There Is No Way For Me To NOT Reblog This

There is no way for me to NOT reblog this

Captain America's arc to civil war:

First Avenger: Is told he could do some good, gets entirely let down by private corporations then finds a family and a purpose inside a war

Avengers: is left without a purpose again and finds one as a hero, suspicious of shield and proved justified

Winter soldier: openly admits he doesn't know who he is without Captain America which is implied to be the reason he stayed with Shield, sees the damage a government run agency can have and no longer trusts them (it may have been Hydra who tried to pull the trigger but it was Shield that built the bomb) and he regains the one friend who truly knows him whilst strengthening and establishing friendships with two people who can be described as rogues when it comes to following rules (as shown by the fact that they follow him)

Age of Ultron: his friends mess up by using their massive resources to create a supervillain and the world turns against heroes because of course they do but he sees the potential and stays to train new recruits (it's a Joss Whedon, there ain't really a lot to go off for anyone who ain't Tony Stark, if anything it's like a regress for his character back to Avengers which is then ignored by civil war but you know)

Civil War: the government who he no longer trusts at all, want to have more control over superheroes even though they have proven themselves incapable of not trying to control people and take away their free will and agency (something the Marvel movies are consistently fighting against as the big bad) and they want to lock up his best friend who was traumatised and used and abused (Bucky may have caused many awful events but he is not responsible for them and he is just as much a victim as T'Challa's father and Tony's parents, he had his life stolen from him and suffered for decades), Steve's other friend decides to go fully against him because his friend messed up so feels guilty for his actions and, in this movie especially, ascribes blame to the wrong things, so he is forced to fight his friend for the right to have control over his own life because he is willing to take responsibility for any damage he has caused but he hasn't caused any and has actively tried to stop and he is not letting Bucky suffer for something he wasn't responsible for

Essentially Steve's stance in Civil War is f the government they don't get to control me and f you for blaming Bucky for this

Iron Man's Character arc to Civil War:

Iron Man: oh my gods war sucks, I am an awful person and I need to fix this

Iron Man 2: a bad person makes weapons based off his meant to hurt people meanwhile the army uses his designs to create a hero in war machine, he sees the positives of a government controlled agency creating superheroes whilst only seeing the negatives of an independent person creating powerful technology

Avengers: clashes with Steve who only knows war from its good side (Tony sees the military as okay but war is still despicable), and doesn't really have a character arc, I mean he proves he is a hero but his character doesn't change he just shows it, in this movie, he had already proved it in both Iron Man and Iron Man 2

Iron Man 3: he sees the negatives of private companies having access to such technology, again

Age of Ultron: he is personally responsible for creating a world destroying supervillain due to his flawed reasoning and that villains henchmen are people who have been directly hurt by Stark industries

Civil War: he has lost complete faith in his ability to be a hero essentially, he thinks he needs oversight so when the government asks him to accept oversight, he willing does and when eh finds out Bucky is the one who killed his parents, he blows a gasket, rather than seeing Bucky as another victim, he only recognises Bucky as a soldier as someone just like all the villains he has already faced, someone who is responsible for their own actions and should be held accountable, he blames Bucky for his parents death rather than Hydra just as he blames Falcon for what happens to Rhodey even though it was Tony Stark's own weaponry and own shot that paralysed him, he can't take responsibility and he can't see the larger picture

Essentially, Tony Stark sides with the government and against Bucky because he personally does not trust himself and cannot trust others because all he is seen is how that trust leads to harm, whilst the government has been a benign presence along his journey

Tony Stark and Steve fundamentally disagree because of their life experiences but the thing is, Tony Stark is in the wrong

Throughout all of Marvel's movies, it is the villains who look to control others, it is the villains who push for more oversight, and it is the heroes who fight for freedom and agency (except in the Iron Man movies) so his stance puts him on the same side as villain, he is not villainous because he wants more oversight rather than outright control but he is no longer on the side of freedom and that matters for a Marvel movie

Then you have the fact that it is Captain America's movie so Cap is the hero of this story making Iron Man the antagonist, it is from his side that people defect (Natasha's entire arc up until this point has been trying to clear her ledger and this is the movie where she realises the government ain't the way to do it), he is the one who actually injures a person and he is the one who recruits a literal child to his cause (people like to gloss this over because by infinity war he has realised how messed up that it is and wants to protect Spiderman from the responsibility of being a hero but he is the one who dragged him into this battle) and he loses the fight with Cap whilst losing his friends because the government decided to lock them up in cages for being heroes

In this movie, Iron Man is the antagonist, one whose decisions and position make sense, when looking at his character arc over the series, but one who is still on the wrong side of this fight, his character is still flawed, even when he died, and it is glaringly obvious in a way that makes his character well written

Because yes heroes should have more oversight and be held responsible but it wasn't Captain America who had betrayed the people's trust and it isn't Bucky who was responsible for the murder of so many, Iron Man is on the wrong side because he is siding with the people who want to try the innocent, rather than taking responsibility for his own actions and fighting actual bad guys