I haven't read the comics either. But from the MCU, it's that Steve will consistently ignore the greater good in favor of his own moral compass. This mostly works out for him because he's often also right, but that's not because he has good judgment, it's just because HYDRA etc. keep outplaying the good guys.
He ignores orders to go after Bucky and uses his charisma to get other people to also ignore orders. Then he does it again. Then he does it a third time except that time Thanos shows up. And at that point he still doesn't think he did anything wrong. Oh, and then instead of ignoring the big picture to go after Bucky, he ignores the possibility of breaking the timeline to get his happy ending with Peggy.
After typing this out, I realize this makes me sound like I probably don't like Steve Rogers that much, but I am fond of all the OG Avengers. I just also think he never faces real consequences for his actions, haha.
I love flawed characters, so I get what you mean.
I also used to dislike him a lot when I was younger, but have started really liking him recently. He has this weird vibe about him and that's what I'm trying to pin down I guess.
And I like your perspective.
As I understand it you mean that he has this whole "saint-patriot" image and he has ended up developing a "holier-than-thu" attitude about everything, acting mostly selfishly.
I would call him shortsighted more than selfish, but yeah, he is selfish when it matters.
He is a good battle commander and he will always show up when needed. He's a gentleman and wants the best for everyone.
The problem is he isn't a strategist and won't listen to people who are strategists if he thinks he's right. Moreover, he doesn't really offer alternative solutions when he thinks the other side is wrong, he just goes off and does the thing he thinks is right and damn the consequences.
Like, with the Accords. We all know the Accords were the wrong answer. Like if I were picking a side in this I would pick Steve's side. But Steve is the one who escalates the situation because he can't accept what is going on with Bucky. It's because he's so predictable about his own moral superiority that he plays right into this trap and brings a whole lot of people along with him. And the result of this is that the Avengers are splintered when Thanos shows up ready to kick ass. And then the result of that is that Tony and Natasha are the ones who paid the price.
Meanwhile Tony really did consistently have the whole world's safety at the forefront of his mind, he just also consistently was proven wrong by the circumstances until the time he was right (when Thanos showed up.) He was wrong about Ultron, he was wrong about the purpose of the Accords, but he was right Steve chose Bucky over everyone else.
I'm not sure about some of this. I don't think the need for the accords was completely wrong. He was absolutely right in that governments were going to start cracking down on people coming into their countries and wrecking s\*\*t. If a foreign superhero team had done that to the US, we'd have almost immediately started demanding extradition and restitution, which is what the unauthorized (Bucky-hunt) missions was leading to. I know I'd want someone to pay if my home was wrecked or my family killed, no matter the reason. I think it'd be better that they fall under the UN, instead of individual countries which, let's be honest, would almost immediately attempt to force them into some kind of service (at a minimum). The thing about registration would definitely have to go, along with some other questionable things, but they admitted that it was a work-in-progress.
He wasn't wrong about Ultron, because there was nothing for him to be wrong about Ultron. Ultron was an AI-like entity inside the Mind Stone that got accidentally released (by Thor playing with his hammer indoors), that took the name of a non-functional program that Tony and Bruce were working on. What he did wrong there was not putting the staff in a Faraday cage as soon as he realized there was AI code in it, but that could be put down to Wanda's mindf\*cking. And lest people forget, Steve told Tony and Bruce to study the staff before Thor took it back to Asguard.
As for protecting the world, they shouldn't have blown him off in the first place. He was the one that saw the armada on the other side of portal. Just because they're shortcut got cut off, doesn't mean they aren't still coming. And even if that wasn't the case, Thor TOLD THEM that playing around with the Tesseract told the wider universe that Earth ready for a higher form of war. If it wasn't Thanos, it would have been someone else. Fury already knew about at least one conqueror species (the Kree).
The need for the Accords and the actual Accords are two separate matters.
The Avengers had zero input on the content of the Accords. The UN passed a giant book of rules, slapped it on the Avengers' desk and went, "My way or the highway." Then they basically handed control of the Avengers over to the US military by putting the reins in Ross' hands.
If you're going to legislate for a specific group of people, it's pretty important to get their input. The fact that Tony was constantly on his back foot scrambling to correct issues after they were implemented makes it pretty obvious they were flawed, besides that they weren't actually effective at controlling supers or marshaling them when defense was needed.
I commented elsewhere in this thread regarding Tony vs Steve's mentalities, but it comes down to this: Tony was always more realistic about what it would take to defeat threats AND he was willing to take risks to defeat those threats. He also knew that a lot of people wouldn't agree with the risks he was willing to take, so instead of taking proper precautions he simply didn't tell people what he was working on.
Not properly isolating an AI based on an item everyone knew Loki used to literally brainwash people was a *preventable* mistake. Letting that AI come online and immediately get access to a bunch of dangerous weapons? Totally preventable. Specifically keeping this project under wraps from others because he knew they'd object? Also preventable.
Steve, meanwhile, often refused to accept reality or make decisions that require sacrifices from anyone but himself even when that decision would be the best decision.
Those aren't the points I was making in my original post, though.
The point I was making is that the Avengers' MCU narrative is set up against Tony and in favor of Steve; Steve is set up to seem like he's right even when his reasoning is flawed, while Tony is set up to seem like he's wrong even when his reasoning is correct.
That is what I meant when I said Tony was wrong about Ultron and the purpose of the Accords.
The idea for Ultron was great but Tony is a character who is set up to constantly face his own arrogance and failure, so of course you couldn't have a better Jarvis who could be a 24/7 instant defense system against the indefensible, you needed an evil AI who could nuke the world or you wouldn't have the events that lead to the Accords in the first place. And as for the Accords, the MCU is VERY against military control of supers, so naturally Steve turned out to be right-- the Accords were a disaster.
Again, this isn't because Steve has particularly good judgment, it's just that the narrative consistently supports his position. Moreover, Steve never pays any sort of price for following his gut instead of taking reasonable advice.
Everyone always harps on how Tony was keeping secrets, but was he actively keeping secrets or just not voluntarily telling them everything. Those are two different things. They consistently shot him down when he tried to bring up the possible future threats and if I was in that situation, I would be so open either. If no one was asking him what he was doing, how is that keeping secrets? And if he was keeping secrets, so what? He is a grown adult, and is not actually required to share his thoughts or projects if he doesn't want to. He also doesn't seem to be the type to bring up a project that he couldn't get working, especially after dropping it, which he admitted to. Tony and Bruce's Utron program was nothing like the Mind Store AI that stole the program's name and overall mission statement. It's like if I tried to make an noise canceling system the negates noises outside my apartment because my neighbors were too loud, and a rouge AI hijacked it, got a body, stole the name and killed everyone in my building. While it was ultimately the same result, that is nothing like what I tried to make my program do.
As much as Thaddeus Ross is almost universally hated, where was he wrong during his presentation of the Accords? And to be completely honest, I do think the UN are the best hands to hold the metaphorical leash of a team of walking natural disasters. And does anyone really believe that Stark didn't have his lawyers on that thing, and a fistful of proposed amendments at the ready, before he actually signed it?
Though I do agree that the MCU set up Tony to be the "good guy who could do no right", even when he didn't actually do anything wrong.
(P.S. Thanks for making this an actual reasonable psuedo-debate instead of devolving it into ridiculous bashing, and such. That doesn't happen often for me)
I see his character differently. In First Avenger, he ignored orders to save the 107th -- he thought Bucky was probably dead. He didn't ignore the greater good. He ignored his own PERSONAL good. At that point, he was dancing monkey. So he risked his own life against orders. Peggy and Howard chose to go with him, and he bailed from the plane as soon as it got hairy.
I think his biggest flaw is he's a bit narrow-minded and judgmental -- he sees things mostly as his way and, like Peggy said, when the world says move, you stand and say "YOU move." That's his greatest asset, of course, but it's also a flaw.
HE judged Tony Stark in Avengers having barely met him. Sized him up (fairly accurately at the time, but not completely) and laid into him (of course they were all being influenced by the Scepter at that moment). He makes comments like "There's only one God, and he doesn't dress like that" (more a product of his time, of course, and he got better later on).
He refused to trade lives with Vision when Thanos came -- again his way or no way. He didn't consider the greater good in THAT case (I think that's a much better example because it literally was one life form vs half the universe).
Like, you're right. I agree on the narrow-minded and judgmental bit, too. But his being narrow-minded is just a factor in his overall behavior pattern.
In TFA, Steve isn't just Steve, he is a soldier who is product of experimentation and the Allies wanted to keep him alive to see if they could duplicate him. Sidelining him and using him as entertainment was just a part of this.
I know the MCU is very anti 'organizations creating super soldiers' but this is what Steve signed up for. He ignored his responsibility to the organization that created him (Erskine is not the only person responsible, this was a project that required funding, materials, etc.) and direct orders not to do the thing he did.
If it was a one-off, cool, but it wasn't. It worked out and proved to Steve that he should follow his heart because that's what gets him good results. This established Steve as a maverick and he does this through the entire series. Except, the problem is, Steve's reactionary moral compass is not a long-term strategy for anything.
Just because circumstances prove him right later doesn't mean he was really doing the right thing, it just means SHIELD really sucked at running its organization.
Like if you put Tony and Steve in front of me and said 'vote for the person who should run your government' uhhhhh yeah I'd pick Tony because Steve means well but has no long-term plan for anything. He just rides the waves until he sees something he doesn't like.
The Vision thing is a prime example, yes.
That's fair. My feeling is Steve ignores reality in favor of idealism. Tony accepts reality and then overcorrects. They both have bad consequences, but Tony shows he's willing to change and Steve does not.
Hello, while I prefer fanfics without heavy bashing, most of what I read is at least slightly in Tony's favor and it has shifted my interpretations of canon.
As a result I think Steve's track record on being right (or the perception of it) is just the result of skewed canon writing.
1. When the writers made the consequences of Steve's actions good, was he right, lucky or was his likability given plot armor?
2. Steve doesn't dwell on his past mistakes, Tony does - it's a big part of his character arc. There's only so much screen time, so Steve's mistakes aren't so exposed.
I also like autumnscarf's interpretation.
I personally think that all of these comments are a little shallow. A person isn’t self sacrificing to a fault or stubborn or narrow-minded for no reason. He had a lot of life lived as a “little guy” before everyone is starting their analysis. I think what’s really going on is people pleasing.
Steve grew up sick and essentially worthless in a time where eugenics was much more prevalent. I think he probably tried really hard in school, got really good grades, understanding that his mind (and art if he was lucky) would be the only thing to keep him alive and fed ASSUMING he’d even live that long. I think he was on death door several times with illness and in the back of his mind probably didn’t think he’d even make it to being an adult. So you couple someone with low self worth and who believes they’re on borrowed time anyways and you get someone willing to sign up for an army experiment that will likely kill him or someone picking fights in an alley he knows he can’t win.
Steve’s always trying to do the RIGHT thing not because he thinks “it my way or the highway” but because the right thing to do is what’s expected. When you’re sick and everyone looks at you with pity that you’re even alive, it would feel good to make them look at you differently by doing something they approve of or value.
So in sum, I believe people pleasing and low self worth stemming from his days as a sick/small person are his greatest faults.
I agree on both points. I also mentioned it in a reply that made me think of this. His years before the serum is what had the most profound effect on who he is. You articulated it perfectly. And I like you framing of this as "people pleasing" because, indeed, in a way it is.
That being said, he is "my way or the highway" as most people pleasers are. Only the "my" in the "my way" isn't ever theirs in reality. It's the one's they aim to please, the one's they think they need to prove themselves to.
Thanks for your comment. It adds a lot of extra layers.
Thank you for the new food for thought. It left a different impression on me:
Steve saw himself as a brave and good man trapped in a weak body. From the beginning he had something to prove and that didn't go away with the enhancement, it might have even been amplified (proving that he deserves his enhancement).
But his ego grew everytime he felt, that he has done something right, and especially when there were no negative consequences. I don't even think his ego was small to begin with, he was just used to hiding it, because it didn't match, what he could physically manage. With time his ego grew and together with his self-righteous mindset it started showing.
I agree the thurst into the future is definitely a huge element affecting his behavior and forming who he is today. And I think this element is other downplayed or overplayed. Especially in fanfiction. He is shown trying to find his footing in his new reality, while not canceling everything he stood for and believed back then. So, yeah. I agree he's very arrogant in his "I know best attitude" about everything and everyone. It's what I recognize as a flaw, too. But at the same time it's sort of a symptom of something deeper (in terms of flaws I think).
I love all the answers here, it really helps to notice so many different elements of his character and behavior and it helps me starting connecting some dots.
He abandoned his friends to go bone a girl he was involved with 90 years ago or something. That is a big flaw with MCU Steve, he is too in love with Peggy and can’t move on from his love. I get that he’s a man out of time and it isn’t fair but come on!
I still can't get over how they did that to his storyline. It's like they were bored to bother. Let's throw him at Peggy's and be done with him. His ending and Wanda's truly irk me.
Yeah, that’s why the MCU fell for me. Two of the most important characters got crappy endings. I think that they wanted Sam to get the shield really bad from Cap but they could have done something else. For Wanda, she deserved better because she was such a cool character and had an interesting character arc. Ughhhhhh!
Yes, Wanda as a character was (is maybe? I think they've included her in some of the newest series/movies that I haven't yet watched) so promising.
Constantly treading the line between hero and vilain. And all they could think doing with her was WandaVision? I mean, come on!
I haven't watched a lot of the newest stuff, so maybe they'll salavage that, we'll see.
If I had to say anything about him, it's that the guy is 'Captain America' all the time, even when it's not appropriate. While he improves towards Endgame (which is kind of highlighted when he fights the other Captain America) he's got a very black-and-white view of the world that reads like an old WW2 comic; it's the good guys vs. the bad guys. While that might serve him well when he's fighting an unambigously evil enemy (the Nazis or Hydra) it means he really struggles with more nuanced conflicts where both sides might be right, because he has difficulty in putting himself in his opponent's shoes or admitting that they, quite possibly, just might have a point.
So I used to write Marvel Fanfic, and have spent a lot of time working out what I feel is Steve’s biggest flaws and what I've come up with is, when he thinks he's right, no one else's feelings, experiences, thoughts, whatever, don't matter to him anymore. He's gonna do whatever he has to make what he wants to happen, happen.
Literally, everything he does is to prove himself to his own and other people's detriment. It all works out for him because it's the movies and and it's supposed to, but if you try to immerse yourself into the universe as a character taking part in the storyline (like I did when writing) he quickly went from what I thought was a loyal, headstrong guy who wanted to do what was right, to an idiot who just happened to have things work out, but not without consequences, usually for everyone else.
Yes, I see what you're saying. I do think they've done him some injustuce in terms of basically not having a true character arch on him. He remaines mostly the same through all movies. I mean, we have Tony who is a genious bilionaire dysfunctional asshole at the beginning and he ends up this incredible person deeply caring for everyone around him, thinking about the consequences of his and the avengers actions... A nice big intense arch. Steve's... Steve's was no arch. It's flat. And I do think they had opportunities to work several different archs with him, but kinda chose not to? No idea what the writing logic behind that was.
But we see elements and tiny bits of evolving and some bits of self-reflection here and there, only to be dropped like they never happened.
Steve’s always had a chip on his shoulder and a sense of righteousness. When his moral compass runs into conflict with abject morality or with a necessary action, his moral compass will always supersede it.
This isn’t surprising. Homebro went from fighting bullies to geopolitics, you can’t really make that jump without actively changing your approach to situations, and he didn’t.
With Steve, it also means he has a propensity to act alone. Since his moral compass (or let’s call it what it is; his ego) takes precedence, he’s more likely to say “fuck it” and change course. However he understands that he can’t force people into it, so he’d do it alone if necessary. Also means less disappointed looks to contend with.
It’s ultimately fascinating as… he’s a really good person 99% of the time. These behaviours also have him taking personal sacrifices for the betterment of other’s, specially those he cares about. He’s not just used to, but almost admires the sacrifice play as a standard of heroism. (Hence his fight with Tony. Also, no it isn’t).
But with that idealisation — which I suspect came from war time propaganda of WW1 & WW2 — comes blindspots.
… y’all know the “I am the hero, I don’t get saved” line from Peter Parker’s symbiote crap? Cause Steve gives me those vibes very well.
He’s plagued with his own chip on his shoulder, his own selfish protection of those he cares about, his own propensity for righteousness, and passive resentment at society for what he’s going through. He’d never say it but “wartime science experiment” and “accidental time displacement” are two things I’d say anyone would be upset at the universe about.
The relationship dynamics have always fallen into Karpman’s Drama Triangle, where he’s either the saviour or the victim, and so he’s not used to anything else. He’s either the person fighting the bullies, helping his mom, or Captain America. Or he was the little boy from Brooklyn needing to be saved.
He doesn’t know what a normal relationship is, fundamentally, and those to whom he’s positioned himself as their saviour will override Steve’s logical and thought out approach to a situation. And he knows this, so he tries to keep the peace until the weight of it crashes over him.
I like yout perspective a lot. Especially the whole victim or savior label in his relationships. So true. And his martyrdom, too: the whole I'm the hero I don't get saved thing.
Regarding his time displacement I totally agree and think it's something people easily forget or simply decide to ignore, maybe because he puts on his mask of "everything's alright, I'm a strong ass supersoldier" and more or less makes it look like he's adjusted in living almost 100 years past his time.
I think his big problem is he isn't good at emotional confrontation. Physical confrontation, fine, sure, he is down for a fight. But having a feelings talk? Being emotionally honest? Thinking about how someone else would feel in a situation? Nope.
Look at the thing with Peggy - she saw him with another girl and got upset. A emotionally intelligent person would give her some time to cool off then approach her and apologize, say that he likes her, asks her out sometime. He just let the situation fester rather than having an awkward and emotionally vulnerable conversation. He only admitted (kinda?) He liked her when pretty much it was no longer on the table and he had nothing to loose.
In WS he finds out that his teammates parents were assassinated by Hydra, possibly by his brainwashed best friend. Instead of going to Tony, someone he misjudged at first but worked well with together later, and having a deeply awkward and also emotionally vulnerable conversation about what he found out and how his BFF was brainwashed, got everything out in the open, provided information that was definitely relevant to Tony, communicated openly, he just ignored it. We don't know if he was putting it off or decided he knew best but it was another awkward emotional conversation that would have made things better (eventually) that he just didn't have.
I kind of see myself in him because I hate that shit too. I don't like awkward, I don't like to be open or vulnerable, I do get it.
By endgame this dude still hasn't really started living his life. People like to say he is frozen in the modern era or its a result of being tossed into the future, but he was like that before he got frozen. He's a dude that will ignore (emotional) things he doesn't like in hopes they go away.
Yes, spot on.
Your last paragraph made me realise this is also very expected. Considering his pre-serum life.
That being said, I think he can be emotionally honest and have that type of conversations *when he decides that he wants to*
And maybe when he feels someone he cares about is going to be helped by it? If that makes sense.
I mean in civil war, during the scene with Wanda in her bedroom, when she tells him it's her fault, not only does he try to comfort her and give her the "innocents-dying-comes-with-the-gig" speach... he also takes the responsibility, even acknowledging that Bucky was his "kryptonite" and the reason all went to shit with the mission.
Main problem: he's too much perfect.
He is scandalously perfect, good, beautiful, kind, charismatic, he's so perfect that he isn't even a Mary Sue, you can't even sympathize with him because he's so perfect he doesn't seem to need it.
His own morals tend to outweigh the situation. That, and he's headstrong to a fault. I wrote a more dramatized version in my fic- but something i noticed that was "canon" about his personality in the movies was that he has issues putting a whole in front of a minority. He doesn't step back and think "this is for the greater good" before doing something like. Idk. Jumping out of an airplane on his own. Reversing time and altering the course of history to live and spend his life with Peggy (with all due respect, i understand he deserved it, but what about Bucky? What about the rest of the world?). Not signing the Sokovia Accords because he doesn't agree, and they shouldn't be accountable for accidents. Things like that. His leadership skills are a bit faulty, he's not thinking about his entire team before deciding something, and instead of being a bigger person about it, he goes behind backs and does what he wants, even if he's told specifically not to.
I haven't read the comics either. But from the MCU, it's that Steve will consistently ignore the greater good in favor of his own moral compass. This mostly works out for him because he's often also right, but that's not because he has good judgment, it's just because HYDRA etc. keep outplaying the good guys. He ignores orders to go after Bucky and uses his charisma to get other people to also ignore orders. Then he does it again. Then he does it a third time except that time Thanos shows up. And at that point he still doesn't think he did anything wrong. Oh, and then instead of ignoring the big picture to go after Bucky, he ignores the possibility of breaking the timeline to get his happy ending with Peggy. After typing this out, I realize this makes me sound like I probably don't like Steve Rogers that much, but I am fond of all the OG Avengers. I just also think he never faces real consequences for his actions, haha.
I love flawed characters, so I get what you mean. I also used to dislike him a lot when I was younger, but have started really liking him recently. He has this weird vibe about him and that's what I'm trying to pin down I guess. And I like your perspective. As I understand it you mean that he has this whole "saint-patriot" image and he has ended up developing a "holier-than-thu" attitude about everything, acting mostly selfishly.
I would call him shortsighted more than selfish, but yeah, he is selfish when it matters. He is a good battle commander and he will always show up when needed. He's a gentleman and wants the best for everyone. The problem is he isn't a strategist and won't listen to people who are strategists if he thinks he's right. Moreover, he doesn't really offer alternative solutions when he thinks the other side is wrong, he just goes off and does the thing he thinks is right and damn the consequences. Like, with the Accords. We all know the Accords were the wrong answer. Like if I were picking a side in this I would pick Steve's side. But Steve is the one who escalates the situation because he can't accept what is going on with Bucky. It's because he's so predictable about his own moral superiority that he plays right into this trap and brings a whole lot of people along with him. And the result of this is that the Avengers are splintered when Thanos shows up ready to kick ass. And then the result of that is that Tony and Natasha are the ones who paid the price. Meanwhile Tony really did consistently have the whole world's safety at the forefront of his mind, he just also consistently was proven wrong by the circumstances until the time he was right (when Thanos showed up.) He was wrong about Ultron, he was wrong about the purpose of the Accords, but he was right Steve chose Bucky over everyone else.
Thanks so much for your insight! I love your analysis!
I'm not sure about some of this. I don't think the need for the accords was completely wrong. He was absolutely right in that governments were going to start cracking down on people coming into their countries and wrecking s\*\*t. If a foreign superhero team had done that to the US, we'd have almost immediately started demanding extradition and restitution, which is what the unauthorized (Bucky-hunt) missions was leading to. I know I'd want someone to pay if my home was wrecked or my family killed, no matter the reason. I think it'd be better that they fall under the UN, instead of individual countries which, let's be honest, would almost immediately attempt to force them into some kind of service (at a minimum). The thing about registration would definitely have to go, along with some other questionable things, but they admitted that it was a work-in-progress. He wasn't wrong about Ultron, because there was nothing for him to be wrong about Ultron. Ultron was an AI-like entity inside the Mind Stone that got accidentally released (by Thor playing with his hammer indoors), that took the name of a non-functional program that Tony and Bruce were working on. What he did wrong there was not putting the staff in a Faraday cage as soon as he realized there was AI code in it, but that could be put down to Wanda's mindf\*cking. And lest people forget, Steve told Tony and Bruce to study the staff before Thor took it back to Asguard. As for protecting the world, they shouldn't have blown him off in the first place. He was the one that saw the armada on the other side of portal. Just because they're shortcut got cut off, doesn't mean they aren't still coming. And even if that wasn't the case, Thor TOLD THEM that playing around with the Tesseract told the wider universe that Earth ready for a higher form of war. If it wasn't Thanos, it would have been someone else. Fury already knew about at least one conqueror species (the Kree).
The need for the Accords and the actual Accords are two separate matters. The Avengers had zero input on the content of the Accords. The UN passed a giant book of rules, slapped it on the Avengers' desk and went, "My way or the highway." Then they basically handed control of the Avengers over to the US military by putting the reins in Ross' hands. If you're going to legislate for a specific group of people, it's pretty important to get their input. The fact that Tony was constantly on his back foot scrambling to correct issues after they were implemented makes it pretty obvious they were flawed, besides that they weren't actually effective at controlling supers or marshaling them when defense was needed. I commented elsewhere in this thread regarding Tony vs Steve's mentalities, but it comes down to this: Tony was always more realistic about what it would take to defeat threats AND he was willing to take risks to defeat those threats. He also knew that a lot of people wouldn't agree with the risks he was willing to take, so instead of taking proper precautions he simply didn't tell people what he was working on. Not properly isolating an AI based on an item everyone knew Loki used to literally brainwash people was a *preventable* mistake. Letting that AI come online and immediately get access to a bunch of dangerous weapons? Totally preventable. Specifically keeping this project under wraps from others because he knew they'd object? Also preventable. Steve, meanwhile, often refused to accept reality or make decisions that require sacrifices from anyone but himself even when that decision would be the best decision. Those aren't the points I was making in my original post, though. The point I was making is that the Avengers' MCU narrative is set up against Tony and in favor of Steve; Steve is set up to seem like he's right even when his reasoning is flawed, while Tony is set up to seem like he's wrong even when his reasoning is correct. That is what I meant when I said Tony was wrong about Ultron and the purpose of the Accords. The idea for Ultron was great but Tony is a character who is set up to constantly face his own arrogance and failure, so of course you couldn't have a better Jarvis who could be a 24/7 instant defense system against the indefensible, you needed an evil AI who could nuke the world or you wouldn't have the events that lead to the Accords in the first place. And as for the Accords, the MCU is VERY against military control of supers, so naturally Steve turned out to be right-- the Accords were a disaster. Again, this isn't because Steve has particularly good judgment, it's just that the narrative consistently supports his position. Moreover, Steve never pays any sort of price for following his gut instead of taking reasonable advice.
Everyone always harps on how Tony was keeping secrets, but was he actively keeping secrets or just not voluntarily telling them everything. Those are two different things. They consistently shot him down when he tried to bring up the possible future threats and if I was in that situation, I would be so open either. If no one was asking him what he was doing, how is that keeping secrets? And if he was keeping secrets, so what? He is a grown adult, and is not actually required to share his thoughts or projects if he doesn't want to. He also doesn't seem to be the type to bring up a project that he couldn't get working, especially after dropping it, which he admitted to. Tony and Bruce's Utron program was nothing like the Mind Store AI that stole the program's name and overall mission statement. It's like if I tried to make an noise canceling system the negates noises outside my apartment because my neighbors were too loud, and a rouge AI hijacked it, got a body, stole the name and killed everyone in my building. While it was ultimately the same result, that is nothing like what I tried to make my program do. As much as Thaddeus Ross is almost universally hated, where was he wrong during his presentation of the Accords? And to be completely honest, I do think the UN are the best hands to hold the metaphorical leash of a team of walking natural disasters. And does anyone really believe that Stark didn't have his lawyers on that thing, and a fistful of proposed amendments at the ready, before he actually signed it? Though I do agree that the MCU set up Tony to be the "good guy who could do no right", even when he didn't actually do anything wrong. (P.S. Thanks for making this an actual reasonable psuedo-debate instead of devolving it into ridiculous bashing, and such. That doesn't happen often for me)
I see his character differently. In First Avenger, he ignored orders to save the 107th -- he thought Bucky was probably dead. He didn't ignore the greater good. He ignored his own PERSONAL good. At that point, he was dancing monkey. So he risked his own life against orders. Peggy and Howard chose to go with him, and he bailed from the plane as soon as it got hairy. I think his biggest flaw is he's a bit narrow-minded and judgmental -- he sees things mostly as his way and, like Peggy said, when the world says move, you stand and say "YOU move." That's his greatest asset, of course, but it's also a flaw. HE judged Tony Stark in Avengers having barely met him. Sized him up (fairly accurately at the time, but not completely) and laid into him (of course they were all being influenced by the Scepter at that moment). He makes comments like "There's only one God, and he doesn't dress like that" (more a product of his time, of course, and he got better later on). He refused to trade lives with Vision when Thanos came -- again his way or no way. He didn't consider the greater good in THAT case (I think that's a much better example because it literally was one life form vs half the universe).
Like, you're right. I agree on the narrow-minded and judgmental bit, too. But his being narrow-minded is just a factor in his overall behavior pattern. In TFA, Steve isn't just Steve, he is a soldier who is product of experimentation and the Allies wanted to keep him alive to see if they could duplicate him. Sidelining him and using him as entertainment was just a part of this. I know the MCU is very anti 'organizations creating super soldiers' but this is what Steve signed up for. He ignored his responsibility to the organization that created him (Erskine is not the only person responsible, this was a project that required funding, materials, etc.) and direct orders not to do the thing he did. If it was a one-off, cool, but it wasn't. It worked out and proved to Steve that he should follow his heart because that's what gets him good results. This established Steve as a maverick and he does this through the entire series. Except, the problem is, Steve's reactionary moral compass is not a long-term strategy for anything. Just because circumstances prove him right later doesn't mean he was really doing the right thing, it just means SHIELD really sucked at running its organization. Like if you put Tony and Steve in front of me and said 'vote for the person who should run your government' uhhhhh yeah I'd pick Tony because Steve means well but has no long-term plan for anything. He just rides the waves until he sees something he doesn't like. The Vision thing is a prime example, yes.
good points but OH MY GOD, No. I would never vote for Tony to run the Government. I could list about a million terrible decisions Tony has made. :)
Yes, hahaha, that's why picking him over Steve is saying something!
LOL. I'd pick Steve personally. I mean, his track record on being right is pretty good. Not everyone bats 100. But he's 95.
That's fair. My feeling is Steve ignores reality in favor of idealism. Tony accepts reality and then overcorrects. They both have bad consequences, but Tony shows he's willing to change and Steve does not.
Hello, while I prefer fanfics without heavy bashing, most of what I read is at least slightly in Tony's favor and it has shifted my interpretations of canon. As a result I think Steve's track record on being right (or the perception of it) is just the result of skewed canon writing. 1. When the writers made the consequences of Steve's actions good, was he right, lucky or was his likability given plot armor? 2. Steve doesn't dwell on his past mistakes, Tony does - it's a big part of his character arc. There's only so much screen time, so Steve's mistakes aren't so exposed. I also like autumnscarf's interpretation.
I personally think that all of these comments are a little shallow. A person isn’t self sacrificing to a fault or stubborn or narrow-minded for no reason. He had a lot of life lived as a “little guy” before everyone is starting their analysis. I think what’s really going on is people pleasing. Steve grew up sick and essentially worthless in a time where eugenics was much more prevalent. I think he probably tried really hard in school, got really good grades, understanding that his mind (and art if he was lucky) would be the only thing to keep him alive and fed ASSUMING he’d even live that long. I think he was on death door several times with illness and in the back of his mind probably didn’t think he’d even make it to being an adult. So you couple someone with low self worth and who believes they’re on borrowed time anyways and you get someone willing to sign up for an army experiment that will likely kill him or someone picking fights in an alley he knows he can’t win. Steve’s always trying to do the RIGHT thing not because he thinks “it my way or the highway” but because the right thing to do is what’s expected. When you’re sick and everyone looks at you with pity that you’re even alive, it would feel good to make them look at you differently by doing something they approve of or value. So in sum, I believe people pleasing and low self worth stemming from his days as a sick/small person are his greatest faults.
I agree on both points. I also mentioned it in a reply that made me think of this. His years before the serum is what had the most profound effect on who he is. You articulated it perfectly. And I like you framing of this as "people pleasing" because, indeed, in a way it is. That being said, he is "my way or the highway" as most people pleasers are. Only the "my" in the "my way" isn't ever theirs in reality. It's the one's they aim to please, the one's they think they need to prove themselves to. Thanks for your comment. It adds a lot of extra layers.
Thank you for the new food for thought. It left a different impression on me: Steve saw himself as a brave and good man trapped in a weak body. From the beginning he had something to prove and that didn't go away with the enhancement, it might have even been amplified (proving that he deserves his enhancement). But his ego grew everytime he felt, that he has done something right, and especially when there were no negative consequences. I don't even think his ego was small to begin with, he was just used to hiding it, because it didn't match, what he could physically manage. With time his ego grew and together with his self-righteous mindset it started showing.
Bad writing. In universe, though, it’s that he’s selfish but really good at masking it as other things.
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I agree the thurst into the future is definitely a huge element affecting his behavior and forming who he is today. And I think this element is other downplayed or overplayed. Especially in fanfiction. He is shown trying to find his footing in his new reality, while not canceling everything he stood for and believed back then. So, yeah. I agree he's very arrogant in his "I know best attitude" about everything and everyone. It's what I recognize as a flaw, too. But at the same time it's sort of a symptom of something deeper (in terms of flaws I think). I love all the answers here, it really helps to notice so many different elements of his character and behavior and it helps me starting connecting some dots.
He abandoned his friends to go bone a girl he was involved with 90 years ago or something. That is a big flaw with MCU Steve, he is too in love with Peggy and can’t move on from his love. I get that he’s a man out of time and it isn’t fair but come on!
I still can't get over how they did that to his storyline. It's like they were bored to bother. Let's throw him at Peggy's and be done with him. His ending and Wanda's truly irk me.
Yeah, that’s why the MCU fell for me. Two of the most important characters got crappy endings. I think that they wanted Sam to get the shield really bad from Cap but they could have done something else. For Wanda, she deserved better because she was such a cool character and had an interesting character arc. Ughhhhhh!
Yes, Wanda as a character was (is maybe? I think they've included her in some of the newest series/movies that I haven't yet watched) so promising. Constantly treading the line between hero and vilain. And all they could think doing with her was WandaVision? I mean, come on! I haven't watched a lot of the newest stuff, so maybe they'll salavage that, we'll see.
We’ll pray to the marvel gods
Or become rogue marvel gods *sinister laughter in fanfiction*
If I had to say anything about him, it's that the guy is 'Captain America' all the time, even when it's not appropriate. While he improves towards Endgame (which is kind of highlighted when he fights the other Captain America) he's got a very black-and-white view of the world that reads like an old WW2 comic; it's the good guys vs. the bad guys. While that might serve him well when he's fighting an unambigously evil enemy (the Nazis or Hydra) it means he really struggles with more nuanced conflicts where both sides might be right, because he has difficulty in putting himself in his opponent's shoes or admitting that they, quite possibly, just might have a point.
So I used to write Marvel Fanfic, and have spent a lot of time working out what I feel is Steve’s biggest flaws and what I've come up with is, when he thinks he's right, no one else's feelings, experiences, thoughts, whatever, don't matter to him anymore. He's gonna do whatever he has to make what he wants to happen, happen. Literally, everything he does is to prove himself to his own and other people's detriment. It all works out for him because it's the movies and and it's supposed to, but if you try to immerse yourself into the universe as a character taking part in the storyline (like I did when writing) he quickly went from what I thought was a loyal, headstrong guy who wanted to do what was right, to an idiot who just happened to have things work out, but not without consequences, usually for everyone else.
Yes, I see what you're saying. I do think they've done him some injustuce in terms of basically not having a true character arch on him. He remaines mostly the same through all movies. I mean, we have Tony who is a genious bilionaire dysfunctional asshole at the beginning and he ends up this incredible person deeply caring for everyone around him, thinking about the consequences of his and the avengers actions... A nice big intense arch. Steve's... Steve's was no arch. It's flat. And I do think they had opportunities to work several different archs with him, but kinda chose not to? No idea what the writing logic behind that was. But we see elements and tiny bits of evolving and some bits of self-reflection here and there, only to be dropped like they never happened.
Steve’s always had a chip on his shoulder and a sense of righteousness. When his moral compass runs into conflict with abject morality or with a necessary action, his moral compass will always supersede it. This isn’t surprising. Homebro went from fighting bullies to geopolitics, you can’t really make that jump without actively changing your approach to situations, and he didn’t. With Steve, it also means he has a propensity to act alone. Since his moral compass (or let’s call it what it is; his ego) takes precedence, he’s more likely to say “fuck it” and change course. However he understands that he can’t force people into it, so he’d do it alone if necessary. Also means less disappointed looks to contend with. It’s ultimately fascinating as… he’s a really good person 99% of the time. These behaviours also have him taking personal sacrifices for the betterment of other’s, specially those he cares about. He’s not just used to, but almost admires the sacrifice play as a standard of heroism. (Hence his fight with Tony. Also, no it isn’t). But with that idealisation — which I suspect came from war time propaganda of WW1 & WW2 — comes blindspots. … y’all know the “I am the hero, I don’t get saved” line from Peter Parker’s symbiote crap? Cause Steve gives me those vibes very well. He’s plagued with his own chip on his shoulder, his own selfish protection of those he cares about, his own propensity for righteousness, and passive resentment at society for what he’s going through. He’d never say it but “wartime science experiment” and “accidental time displacement” are two things I’d say anyone would be upset at the universe about. The relationship dynamics have always fallen into Karpman’s Drama Triangle, where he’s either the saviour or the victim, and so he’s not used to anything else. He’s either the person fighting the bullies, helping his mom, or Captain America. Or he was the little boy from Brooklyn needing to be saved. He doesn’t know what a normal relationship is, fundamentally, and those to whom he’s positioned himself as their saviour will override Steve’s logical and thought out approach to a situation. And he knows this, so he tries to keep the peace until the weight of it crashes over him.
I like yout perspective a lot. Especially the whole victim or savior label in his relationships. So true. And his martyrdom, too: the whole I'm the hero I don't get saved thing. Regarding his time displacement I totally agree and think it's something people easily forget or simply decide to ignore, maybe because he puts on his mask of "everything's alright, I'm a strong ass supersoldier" and more or less makes it look like he's adjusted in living almost 100 years past his time.
I think his big problem is he isn't good at emotional confrontation. Physical confrontation, fine, sure, he is down for a fight. But having a feelings talk? Being emotionally honest? Thinking about how someone else would feel in a situation? Nope. Look at the thing with Peggy - she saw him with another girl and got upset. A emotionally intelligent person would give her some time to cool off then approach her and apologize, say that he likes her, asks her out sometime. He just let the situation fester rather than having an awkward and emotionally vulnerable conversation. He only admitted (kinda?) He liked her when pretty much it was no longer on the table and he had nothing to loose. In WS he finds out that his teammates parents were assassinated by Hydra, possibly by his brainwashed best friend. Instead of going to Tony, someone he misjudged at first but worked well with together later, and having a deeply awkward and also emotionally vulnerable conversation about what he found out and how his BFF was brainwashed, got everything out in the open, provided information that was definitely relevant to Tony, communicated openly, he just ignored it. We don't know if he was putting it off or decided he knew best but it was another awkward emotional conversation that would have made things better (eventually) that he just didn't have. I kind of see myself in him because I hate that shit too. I don't like awkward, I don't like to be open or vulnerable, I do get it. By endgame this dude still hasn't really started living his life. People like to say he is frozen in the modern era or its a result of being tossed into the future, but he was like that before he got frozen. He's a dude that will ignore (emotional) things he doesn't like in hopes they go away.
Yes, spot on. Your last paragraph made me realise this is also very expected. Considering his pre-serum life. That being said, I think he can be emotionally honest and have that type of conversations *when he decides that he wants to* And maybe when he feels someone he cares about is going to be helped by it? If that makes sense. I mean in civil war, during the scene with Wanda in her bedroom, when she tells him it's her fault, not only does he try to comfort her and give her the "innocents-dying-comes-with-the-gig" speach... he also takes the responsibility, even acknowledging that Bucky was his "kryptonite" and the reason all went to shit with the mission.
Main problem: he's too much perfect. He is scandalously perfect, good, beautiful, kind, charismatic, he's so perfect that he isn't even a Mary Sue, you can't even sympathize with him because he's so perfect he doesn't seem to need it.
His own morals tend to outweigh the situation. That, and he's headstrong to a fault. I wrote a more dramatized version in my fic- but something i noticed that was "canon" about his personality in the movies was that he has issues putting a whole in front of a minority. He doesn't step back and think "this is for the greater good" before doing something like. Idk. Jumping out of an airplane on his own. Reversing time and altering the course of history to live and spend his life with Peggy (with all due respect, i understand he deserved it, but what about Bucky? What about the rest of the world?). Not signing the Sokovia Accords because he doesn't agree, and they shouldn't be accountable for accidents. Things like that. His leadership skills are a bit faulty, he's not thinking about his entire team before deciding something, and instead of being a bigger person about it, he goes behind backs and does what he wants, even if he's told specifically not to.