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SPOILERS Endgame just fucked Peggy so hard
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.
Like, Endgame and IW spent their entire runtimes trying to set Tony and Thanos up as foils for eachother. Both super geniuses with higher ideals that don't tend to match up with the cultural moors of their respective planets, both built on a foundation of blood and rubble and trying to build up some greater good, but both going in two very different directions with it. And ultimately, the core conflict of Thanos's storyline is that he chooses to harm his family to achieve his greater good. So, logically, as his foil, Tony should choose to harm his greater good to achieve his family. And most of Endgame legitimately SETS. THIS. UP. His entire shifting everyone forward 5 years thing is premised entirely ON THIS GOAL.
So, in IW, Thanos chose the greater ideal over family, he won, and it creates our core conflict for Endgame. The entire runtime of Endgame is Tony trying to have both the greater good and his family, trying to have it both ways. And, narratively, since he and Thanos are FOILS, that means at the end he should (drumroll), choose family and win! This is set up multiple times! Tony's conversation with his father. The multiple lingering shots between Tony and Morgan. Tony's interactions with Peter. The blue Pepper suit. The entire drugged out breakdown at the beginning of the movie. His interactions with Nebula. Literally the entire film is just a litany of Tony being surrounded by imagery of family coming together, being found and formed and fertilized. For gods sakes he talks to his wife about fucking potting soil. This is not a subtle fucking film!
So, there's all this constant setup that Tony is going to pull a Guardians of the Galaxy 1 callback at the end of the movie. He's going to get the stones, the Avengers are going to GODDAMN ASSEMBLE, the family is FOUND, and by dispersing the overwhelming power amongst all of these beautifully unified souls, we're going to put the world back to rights at long last. Tony will choose his family, TRUST his family (a callback to standing together, a discussion at the very beginning of the film? Narrative cohesion? Shocking!), and by choosing family over his own construction of the greater good, a true victory will be achieved. This is inevitably where the narrative takes us.
From here things get speculative. I imagine we would have seen something to the effect of, the blast is still too much, this isn't GOTG and a single stone, this is 6 stones, so Steve--ever the first to throw himself on an exploding grenade--shields Tony from the blast as best he can, dying in the process. Tony is irreparably harmed by this, forced into retirement, to raise his daughter and surrogate son as a successful father, in stark narrative contrast to Thanos who was likewise damaged by an infinity blast and died as a failed father. Steve just fuckin dies.
And why does Steven Grant Rogers just fuckin die?
Well, first of all, so we don't have to EITHER erase Peggy's children and husband from existence entirely or, far far worse, live with the knowledge that Peggy married Steve in the 70s.
Meaning:
1) Steve tried to fuck his own daughter, and as a father he did nothing to prevent this from happening
2) Steve let his wife work for Nazis for 40-ish years with no intervention whatsoever
3) Peggy definitely just had to fucking deal with the fact that for the rest of her life she got dragged for marrying a man half her age who looked suspiciously like her dead BF from 30 years ago.
But also, because it is a narratively strong ending to his character. Steve has always been a self sacrificial and frankly suicidal maniac. He has always been dangerously unhinged, and the only thing holding him together has been his mission. But his mission has gotten increasingly abstract, increasingly deranged, and increasingly insufficient as well. It's become obvious, over the last few films that being Cap is no longer satisfying to him as a person. He is a man who wants to just stop. 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.
But anyway, that's just me. Me and my hottest of takes. As per usual.
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.
Like, Endgame and IW spent their entire runtimes trying to set Tony and Thanos up as foils for eachother. Both super geniuses with higher ideals that don't tend to match up with the cultural moors of their respective planets, both built on a foundation of blood and rubble and trying to build up some greater good, but both going in two very different directions with it. And ultimately, the core conflict of Thanos's storyline is that he chooses to harm his family to achieve his greater good. So, logically, as his foil, Tony should choose to harm his greater good to achieve his family. And most of Endgame legitimately SETS. THIS. UP. His entire shifting everyone forward 5 years thing is premised entirely ON THIS GOAL.
So, in IW, Thanos chose the greater ideal over family, he won, and it creates our core conflict for Endgame. The entire runtime of Endgame is Tony trying to have both the greater good and his family, trying to have it both ways. And, narratively, since he and Thanos are FOILS, that means at the end he should (drumroll), choose family and win! This is set up multiple times! Tony's conversation with his father. The multiple lingering shots between Tony and Morgan. Tony's interactions with Peter. The blue Pepper suit. The entire drugged out breakdown at the beginning of the movie. His interactions with Nebula. Literally the entire film is just a litany of Tony being surrounded by imagery of family coming together, being found and formed and fertilized. For gods sakes he talks to his wife about fucking potting soil. This is not a subtle fucking film!
So, there's all this constant setup that Tony is going to pull a Guardians of the Galaxy 1 callback at the end of the movie. He's going to get the stones, the Avengers are going to GODDAMN ASSEMBLE, the family is FOUND, and by dispersing the overwhelming power amongst all of these beautifully unified souls, we're going to put the world back to rights at long last. Tony will choose his family, TRUST his family (a callback to standing together, a discussion at the very beginning of the film? Narrative cohesion? Shocking!), and by choosing family over his own construction of the greater good, a true victory will be achieved. This is inevitably where the narrative takes us.
From here things get speculative. I imagine we would have seen something to the effect of, the blast is still too much, this isn't GOTG and a single stone, this is 6 stones, so Steve--ever the first to throw himself on an exploding grenade--shields Tony from the blast as best he can, dying in the process. Tony is irreparably harmed by this, forced into retirement, to raise his daughter and surrogate son as a successful father, in stark narrative contrast to Thanos who was likewise damaged by an infinity blast and died as a failed father. Steve just fuckin dies.
And why does Steven Grant Rogers just fuckin die?
Well, first of all, so we don't have to EITHER erase Peggy's children and husband from existence entirely or, far far worse, live with the knowledge that Peggy married Steve in the 70s.
Meaning:
1) Steve tried to fuck his own daughter, and as a father he did nothing to prevent this from happening
2) Steve let his wife work for Nazis for 40-ish years with no intervention whatsoever
3) Peggy definitely just had to fucking deal with the fact that for the rest of her life she got dragged for marrying a man half her age who looked suspiciously like her dead BF from 30 years ago.
But also, because it is a narratively strong ending to his character. Steve has always been a self sacrificial and frankly suicidal maniac. He has always been dangerously unhinged, and the only thing holding him together has been his mission. But his mission has gotten increasingly abstract, increasingly deranged, and increasingly insufficient as well. It's become obvious, over the last few films that being Cap is no longer satisfying to him as a person. He is a man who wants to just stop. 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.
But anyway, that's just me. Me and my hottest of takes. As per usual.
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.
no subject
1. Sharon is Peggy's niece not daughter, meaning prime steve made out with old man steve's niece not daughter
2. the movie explains time travel in that once each stone is taken from its original place the time line splits off, making a new one (its why nebula didn't die when she killed her 2014 self, that self and her now are from two different timelines and her 2014 self came through the quantum realm, that 2014 is thanos-less and gamora/nebula-less)
Steve was the one to take back all the stones (and thors hammer) to their universes/times, which I feel is the true culmination of his entire MCU arc, the man out of time has all the time in the universe to save the day once again, and he takes advantage of that (and the alternate 1970 universe he and tony made) to live out a couple of decades with peggy
If he did it right he could easily wait until hank pym makes more particles to go back through the quantum realm and back to the prime universe. A whole lot of people took "can't change the past" to mean that they cannot actually do anything to affect the past but they all did when they went back in time, and so it makes sense to me that steve could alter his own universe with peggy and the prime universe stays the same.
3. I don't think their endings should be switched like at all. The MCU isn't done with captain america (if falcon cap can prove anything) but evans is done playing cap and so they didn't kill steve, just gave him was closure he wouldn't have gotten in any other way; tony's ptsd stems from him not doing enough to protect earth, and it makes sense that his arc would close with him dying and finally getting some rest because he couldn't have if cap died in his place
if steve had died and not gone back, I would have called that the most tragic death like ever because he deserved more than being the suicidal man out of time canon fodder, If he stayed and didn't go back I would call that the most tragic ending because he deserved closure in a way that only time travel could secure, so he was able to go back, and hey! might die of old age on top of that.
and this maybe and unpopular opinion but I felt like the "Russo gay OC" was relatively sincere, just extremely underwhelming due to chinese censors, and overhyped in return
no subject
2- The thing about that is, the conversation with the ancient one also explains that the entire purpose of Steve going back in time at all is to prevent timeline fracture. The dusting of Thanos's swarm is, one must assume, not them dying, but them being time and memory shifted into their correct positioning by Tony, to close the loop.
3- We can disagree about the correct endings of the arcs all we like, and you are probably right that there are ways for Steve's arc to end in a narratively satisfying way without him dying. However, I hold that there is no way for Tony's arc to end in a narratively satisfying way that involves him dying, while still maintaining the extensive Parenthood imagery that surrounds him throughout IW and Endgame. This is why I feel that they "swapped" Steve and Tony's endings. But, that assumes that a death is "necessary" at all, when, of course, it isn't actually necessary.
4- I think the OC is probably well intended enough (though undoubtedly a marketing ploy, in the same way the girl power scene was; things can be well intentioned and profit driven at the same time, and usually are). However, the subsequent reaction to that OC has been overblown hype that has been exhausting to watch. A large number of gay (and I say gay, not LGBTQ+ or queer here for a reason) publications and news sites have been hyping this two-line character as groundbreaking and barrier shattering, and I'm thoroughly over it.
no subject
oh and I only saw like one article about the OC so I didn't really see the whole media overhype, but yeah it is pretty tiring to see :/