starkravinghazelnuts:

Steve Rogers is a deeply fascinating character–and he’s not just a good man, but a great man. So when I see criticism leveled at Steve, calling him “boring,” “stagnant,” and, more bizarrely, a bad man, I can’t wrap my head around it. The reason Steve was chosen to be a hero in the first place? The reason he became Captain America? Is because of his inherent goodness.

When Dr. Abraham Erskine tells Steve why he chose him for Project Rebirth, he says this: 

“The serum amplifies everything that is inside. So, good becomes great. Bad becomes worse. This is why you were chosen. Because a strong man, who has known power all his life, will lose respect for that power. But a weak man knows the value of strength, and knows compassion.”

Project Rebirth made Steve a paragon. For those unfamiliar, a paragon is “a person or thing regarded as a perfect example of a particular quality / a person or thing viewed as a model of excellence.” Synonyms of paragon include: “ideal”, “epitome”, “model.”

So, I say, how, in what universe, could this make Steve a “bad” man?

As for “boring”? It is true that often “perfect” characters can be tiresome, because many of them don’t showcase any internal struggle. These characters don’t often create their own problems; they don’t develop and grow in the same way flawed characters do, but that doesn’t make them boring. In order for a character like this to thrive? They must be resilient.

Paragons are interesting through their conflicts–their struggle to remain an ideal in the face of adversity. This is how Steve’s journey as Captain America is set-up, with Dr. Eskine telling Steve:

“Whatever happens tomorrow, you must promise me one thing. That you will stay who you are. Not a perfect soldier, but a good man.”

Therein lies the drama of Steve Rogers: the internal battle to preserve his integrity; and it’s this internal battle that gives Steve some of his most defining character traits, like his stubbornness and tenacity.

After Project Rebirth’s success, Steve fits even the physical description of a paragon. He’s practically glowing. He’s fit. He’s beautiful.  He can breathe well for possibly the first time in his whole life. We definitely get a sense in the scene that has life has literally been reborn (as the project name promised). But, immediately, Steve starts weathering the storm–and his idealism, his inherent greatness, starts to get chipped by the constant battery. Dr. Erskine is murdered, and Steve is thrown headfirst into stopping a HYDRA agent. Steve is shoehorned into working for the USO. From there, he goes into battle. He loses Bucky. And then? He loses his own life. Everything he’s known is stripped from him when he chooses to sacrifice himself for the world.

It’s a shame the MCU didn’t capitalize on Steve’s dysphoria aside from some deleted scenes in The Avengers (and him taking some tension out on a punching bag), but he had to be reeling from all the sudden changes. The abject loss. He struggles to find purpose in this new, alien world–and he’s taken in by SHIELD, which becomes, in a way, his only family.

Then? That family betrays him in Captain America: The Winter Soldier. SHIELD is rife with Steve’s enemies from the past, seeking to infect the world once more. Again, Steve loses what semblance of comfort he has–and then his life is further disrupted with the news his best friend Bucky Barnes has been rendered a pawn of HYDRA–an unwitting body held under the Nazi organization’s horrific brainwashing.

It’s no wonder Steve becomes absolutely driven to free his friend from the nightmare. Not only is a hideous injustice (Bucky being used against his will for heinous misdeeds), but Bucky is the last tether Steve has to all that he’s lost. And, for a guy who seems to keep losing everything he holds dear, Bucky is everything.

And it’s that point which leads into the central conflict of Captain America: Civil War. Not about the Accords, but what happened in the Siberian bunker.

However, let’s talk about the Accords for a brief moment. I’ve always held the opinion that both Steve and Tony’s perspectives made complete sense for their characters–and both are sympathetic. Steve’s position on the Accords fits given all he’s experienced. In the war, his commanding officer, Colonel Chester Phillips, told him they would not engage in a rescue mission for the 107th. Dissatisfied with that, Steve defied orders to bring them home–and successfully did so. Had he simply done was he was told, all those men would have died. In Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Steve discovered he’d been working for a secret HYDRA organization, which tarnished his belief in institutions. Both of these formative experiences are at the core of why Steve turns his nose at the idea of oversight. He trusts himself, his friends, and his instincts. To some, this makes Steve appear “arrogant,” and perhaps on some level it is, but when looking at it from the perspective of Steve being the ideal man, it seems like earned arrogance–especially when Steve considers the alternative being under the thumb of an impersonal council. To me, none of this has to do with the “Ruination of the Paragon Steve Rogers and the Birth of the Man Steve Rogers” (lol)

After all, the true climax of the film doesn’t stem from any disagreement about a political document. It all comes down to the emotional core. In that Siberian Bunker? Is where Stephen McFeely says Steve Rogers does the worst thing he’s ever done. 

Steve never told Tony what really happened to Howard and Maria Stark. 

This act is Steve Rogers’ low point. His most human failing. How could a paragon of such virtue, who has been adamant about secrets not being withheld, keep such a ground-breaker from his friend? 

How could Steve Rogers become a hypocrite? 

It’s because Steve’s ideal nature has taken a beating. Across several films, we’ve witnessed Steve’s perfect veneer become steadily chipped away to reveal the man underneath. Because, at the end of the day, Steve is still a man. A good man, but a man who can (and will) make mistakes. 

A man who can get distracted.

The theme of “distraction” is a major one in Captain America: Civil War. The terrible events in Lagos happen because Steve doesn’t clock Rumlow’s bomb-vest because his mind was spinning after Rumlow said Bucky’s name. Vision–another paragon (see: Vision lifting Mjolnir)–became “distracted” when trying to hit Sam’s EXO-7 Falcon pack, instead melting War Machine’s arc reactor, leading to Rhodey’s paralysis. By way of these distracted episodes, the audience sees these characters are becoming more “human.” 

And people are getting hurt because of it.

It’s what led to Tony getting hurt in the film’s final act–because it wasn’t that Steve outright lied to Tony. It wasn’t that Steve even meant to lie to Tony. 

Steve simply got distracted.

While there’s plenty written about the horror of Tony learning about his parents’ death, it’s often ignored how this truth must’ve made Steve feel. He learned about Howard and Maria’s deaths in Captain America: The Winter Soldier when he was in the bunker at Camp Lehigh. Zola showed him the reel, which alluded to Howard’s car crash being anything but an accident. We’re told by Markus and McFeely (the writers of the film) that it’s at this moment, Steve should have pieced together it was the Winter Soldier (i.e. Bucky) who murdered the Starks, but Steve chose to bury his head in the sand. He didn’t want to think about it. He didn’t want to face that horrible reality. It’s often overlooked that Howard was also Steve’s friend. It’s a lot to absorb, it’s a lot to accept–so Steve didn’t. He chose deliberate distraction as opposed to facing it.

By the time Steve accepted the truth of the situation himself, it was too late–because Tony was seeing it for the first time at that exact moment. This is why when Tony asks Steve if he knew, Steve’s first inclination is to say, “I didn’t know,” because he, truthfully, didn’t want to accept that as the truth. He hadn’t known. But, he relents, and eventually says, “Yes,” because, deep-down, he did know. He always knew. Lying to oneself isn’t something a paragon does, but it is something a human does–especially when faced with something deeply traumatic (like Bucky Barnes being forced against his will to murder Howard and Maria Stark–like one friend brutally murdering another).

It’s no mistake this is the moment when Steve drops the shield, when he abandons Captain America, because Captain America was his ideal self. The man who came out of Project Rebirth. 

But now? Steve is simply Steve Rogers again. 

This is why Steve Rogers is a compelling character. It’s gripping to watch Steve fight to hold onto being the paragon he was reborn to be–but ultimately succumb to the humanity buried underneath it all. 

From here, it’ll be interesting to see where Steve Rogers goes. Will he rise back to his status as an ideal–to Captain America? Or will he remain simply a man? Or will we see a synthesis between the two?