In which I have opinions

[selenak]

Goofiest fannish thing of the month I did: going to the Star Wars: Identies exhibition which is currently here in Munich and taking pictures of the Ahsoka Tano part of it.

Comments

[selenak]

But it's not because he's incapable of interacting with people, or unaware of their emotions.

Oh absolutely. I mean, I do think he's become more aware post Afghanistan than pre Afghanistan, but not because pre-Afghanistan, he was incapable of it. Plus it's pretty clear he uses the obliviousness thing when it suits him. Minor case in point: when Maya first shows up on his doorstep, he pretends not to know her, but a moment later introduces her by name to Pepper (without Maya having said her name in between) but by saying "please tell me there's no twelve years boy in the car outside" shows he knows exactly when he'd last seen her. And the fanon that he didn't have friendships pre Avengers, or only one sided relationships with people on his payroll, is just bewildering. Rhodey has known Tony since they were at MIT together (i.e. late teenage years), never worked for him, frequently disagrees with him and in fact has retained far more of a non-Tony life than Sam has been shown to have a non-Steve life post Winter Soldier. Even with people who do work for him: Tony knows that, say, Happy Hogan is a big Downton Abbey fan, which is the kind of trivia you recall about a friend, not about someone eternally nanny-ing you, which is how all too often Tony's social circle gets written in fanfiction.

I mean, this infantilizing of a character is hardly unique to this fandom - I remember Blake's 7 fanfiction in which both Vila and miraculously surviving Blake basically apologize to Avon for his attempts to kill them because they didn't understand his trauma! -, but it still grates.

All this aside, on another note: I didn't have the impression he was trying to kill Steve at the end of the movie. He was certainly trying to kill Bucky. Which is absolutely in line with the Tony who responded to Happy Hogan in the hospital with giving the Mandarin his address and basically challenging him to a duel so he could kill him. (Kill, not arrest and imprison, was the announced intention. Now what he'd have done if there had been a real Mandarin instead of Trevor is another question, because that was several days and time to think later, but the immediate reaction certainly was the intention to kill.)

[abigail_n]

Oh god, the "Tony doesn't have any friends!" business. Don't remind me.

In terms of Tony's actions at the end of the movie, I think that if you're trying to get through Steve Rogers with the intent of killing his best friend, you're pretty much by definition trying to kill him. I agree that Tony probably didn't articulate that intention to himself, but I also think he knew what he was about - that fight doesn't look as if either of them is holding back, because they're not the sort of people who do hold back. (This, by the way, is my big problem with involving Peter in his fight - not so much that Peter is a child, though that is also a huge problem, but that everyone else in that fight is a killer, and except for Scott and maybe T'Challa, they're all people who are very comfortable with killing. That puts Peter at a huge disadvantage that he probably wasn't even aware of.)

[selenak]

Having watched the movie twice now, I think it's pretty clear that other than T'Challa, who intends to kill Bucky, and only Bucky, right until the Zemo reveal throughout the movie, nobody at the airport has the intention of killing anyone else. In fact, that's why Tony, Natasha etc. are at the air port to begin with. In order of chronology: Ross tells Tony that after Steve and Bucky got several people in the hospital during Bucky's escape, he's sending troops after them with a shoot on sight order. Tony says he'll bring in Steve & Co. instead, Ross after some humiliation conga ("why should I trust you do do any better etc.") gives him 36 hours to do so. Tony and Natasha then talk tactics, she says they're severaly underpowered, we get the Bruce reference, and they have their mutual lightning bulbs ("My idea is in the building, where's yours?" "Queens"), heading off to their respective recruitments.

(Incidentally, a case could be made that Natasha, who like Tony has not been informed by Team Steve about the Zemo issue, wouldn't have minded if T'Challa had killed Bucky at this point, but I haven't seen anyone making it. She clearly changes her mind later on this issue, of course.)

At this point, neither Tony or Natasha know that Bucky has been framed, or that there is a third party involved. They do know that he went into Winter Soldier mode again, and that Steve and Sam helped him escape, and that Clint and Wanda just left the Compound, with no prices to guessing they're going to back up Steve. The goal here to them is making an arrest that keeps their friends alive, as opposed Ross sending the army after them. It's not unreasonable to suppose that a) their friends won't attack them with lethal force, and b) could be talked into surrendering. (Because if you don't know yet that there's a possible supervillain plan involving Winter Soldiers afoot, the question is simply Bucky, who has just, again, as far as they know, demonstrated why he really shouldn't be left to roam at large.)

Later, after Peter has gotten and lost Steve's shield, his first action at the air port fight, asks Tony what to do, and Tony replies "like we discussed, keep your distance and web them up". Which sounds like Peter was supposed to not engage in combat with anyone but do his shooting webs from a distance thing to immobilize and disarm them. Now don't get me wrong: none of this changes Peter's age. Or the fact that Tony should have guessed that telling a teenager who's already spent half a year as a vigilante to keep his distance and stick to disarming, not fighting, is wasted breath. Not to mention that even if he could trust Steve, Sam and Clint (he didn't know about Scott) not to go for a killing stroke, he had no such certainty about Bucky. But if you want to bring someone to a fight where the primary goal isn't to kill your opponents but to disarm and immobilize then, Spider-Man with his abilities is actually a good choice (good as in effective, not good as in morally right). Especially if the main person to be disarmed and immoblized is Captain America, since Steve seems to be the one Tony actually had told Peter go after (or rather, his shield and his legs).