Spoilers The Falcon and Winter Soldier discussion

I prefer option one as well. Even after reading all the speculations here I am still sure that is the intention of the scene as written. It is still a lot of fun reading everyone's thoughts though and the speculation probably does deserve its own thread and will most likely be hashed over again when Loki comes out.

 

If time travel into the past automatically creates an alternate universe as people are claiming then it's impossible to ever go to any alternate universe that already existed. Because by time traveling you are guaranteed to wind up in a new universe that was just created by your act of time travel.

If, on the other hand, time travel is really just locking on to alternate universes that already exist, then a) all possibilities must always exist to begin with, meaning it's impossible to ever create or destroy any alternate timeline which goes completely against what the movie explicitly says and also b) your navigation through those alternate realities must be limited by where you can exist without violating the already established past because 'you can't change the past' is still the only ironclad rule. Hulk cannot travel back to return the stone to the Ancient one exactly when it left because then there would be two Hulks on that roof when there's only supposed to be one. And Cap cannot do it because Cap isn't supposed to be on that roof at all.

Coming back after Hulk already removed the time stone is not a solution because the whole point of the Ancient One's objection/Hulk's solution is that the stone must have never left, not left and then been returned a second later. If it leaves at all then the timeline splits. Which, again, also violates the many worlds theory very directly.

 

They gave us bad rules that they nearly instantly violated, that we had to bend over backwards to justify.

 

To try and steer this back to the show...

Is anyone intrigued by how this show seems to be deconstructing the very notion of the Superhero? Zemo points out the problems with putting people on pedestals, forgetting their flaws (which was a nice callback to how Zemo pointed out how he finally saw a flaw in Steve's eyes) and how this leads to the birth of Icons.

Icons lead to movements, conflict, and suffering. He uses the Red Skull and Hitler as examples of the negative side of this.

Sam himself has seen how the US' obsession with Captain America caused atrocities like Isaiah and we've seen how it also led to the Hulk and Abomination. It also is why Hydra turned Bucky into the Winter Soldier and all the misery that led to for him and all those who died.

It's gotten to the point where he thinks he should just destroy the Shield and let the name die.

Bucky is wholly against this....because of his undying loyalty to Steve.

The undying loyalty and worship Zemo warned against.

 

Zemo is incorrect and using his emotions to make blanket judgements against superheroes. The reason his family died was not due to a super soldier, super soldier-program or a belief in such a concept, but an arrogant tech giant billionaire who believed in AI/technology (and screwing with alien elements he could not truly understand) as the answer for everything, and as a result of that woefully misguided belief, created the menace that ultimately murdered Zemo's family. It is not support of the Captain Americas of the world that needed to be kicked off of an unearned pedestal, but the tech overlords like Stark, who--fueled by arrogance--has caused a great deal of the damage seen in the MCU.

As a number of people observed at the time Civil War was released, the Sokovia Accords should have been accurately titled the Tony Stark Accords, since the document's central focus (and namesake) was caused by someone not named Steve Rogers.

 

Yes, into the past. Or, even more specifically, into your past. But "past" is just a nickname for a present you've already interacted with, there isn't anything special about the past except where it is in relation to where you are (or where you've been to get you where you are). Steve leaving the main MCU in 2023 to go to the Loki-verse to return the Time and Mind Stones the instant he and Tony had left 2012 isn't going into the past, because he stopped being a participant in that timeline the instant he left. That specific moment in 2012 in the Loki-verse is, for him, the present, and it always will be as far as he's concerned, until he goes back to the Loki-verse and the clock starts running for him again, so it's entirely possible for him to return with the stones he borrowed right back to when he left with them, leaving no gap between the stone leaving and the stone returning where the stones weren't present, and no chance for a branch of the timeline to form where he never returned and the universe withered and died for lack of Infinity stones.

 

You mean the Tech Overlord who was seen as an Icon by many and thus had his flaws ignored, even by his teammates who while they acknowledged his flaws they still were fine ignoring them?

Maybe not a super-soldier, but Zemo's point still stands that No idea is so strong it should not be tested by doubt, and no man so powerful that he is infallible.

 

Just to add, if there was never an Iron Man, Tony would still have made an Ultron. It wasn't the Avengers who destroyed Sokovia.

 

Exactly when was Steve Rogers in favor of any of Stark's work leading to Ultron? That's all on the tech overlord who had an ego that cost countless lives, thus the accords--named for the end result of his actions--should not have included anyone other than Stark.

Zemo is twisted and is (ironically enough) using Captain America / super soldiers as the symbol of a belief that drives his own corrupt actions. He cannot see the hypocrisy in criticizing others in what they idealize in Rogers and/or Captain America, yet has and is doing the same, only for destructive purposes.

 

IE, more than just Steve should've questioned him. Bruce Banner was responsible too but let Tony talk him into it instead of rejecting it. An Icon had his flaws be ignored by too many till it caused a big mess.

At least he has proof to back his actions up, about the destructive effects of Hero Worship.

The MCU backs up his extremism with Isaiah, Hulk, Abomination, etc.

Not wholly right, not wholly wrong.

Compare this to Billy Butcher or Lex Luthor or BvS Batman. It's a surprisingly nuanced take compared to them.

 

The called them The Sokovia Accords, but they weren't just about what happened in Sokovia, it was also about the Chitauri Invasion in New York, the whole Project Insight thing in Washinton DC, and the fight in Lagos. It's never said specifically in the movie, but I think they probably just went with the Sokovia Accords as their name because that was the biggest international incident the Avengers were involved in, not because that was all it was about. It was basically about everything the Avengers had been doing since they came together.

 

You mean the invasion of New York where the U.S. govt tried to nuke the city? The Project Insight where HYDRA had taken over SHIELD under the nose of the govt and was about to use the helicarriers to attack "threats" to HYDRA across the globe, killing millions?

Sokovia/Ultron were Stark tech, the helicarriers were Stark tech, Loki was hooked into Stark tech to power his stargate. The Avengers as a group, apart from Stark, didn't cause any of this, they were scapegoats.

 

Apparently there's a longer cut of Baron Zemo's dancing, according to Daniel Brühl.

And now people are demanding its release!

Well, at least io9's Germain Lussier.

 

#releasethezemocut

 

Everyone kn ows that, but it was named for the greatest disaster involving superheroes, and only one person was responsible for that.

Now,, let us get to...

Exactly. The Loki/Chitauri invasion was going to create a disaster in any case, and yes, the WSC sent a nuclear missile at New York, yet the government must have suffered from mass amnesia to have skipped over the threat they--and Loki's forces posed. The Avengers were not players in the why any disaster occurred, as it was going to happen in any case. Another reason why Civil War's accords plot was riddled with continuity problems / holes.

Project Insight? Cap, the Falcon, Natasha, Fury and Hill should have been recognized as national heroes for stopping the mass assassination program that was minutes away from being launched. Their actions were not a threat to humanity, but a measure to successfully protect it.

Of course!

Stark was the single greatest menace seen in the films up to that point, so if accords were going to be drafted, it should have zeroed in on Stark.

...and there's Ross, who should be considered an accessory to murder in the Blonksy/Abomination case; it was Ross who authorized Blonsky to be injected with a version of the super soldier serum. That gave Blonsky a taste of power he could not resist, so responsibility for any action Blonsky took after that fell on Ross as well, but Civil War's writers did not touch that--or even have one of the Avengers even refer to it, since that would've turned a spotlight on the "judge" and the plot could not play out as so black and white as seen.

 

While I agree with your overall points about the Accords and that Ross himself is a hypocrite who comes rolling in there with jokes about his golf swing before pointing fingers and whining about the location of an alien who he has no jurisdiction over, what are the odds that any of the Avengers actually knew that Ross authorized Blonksky's injections? No one there was ever purvey to that kind of highly classified information. Of course Banner knew but he was off planet and I doubt he told anyone. Now if Nick Fury was there or even Maria Hill, then yes, I'd expect them to object. But the rest of them? Maybe Nat. And before you say the big SHIELD data dump, would that really include anything the US Army did separate from SHIELD?

 

That scene with Ross was exactly what I was thinking of, and even sitting in the theatre the first time I watched it I saw that he was full of shit.

It doesn't matter if any of the Avengers knew about Ross authorizing the injections. Ross knew. It's easy to just toss that off as hypocrisy, but Ross knew what he did, he knew about the programs going on, he knew the Avengers didn't invite the Chitari over for board games, launch that nuke, or know what Tony was doing with the Stone and Ultron, much less authorize any of it.

Ross knew the Avengers weren't responsible for those crises. He also knew that Tony and his father had been providing high tech hardware to the U.S. military for generations. For Tony, the Sokovia Accords were just business as usual and by pushing the others to sign he's in deeper and even more a part of the system.

The thing that makes this pertinent to F&WS is that Steve knew it smelled wrong. He couldn't buy in because it meant answering to faceless bureaucrats, which was the exact thing that made it easy for HYDRA to take control. HYDRA was stopped BECAUSE Steve, Sam, Nat, Clint, and Sharon were on the outside, unlike Tony who was more than happy to be a company man.

Just because the new boss isn't HYDRA doesn't mean things are any different than under the old boss. Tyler Hayward for one example.

 

Regardless of the fact that SHIELD/Hydra and the World Security Council were more culpable for some of the events for which they blamed the Avengers, governments and government organizations are never actually going to accept blame for things like that. It was a lot easier for them to use the Avengers as scapegoats, particularly with Tony Stark acting as the public face for "accountability."

 

Yes--he authorized Blonsky's initial injection, which encouraged Blonksy to take it to the next level, leading to the deaths of innocent people. Again the Civil War screenwriters handcuffed themselves to a hair-thin plot to create a rift in the Avengers; if they were concerned with continuity, they would have had one of the members call Ross out on the spot, and threatening to address that in public. Regarding Banner, and if he ever told any of the Avengers about Blonsky/Ross, I see no reason he would not; that incident was tied to his own history, and thanks to SHIELD keeping others off of his scent (to paraphrase Natasha), his past--from "birth" (as the Hulk) to the then-present had to have been known / monitored from the first confirmation that the Hulk existed. That included his conflicts with Blonsky and Ross.

That's a fact the F&WS writers should have Sam remind Zemo of the next time he goes off on a "Captain America is worshiped" speech. Everything Zemo rails against has no bearing on Steve, his alter-ego or how he conducted himself in the 20th or 21st century.

 

They stack the court?