entire incident, from Tony preparing to shoot Steve to Steve disabling the arc reactor, took place in the span of about fifteen seconds. And Tony totally wasn't expecting Steve to grab him; presumably, he assumed that Steve was injured enough that taking his attention off him for a few seconds in order to kick his friend in the head wasn't a big deal. He underestimated the strength that poured into Steve's limbs when he saw Tony so callously abusing Bucky, as well as the fact that Steve is a supersoldier, so he can move really fast when he wants to.

So there was the element of surprise, and there was also the fact that Tony probably would have been a little stunned, both from the impact of being thrown to the ground, and from being hit in the head multiple times. It must, of course, be remembered that Tony was wearing a full-body metal suit, so no actual harm was inflicted upon him, but Steve is a supersoldier, so even with the layer of protection the impacts would certainly have been felt. These factors combined to produce the effect that, when Steve raised his shield, rather than take the time to yell anything, Tony simply prepared himself to face what was about to happen, which he thought would be Steve attempting to end him. But fortunately for him, he was wrong. Steve wasn't trying to kill Tony; Bucky was still alive, so Steve was able to contain his fury enough to refrain from a killing blow, and he hit the arc reactor instead.

Now, let's look at how Nico's death scene played out. After John pursued Nico for a bit, and managed to fend off a concrete trash can that Nico threw at him, he was able to hit Nico with the shield as Nico ran into a square. This forced Nico to stop to keep his balance, which allowed John to hit him again, and this finally knocked him over. Nico then tried to get back up twice; the first time John hit him with the shield again to keep him down, and the second time he put his foot on Nico's chest to pin him to the ground and stop his escape attempts. Then, since he couldn't try to get away anymore, Nico waved his hands and nervously insisted, "It wasn't me." He said this because, given the role he played in Lemar's death, he was well aware of why John might be mad at him specifically, for more than just being a friend of Karli. John, for his part, had been preparing to interrogate Nico about Karli's whereabouts, but this clear falsehood evidently filled him with rage, and he raised his shield in a fury. Rather than make an effort to block the imminent attack, Nico simply repeated, louder, "It wasn't me!" even though it was clear that John was not about to accept his garbage. And then, of course, since Nico wasn't about to actually do anything, the beating with the shield commenced.

Nico just lay there and was obediently killed, even though there was literally nothing stopping him from simply catching the shield and keeping it off his chest. His arms and hands were not at all restrained—indeed, he was waving them around—and unlike John, who had acquired a gash on his head, Nico was completely uninjured, so there wouldn't have been any pain distracting him either. And as we saw earlier, Nico is just as strong as John—he was able to restrain John so effectively that Karli would have been able to easily stab John if Lemar hadn't stopped her—and his evident fear would likely have given him enough strength to cancel out John's rage. So he would certainly have been able to keep the shield off his chest until Sam and Bucky, who appeared shortly afterwards, could save him if they wanted to.

Indeed, Nico didn't save himself even though, as evidenced by the fact that he did actually have a chance to cry out, he was dealing with a much less challenging situation than Tony was. For one thing, John bringing down the shield on Nico's chest was not at all a surprise. After John had pinned Nico to the ground, Nico had time to say, "It wasn't me" before John made any sort of move: and after John registered what Nico had said, he shifted his shield, which had been on his arm, into a two-handed grip, and then raised it. Nico clearly saw this coming; indeed, this is what caused him to shout "It wasn't me" a second time. And John's intentions at that point were obvious, so it's not like what happened with Tony where Tony thought that Steve was going to do one thing but he did another; it was pretty clear where John's shield was going, and this would have been plenty apparent to Nico since terror tends to make time slow down. So he had ample time to catch it.

Additionally, Nico would not have been stunned in the way that Tony was. Tony was slammed to the ground and then received five forceful rapid-fire close-range blows to the head, which is several hard impacts in a short span of time. Nico, by contrast, was hit once with the shield, then was knocked by John to the ground. This was a much shorter distance to fall than the overhead bench-press position that Tony was thrown from, and there were even stairs to break Nico's fall. Thereafter, Nico was hit with the shield again—and he hadn't gotten very far up, so he didn't fall very far back down—and then John thwarted Nico's final attempt to get up by pushing him down with his foot. In addition to the fact that the push was much gentler than getting hit with the shield again would have been, as before Nico hadn't gotten very far up, so he wouldn't have hit the ground that hard.

Therefore, in contrast to Tony, who received six sharp blows pretty much back to back, Nico received three fairly spread out blows—after the first hit with the shield, John had to close the distance between them and wind up again before hitting him a second time to knock him over, and then Nico fell to the ground and started to get back up before he was hit a third time—as well as a kind of shove. Nico thus did not receive nearly as harsh a pummeling as Tony did. And on top of that, he is a supersoldier: so even if his treatment had been rougher, Nico would have a much higher tolerance for pummeling than normal human Tony would.

Hence, Nico would not only have had plenty of time to see what John was doing, but he also would not have had to contend with the disorientation that Tony experienced. There is no excuse for why his only reaction to John's attack was yelling.

And here's what makes the fact that Nico didn't try to defend himself even more ridiculous. Even though Steve's attack was much more rapid, forceful, and unpredictable than John's was, Tony STILL did the logical thing and was ready to try to catch Steve's shield. Indeed, you can actually see a bit of strategy in his response to Steve raising the shield. Tony knew he wasn't strong enough to entirely keep the shield off his face since his suit was failing, so rather than try to stop it from hitting him, he was instead planning to try to grab the shield during its descent in order to slow it down and cushion the blow. As Steve brings the shield down, you can even see Tony open his fingers as he expects to encounter the shield. Nico did not do anything of the sort, he just aimlessly shouted as he passively lay there and waited for John to kill him. But come on! If Tony, who was just a normal human encased in a suit of rapidly failing metal, and who had been completely taken by surprise with a harsh walloping, could make an attempt to stop Steve from killing him (even though, as it turned out, he didn't need to), then Nico, who was a supersoldier, and who had received far less of a thrashing, could definitely have tried (and succeeded) to stop John from killing him. Especially since, unlike Tony, he actually would have been able to completely stop the shield from hitting him.

There is another difference between the two situations that is very interesting, however. Tony, for his part, was well aware that he was acting dishonorably. For instance, a little after Tony began his assault, when Bucky was trying to run away and Tony was intent on pursuit, Steve stood in front of him and said, "It wasn't him, Tony. Hydra had control of his mind." But Tony already knew this, so he simply responded "Move," in a way that clearly indicated that he didn't care and didn't want to hear it. And a short time later, when Tony prevented Bucky from escaping, Steve tried again to get through to him and said, "This isn't gonna change what happened," but Tony replied, "I don't care, he killed my mom." Tony knew that Bucky wasn't to blame for his parents' deaths, and that killing him would not help anything: but since he was angry with Steve for refusing to accept the Accords and all their rights-violations, he saw the revelation as an excuse to attack both Bucky because he knew it would hurt Steve, and Steve himself because Tony knew that Steve would not just stand by while Bucky was being assaulted. He ignored Steve's attempts to reason with him because he figured that he had enough power to be able to do whatever he wanted, and he also correctly guessed that Steve and Bucky would continuously hold back against him, even though they shouldn't have. And because of these things, before Bucky's intervention, Tony had been about to do something that could have quite possibly ended Steve's life. So when Steve regained the upper hand and Tony was at his mercy, Tony was aware that he had no right to ask Steve to spare him, because when he had been in Steve's position, he had been ready to potentially end Steve's life without a second thought. Therefore, he said nothing; his only response was to see if he had enough strength left to hold off Steve.

So Tony, in the face of Steve's attack, didn't yell anything because he knew that what he had done was indefensible: and it is due in part to this modicum of contrition that Steve was able to contain his rage enough to spare him. Nico, meanwhile, had been doing something similarly heinous. He had been actively engaged in trying to kill John because John was Captain America, and when Lemar frustrated the attempt on John's life, Nico was also the reason why John was unable to protect Lemar from Karli's subsequent death-blow. And just like Tony, Nico had been relying on his strength to protect him from repercussions. So what he had done was just as indefensible as what Tony did: but instead of taking the smallest bit of ownership of this, he tried to completely absolve himself of responsibility for what had happened, and this resulted in his downfall. For while John had clearly been intending to just interrogate Nico, the fact that the person who had held him helpless while his best friend was murdered was trying to act like he was not at all responsible for what had happened caused him to lose it, and this resulted in the shield incident. Now, Nico definitely should have made it clear that he was surrendering if he intended to, and even apologized if he genuinely regretted what had happened to Lemar: and again, when the attack did happen he could have easily fended it off. But if he had simply recognized the fact that he was not worthy of John's mercy since he had not been prepared to show mercy to John, and remained silent like Tony did, the shield-attack would never have happened in the first place.

But in any case, as mentioned above, Nico didn't try to defend himself because John needed to kill him, so that the show would have an excuse to take the Captain America mantle from John and give it back to Sam without it seeming too dubious. (Though considering that the incident ended up resulting in Sam and Bucky attacking John for the shield a very short time after he literally lost his best friend, the show completely failed at that.) Not to mention, if Nico had put up a fight, this would have highlighted how much he was still capable of threatening John, and put lie to the show's attempt to act like he was helpless. Particularly since, again, if he had tried to save himself there is no reason why he would not have been successful.

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I definitely agree, it really is wild that some people actually think that Nico was some meek innocent victim, or that John's reaction was unreasonable. I guess it's a testament to how effective the show's anti-John-Walker propaganda is, for it is hard to see how else so many people could become convinced of such a clear untruth. Indeed, it's similar to how in Civil War, another propaganda-heavy film, some people actually think Steve was the one who attacked Tony in Siberia, despite the fact that Tony was the sole aggressor. And heck, the efficacy of the anti-John-Walker propaganda is further demonstrated shortly after Nico's death; many people think for some reason that John started the fight for the shield, when it was clearly Bucky, and John literally said "You don't want to do this," when it became clear a fight was imminent. Propaganda is really no joke.

Perhaps the most frustrating thing about people acting like Nico was an innocent victim is the fact that he is particularly guilty. From the way many people talk about Nico, one would think he was a random civilian—indeed, the person cited above actually implies that he was a "defenseless noncombatant"—but he was literally a hostile enemy attacker. Now, @captainpikeachu nicely explained why all the Flagsmashers are blameworthy: "if a group of people lured you and your loved ones to a location just so they could kill you and instead got your loved ones killed, does it really matter who physically did the killing when they’re all there to help?" But Nico was much more involved in what happened than most of the other Flagsmashers were.

First of all, Nico played a very active role in the attempted murder of John. Minutes before the tables were turned, Nico had caught John and held him helpless specifically so that Karli could stab him to death. Nico knew full well what he was doing, and he did it deliberately. So it's not like Nico was just standing around chilling, he was actively trying to cause harm.

And this supposed innocent victim very nearly succeeded in taking John's life. It's a really good thing that John ended up deciding to take the serum—he had been agonizing over whether to do it—because this allowed him to confront the Flagsmashers on a somewhat more even playing field. Otherwise, Nico would have been able to murder John himself; he wouldn't have even needed Karli's help. It was only because John was able to so effectively fight back that Nico had to focus his attention on subduing John instead of being able to immediately go for the kill.

And indeed, the fact that the serum helped make it possible for John to hold out against the Flagsmashers for so long is the only reason that Lemar was able to rescue him, as Lemar saved John at literally the last possible second. It really looked for a moment there like John was a goner; that is why Karli got so mad when she was thwarted. If Lemar had been any slower, or John had been imperiled any sooner, Lemar wouldn't have reached John in time: and John's blood would then have been on Nico's hands, probably literally as well as figuratively. So the serum is a major reason why Nico's attempt to get John killed was unsuccessful, but even with that and the presence of Sam and Bucky, John barely survived the attempt on his life.

And second of all, Nico is also directly responsible for Lemar's death. Many people take Nico's cry of "It wasn't me!" at face value, and accept it as the truth, but it is quite thoroughly false. Nico might not have been the one to strike the killing blow against Lemar, but the fact remains that Lemar would not have been murdered without Nico's contributions. Indeed, Nico's attack on John is the reason why the murder attempt bore any fruit at all, because John had been doing a pretty good job of frustrating the Flagsmashers' assassination attempts before Nico assaulted him. But Nico's assault made John vulnerable, and was instrumental in creating the situation that got Lemar killed: for this was the reason that Lemar was forced to throw himself in harm's way, as well as the reason why John was unable to defend Lemar from Karli's subsequent wrath.

It would have been pretty clear that Nico was culpable in John's murder if Karli had successfully killed him, so it is unclear why people cannot see that Nico is culpable in Lemar's murder simply because the victim changed. While the person who ended up dead wasn't the one Nico had been aiming for, the death still happened as a direct result of his actions.

Thus, it's quite frustrating when people try to demonize John for what he did while absolving Nico, completely ignoring the fact that minutes before the incident Nico had been quite determinedly trying to kill John, and was only narrowly kept from succeeding. And those efforts directly led to Lemar getting killed, which is why Nico's claim of innocence would have been particularly galling. Nico simply received a taste of his own medicine.

So, unsurprisingly, that take which adopts the usual tired view that John is a villain while Nico is innocent is quite thoroughly untrue. For not only was Nico neither defenseless nor surrendering, but also, John did actually have jurisdiction in the situation.

First of all, Nico was far from defenseless. It's really quite maddening when people act like Nico was powerless just because he didn't have a weapon on him, for this is not even close to the case. Again, minutes before, Nico had been able to render John completely helpless—which he accomplished without the aid of any sort of weapon—and Lemar had just been killed, also without a weapon. A video nicely summarized why Nico was not defenseless:

"[W]hy do people act like this is Walker killing someone who’s unarmed?. . .We all saw what Steve and Bucky can do throughout the MCU. They can smash through walls, rip doors off their hinges, hold a helicopter in place, throw people around like ragdolls, and as we saw with Lemar’s death, can literally kill people with a single punch. How can you possibly claim that someone is unarmed when [they can do these things]? What’s to stop [Nico] from breaking out when he has the chance to do so, and continuing to help Karli? Which is exactly what he would do, because as we’ve already discussed, he is surrendering [not really but I'll get to that] because he has literally no other choice, not because he stopped because he felt guilty."

In fact, come to think of it, there is absolutely no reason why Nico could not have just grabbed onto John's shield and held it, instead of simply lying there and getting killed. As we saw, he's just as strong as John, so he would certainly have the strength to keep the shield off his chest: and there was nothing to prevent him from doing this, as he was completely uninjured (unlike John) and his arms and hands were not restricted at all. But of course, if Nico had put up such resistance to John, the show would have a much harder time demonizing John and acting like Nico was harmless. Therefore, they got around this by not showing Nico during the incident.

Not only was Nico not helpless, however, getting mad at John for killing an adversary that he had a momentary advantage over is quite hypocritical, for Sam did something similar earlier in the show. In the middle of the fight at the beginning, Sam blew up a helicopter that still had several unconscious bad guys in it. These people actually were defenseless, as they were out cold, and they no longer posed an immediate threat to Sam. So anyone who is angry at John should be angry at Sam too. But the people who bash John rarely bring this up: for because heroic music was playing, and because the bad guys were unconscious and so unable to scream or beg Sam to spare them, Sam killing enemies who were temporarily disabled is not seen as a bad thing. It's only a problem when John does it, apparently. Such blatant double standards really help demonstrate how influential framing can be.

Second of all, not only was Nico not helpless, but he was also not surrendering. For one thing, while Nico was running, he paused to hurl a concrete trash can at John: so it's not even like he was just fleeing, he was still attacking John as he ran. For another, when John managed to knock Nico over—which took several tries—Nico attempted to get back up not once but twice: once after John initially knocked him over, and then a second time which prompted John to put his foot on Nico's chest in order to keep him down. If Nico was actually interested in surrendering, he would have stayed down the first time, as repeatedly getting back up strongly indicates a desire to keep fighting.

And for yet another, Nico yelling "It wasn't me!" is not in any way indicative of surrender (nor is it even true). That was not an attempt to yield, it was an attempt to convince John that he was attacking the wrong person. (Even though he wasn't, for again, Nico was heavily involved in the attempt on John's life that ended up taking Lemar's, and was in fact the reason it was even possible; he is just as responsible for what happened as Karli.) The only thing that could possibly be considered an effort to surrender is Nico having his hands up: but since prior to that point he staunchly refused to stop fighting—throwing the trash can at John and not staying down—and the words he spoke as he made the gesture were trying to divert John's attention rather than actually surrendering, having his hands up was not enough to cancel out the all the other indications that he didn't want to surrender, especially since it wasn't even clear whether he was trying to surrender or just gesticulating. That is why people who want to surrender often put their hands behind their head, to avoid confusion. Considering how stubbornly Nico was fighting before, if he was yielding he needed to make that abundantly clear, and he didn't, not even close.

Third of all, John did actually have jurisdiction in the scenario; he was literally on a government-sanctioned mission to deal with the Flagsmashers. Handling the Flagsmashers was actually his responsibility, and the reason why he was fighting them in the first place. Indeed, it's not even like the government was mad at John for killing Nico, as that meant one less Flagsmasher for them to deal with; they were mad at him for giving them bad press. That is why they chose to give John an other than honorable discharge, for this meant that they would not have to go through the trial that would be required if they gave him a dishonorable discharge, and risk having unfavorable information come out. Thus, John got no chance to stand up for himself, and instead got quickly swept under the rug. Now, John tried to point out the injustice of the situation—"I only ever did what you asked of me, what you told me to be and trained me to do, and I did it. And I did it well," he said—but of course, the show wasn't done demonizing him, so it just ignored him and cut him off so that he would not get in the way of the attempt to discredit him. But in any case, saying that John didn't have jurisdiction in that scenario is completely untrue, because he absolutely did. Sam and Bucky were the ones who didn't have jurisdiction, and in fact they should have been wanted criminals for breaking Zemo out.

Honestly, if anyone was out of line here, it's the Dora Milaje for trying to kill Walker and Lemar because Walker touched one of them.