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.
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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?