Entry tags:
In today's Zemo thoughts
By way of a gifset showing off Daniel Bruhl's puppy eyes in one particular Civil War scene (the rational part of my brain: let's not forget there's a dead body in the bathtub throughout this scene, however) I ended up rewatching the Zemo scenes in Civil War tonight, as you do ...
(How is this my life now.)
... and thinking about something that![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sheron and I were talking about recently, which is that while he is absolutely ruthless about his goals, and there are certain categories of people that he seems to kill without remorse (supersoldiers, Hydra, people who are actively trying to kill him), he actually seems to try to go out of his way not to kill, hurt, or even attack most people if he doesn't have to. This is underscored much more heavily than I remembered in his establishing scene with the Hydra guy:
Zemo: Hydra deserves its place on the ash heap, so your death would not bother me. But I'd have to use this book, and other, bloodier methods to find what I need. I don't look forward to that.
It's really interesting to me that they went with this method of introducing him, where it's true that his introduction is ruthless and brutal, but also he appears to be trying to avoid what he considers unnecessary bloodshed or collateral damage, and the plot of the movie is actually his backup plan when the first one doesn't pan out. At the end of that scene, if anything, he looks resigned and unhappy - as he said, he doesn't mind killing the Hydra guy, but he really didn't want to have to do the rest of it.
(There's a deleted scene with an alternate method of Zemo acquiring the book, which appears to involve Zemo killing a room full of people - possibly only knocking them out, but that really didn't look gentle. Anyway, it's one of those narrative decisions where it turns his arc into something very different than if gassing a room full of people and then moving on to terrorism was actually his plan A.)
On the other hand, this rewatch impressed on me all over again how absolutely batshit his Plan B is.
Presumably his original plan - while obsessive, ruthless, and not how we handle emotional trauma, Zemo - was relatively straightforward, with a minimum of collateral damage aside from wrecking the lives of a handful of people he blames for his family's deaths: Interrogate the Hydra guy for the information he needed, fly to Siberia and kill the other Winter Soldiers and get the video, and then, idk, perhaps mail the video to Tony and off himself in Siberia.
But no, that didn't work!
Then he had to go to plan B, which was more like:
"Step 49 of 1107: create a realistic Bucky face mask."
(I mean, it's in character, but also, why are you so extra, Zemo.)
Anyway, I really like how consistent the CW part of his character development actually is with the TFATWS part, allowing for the fact that he's obviously unhinged with grief in 2016 and by the Falcon & Winter Soldier time period, has had some time to deal with it and develop a new Reason For Living (at least 50% less unhinged, though still kinda fanatic).
(How is this my life now.)
... and thinking about something that
sheron and I were talking about recently, which is that while he is absolutely ruthless about his goals, and there are certain categories of people that he seems to kill without remorse (supersoldiers, Hydra, people who are actively trying to kill him), he actually seems to try to go out of his way not to kill, hurt, or even attack most people if he doesn't have to. This is underscored much more heavily than I remembered in his establishing scene with the Hydra guy:Zemo: Hydra deserves its place on the ash heap, so your death would not bother me. But I'd have to use this book, and other, bloodier methods to find what I need. I don't look forward to that.
It's really interesting to me that they went with this method of introducing him, where it's true that his introduction is ruthless and brutal, but also he appears to be trying to avoid what he considers unnecessary bloodshed or collateral damage, and the plot of the movie is actually his backup plan when the first one doesn't pan out. At the end of that scene, if anything, he looks resigned and unhappy - as he said, he doesn't mind killing the Hydra guy, but he really didn't want to have to do the rest of it.
(There's a deleted scene with an alternate method of Zemo acquiring the book, which appears to involve Zemo killing a room full of people - possibly only knocking them out, but that really didn't look gentle. Anyway, it's one of those narrative decisions where it turns his arc into something very different than if gassing a room full of people and then moving on to terrorism was actually his plan A.)
On the other hand, this rewatch impressed on me all over again how absolutely batshit his Plan B is.
Presumably his original plan - while obsessive, ruthless, and not how we handle emotional trauma, Zemo - was relatively straightforward, with a minimum of collateral damage aside from wrecking the lives of a handful of people he blames for his family's deaths: Interrogate the Hydra guy for the information he needed, fly to Siberia and kill the other Winter Soldiers and get the video, and then, idk, perhaps mail the video to Tony and off himself in Siberia.
But no, that didn't work!
Then he had to go to plan B, which was more like:
"Step 49 of 1107: create a realistic Bucky face mask."
(I mean, it's in character, but also, why are you so extra, Zemo.)
Anyway, I really like how consistent the CW part of his character development actually is with the TFATWS part, allowing for the fact that he's obviously unhinged with grief in 2016 and by the Falcon & Winter Soldier time period, has had some time to deal with it and develop a new Reason For Living (at least 50% less unhinged, though still kinda fanatic).
no subject
And contains a spectacular failure mode, which is: whoops, assassinated the king of Wakanda! One shudders to imagine his Plan C.
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
Also that gifset is 🥰 the eyes!
no subject
Eyes!!
no subject
"Step 49 of 1107: create a realistic Bucky face mask."
(I mean, it's in character, but also, why are you so extra, Zemo.)
Okay, now I need there to be a running fandom joke where they're in some desperate situation and Zemo's like, "I can get us out of this, but I'm going to need the following ridiculously specific items/skills," e.g., "I can break us out of prison, but first I'm going to need several tubes of theatrical greasepaint and a high-quality sound recording of a train, and you're going to have to learn some conversational Polish."
no subject
At no point during the prison break do Sam and Bucky end up needing to speak Polish; they never find out if that was part of the contingency plan or Zemo trolling. When asked point-blank sometime after the fact, he just does the head-tilt.
no subject
LOL!
no subject
no subject
no subject
OMG, I want this desperately. It would lend itself very well to a Noodle Incident type of tossed-off comment that's never explained - "that time we were thrown into a Russian gulag and Zemo broke us out using [list of thoroughly improbable materials] ... I still don't know what he wanted the potato for."
Another thing mentioned in the movie that never seems to come up in fic is that he was also in Sokovian intelligence, which seems like a detail that might come up in fic in interesting ways. People utilize the commando/kill-squad thing - probably because he does show this side of himself a few times in the show - but I'm not sure if I've seen anyone lean into the movie details that he's very good at cryptography, data analysis, and (apparently) building EMP bombs from scratch.
no subject
Please do: I agree with you. I feel like people remember the intelligence work when it comes to head games, but not the professional rest of it.
no subject
no subject
Granted, I didn't realize my future held quite so much Zemo in it :D
Nor did any of us.