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.
tl;dr i love steve rogers a lot the end.
Louder for the people in the back: he’s light because he set his jaw and marched into the darkness and he set it the fuck on fire.
These scenes…I really wish they’d been left in. You truly get the sense of how displaced Steve feels by what has happened to him.
His hands on the train, his body language, he looks so alone and lost. These scenes never should have been cut. This is the first we’re really seeing him out of the ice; they’re necessary to his character development. It also serves as a far better introduction to Steve Rogers than just the punching bag scene since much of the audience hadn’t seen CA: TFA.
Ok so we all know that the answer to “Where did Captain America learn to
steal a car?” is “Nazi Germany” but I think the more pressing question
here is when the fuck did this complete maniac get a driver’s license
Because ok, Mighty Mouse 1.0 is too poor to own a car, too short to
reach the pedals, has vision problems, and is a goddamn New Yorker in the motherfucking 1930s, why on earth would he ever have learned to drive?
So this little bastard can’t even tell the gas from the brakes, he gets
all beefified, he goes on tour with the USO. Unless one of the showgirls
coached him through stalling out a car all over some Hollywood back
lot, he still can’t drive. He goes to Europe. At some point, some genius
looks at him and thinks “this strapping specimen of American hunkhood
obviously knows his way around a vehicle, let’s give him a motorcycle,”
and Steve “no parachute” Rogers is like “how hard could this be?” and
promptly wraps himself around approximately eight trees at the same time.
So then he’s kickin’ ass, fightin’ Hydra, and it’s just months of Bucky being like
“give me the goddamn keys, Steven,” and Dum Dum and Morita endlessly
encouraging his fucking insane Fury Road bullshit, like the Howling Commandos just use “grenade” as code for “Rogers” when they’re reporting
why yet another truck has been destroyed beyond recognition. Yes, sir, another grenade, I agree, sir, it’s very odd that we keep losing vehicles in the same way, that’s the third this month alone
So then he’s in the future and SHIELD is sorting his shit out, and
they’re not going to force Captain goddamn America to wait in line at
the DMV, they’re all in complete awe in him and they’ve seen the old
reels of him on his bike, so when they issue him his driver’s license without any type of road test
they go ahead and give him a motorcycle license too
and steve is like …neat.
Ok so then Bucky is back, shit is settled down, everyone’s heading
somewhere and Steve gets in the driver’s seat and Buck’s like WHOA WHOA
WHOA are you people out of your goddamn minds?! Why is Steve driving, is
this some kind of mission, are we heading into a combat zone, is the
plan for the vehicle to get blown up?? GIVE ME THE GODDAMN KEYS STEVEN
And Sam is all “what are you talking about, Steve’s a great driver, I saw him jump his bike over a car once”
And Buck is all “yes but have you seen him use a turn signal?”
And Steve’s like, “Listen, we never needed to ‘signal’ our ‘turns’ in Nazi Germany.”
“OK, we are in… Maryland. Third from the left, here you go, take one, pass it down. Remember, you have to get involved with the political process for Democracy to work.“
“Um… shouldn’t you be dealing with the Wrecking Crew? They’re like, right there.”
