Steve Meta

[arukou]

This is kind of in response to a thing I was reading about angry bitter Steve, and just my own thoughts on Steve (and also a little on Tony). I’m not interested in wank, okay? We all have our own interpretations and that’s the beauty of fandom, right?

I think it’s fairly well-known and accepted amongst fans that Steve Rogers is an angry, angry man. But the root of his anger seems to vary across fandom. From my own perspective I don’t think he’s angry because he’s a fundamentally bitter man. I really don’t. I think it’s because he’s disappointed and frustrated when the world doesn’t live up to what he believes it can be. When he sees big government organizations using their power to monitor civilians rather than protect them, or when he sees a charismatic leader use his power to destroy those who are different rather than to embrace diversity, I think that’s really fundamentally hard for Steve to see because in his own view, that’s something he himself would never do. (Whether he has anyway is a different issue.)

Steve bucks against the Accords because he doesn’t understand why he would need to be monitored. He’d never do anything evil; he’d only ever try to help. And in his heart, he believes other heroes wouldn’t either. When they prove him wrong, when they make decisions that he sees as misguided and oppressive, it makes him angry because he thought they were above this kind of deception.

Is Steve’s faith in institutions completely gone? I’m not sure. My historical knowledge of his character and the perspectives he might’ve had make me skeptical of the idea that Steve would give up on institutions entirely. (Talking about that letter at the end of CA:CW here.) The things that would’ve been helping Steve up pre-serum were all institutions, and very socialist ones at that, things that our current American government would balk at, things that would never even make it out of Congressional committee. So maybe where Steve’s faith is lost is in the military-industrial complex? This one I’m more murky on.

But one of the points that I want to just touch on here is that Steve’ often externalizes his anger (even though his standards for goodness in humanity are perhaps unrealistically high). SHIELD? That’s on Fury and his failure to eradicate evil from his organization sooner. Ultron? That’s on Tony and Bruce and their notion that the Avengers won’t be enough. The Accords? That’s on Tony and the military-industrial complex.

Tony, on the other hand, often internalizes blame. SI selling under the table? His fault. Ultron? His fault. Vanko? His fault. I don’t think Tony necessarily believes that institutions are faultless, but he sees their value. He sees that a lot of good can be done with them, and he is more willing to compromise to get a non-ideal result than no result at all. It’s the difference between all-or-nothing and 60/40 split. So long as Tony can get the 60, he’ll take it. Hell, sometimes he takes less than the 60 if it’s someone he likes. He sacrifices a lot for the team after all.