I have been trying to ignore it for a couple of days now, but like, OOF, Peggy. Oh Peggy. The decision to basically give Steve Tony's ending, and Tony Steve's ending is just a fucking disaster.
Oh my god, this was a genius way to sum up those endings. Yes. Yes, that is what they did. Tony's trauma healing arc/PTSD arc is all about learning to step away and lower his hypervigilance and trust people; Steve's is... fucked if I know, but I'm pretty sure it involves working out how to actually give himself credit for the things he is doing, emotionally, and not burning himself out.
But, where growing old, retiring and raising a family is an option for Tony, it isn't an option for Steve. The super serum alone precludes it, to say nothing of the psychological strains of his time traveling shenanigans and his own unmanaged and perhaps unmanageable (after all, medications seem not to affect him) psychiatric issues. Morbid though it be, where Tony CAN find rest and peace in other places--in his lakeside cabin, with his family and his friends--Steve legitimately cannot. It's time for him to rest, and death his that rest.
I'm sitting here, as someone who tends to overidentify with Steve, nodding along: I cannot see that man pausing for more than ten minutes at a time without a Work to put himself into, whether or not he is actually replenishing himself enough to reach a healthy emotional place for himself. I can see him retiring from the superheroing business, sure, and aiming his considerable public influence at something else, like political lobbying; I cannot see him just retreating from everything to live as a purely private figure who isn't trying to go out and make the world better every single day with every talent he has. For one thing, I give him a week before he gets itchy and antsy and wants to Do Things.
And what, he's living with Peggy, making a life with Peggy, and given they just showed us he's having a hell of a lot of trouble integrating or connecting to anyone who hasn't gone through some level of trauma bonding or soldier-in-arms comradeship with him (Sam, Bucky, Nat)... and he's listening to Peggy talk about HER work, with nothing to bend his attention to, and he KNOWS Hydra is in the background, and what? he says dick fuck all about it? HOW?
I think that there are paths for Steve that lead to narrative healing, but while I can see him making this decision in a particularly stupid and desperate moment, I cannot imagine it being a happy ending for him or one that allows the timeline to continue along unimpeded. For Steve, in order to remove him from the larger metastory, you can't leave him alive, and since Chris Evans is Done with Marvel, that leaves death. And I think that would have been fine!
Also if one more fucking person comes at me to say the support group dude who gets two lines and no name is "groundbreaking gay representation" in Marvel, instead of a calculated marketing move, I will literally punch their teeth out. Thank you and good night.
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Oh my god, this was a genius way to sum up those endings. Yes. Yes, that is what they did. Tony's trauma healing arc/PTSD arc is all about learning to step away and lower his hypervigilance and trust people; Steve's is... fucked if I know, but I'm pretty sure it involves working out how to actually give himself credit for the things he is doing, emotionally, and not burning himself out.
But, where growing old, retiring and raising a family is an option for Tony, it isn't an option for Steve. The super serum alone precludes it, to say nothing of the psychological strains of his time traveling shenanigans and his own unmanaged and perhaps unmanageable (after all, medications seem not to affect him) psychiatric issues. Morbid though it be, where Tony CAN find rest and peace in other places--in his lakeside cabin, with his family and his friends--Steve legitimately cannot. It's time for him to rest, and death his that rest.
I'm sitting here, as someone who tends to overidentify with Steve, nodding along: I cannot see that man pausing for more than ten minutes at a time without a Work to put himself into, whether or not he is actually replenishing himself enough to reach a healthy emotional place for himself. I can see him retiring from the superheroing business, sure, and aiming his considerable public influence at something else, like political lobbying; I cannot see him just retreating from everything to live as a purely private figure who isn't trying to go out and make the world better every single day with every talent he has. For one thing, I give him a week before he gets itchy and antsy and wants to Do Things.
And what, he's living with Peggy, making a life with Peggy, and given they just showed us he's having a hell of a lot of trouble integrating or connecting to anyone who hasn't gone through some level of trauma bonding or soldier-in-arms comradeship with him (Sam, Bucky, Nat)... and he's listening to Peggy talk about HER work, with nothing to bend his attention to, and he KNOWS Hydra is in the background, and what? he says dick fuck all about it? HOW?
I think that there are paths for Steve that lead to narrative healing, but while I can see him making this decision in a particularly stupid and desperate moment, I cannot imagine it being a happy ending for him or one that allows the timeline to continue along unimpeded. For Steve, in order to remove him from the larger metastory, you can't leave him alive, and since Chris Evans is Done with Marvel, that leaves death. And I think that would have been fine!
Also if one more fucking person comes at me to say the support group dude who gets two lines and no name is "groundbreaking gay representation" in Marvel, instead of a calculated marketing move, I will literally punch their teeth out. Thank you and good night.
Are people saying this? If so, wtf.