[Split from Pet Peeves thread]

Captain America bashing Avenger fics. They're the MCU's version of Ron the Deatheater and usually throws in some "Fury is just as bad as Hydra" plot points too that reminds me a lot of manipulative Dumbledore.

On top of that Tony Stark quickly starts sounding like the stereotypical Indy!Harry that has opened his eyes to Dumbledore's manipulations.

 

How can you bash Captain America? He’s canonically all but perfect.

 

Apparently rejecting something that allows indefinite detention without trial and puts you at the beck and call of the UN makes you selfish and then defending yourself when Tony Stark tries to use force against you makes you evil.

 

I think you could still quit the Avengers if you felt like it. Tony basically owned the team because he paid for everything, so if he felt like it he could just stop paying for the Avengers and start paying for a new team controlled by the UN. He didn't want to appear to be forcing his friends to go along with the initiative so if Steve hadn't been harboring a criminal rather than allowing him to stand trial, I doubt any force would have been needed. I think that was actually exactly how it happened, he was about to sign the form and then Tony got a call that somebody said Bucky's trigger words and now he's attacking everyone. Team Iron Man was very much not the aggressor there; it's just not the other team's fault that they were.
The film didn't give Steve sufficient reason to help Bucky to escape rather than allow him to stand trial. Even if he were convicted, he wouldn't have been executed immediately and the whole team would have been willing to help investigate the Winter Soldier program. It wasn't that good of a movie in terms of setting up the conflict, but it did allow Tony to pick up the idiot ball toward the end where it was revealed that a mind-controlled Bucky killed his parents.

 

What movie did you watch exactly?

The reason Steve refused to sign is because IM was holding Wanda prisoner at the Compound after she tossed the bomb too close to the building. No trial, no due process, no nothing, just Vision watching her and not allowing her to go anywhere.

The reason he helped Bucky escape is because there was a kill on sight order on him. No trial, no due process, no nothing. Kill him. He was actually trying to bring him in alive to stand trial and prove he was being brainwashed. When that proved impossible later...

 

Tony Stark: Sometimes I wanna punch you in your perfect teeth. But I don't wanna see you gone. We need you, Cap. So far, nothing's happened that can't be undone, if you sign. We can make the last 24 hours legit. Barnes gets transferred to an American psych-center . . . instead of a Wakandan prison.
Steve Rogers: [Steve frowns thoughtfully and picks up one of the fountain pens. He stands up and paces, then turns to Tony. In the control room beyond there are multiple screens on the walls.] I'm not saying it's impossible, but there would have to be safeguards.
Tony Stark: Sure. Once we put out the PR fire, those documents can be amended. I'd file a motion to have you and Wanda reinstated . . .
Steve Rogers: Wanda? What about Wanda?
Tony Stark: She's fine. She's confined to the compound, currently. Vision's keeping her company.
Steve Rogers: Oh God, Tony! Every time. Every time I think you see things the right way . . .
Tony Stark: What? It's a 100 acres with a lap pool. It's got a screening room. There's worse ways to protect people.
Steve Rogers: Protection? Is that how you see this? This is protection? It's internment, Tony.
Tony Stark: She's not a US citizen.
Steve Rogers: Oh, come on, Tony.
Tony Stark: And they don't grant visas to weapons of mass destruction.
Steve Rogers: She's a kid!
Tony Stark: GIVE ME A BREAK! I'm doing what has to be done . . . to stave off something worse.
Steve Rogers: [Steve nods faintly.] You keep telling yourself that. [He puts the pen down.] Hate to break up the set. [He leaves the office and rueful Tony watches Bucky on one of the control room's screens.]
.
I was watching the one with this scene in it. German special forces were going to kill Bucky on sight, but that's not Iron Man's fault, and once they got him out of that mess, he had the opportunity to go to a psych center, which was where he belonged until they worked out why he was attacking people. Vision stated that Wanda was being interned until the accords were signed, so that would have ended if Steve had agreed. He doesn't agree because he doesn't trust Tony, which is fair, but there's really no reason why Bucky would have been killed. If they wanted to kill him, they had that opportunity. T'challa was eager to kill him right before this, so I suppose they could have let him do it, but they took both Steve and Bucky alive. Steve was not trying to get his friend to stand trial; there's not one instance of the word 'trial' or 'due process' in the whole script.

 

Internment: the state of being confined as a prisoner.
So it's okay to hold her prisoner until he signs. That has so many things wrong with it. Why does her freedom depend on his action. Her freedom should depend on her own action. She could sign. Tony knows he's in the wrong in that scene. You can see it on his face. Wrong overall? No, but wrong in holding Wanda that he's throwing out technicalities like, "She's not a US Citizen."

Regarding Bucky... I'm lost about where you're at here. Bucky was in Romaina with the kill order. Steve went there to bring him in peacefully, but Bucky ran. I don't remember anything about a psych facility. Where was that at? Anyway, Presumably there would be a process... a way to go about things without assassinating someone, let's call it due process. To the layman this would involve investigating what happened, possibly clear Bucky of wrongdoing, or going the legal way in order to convict him. I just summed it up as Due Process/and or trial. Let's not be pedantic.

Underneath it all, Cap is for Justice. Nothing shown here is justice. It's politics. The whole point about the Civil War story line (movies-wise) is that both sides had good points about where they stood. Neither side was evil, but it's easy for people to choose a side and paint the other as evil. It's simpler for them I suppose.

 

I know what internment is; I merely used the same word they used in the scene. Vision specifically says that they would let Wanda out after the accord went through; this was a maneuver so that Tony could act like he had the team 'under control'. I would guess that because Steve was leading the resistance against the accord, it was his decision that would determine whether or not the team supported it. She was not being held captive because she had yet to approve of the accord, she was being held captive because the UN viewed her as dangerous. They don't know how her powers worked, so it looked like she caused the explosion because she touched the explosive last. Vision went along with it because he 'wanted the world to see her as he does'.
The first step of due process is apprehending the suspect. Steve apprehended him, but did not return him to custody when he found him after the escape; they went to look for the damn winter soldiers. I'm not saying he was some kind of all-around bad guy in this movie, but they didn't give him a good enough reason not to end the whole civil war by returning Bucky in good faith so there could be an investigation and so that the Winter Soldier wouldn't attack anyone in the meantime. He could have proven that he wasn't just helping his old war buddy whether he was innocent or not. The mention of the psych ward was at the top of the quote I cited; it was that or a Wakandan prison.

 

We're just going to have to have opposing views of this. I saw the accord... that metropolitan sized phonebook of whatever it was, and I already knew what was going to happen. Would it have flown in the real world? Probably, but those in charge let the Avengers, without oversight, go on for far too long after SHIELD fell. Throwing that out there was asking for certain members to rebel.

I think this is what I didn't like about the comics version as well. There were better ways to do this. They just wanted the one that would promote the most conflict. The accords was a terrible idea from the word go. "Thanos is invading. Sorry, we have to wait for UN approval before we can fight."

 

Tony presented an abysmal argument as to why they should accept it by harkening back to the first Iron Man movie, which was about his having accountability for his company. He took matters into his own hands, making himself entirely responsible for what his company did. Making the Avengers a UN asset is the opposite of that; it's just passing the buck, because there's still going to be the same amount of collateral damage; it'll just be someone else's fault.

The comics version was entirely different. The conflict was about requiring all superheroes to register their actual identities and I would hope most comic readers would understand why Steve was unilaterally right in that version, but they put the ending to a vote, so they had to make him wrong. At the end of the day, I get why they voted for Tony, because they're tired of the status quo and comics are notorious about always maintaining the status quo at all costs.

 

I know the comics were different. My point was that they were still the same in that they picked the route that caused the most conflict while still maintaining their hero status on both sides. There were better ways to go about the larger issue of accountability. At the time, it boiled down to marvel wanting all the heroes to fight each other in order to sell comics. As far as the movie, I have no idea why they picked that storyline to bring over to the MCU. Money, I assume, because I don't know a single person that actually liked the original Civil War in the comics. I know I loathed it.

 

Cap bashing fics are great, as are the tags 'Team Iron Man', 'Tony Stark Needs a Hug', and 'Not Team Cap Friendly', because they clearly alert the reader that the story is going to be a steaming pile of shit regardless of whatever virtues it might have.

 

Maybe I'm misunderstanding the argument, I barely remember the movie, but the idea that you should sign legally-binding documents under the assumption that you'll just amend them later seems absolutely insane here.

 

I think one thing people are forgetting is the time factor. Captain did not have the time to prove Bucky's innocence once they realized that there were 5(6?)more Winter Soldiers waiting to be activated and at the time they did believe that was the more immediate threat. Falcon and Captain discussed the merits of involving Tony and the rest of the Avengers, but signing the Accords made things more complicated for them.

 

I will give you that.
--- Post automerged ---

Yeah, it's almost like Tony has never been in a negotiation where he couldn't use his billion dollar boots to just get what he wants. Except that won't work here.

 

I agree with most of the points you are arguing above, but I feel I should clarify something about Cap’s character that is relevant to this thread.

This point here is accurate, but it does not paint the full picture as to Cap’s motivations. He also refused to sign because he was ideologically opposed to the idea of the Accords themselves, such as the fact that the team couldn’t save anyone or act without the government’s approval, which directly contrasted the way he viewed the world and his role in it.

TL;DR, Cap didn’t sign because he trusted his own judgement, and that of his friends and teammates more than the UN oversight panel.

That is seen by some as selfish and close-minded, which leads to the bashing fics.

 

That was the reason he didn't want to sign, but was talked into it by Tony. He picked up the pen and Tony assured him once the current situation blew over then the accords could/would be amended. Then as he was bending over to sign, Cap asked about Wanda, which led to him not breaking up the set of pens. Wanda was the straw that broke this camel's back.

 

Wanda was the reason he ultimately ended up not signing, yes. He trusted his teammates’ opinions about the accords, even against his own instincts (see my above TLDR). Additionally, I felt that his decision not to sign was also influenced by the speech given by Sharon Carter at Peggy’s funeral about “standing for what you believe in, even if the whole world tells you to move.”

However, in a discussion about his character, I felt that it was important to include a bit of relevant background that is used by most of the fanfic writers that bash him. I’m not saying you are wrong about his decisions, just providing background that I felt that was used by critics of his character.

 

To be honest, this entire thread (and all of the angry fics, tumblr arguments, and fandom Discourse™) is why I thought CA:CW was pretty good. Civil war stories (whether metaphorically or literally) are good, if well written, because both sides have legitimate points and legitimate pitfalls.

The reason I don't think Cap bashing (though annoying to read and generally poorly written) is equivalent to Ron the Deatheater is the premise. Bashing Ron for acting like a normal teenage boy, or twisting comparatively mild character flaws into Deatheater level sociopathy is significantly different than bashing Cap for what aren't actually character flaws, just canonical decisions.

Tony and Steve were bullheaded, stubborn asses. Their unshakeable, fundamental beliefs in how things---ideologically---should be got in the way of actually solving the fucking problem. The fandom's subsequent trip and faceplant into the same thing showcases how easily people in general don't want to engage in actual problem solving.

To Steve's credit: the U.N. Security Council (which I'm sure the Avengers advisory board would be modeled after), historically, is shit at their job. Nobody wanted to utter the word genocide because then someone would have to intervene in Rwanda, and oh look, as recent as June of 2020 the U.N.'s doing shit nothing about Yemen. Who could've anticipated that. France is a still a permanent member for god's sake. The bureaucracy involved also poses a legitimate concern with the response time in an emergency, especially if it involves a government that doesn't actually give a shit about the people of their own country, for whatever internal or external political reason. All valid reasons not to just sign the Accords as they were presented.

To his detriment: practically speaking, signing the Accords wouldn't have been legally binding in any respect. Steve's a U.S. citizen, part of the U.S. military, and unless Congress approved the Accords as U.S. law, they have no impact on Steve Rogers, and the U.S. has the political and economic clout to basically tell everyone else to fuck off. Would it look great? Possibly not, but let's be real here: the Avengers aren't gonna override the U.N. for shits and giggles, and if they save a shitload of people against U.N. orders, nobody's gonna have a leg to actually stand on in the court of public opinion, in which case there aren't any feasible consequences left. On top of all this, Wanda's "internment" at the Avengers compound wasn't some ridiculous, out-of-nowhere egregious shit like Steve wanted to pretend it was. A) yeah, Wanda wasn't a U.S. citizen and that does matter. If she gets deported, which the U.S. could decide to do, is it really likely that the U.N. or any other country is gonna give her a fair shake? Let her explain her powers and what went wrong? Calmly and rationally work out what to do with a stateless, ex-HYDRA meta whose powers are immense? Nah, she's gonna get thrown into an actual internment/detention facility and not the place she'd already been living. B) the Accords hold no legal weight which means, once Wanda and Steve sign, she's free to move again by the U.N.'s own admission, and she can go about getting U.S. citizenship (that I'm sure Steve and Tony can move along quickly for her) so she isn't goddamn stateless anymore. The latitude that gives her is immeasurable, especially when accountability would inevitably come up again.

To Tony's credit: there's no conceivable reason the rest of the world should trust Captain America's judgment over the U.N.'s. At least the U.N. is a quantifiable variable, whereas a suped up white man clad in an American flag from the 1940s does not exactly evoke the most pure of discernment. Why in the flying fuck should anybody non-American believe that Steve Rogers is of the highest moral integrity and that his decisions are always great (regardless of what the audience knows to be true). Especially when Steve is outright saying that what he deems an emergency, or what he thinks deserves intervention is what he's going to intervene in. Hey, you know what that sounds like? Wilsonian foreign policy, which is responsible for some of the grossest and most inept American military intervention in national history. There are dozens upon dozens of legitimate reasons that countries don't go around intervening in crises, even when lives are at stake, and the kind of intervention the Avengers were doing when that bomb went off in the beginning are exactly the kind of intervention people hate the American military for doing right now---incidentally, these kinds of missions/interventions are materially different from things like entering WW2 or the first Gulf War or saving New York from ongoing attack (or from saving the planet from Thanos, for that matter). To equivocate the former with the latter is laughable.

To his detriment: the Accords was a legal mess, littered with untenable and overreaching bullshit, and predicated on the idea that an oversight committee should be run through the U.N. And to ask someone to sign an international document, regardless of how effective it really is, on the basis that "it can be changed later" is pretty fucking galling, particularly because he likely expected all of the Avengers to follow the entire document until it could be changed instead of sign it to get people off their backs and still intervene if they really saw shit hitting the fan. It's naive, overly trusting of an institution that doesn't deserve such blind trust, and way too tied up in Tony's personal hangups to be a product of anything other than the judgment of a man that's way too far down the PTSD rabbit-hole and unsure of his own decision-making.

Easy solution: sign the Accords with no intention of following its stupid core tenants, and have some Senators on the phone so the damn thing isn't getting through Congress and getting on U.S. books (which let's be real, it wouldn't in a million years). It's highly unlikely that another world threatening crisis happens in the next month or so, which means Steve and Tony need to apprehend Bucky and chuck him in a nice psych ward, push Wanda's U.S. citizenship through, and hunt down the extra Winter Soldiers. Once the major to-dos are taken care of, then they can go back to the U.N. and basically say that they're U.S. citizens and not bound to the Accords anyway, and if they want the Avengers to abide by some oversight, it's gonna have to be an independent body of humanitarian workers and intelligence officials, along with what caveats for extreme emergencies they have. If the U.N. says no, then they can tell them to fuck right off and spin it like they're a bunch of bureaucratic bitch babies unwilling to relinquish oversight powers to more qualified people.

 

If Captain America was the perfect man (the jury is out on that one) then he would have been the perfect man of the 1940s. If you wanted to bash him, or make his character unredeemable, then you could ramp up the culture shock element of waking up 70+ years in the future and have him violently attempt to enforce his own values on the present era. In canon he gets over the cultural difference of modern America and his America remarkably quickly, but changing his reaction would serve to both make him more human and to make the story more interesting on a character level.