Okay so my soul just left my entire body. I just read a post about Tony apparently being abusive, having no morality, and trying to prove, I guess, that he regularly tries to kill his friends. (And how people who oppose a certain abusive ship but ship him with with others are giant hypocrites, but that’s kind of neither here nor there.)
In any case, this really pisses me off, for a few reasons. Honestly, I’m sick of seeing Tony’s character so grossly misinterpreted. Because look. Tony literally has PTSD and anxiety, and in all likelihood, depression as well. Not only does the fandom seem to not understand how he’s slowly losing it, but neither do, evidently, any of his friends. Let’s think about this. He tries to cope with it and make it better, and he’s constantly… shamed for it. There’s a longer post floating around which explains it really well.
Anyways, what I really want to talk about here is, I think, Tony and Steve’s relationship, and I think, too, how that factors into what Civil War ended up being. So.
I think a lot of this “discourse” (anti-Tony, that is) comes from people who happen to stan a certain other Avenger. This post isn’t anti-Steve, fyi. I think he’s a perfectly fine character, even if I don’t personally like him. More so, this is about somewhat poor writing for both characters. Though many fans don’t seem to think so - and I think the movies try to convince you otherwise as well - both Tony and Steve are very flawed characters/people. Tony’s flaws are pretty obvious to everyone, so I won’t go into them. But Steve, on the other hand.
Steve has certainly progressed a good deal from what what we saw in the first Captain America movie, but how has he progressed? Has he changed as a person? A little. But I think more than anything, his character arc has been centered around his disillusionment with the “system”. Which… is well and fine; it certainly presents an interesting angle on patriotism. But honestly, he hasn’t really fundamentally changed beyond becoming more mature, and this is important. This is a huge flaw, in my opinion, with the writing in MCU. Steve basically gets to keep his core ideologies - doing the “right” thing, even if the world is against you - throughout all the Captain America and Avengers movies. Often, of course, Steve if faced with a conflict which questions this belief. And the movies seem to think that’s enough, because ultimately, he never actually has to rethink anything. Steve is really a very stubborn character, and the universe always seems to side with him. To me, this is lazy writing and ultimately results in an unrealistic, somewhat uninteresting character (at least to me).
Alright, so onto Civil War. I thought it was pretty good, for the MCU. Though, I think it also ran into the typical problems stemming from not following the source material. And I don’t mean that to be pretentious, like oh, the comics are so much better or anything. Sometimes the changes MCU makes are actually better than the comics. What I mean is, especially for an arc as thoughtful, innovative, and influential as Civil War is, they warped it to the point where it sort of lost its initial impact, in my opinion. Maybe this was necessary, because of the fundamental nature of something like the MCU and the fact that this was, after all, a Captain America movie. (Then again, maybe it shouldn’t have been made as a CA movie, but that’s another discussion for another day, I think.) In any event, as anyone who’s seen the movie knows, the basic premise of the original arc is still there: the universe reaches a point where a philosophical conclusion about the nature of a universe in which super powered beings exist must be reached, there are differing opinions, there is fighting between said beings, and there is no clear conclusion. But that’s about as far as it goes to being true to the original arc, besides, of course, some of the characters being the same.
And if you’ve seen the movies, then you also know that, despites how the movie tries to spin it, a pretty clear conclusion is reached - Tony, and his stance, are wrong. I mean, Steve and his side do face a degree of punishment for being on the “losing” team; they’re technically not part of the Avengers anymore and have to go off, essentially in crime fighting exile. However, beyond that, Steve wins the real, moral victory. Through one event, Tony’s whole side and everyone on it are supposedly proven wrong. This logic is weird and I don’t think it really holds up, but the movie certainly thinks so. Tony is left disgraced, pretty much, in a really good deal of emotional pain; his friends have paid the real price for this. (I don’t include Bucky here because what happened to him has been happening forever, unfortunately, and isn’t really a consequence of the reasons for Civil War specifically.)
Furthermore, as I said earlier, Steve is a flawed character. He is too much of a hero. He believes too deeply in doing the right thing, at the cost of practicality or the most logical, best action. Funny thing is, Tony seems to be just about the only character to recognize this. Until this movie, he was the only one to call Steve out on it. And funnier thing is, everyone thought Tony was essentially being a selfish dick by disagreeing with him. That Tony was somehow less heroic, hadn’t changed from the self-absorbed party boy he once was (and honestly even that part of his life was caused by deep pain he didn’t know how to deal with as well). Steve’s heroism is, of course, good in small doses. It’s what helps any of the heroes we see in these movies to do what they do. But there’s a limit to this. Tony recognizes that, and regularly applies it to himself.
I think you’d have to have really paid no attention to these movies to try and claim Tony hasn’t changed at all. He’s grown tremendously, as a person and a hero, and has seriously paid for that. Tony has become responsible and mature; he’s grown into something that is the best version of a hero. He is not the villain, and he did not do anything wrong any more than Steve did. Stop making him out to be one.
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