Natasha Romanoff Aprreciation Post
Be warned, this post contains HUGE endgame spoilers
So I’ve noticed on my tumblr scrollings that Natasha isn’t getting quite the love she deserves/people are mad about her death and I’m here to give her all the love she deserves and bring peace for her death.
Natasha is BY FAR the character that grew the most throughout all the movies–some of it because of old standards of portraying women that can be seen in the earlier ones. Every movie she opened up just a little bit more and a little bit more–until in Endgame she accepts the Avengers as her FAMILY. Having a group to call family is something Natasha is completely new to, something that was taken away from her when she was stolen from her own and raised to be an assassin.
Iron Man 2:
Iron Man 2 is the first movie that we ever see Natasha in–and while I love the fact that we got to see a woman kicking butt like this, I feel like she was mostly there to be sexy for the men in the audience. Even if there were women (like me!!) who were excited to finally see a woman fighting like this, I still think the movie was representative of the old values in portraying women.
Avengers:
I think the Avengers is really the first time we start to get more of a sense for who Natasha really is. This is the first time we hear about her past and the red in her ledger, which Loki tells us about, and how Clint recruited her to SHIELD on a mission where he was sent to kill her. Then Loki asks if she loves him and her response is, “Of course not, love is for children, I owe him a debt.”
While I was super excited to see a boss woman like this, I had just accepted the fact that any movie with a strong woman would make her feel close to no emotions and just be a rock–which couldn’t be more untrue. But in the context of her whole time in the MCU, I know that at this time she was scared. She doesn’t know what it’s like to love anyone and she’s scared that if she does or if she starts to trust anyone, they’ll just betray her. Natasha is powerful and strong and she is scared. Scared to love, scared to trust, and scared to feel.
Captain America: The Winter Soldier:
The Winter Soldier was SUPER exciting for me! We got to see BA Natasha beating up bad-guys, but we also got to see Natasha joking around and teasing Steve. In this movie we start to see her open up just a little bit. She’s still untrusting and she’s still scared, but we get to see her personality opening a little more.
But at the end, she does something SO COOL. When she hacks into SHIELD’s database to expose them as hydra, she will also be exposing herself–to the people who call her a hero! As Pierce had been working for SHIELD for a long time, he knew Natasha. He knew what she had to hide and he knew she was terrified, so he used that against her, telling her that everyone would know. How does she respond? She looks him dead in the eyes and releases that information onto the internet. She faced her fears and released information to bring down a corrupt organization–at her own cost.
She has red in her ledger and she’s trying to wipe it out.
Avengers: Age of Ultron:
Say what you will about Age of Ultron and Natasha’s relationship with the Hulk, but Natasha REALLY opened up in this movie.
As you can see she’s still kicking butt, as per usual (u go queen). What’s different this time, however, is that I think this is one of the first times we see her working as a team. While she did that in Avengers and TWS, I feel like this time she really relies on and trusts her team. “Can someone deal with that? Thank you.”
Additionally, she’s the only one who can calm Bruce down when he’s the hulk (which is pretty dope). This of course has to do with their romantic involvement, but also shows a part of Natasha that we have never seen before: her gentle, loving, and caring side. Then when we see her with Clint’s kids we see this maternal side of her that we never have before.
We learn a tiny bit of her history in the Red Room, which builds our understanding of her. But her being reminded of this also leads to her opening up SO MUCH to Bruce. She TELLS him what it was like in the Red Room. She tells him that they made her into a monster and an assassin and she’s trying to be better. She’s CRYING when she tells him about how they made it so she can never have children. While she would never show that side of herself to anyone else (except for maybe Clint), her opening up to someone else was a HUGE step for her.
Captain America: Civil War:
By this movie Natasha sees the Avengers as her friends. “Staying together is more important than how we stay together.” She loves the Avengers and she loves who she is with the Avengers. In fact, I think she loves the Avengers mor than any other character–she finally feels like the red in her ledger is being wiped out. This probably informs her decision to sign the Sokovia Accords because she doesn’t want to stop being an Avenger and she wants to be there with her friends.
Then at the end she has to choose between letting Steve go and stop the plot to awaken more winter soldiers, and becoming a criminal again, “putting red back in her ledger” (I know that what she did wasn’t like red bad but it was still a crime) and she chooses to let Steve go. When given the choice between herself and saving the world, she chooses saving the world, forcing her to leave the Avengers–the only people that feel like family
Avengers: Infinity War:
There’s not much of Natasha in this movie, but what we do have is golden. She’s on the run again, but this time she’s with friends. This time she’s helping people. This time she’s a hero–even if she’s technically a criminal. And don’t get me STARTED on the scene where she teams up with Okoye and Wanda to kill Proxima Midnight AAAHHHHH. She goes from not being much of a team player to “She’s not alone.” YAAASSS QUEEN I LOVE YOU
Avengers: Endgame:
And of course, we have the big one: Endgame.
Wow.
11 years of character development lead us to this moment.
While everyone else is off dealing with the snap in their own way, where is Natasha?
At the Avengers headquarters, still helping people, and trying her best to not only help herself with the snap, but the rest of the universe. She’s really so amazing in this scene, clearly sad and probably barely coping–yet helping the world get back on its feet and the snap.
Then we have the time heist and she goes back in time with her best friend in the world to Vormir. I think this might be the first time we ever see her smile. REALLY smile. When Clint says “Under any other circumstances, this would be the best time of life,” she has the BIGGEST smile I think I have ever seen in any Marvel movie. So pure, yet it comes from the person with the darkest back story. So joyful, yet there is so much pain there. This is when she finally starts to feel like a human and not just the assassin she was trained to be. Natasha is SO HAPPY to be back with the Avengers–happier than anyone else–and to be doing her major part to save the world.
Then we get to Vormir.
Vormir.
They’re greeted by Red Skull and he says her fathers name, Ivan–a name she had never even heard before. I originally felt it was kind of weird to randomly introduce her father here until I realized it was her motivation.
Natasha never knew her father. Never had a chance to celebrate birthdays with him, bring home nervous boyfriends to the intimidating father, and just get to spend time with him. She never had any of that. Instead she got a red room and lessons that almost broke her and brutal graduation ceremonies and no love.
She does not want that for Clint’s kids. While none of them would ever have to go through quite what she did, they would never get their father back. They would have to live the rest of their life without him. Natasha has no one–and she knows that. She knows that it has to be her.
Clint, however, loves her. He loves her so much. She is his best friend in the world and being the cause of her death would eat him up for the rest of his life.
In this moment there is nothing else they love more in the world than each other.
A pretty far way from “love is for children.”
So they fight it out, each one trying to save the other–but ultimately Natasha wins. She smiles up at Clint. “It’s okay.” Then he’s forced to let her go.
Natasha finally feels real. She finally feels like a person. She finally feels human. She finally lets herself love. And she loves so much that she knows she must be the one to sacrifice herself for half the universe.
Now I say to all of you who have a problem with Natasha dying where she did, what would you have rather had happened? She just lets Clint die and wastes all of that character development? Absolutely not! She LOSES to Clint? No. Her death was the culmination of 11 years worth of character development, 11 years of learning, 11 years of growth. While her death is devastating, it is beautiful. A hero’s death made by a real hero—something that we rarely see a woman do.
Dear Natasha Romanoff,
There was red in your ledger, but you wiped it out. You saved us. We won because of you.
Thank you Natasha. You are the strongest avenger.
