This is all part of the list of endless victim-blaming in TFATWS. It's ironic… no, it's cynical that they wanted to show Bucky as someone who “could give power to others” or “that HYDRA was his people”, if they themselves acknowledge that the Winter Soldier was a tool of HYDRA, that he was mind-controlled and thus, everything he did in this state was because he was forced, for redundancy's sake.
This is from the books: "The Art of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier" and "The Official Marvel Studios' The Falcon and the Winter Soldier", which are canon because they were written by the series' own pruduction.
So how could Bucky “give power to someone” when Bucky as a person did not even exist!?
Talking about “the rules” that Dr. Raynor imposed on Bucky, as the therapist who shared on Twitter her opinion on this whole therapy thing said, there's really nothing therapeutic about it, because it feels like a power play between her and Bucky, where it just emphasizes his lack of control by the mere fact of being forced to take mandatory therapy. “The three rules” play the same power play, because they are something that Bucky clearly did not create for himself nor did he help create, and were imposed on him by someone else. Rather than rules they are orders he must follow, feeling no different than the orders HYDRA gave him as the Winter Soldier.
And of course, as luna said, the purpose of these rules in the plot, are in order to antagonize Bucky and make him look like “someone who tends to commit illegal acts and violence because this is nature”. I mean, even just talking about what we saw in the series, we're talking about the same man who held back his punches the whole time he was fighting bad guys so he wouldn't have to kill them. Bad guys who didn't have the same problem trying to kill him mercilessly. The irony is that Sam, portrayed as “the voice of reason” in the series, also had no problem going straight to killing his enemies, the opening scene of TFATWS literally showed him killing left and right, blowing up two helicopters full of unconscious people. Sure, none of these people were innocent. But the problem is in how it was shown as not a bad thing, when Bucky just detaining Senator Atwood and turning her over to the authorities was considered a violation of rules one and two (“not doing something illegal” and “no one gets hurt”) by Dr. Raynor.
The level of inconsistency, or rather cynicism, throughout the series reaches an absurd level….
Regarding the specific issue of rule #2 “don't hurt anyone” and why on two occasions Bucky asked Dr. Raynor to remind him of them…. While I feel the intention of the production was definitely to vilify him, as commented above, which literally goes against the peaceful nature we've seen from him over 13 years. From Bucky's perspective, I always felt that the reason he twice asked “what was rule number 2?” was because of that constant fear of hurting others that we saw him struggle with, and not because “he feels he wants to hurt others and needs restraints to force himself not to”, but literally quite the opposite. because he actually fears that no matter what he does, he's going to end up hurting others…. Because he believes that just remembering what he was forced to do as the Winter Soldier, means that “there is a corrupt part of him”, and that since the Winter Soldier was programmed to kill/hurt or others, and “that part is still in him”, then “he would inevitably end up hurting others”.
To summarize this perception: the Winter Soldier was created to hurt others. Bucky has memories as the Winter Soldier = The Winter Soldier is still there =The Winter Soldier is a part of Bucky = Bucky is going to end up hurting others.
Oh and that gesture Dr. Rarnor made with her hand…. UGH that gesture! All it does is make everything worse! All this does is make Bucky see that his prosthetic only serves to hurt others, and not see and accept it as a part of his body...
AND HURTING ANOTHER IS BUCKY'S BIGGEST FEAR, which is why in the Wakanda flashback, when the trigger words were being tested and Bucky asks “are you sure about this?”, Ayo replies “I won't let you hurt anyone”. Because she knows that the thought of ending up hurting others is what truly haunts Bucky!
And the problem is that this idea was NEVER challenged, not only the fact that it is a lie that the Winter Soldier is an equivalent to an evil alter-ego, but that Bucky was never corrupted by HYDRA, nor that they turned him into a monster who only seeks to hurt others. This was NEVER denied neither by Dr. Raynor nor by Sam nor by the plot. This is included in the idea that the super soldier serum corrupts whoever uses it, everyone but Steve of course. This is meant to make the point that Bucky is “doubly corrupted” in some way...
No one EVER told him or reminded him that he is indeed a good man… because that is all he has proven time and time again. Rather, the idea they wanted to sell us is that “to redeem and de-corrupt himself, Bucky must do the work”…. Because according to the production, "Bucky has never proven himself to be a good man or done anything heroic until the moment he rescued the hostages in chapter 6"….
Really!? What about literally all the sacrifice he made from the very beginning!? Going from the moment he was recruited by the army to the moment of the rescue of those hostages... Literally since Marvel first introduced us to Bucky 13 years ago, all he has done is put himself last, prioritizing the greater good.
