How about an unpopular fannish opinion for the MCU

[sholio]

Still feeling unusually chatty, so here, have an opinion. (Obvious disclaimer applies: this is just me, and there is nothing wrong with anyone feeling different about it. There are many people who love it for reasons equally valid to why I don't!)

It's a trope that appears in quite a bit of post-Winter Soldier fic ...

Namely, Bucky going on a Hydra-slaughtering, blowing-up-buildings, torturing-people-for-information round-the-world rampage.

I can see why people write it. Heck, if anyone is entitled to a bit of revenge at this point, it's him. I guess that where it breaks down for me, though, is ... lemme see if I can articulate this ...

The root of the problem for me is two things:

a) I feel like Bucky's early weeks and months after breaking Hydra's control are going to be very formative in the kind of person that post-WS Bucky becomes, and

b) I don't think that Bucky immediately after CA:TWS has enough emotional nuance and general in-depth comprehension of people's motivations to be able to distinguish between Hydra and people who merely happen to be in the vicinity of Hydra ... or even to understand (yet) why it matters.

So basically I guess that, while it's not that I find it impossible to imagine him doing this (it's definitely an in-character possibility, anyway), it seems like the most depressing of all possible outcomes to me. I can't really imagine this happening without a lot of collateral damage, and the idea of Bucky starting to come back to himself and realize that he's killed a bunch of people, innocent and otherwise, after being let off Hydra's leash is unspeakably awful. I already think he's going to have to struggle with believing himself a monster for the things he did on Hydra's orders, and the one mental "out" that he has, the one thing that could possibly stop him from descending into an unstoppable downward spiral of self-loathing, is that he didn't have any choice about it; he was literally forced into it. But if you take that and add the additional wrinkle that, once he did have a choice, what he chose to do was go ahead and kill a bunch of people anyway ...

... I just can't see this ending well AT ALL, I guess is what I'm saying. Either he never really comes back to himself because blood and killing is all he's ever known and still all he knows, or he does start to come back from the edge and realize that Other People Are People Too and then he's basically going to eat his own gun, or at the very least run from Steve FOREVER out of guilt and shame.

Not to mention that if Bucky does go on a multi-country killing spree, I really can't see Steve being given that much time to deal with it before someone else (Nick Fury most likely, maybe one of the other Avengers) is going to step in and take care of the problem for him.

I suppose the way that most people deal with it in fic is to have Bucky only kill bad people, but that seems too pat, too convenient .... and not that plausible. I guess where that breaks down for me (besides the fact that I still don't think it's healthy to have mass murder be his first formative experiences as a starting-to-be-independent human being) is that I really don't think he's capable of making those judgment calls accurately yet. (I mean, to the extent that anyone ever can; everyone struggles with separating the bad guys from the good guys, even Steve.) But ... I mean, even if you make the assumption that he's capable of making the call on a large-grained macroscopic level (Hydra scientists are evil --> My mission is to kill Hydra scientists only -- rather than, say, bombing an entire building just to get the one Hydra scientist inside) how well is he going to deal with things like, say, distinguishing between Hydra scientists who insist they aren't Hydra scientists, and regular people who insist they aren't Hydra scientists? Or relatives of Hydra scientists who happen to be living with them? Or Hydra janitors? Or people who have the misfortune of occupying the business above the secret Hydra base, who may or may not be aware of it ...?

On some level I guess this is a preferred-characterization thing, since I also react fairly negatively to meta of the "Bucky was always the Winter Soldier" variety, because no .... I mean, yes, he definitely always had darkness and the capacity to deal violence inside him, but I think it's pretty clear in TFA that he wouldn't have chosen that life if he hadn't been first of all drafted, and second of all feeling the moral imperative to protect Steve -- he goes to war out of a combination of necessity and personal responsibility, not because it's something that he likes or wants to do. And Bucky choosing a revenge quest post-TWS feels uncomfortably far across the "choosing to do it" line. .... in part because it's revenge on his own behalf, not to protect others or even in revenge for hurting someone else. (I mean, you could make the argument that what Steve does at the end of TFA is exactly this, a Hydra killing spree in revenge for Bucky's death, but somehow it feels different to me that Steve isn't doing it on his own behalf. Maybe that's just a hair-splitting distinction at heart, though ...)

But I feel like it's very important for Bucky, in the immediate post-TWS period, to be able to make a complete break with his past -- to be able to say "This is what you made me, but this is not all I am; I'm choosing something different". And later, when he's in a slightly healthier headspace and has a stronger sense of self, he can engage again with his own capacity to deal violence. But it really doesn't feel like the right option to me now. It feels to me that this is a road, once he starts down it, he's not going to be able to come back from.

I am open to other opinions, however! Lay it on me if you have counter-arguments for the above. Or if you just want to explain why the trope works for you. :)

Comments

[nny]

I agree entirely, partly because the whole melding of Hydra and SHIELD makes it impossible to draw the 'only killing bad people' line. It's like the conversation about Death Star contractors in Clerks. :D

[sholio]

ahaha Death Star contractors YES. :D That's a really good point, though -- in fact, there are probably a lot of people who were accidentally working for Hydra and didn't even know it (which is something that would be interesting to explore in fic ...)

[thingswithwings]

This makes a lot of sense to me. I hadn't thought very critically about the 'Bucky's going around killing HYDRA goons' trope, but now that you point it out it's definitely troubling on those two fronts.

[sholio]

I'm glad it makes sense! And it's not that I mind people enjoying the trope, obviously, or feel that they should stop enjoying it. It's just that I have trouble wrapping my mind around that particular characterization, at least without it going to some extremely dark places ...

[ratcreature]

Yeah, those are good points. I think I like the Hydra hunt better when it happens later on, maybe with Steve and other Avengers, rather than right after TWS as a Bucky-solo project.

[sholio]

Yeah, I think it feels entirely different to me as a group project later in his recovery -- and I'd really enjoy seeing more fic along those lines, actually!

[newredshoes]

I've been thinking about this post since I first saw it, actually, and am trying to sort through all my thoughts about what does and doesn't work for me. If it's fic recs you want, though, you can't do better than Some of the Colors Have to Fade, which is Bucky/Nat and which is all about confronting and throwing themselves into the utter wrongness of "murder buddies who sleep together," why that's necessary for both of them and figuring out what to do next. (I'm not doing it justice here, but it's really, really good: Nat is decidedly the thoughtful, ambiguous troll from the scene in the truck, and Bucky comes back into himself in a way that makes sense to me.) It also takes place a little bit after Bucky comes in; there's a companion story before it, but you don't need to read it to get this one.

[sholio]

Thank you for the rec! :D .... and awwww man, I really hope this post doesn't come across as being critical of anyone for liking the trope or harshing on anybody's happy place. This post was born out of running across a bunch of that type of fic in rapid succession and I was, I guess, trying to sort out my thoughts on why it doesn't work for me, in the form of a post. :D But other people's takes on it are equally valid.

... actually I guess what it comes down to is that, all attempts to rationalize it aside, for me it's mostly that some possible endings for Bucky give me warm fuzzies and others don't, and I guess I see the above trope as extremely unlikely to give me the kind of happy ending that I want? Which is really very subjective and should not be taken as any sort of blanket condemnation of it, or anything. :P But I also kind of like running across alternate takes on the character, and I would actually like to see more fics that engage with the darkside-ness of Bucky embracing his id. So many people in the fandom take it as a given that Bucky's going to end up being with Steve (for whatever one's personal idea of "with Steve" entails XD) and integrate into the Avengers and/or regular civilian life, and while I cannot lie, that's the future I want for him most of all, I'm also intrigued by versions of Bucky in which that's not his future (even if those are often too dark for me to enjoy reading them).

[newredshoes]

No, not at all! Like -- I see the trope as an attempt to give Bucky agency within a framework that makes sense to him. And I think of something like The Hurt Locker, which shows so effectively that coming back from war or combat, where it's every second of your lived experience for so long, profoundly changes how you're able to cope with the "normal" world. It's such a shock, even if you want it. I'm basically over "homeless hobo sad trash Bucky," but he really needs a structure that he recognizes, and he hasn't been his own guy since 1943 (this would have been a problem for him even if he'd had a totally ordinary war). Operating within a hunt or a mission, Bucky gets to self-determine within that. One thing at a time, after all.

Not only that, but sending Bucky out to lead Steve on a big chase for him gives Steve something to do as well -- Steve who is not all that certain about civilian life either.

It does sound like it makes a difference how much Bucky knows himself, though. After my most recent viewing, I'm thinking post-credits Bucky is a lot more self-aware than I've seen in many fanon takes, probably more along the lines of how he is in the comics. It's good melodrama to have him still be destroyed, in some sense, and I've played with that too, to be sure, but I think it's getting much more interesting to me to have him be resilient (and capable), especially when he "shouldn't" be. That's something interesting to struggle with.

That's a ramble of my own, but does that answer your question a little?

[sholio]

It does help a lot! :D Hmmm .... my thoughts on this are complicated. Let me see if I can work through them. :D

My Bucky post-Winter Soldier headcanon definitely leans in the direction of "more functional", especially compared to some of the post-WS stories that are out there, where he literally can't remember how to feed himself or understand how idioms work. Um, no ... that's not how it works in my head -- especially in light of how quickly his memories start to return after one glimpse of Steve; he's probably going to get quite a lot of it back in the weeks following the movie, even if he can't quite put it together into a coherent whole.

My post-movie headcanon Bucky still isn't as functional as the comics version -- the damage is a lot worse in the movies, and he also doesn't get the deus ex machina "fix" that he does in the comics -- but I definitely think of post-movie Bucky as a guy who is, at least, capable of taking care of himself, even if not all that well, and who is also capable of eventually putting himself back together into a functional person without Steve's help. Not that I don't enjoy the absolute hell out of the deluge of "Steve takes care of Bucky" post-movie fics (helloooo, hurt/comfort addict here) but in actual fact, I don't think he's going to be catatonic, a total amnesiac, or any of the other "Bucky is too damaged to function" versions of him that I've seen.

But I do still see him as pretty severely damaged, and most importantly, still working out his own sense of personhood, which is the thing that Hydra stamped out most thoroughly (along with his memories). What you're saying about Bucky looking for structure within the shape of something familiar does make sense, and since the only thing he's known for 70 years is killing people, it's not like I can't see that being a possible outcome for him. And killing the people who did this to him -- having the power of life or death over them -- puts a sense of control back in his hands that he hasn't had for an entire lifetime.

.... but it still, I dunno, it doesn't quite sit right with me that he has actual choices for the first time in 70 years and chooses to do that. It just doesn't quite fit with how I see Bucky's fundamental underlying personality, for one thing, because while he does have a dark edge, I guess I see him as a protector and nurturer much more than a killer; it's the "protector" side of his personality that wins at the end, after all. I think it actually would be easier for me to reconcile the Bucky-hunting-Hydra idea with the way that I see him if he's not working autonomously -- tbh, it seems very plausible to me that the movies might end up doing something akin to what the comics did, with Nick Fury recruiting Bucky and giving him missions ... that, I could see, and having someone else at least giving him some direction as to who lives and who dies feels less cold and terrifying, I guess, than Bucky appointing himself judge, jury, and executioner. Because that just doesn't feel like him, to me. And as much as I do think he's got more self-awareness and mental processing capability than a lot of fan writers give him in the immediate post-WS period, I also (like I said above) don't think he's got the ability to make the sort of fine-grained judgment calls that he'd have to make in order to commit precise surgical strikes against Hydra, with Hydra having thoroughly gone to ground among civilians and the remnants of SHIELD. A lot of the fic I've seen that uses this idea seems to treat it as if Hydra bases are discreet and distinct, and Hydra scientists are easy to pick out of the general run-of-the-mill public, and that just doesn't strike me as plausible -- I mean, imagine hunting escaped Nazi war criminals without having an intelligence infrastructure to draw upon. You'd end up with things like old men living quiet lives with their grandchildren on rural ranches in Brazil. I just don't feel like Bucky is either intellectually or emotionally equipped to make the decision about whether or not to pull the trigger on an old guy surrounded by his family (I mean, who is, really ...) or that he'd be able to deal with the emotional fallout of having done so.

(Although, god, I just plot-bunnied myself with Bucky actually DOING this, giving himself a "kill all the Hydras" mission post-WS and then the very first Hydra agent he manages to find is something along these lines, an old guy who tortured him many years ago but retired decades ago and is now living a quiet life with his loved ones, and Bucky starts to do it but he just can't and then he goes and calls Steve ... HELP, WHAT IS MY BRAIN EVEN.)

.... but I think that scenario kind of points out the specific aspect of the Bucky-on-a-killing-spree trope that bothers me, which is that I'd like to think that after everything Hydra did to him, they never managed to wipe out his fundamental core of humanity, and that when it comes right down to it, when he is the one making the judgment calls, he can't just line up people against the wall and execute them, or break ribs and kneecaps for information on the next person to kill. (If it was someone else's life at stake? Yeah, I could see it. I mean, he's a soldier and a sniper; he has killed and probably tortured, and most likely will again.) But on his own recognizance, for no other reason than revenge for what they did to him ... it's not even that I can't imagine him doing it? I think my preferred Bucky characterization is a guy who can't bring himself to, though -- someone who kills out of necessity but not because he wants to. If he crosses the line into killing because he wants to, it's difficult for me to imagine him coming back from that line.

.... I hope that makes sense?

[newredshoes]

It's not where my brain goes, but it does make sense, and I'm super interested in where I'm finding differences. To me it looks like it comes down to deciding how normal death in general and killing in particular has or hasn't become for him, and how he understands the world works (as a place where death isn't special, maybe), and how much he relates to the world or not. I guess I also like the idea that his going after his torturers and following through isn't at odds with his humanity, that having both isn't a divide-by-zero error.

For me, I guess I'm not imagining Bucky going through with it for revenge or satisfaction, too. It's not about wanting so much as justice, for him: You don't get to do this to me, and the years since you did this to me don't mitigate what you did. I'd be interested in a Bucky who accepts that his choices are going to make people really uncomfortable, apparently. Headcanon party! Everybody should write the thing that intrigues them.

I mean, also, for him it hasn't been 70 years; we don't know how long he's been awake, but probably not more than five years, say. Longer than he was in the war. I guess you also, as a writer, make some decisions about what his moral and emotional baseline is, whether it's pre-war or pre-WS or what. All present intriguing possibilities!

[sholio]

This does make sense; I appreciate you explaining, because it does help me a little with figuring out where this kind of fic is coming from! And you know, I did read the fic you linked me to, and while it doesn't quite hit my happy fic sweet spots, I definitely agree that it's well written and it doesn't ping me as "off" in the way that a lot of "round the world murder rampage" fics do ... and it's interesting to analyze why: I think a lot of it has to do with Bucky taking a little time beforehand and interacting with people in a non-killing capacity before he goes Hydra-hunting, as well as Natasha being a big part of the driving force behind it. Which is all very interesting in terms of how it intersects with my general Bucky post-WS headcanon(s).

Re: your first and last paragraphs, I definitely think a big part of it has to do with who "your" Bucky is -- what he's capable of, where his moral baseline is located, etc. Especially considering that I don't actually have an across-the-board problem with the "murder rampage" plotline or with sympathetic-yet-homicidal characters (The Professional is one of my favorite movies, after all...) I think a lot of it for me is specific to my particular take on Bucky, what I see as his fundamental underlying nature, and where I see him going. The post-WS killing-spree fic pings me very strongly, in general, as "this is not my Bucky!" but that doesn't make it wrong (all the above rationalizing aside :P).

(And yeah, that's a good point about not being awake for the whole 70 years. In the comics I think he ages about 5 years -- which still makes him almost painfully young for someone having to deal with all the awful shit he goes through -- and it's possible in the movies that it's no more than a couple of years.)

[metanewsmods]

Hi, can we link this at metanews?

[sholio]

sure, go ahead! :)