I was thinking today about how we find Steve really OOC in EG & I think in a way he's kind of not (bear with me). EG!steve was written as if he was t*ny st*rk. If t*ny had been cap america, he would be EG!steve. If you consider steve's actions through a t*ny lens, they all make sense: hyper fixation on the past & passed on loved ones (like howard); disegard for female agency & assumption over their choices; lack of care for bucky & friends; an eye roll at "i can do this all day", etc.
That is not to say that I think t*ny had assumed control over steve. Rather, that the writers/directors built Steve's character with the same "formula". Even Steve's jokes were more T*ny than Steve.
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I want to apologize right off the bat. I totally forgot I had gotten these and they've been sitting in my inbox for over a week. In my defense, I was on vacation last week, and I was doing my utmost best to NOT think.
With that out of the way, let's tackle this.
I agree with you, 100%. This has always been my issue with Steve in ENDGAME, in that he's not Steve anymore. Not the Steve that we've had over the past decade, anyway. And that would be okay, because people change as life happens to them and as time passes, but if that was the case here (it wasn't) then the writers and directors failed (duh!) in showing us that he's changed. That those five years had affected him aside from him being nostalgic for the "good old days".
I think the reason they went this direction with Steve (and Natasha and Tony and Clint) had to do with the fact that this movie was supposed to be the completion of their arc of the OG Avengers. They had to come up with ways to write off all of the OG Six to make way for the new roster to take the reins. That's also why this is deeply upsetting, because as I've pointed out before, the Russos and Markus and Mcfeely have had sole control over Steve Rogers (and Natasha) since THE WINTER SOLDIER, with the sole exception of AoU. So for them to say that Steve is suddenly super nostalgic for ye olden times, despite their first bit of dialogue for him in their first movie being how much he doesn't miss most of it, just the people, its fair for people to get pissed off about that.
For the record, I've never had an issue with Steve choosing happiness. After everything he's been through in his life, he deserves it more than any of the others (except maybe Natasha). My problem with it, and I've expressed it that way since if first saw EG was how they went about Steve choosing happiness: at the expense of others.
That's not the Steve Rogers I've come to love after all these years. It's as you said, a very Tony Stark way of doing things. And I fully believe that the five men behind ENDGAME did that deliberately.
Tony got the big heroic ending, and the big funeral/memorial, and the continued mentions (FAR FROM HOME) because of RDJ and whatever sorcery he uses to make sure the entire MCU is entirely about him. OF COURSE Tony would get the big hero moment! If RDJ was finally going to leave the franchise, then goddamn was he going to make sure that no one could move forward with remembering that it was because of Tony Stark.
The problem after that became what to do with the other OG Avengers. Clint was easy, they've been dropping things about his family and him wanting to retire since AoU, so that was an easy one when the decided that Nat should die instead of him. Natasha - that's classic Marvel/Disney misogyny at work. Thor - I weep for all the character development he's had stripped from him in this last movie. And I honestly don't think anyone at Marvel Studios cares about Bruce/Hulk, so we'll probably never see him again.
The real problem came in the form of Steve. Here they have a character that they've intentionally written as self-sacrificing since his introduction. It's been a staple of every time Steve graces one of these movies as the protagonist that he is willing to lay his life down for the sake of others, for what he believes is right. Well, they can't do that now, because that would upstage Tony. So, what to do. The answer is obvious, since they gave Tony the Steve-styled ending, they gave Steve the Tony-styled ending. They didn't get to so that with Tony, so now here's a perfect receptacle for the guy the writers/directors/producers have worshipped since 2008.
Looking back on it now, I think that's one of the reasons I reacted so badly to Steve's ending, because I knew, even if I didn't realize it at the time, that that was actually something Tony would do.
