Hey, I’ve been wondering since FAWS, is there an official/unofficial story about operation paperclip and why Shield went with it? Or anything Marcus/McFeely or the Russos have said? I’ve been looking for anything related to it because I’m getting tired of constantly being reminded on tumblr that Peggy ruined the world every time Shield is brought up in the MCU.
Not that I know of, and I can’t really tell you anything new besides what I’ve been saying for literal years now—God I hate this fandom—which is that the people who constantly bring that up simply refuse to acknowledge the basics of how the US government works. Probably like, all the governments, actually, but the shitty US one is the only one I can speak to with any semblance of authority.
Peggy Carter had bosses. I don’t know if it was the World Security Council at that point—dunno if that existed when she was in—but we know she had bosses. Not just because of basic common-sense logic, but because Fury did. Remember when the Council made their stupid ass decision and he elected to ignore it? It’s kind of a big meme, you might have seen it?
The point is that she runs one (1) government agency. She does not run the CIA, the FBI, or any of those related intelligence acronyms. And—see the meme—she has bosses who can and will override her. The same way Fury got overridden on things all the fucking time, because that is how government bureaucracy works. If you want a job where you get unquestioned decision making power, you’re gonna have to go become a tyrannical dictator of a non-US country.
But wait, you say, Fury ignored the decision! Peggy shoulda just done that, you moron!
Fury ignored a decision that unquestionably, inevitably, would’ve killed millions of people. He had only minutes to act. That was a very extreme case. Read on.
These people who act like Peggy personally welcomed a hoard of Hitlers at the airport and then made them a 5 course welcome to the states meal like any good ‘50’s lady should? You’re not going to convince them otherwise, because they are idiots who hate the character. No, they are not idiots becausethey hate the character, they are idiots because they use this dumbass logic to pick at anyone who doesn’t agree with them. They’re the same people who routine call her a cunt, just a piece of ass Steve went back for, etc, etc, all because their pairing didn’t go through. You’re not going to get intelligent discussion with these people because it’s all Peggy’s a Nazi cunt this, Peggy’s a Nazi whore that, Peggy takes it from Nazis…and you can tell just from the way these people talk that they aren’t worth listening to.
That said, I’ve heard the somewhat more reasonable complaint that well, if I was there, I would just quit, I’d never work with Nazis, I have principles! Which is a kinda sorta more valid response, so let’s at least touch on that.
A lot of these people want Peggy to quit rather than dare do something so traitorous. Which sounds great, but also…no? Not to throw out Godfather references on main, but “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer,” is a thing. If we have one hand on the wheel, we can still steer is also a thing, as per Natasha. Agents of SHIELD basically says outright that they had to wait for Peggy Carter to leave before they could really get their Hydra shit moving.
There’s also Steve’s thing to Fury in Cap 2, we did things that made us not sleep so good all the time, but we did it so people could be free. Yes, paraphrasing, I know. Peggy could walk out over Paperclip because moral high ground, but she’d never work in intelligence again because every single organization has deals going with shitty people. Every. Single One. She leaves, not only is she locked out of having any idea what the wolves in the henhouse are doing, she also can’t do any of the good things she did while at SHIELD.
@followingyourbliss made a really good post about this that talked about the impact of these former Nazis on the space program, among other things, that I believe also talked about how naïve and ultimately stupid it is to blame an actual, real live government operation solely on one fictional woman, and I wish I could find it right now but maybe someone else will, because it’s the best post I’ve ever seen on this topic.
Anyway, because people won’t ever stop beating this horse…just realize that they won’t. Most of the people still making these arguments are just hateful idiots, pure and simple, and you can tell just from how they phrase things. And they’re not going to shut up about it because they have nothing better to do, and they can’t stand the fact that Peggy’s still here, still kicking ass, and not going anywhere any time soon.
But no, to my knowledge, none of TPTB have discussed this issue in detail. And even if they did, and even if they had a perfectly reasonable argument (besides, you know, actual history) the morons would still be being morons about it.
