I say this every week but I kind of feel like I’m watching a different show to you all with the way you cherrypick through the dialogue in order to demonise either Sam or Bucky and pit them against each other re: the shield. Malcolm Spellman is writing these characters as complex, emotional, grieving men coming at the same issue from different, understandable perspectives. Their actions and thought processes are not always perfect because they’re human - but he’s not writing either Sam or Bucky as a saint or a villain. Why are so many people so determined to make them one or the other?
Sam’s reasons for giving up the shield are completely legitimate, understandable and valid. The shield has a weight and complexity and burden for Sam as a black man that it never had for Steve - something it’s clear Steve didn’t think of when he handed Sam the shield and expected him to just drop everything to become Captain America, just because Steve said so. It’s absolutely Sam’s right to decide not to take on the symbol of a country that has oppressed African-Americans for centuries. That’s his choice to make and his alone, because it’s his life - I’m struggling to see how anyone could condemn him for that.
His reasons are completely valid and his intentions good, but it’s also factual that he ignored Steve’s last wishes, gave away the last remnant of his legacy, and inadvertently let the shield fall into the hands of someone who doesn’t deserve it and may use it for evil. None of that is Sam’s fault, but it’s only human that Bucky wouldn’t be happy with the way things have played out. By episode 3 he understands Sam’s reasons slightly better (just as Sam understands Bucky a little better), but you can’t just stop feeling how you feel over night, especially when it’s fuelled by mental health issues and tied so closely to the grieving process. It’s already been explicitly stated that Bucky isn’t doing well mentally, and is reacting emotionally and illogically to matters of the shield and super soldiers (as Sam said this very episode: “I know why this matters to you, but it’s pushing you off the deep end”). He’s never going to accept John Walker as Cap (nor should he), and he’s not going to let the last fragment of Steve that he has be destroyed, so all he can do is either continue trying to convince Sam that he made a mistake and he should take the shield, or take it for himself if Sam continues to reject it, to keep it out of the wrong hands. I’m struggling to see how anyone could condemn him for that, either.
Neither Sam nor Bucky’s positions on the shield debate are evil or even necessarily wrong, and the narrative isn’t presenting them as such. Only the fandom is. Fandom took a nuanced discussion of legacy, loss and representation, and of race and mental health, and turned it into a black and white, contextless “Sam is a selfish asshole who doesn’t give a fuck about Steve and his legacy” vs “Bucky is a racist who doesn’t give a shit about Sam and his struggles” issue, instead of what it actual is: “two men ultimately want to respect their best friend’s legacy but have different ways of approaching it because of their respective traumas. Through conflict and growing trust they will eventually come to see the other’s perspective and reach a mutual conclusion.” Despite how clear it is on screen, the point is being so badly missed that the fandom is becoming a pretty unbearably toxic place to be for the first few days after an episode drops.
