Let’s remember that Bucky Barnes without Steve Rogers was the kid who befriended a small sickly boy looked down on and picked on by everyone else without caring what anyone thought.
Bucky Barnes without Steve Rogers was a smart, bright, likable young man who enjoyed going to dance halls and science fairs.
Bucky Barnes without Steve Rogers earned the respect, friendship, and loyalty of his soldiers to such an extent that when a stranger in spangly tights saves their lives only to ask them to follow him back into the fray, they agree because this guy’s nuts but he’s got Sarge’s seal of approval.
Bucky Barnes without Steve Rogers withstood years of unimaginable physical and psychological torture until his captors were finally forced to strip him of his memories and all sense of self in order to make him compliant, and even then had to phrase his missions as fights for the good of the world.
And then, Bucky Barnes, with no knowledge of Steve Rogers or himself, with no agency or moral compass, couldn’t be kept out of cryostasis for too long lest he regain the smallest sense of self and turn on his masters. Because even they knew that James Buchanan Barnes was the furthest thing from a bully, and feared the vengeance he would bring down on them if he realized what they were forcing him to do.
And this is just Bucky Barnes in the MCU, who’s had maybe a half hour of screen time and a handful of lines.
Yeah, the seeds of the Winter Soldier are in Bucky, insomuch as he is competent, loyal, fierce, a brilliant tactician, capable of doing the dirty work to save others the burden, and a bit ruthless when it comes to protecting innocents and those he loves. But isn’t it telling that even stripped of everything but these attributes and then turned to destruction and chaos he becomes, not a bully, but an asset of terrifying efficiency? The Winter Soldier is single-minded and brutal in carrying out his missions, but he is an effective soldier, not a bully.
James Buchanan Barnes is a hero, and nothing, not the absence of one man (even a man like Steve Rogers) or anything else, could change that.
I’ll shout this from the rooftops every day until I die
We get to see more of who Bucky is in the comics (we see more of everyone in the comics – 80 years of story telling!), but even in the MCU, Bucky is so much more than his relationship with Steve. His goodness doesn’t come from Steve. Rather, he and Steve get along because they’re both good.
Do you ever sit around and think about how Captain America: The First Avenger is aptly named not because Steve Rogers was the world’s first superhero (and future leader of the Avengers Initiative team) but because one of his most memorable acts of bravery – crashing the plane to save the world – was done in the process of avenging Bucky Barnes.
DAMN THOUGH can we have a moment of appreciation for how different Bucky’s fighting style is compared to WS??
Credit for this absolutely goes to Sebastian Stan’s character work. In Civil War when Bucky is in a fight/in danger he’s literally so expressive, compared to the Dead Eyed Murder Glare™ we’re accustomed to from the Winter Soldier.
Like REALLY:
And it’s such a neat thing because Civil War Bucky is still super competent, he’s got the WS’s skills, but he’s also FREAKING THE HELL OUT HE DIDN’T ASK FOR ANY OF THIS
HE JUST WANTED TO BUY SOME PLUMS FFS
these wide-eyed OH FUCK facial expressions are like half the reason why the GET REKT jokes are so freaking funny, because it’s so different from how the Winter Soldier would’ve acted [[*analyzes a meme*]]
But this is IMPORTANT because one of the things I was so relieved about from this movie was that it emphasized the separation between the Winter Soldier persona and Bucky’s ACTUAL PERSONALITY when he’s not being mind-controlled and forced to kill people.
Yeah, I have my gripes/nitpicks about the movie, lots of us do – but on this particular point I’m SO pleased with the respect that was shown for Bucky’s character. Most of the fans take it for granted that ~Bucky Barnes Is Not A Villian 2k14~, but he could have been written off that way!!! Even just by making less of a distinction between the Bucky that was controlled by Hydra and one who has his own internal life & personality.
I think we should appreciate the fact that the characterization we got could not have happened without collaboration from the creatives in charge: clear direction from the Russos, the writers using a strong narrative device like Bucky being programmed by trigger words, and of course Sebastian Stan acting his face off and totally changing his body language depending on which version he was portraying.
Sebastian Stan proved his acting mettle when he stole CA: Winter Soldier with only a handful of spoken lines and only his eyes visible for like half the damn movie. In CA: CW, though, he takes it to a whole new level. The whole time, he’s viscerally aware of what Bucky’s state of mind would be. He showed us, with his face and eyes and body, whether he was Bucky or the Winter Soldier.
You ever think about how relieved Bucky must have been at first when the Russians found him after he fell in the end of catfa? Imagine how grateful he must have felt to have miraculously survived his fall and been found by allies who would take him home. Do you think that as they were dragging him through the snow while he was half conscious, he was focusing on the thought that soon he and Steve would be reunited, that they had more time after all?
the1timetraveller 