Steve Rogers tragic hero?
Steve has gone from one war to another ever since world war 2 and people forget he was like maybe 28 or 26 then (I can't remember the exact age off hand). Then he comes to 2012 (first avengers movie) and after that his dreams, his wants no longer matter to anyone he's just meant to be a soilder. Even to himslef he puts his dreams aside to be what america needs him to be. He even says that in age of ultron. He tells Tony before the war he had dreams for himslef to have a wife one day and kids. He says something along the lines of, that guy that wanted that died when he crashed the plane. Some people take that to mean he didn't want that for himslef anymore. But I saw it as he felt he couldn't have that for himslef anymore. He didn't see a way to achieve that on his current path. We see in age of ultron, in steves dream, that his biggest fear is never being able to go home and that the wars will never end.
Tony gets a lot of credit for being a tragic hero and how being a hero mentally effected him. honestly that's one of my favorite aspects of tony that his mental health is addressed. But we don't see that with steve. The pressure steve must face to always do the right thing and the pressure he puts on himslef to be a "perfect" man is insane. Everyone expects him to be the symbol of the american people, that's a lot of pressure. I feel like steve puts on a positive optimist persona but deep down he has shit he is still dealing with. Like in the first Avengers movie he was having flashbacks to all the shit that he regretted happening in the war. Yet he never deals with it, he never talks about it.
The fact that he goes back for Peggy at the very end shows how much he wanted that simple life and just wanted to be done with war. Some people try to argue that his sole purpose for going back was Peggy. I don't think it was that completely just for her. Obviously part of it was for Peggy, but I think another aspect was just to escape all the war that was going on in modern day. Like he knew that in going back in time that was a good chance that Peggy could be over him or that you know she could be married but he still chose to go back because she wasn't the only reason that he wanted to go back. She was just a factor that made him want to go back. I love the ending of Endgame because it was finally Steve doing something for himslef. He was a man who always put everyone elses needs before his own. In this one moment he does something to help himslef. The ending really ties together his story and shows that war had impacted him so much.
