Endgame Steve Analysis/Rant
Okay, so I needed to get this out of my system. I really have a lot of issues with Steve’s ending in Endgame. I know this has been done to death and it’s like beating a dead horse but hear me out. I may ship Steve/Bucky but I’m not delusional; I never expected it to be canon. This is from a platonic perspective.
TL:DR canon doesn’t care about platonic relationships and they fucked up. i’m off to AO3. haters don’t interact.
Anyway, the ending? Was a complete disrespect to Steve’s character. It just took The First Avenger, Winter Soldier and Civil War and the other Avengers movies and undermined all the important connections that Steve made over the 11 years out of the ice.
I know some people have been saying that he was always a man out of his time. But that’s his story. He will always be a man out of his time. The more appropriate story was to accept that he is a man out of his time, but now he has a reason to stay because he has family in this time, and not have him run back to past to rekindle an old romance. Because that’s character growth.
Which brings me to my second point. We are all aware that Peggy moved on. She got married, had children, and grandchildren. She had a fulfilling life. She died 8 years prior to the events of Endgame. And what did she say? “The world has changed. And none of us can go back. All we can do is our best. And sometimes the best that we can do is to start over.” (BUT NOT LIKE THAT STEVE) So Steve just goes, nah fuck that, i’m not starting over, in a new time, I’m going back? I know what the Russos said about alternate timelines etc but I really don’t think that Steve would just assume that he could walk into her life and resume things even in an alternate timeline, based on an experience bourne through the stress of war.
Which now, third point. People are going on about ‘shared life experience’ and how he can have that with Peggy. nO. Steve was defrosted before 2012. Endgame conclude in 2023. This means that he has been through 11 years without Peggy and what an 11 years it has been. He fought aliens (more than once), his best friend (whom we will get to in just a bit) was brought back but brainwashed as a killing machine, S.H.I.E.L.D is Hydra wow, existential crisis #1 with Ultron, best friend comes back and they have another fight, existential crisis #2 with Thanos. ARE YOU TELLING ME THAT HE’S THE SAME STEVE THAT WENT DOWN IN THE ICE? He’s changed. He’s not the Steve that Peggy knew. (Let’s not get into more details that Peggy must have noticed that he’s different too - she’s a smart woman)
Fourth point. People have also been saying, ‘BUT BUCKY AND SAM ARE FINE HE WAS GONE FOR 10 SECONDS.’ Again, no. Steve was gone for 50-70 years, depending on where he yeeted himself to. 50-70 years is a long time. A very long time. Things would have happened. Many things. Things that we aren’t privy to. He’s no longer the same Steve they knew. Hell, Bucky and Sam aren’t even the same people he knew BECAUSE of those 50-70 years to him - they’re perhaps just a fond memory, from a distant past. This is what bothered me the MOST. It’s not ‘just 10 seconds’. It was a lifetime away. Steve gave them up willingly, gave up his other friends, for a lifetime. Yes, he deserved to be happy, and he had a reason to - his present friends, family. It’s such a slap to the face. It’s telling them that they weren’t enough for him, no matter what they’ve been through together. It was such a big ‘fuck you’ to his present.
This leads me to my fifth point. It’s a cop-out, a cheap ending. We had the ride-or-die Steve and Bucky friendship in The First Avenger. They were together through everything - even when they had nothing, they had each other, to the end of the line.
Steve saves Bucky once, but the second time, he doesn’t, and he’s devastated. But that’s not the last of him. The next time we see him, he’s a killing machine, tortured and brainwashed for 70 years at the hands of Hydra. Yet Steve trusts him, wants his best friend back. He believes he’ll get Bucky back. He wants to get him back. Bucky remembers and saves Steve. He leaves. This is also an important element - he’s just remembering who he is. He needs time to figure out what’s going on. I don’t expect him to run back to Steve immediately (because some posts were like, bUt BuCkY nEvEr LooKeD/sTaYed fOr/WiTh StEvE fiRsT!!!)
We next see Bucky in Romania, keeping a low profile, until Hydra has to come back and ruin things for him. During this time, he hasn’t forgotten. Reminder, he kept a notebook with Steve’s picture in it on top of his fridge. (picture: https://kimitofutari.tumblr.com/post/180010535243/ill-never-get-over-the-fact-that-there-was-a)
Again, to everyone who said that Bucky never once sought out Steve, we have to understand that Bucky is burdened with tremendous guilt. He now knows what he did as the Winter Soldier. He’s assassinated so many people. Would he just go back and think that Steve would accept him for what he’s done? Anyway, Steve then defies 117 countries, becomes a fugitive, and fights Tony for Bucky. That’s the basis of Civil War. Bucky is still his best guy. He’s with him to the end of the line.
So that we don’t get a repeat of Civil War, Bucky goes to Wakanda so that they can help with the activation code nonsense. Steve is without Bucky, but only temporarily, because he’s out and about looking after goats at the end of Black Panther. Apparently, Bucky and Steve still keep in touch frequently.
Before anyone can negate that with ‘oh, but you said, but you said, in 70 years people change’. This is different. Bucky was stolen away, hidden, had his identity stripped, no memory of who he was because of Hydra. Whenever the Winter Soldier wasn’t on a mission, he was wiped and put in cryo again. He didn’t have any meaningful human contact. Steve left willingly for 50-70 years to pursue what he thought was a better life, leaving those who cared about him behind in a different time line.
Another theory people have been throwing around is that Bucky knew and he was okay with it, that maybe they talked about it. So my sixth point: I personally don’t think he was okay with it. We know that Bucky was brainwashed. Mentioned above, he carries the sins of the Winter Soldier’s past and the accompanying guilt like a heavy weight. In Civil War, he questions if he was worth all of this (this being a war criminal lmao). In Infinity War, just before the whole shitshow with Thanos, he says he’s a ‘semi-stable 100-year-old man’. Emphasis on semi-stable. He may be recovering, but essentially, he knows what he’s done and I don’t think he may ever be a 100% totally fine since, y’know, 70 years of torture does that to you, and that memories of his time as the Winter Soldier and in Hydra containment will continue to haunt him at some basic level*. He’s brought back in Endgame, still presumably semi-stable since time has stopped for him after being dusted. (picture: https://hridi.tumblr.com/post/173385335791/oh-dear-god-they-deserved-better-they-deserved)
So when Steve doesn’t come back, it’s a nail in the coffin. It’s almost saying that no, he’s not worth it. And Bucky agrees. Of course he agrees. He’s been telling himself that since regaining his memories and Steve confirms it by leaving. He lets Steve go but that doesn’t make it right. (picture: https://marvelzbitch.tumblr.com/post/184532540474/my-heart-is-breaking-they-really-were-with-each) Fuck it, the look in his eyes is heartbreaking.
(*This is not to say that I discredit him as being weak and unable to recover. He can, but as with most mental illnesses, there are good days and bad days. A particularly bad day is all you need to fall into a downward spiral again. I’m sure people can vouch (I mean I do have first-hand experience, but this isn’t about me).)
He doesn’t approach Steve at the bench. He asks Sam. What was he feeling then? Resentment because his best friend, truly the only constant in his life, left him for a life that he thought was better? Fear because it’s been 50-70 years for Steve and he’s literally a different person? Will he still see Bucky in the same light? Or worse, that he’s become a stranger that Bucky can’t recognise? Resigned because he knows that he really wasn’t worth it after all and that to pretend otherwise was just pushing the knife deeper into the wound? We don’t know. But the fact that he didn’t approach Steve spoke volumes. He says that he’ll miss Steve, but doesn’t want to meet him when he returns.
Anyway, about the whole ‘shared life experience thing. Let me build my case.
They were together since childhood.
They lived through the Great Depression. They made do with what they had.
Bucky got drafted and Steve desperately wanted to come alone as well.
Steve gets the serum. So does Bucky when he was kidnapped.
Steve crashes and is asleep for 70 years. He’s MIA. Captain America was a legend. Bucky is experimented on and is in and out of cryo for 70 years. He’s MIA. The Winter Soldier was a myth. They’re both men out of their time.
Also because of the serum, we can extrapolate that they might probably have an extended lifespan. Which they can have, together, when others have come and gone, they’re still standing.
In conclusion, this movie regressed Steve’s character growth. The movie ignores their extensive shared past and ignores so many intricacies that we’ve come to know about the characters. The movie discredits platonic relationships, that a platonic relationship is never as meaningful as a romantic one.
Of course if y’all wanna make ‘em happy and kiss each other I would totally fine with that too.
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