I think a lot of the Marvel fandom’s (or any fandom really) problems stem from the intentional use of the Bad Faith Reading.
An argument made in bad faith is defined as:
Bad faith (Latin: mala fides) is double mindedness or double heartedness in duplicity, fraud, or deception. It may involve intentional deceit of others, or self-deception. The expression “bad faith” is associated with “double heartedness”, which is also translated as “double mindedness”.
Thus when a movie or book is read in bad faith it means that the reading/viewing was done heavily through the lens of deliberate cognitive bias, which is academically and logically (as in it is a fallacy of logic to do this) dishonest.
Since fandom seems to be divided heavily between the Steve Rogers camp and the Tony Stark camp (which, in itself is a fallacy of logic, i.e. believing because you like one that you have to hate the other, when, in fact, there are more options open. For example it is possible to like both at the same time. It’s called a false dichotomy when you twiddle down a multifaceted issue to only two possible outcomes) I’m going to use them as examples.
Both of these characters are heroes, written as heroes, meant to be heroes by the deliberate intentions of their creators. In fact, these characters each represent a different theme in heroism. And, I might add, beautiful themes at that.
Steve Rogers represents the underdog, who is later given power, but remembers where he comes from and uses the power he is given to protect those who need protecting.
Tony Stark represents redemption. The ability to rise like a phoenix from the ashes of a troubled past.
These are timeless themes because they resonate and always shall.
To anyone who has ever been bullied, to anyone who has ever been chronically ill, to anyone who has ever been judged by their social economic status, or the birth place of their ancestors, to anyone who has ever been judged and found lacking by social constructs of what constitutes manliness (or femininity), we can identify with pre-serum Steve Rogers. And, like Jack Kirby did when co-creating Steve, through his own admittance, we can envision what it would be like to be given power, and what we would do with it if we had it and how we can use that power to help others in similar situations to ourselves at our lowest.
Similarly, no one is perfect. And people need to be aloud to evolve and to change. We’ve all maybe said or done things in the heat of anger we’re not proud of. We’ve all let grief cloud our judgement. We’ve all been silly in youth, convinced of our own invincibility, only to mature and gain wisdom with time and age. And that is what Stan Lee and Jack Kirby channeled when creating Tony Stark.
These themes are deeper than these characters, of course, but the characters encapsulate them. And have done so for decades.
Examples of bad faith readings:
Tony and/or Steve were mean to each other during the arguing scene of Avengers 2012, how dare Steve and/or Tony.
It was made clear by the dialogue between Natasha and Loki and the camera zooming in on the scepter and the scepter glowing during the argument between Steve and Tony that the anger experienced by both characters during that scene was extrapolated by an outside force. The scepter was supposed to elicit the Hulk coming out, Steve and Tony were unwitting side-effects.
Tony is evil for creating Ultron.
Tony created Ultron to protect the world, not to kill it. His intentions were good. Ultron was sentient and unfortunately used that sentience to take exactly the wrong path.
Steve shouldn’t have dropped the hellicarriers in Winter Soldier and found a different alternative.
Steve had literal minutes. The hellicarriers, maned by Hydra, were already set, locked and loaded to gun down 715,854 of the brightest minds in the world, including Stephen Strange, Bruce Banner and Tony Stark. Remember Jasper Sitwell confessed to Steve and Natasha and Sam that Project Insight was an algorithm which identified anyone who would pose a threat to Hydra domination via intelligence, voting history, career path and test scores. And Project Insight already had a set deployment date and time (one that Nick Fury begged and pleaded to get moved). It was take down the hellicarriers or 715,854 innocent people die.
Tony is a terrible person for physically attacking Steve and Bucky in Siberia.
Tony was just shown his parents’ death. There are five stages of grief. It is impossible to go through them in seconds. One of these stages is anger. Licensed psychologists describe this stage as:
Anger may be directed at our dying or deceased loved one. Rationally, we know the person is not to be blamed. Emotionally, however, we may resent the person for causing us pain or for leaving us. We feel guilty for being angry, and this makes us more angry.
Remember, grieving is a personal process that has no time limit, nor one “right” way to do it.
Key points being the difference between rationality and emotionalism. And guilt making us more angry. This is why temporary insanity pleas are a legitimate defense.
Steve recognized this, and tried to talk Tony down. When this didn’t work he told Bucky to run and tried to stave Tony off himself. Steve knew what was going on and as he sent a letter afterwards trying to mend fences with Tony, obviously he didn’t hold Tony’s actions while overcome by grief against him. It’s doubtful Steve would want fandom doing it either.
In fact it is doubtful that Tony would approve of anyone outwardly hating on Steve or Steve would approve of anyone outwardly hating on Tony, if we’re being honest.
Steve deliberately left Tony in Siberia to die.
No he didn’t. The scene cuts from the bunker in Siberia to days later. In the intermittent time Steve, Bucky and T’Challa each had to trek back to their aircraft while having a discussion with each other about Wakanda trying to crack Bucky’s Winter Soldier programming. During that time and after any of the three of them could have easily called for reinforcements from their various air crafts. Making up seemingly cruel intentions of a character that is not explicitly shown in the storytelling is a very clear example of a bad faith reading.
Fandom would be a much more pleasant and enjoyable place if we all agreed to not enact bad faith readings. If we realized what each of the characters represent, embrace the spirit of that, and if you still find things you may not like within canon, blame it on the writers and the directors, not the characters themselves, both of whom are, as characters, older than most of us here on Tumblr and have changed many, many hands but were never intended to be anything other than empathetic (and inspirational) for the audience.
