teamtonystank:

ussenterpeen:

teamtonystank:

Example of the clash between people’s external reads on Tony vs. The Truth.

(huge thank you to @knightinironarmor for inspiring this gifset)

This is very important to note. The audience (assuming they’ve seen the majority of MCU movies), have seen Tony make mistakes, harbor extreme guilt and anxiety over them, and try his best to correct them, all while assuring those around him that he’s totally fine through use of humor and a deceptively inflated ego. Watching Civil War, we sympathize with this man who is clearly struggling with PTSD and is trying to do what is right in order to atone for what he had a part in doing.

However, people like Sam, Scott, and even Clint and Steve, have only seen a small fraction of what Tony has gone through. Clint, Steve, and the rest of the Avengers were with him in Avengers and AoU, but neither of them saw him deal with the aftermath of New York. In fact, it’s made quite clear that everyone parted ways after Avengers (the exception being Bruce, but the whole ‘falling asleep, not-that-kind-of-doctor’ thing deserves a separate post). Steve went to work for SHIELD, Clint went (presumably) to his family and SHIELD, and so on and so forth. None of these people knew Tony wasn’t sleeping, or was getting anxiety attacks, or was burdened with the horrible guilt of almost letting Pepper die in IM3. 

In AoU, the band’s back together, but it’s clear their mission is wiping out HYDRA. And, as Zemo notes in CW, decrypting these top secret HYDRA locations probably took a decent chunk of time, on top of generally dealing with the government and Steve and Sam’s search for Bucky. I doubt they were working on taking down HYDRA for more than half a year by the time we catch up with them in AoU. 

I know a lot of people enjoy the idea of everyone hanging out and being besties in Avengers’ tower, but that line of thinking completely ignores how autonomous these near strangers are, before the Avengers and after. Of course you have some of them who are close (Tony-Rhodey, Steve-Sam, Nat-Clint, Tony-Bruce [arguably]), but the only time they’re really ever shown to be relaxing is at the party scene in AoU, which I don’t think happens every day. Even then, they spend most of the party apart, presumably only coming back together at the end because most of them probably live there temporarily between HYDRA castle-storming missions. I sincerely doubt Tony’s PTSD, anxiety, and other traumas came up in casual conversation around the tower; this is the guy who couldn’t even tell the love of his life that he was slowly dying and even led her to believe he was totally ignorant of her feelings until he found a way to cure himself. You think he’s confiding in Steve Rogers, national hero, idol of his father’s, and ‘perfect teeth-having nice guy’? Hell no.

Hell, at the end of AoU, Tony retreats even further from the group – giving up his suits, his role as an active Avenger, and generally any kind of responsibility to the group besides funding. In CW, Tony has to sum up what’s happened to him in the past year to Steve, who has no idea he and Pepper are on the rocks (and even thought they were pregnant). This small talk demonstrates how close they aren’t, really, and should show that Steve does not truly empathize with Tony’s need to step back and hand the reigns over to someone who can hold them accountable. I’ve written a whole other meta on why Steve is right in his own way not to trust Ross or the Accords; in short, he feels he can best atone for his personal guilt and regret by doing what is good for the many, if on his own terms and illegally, instead of putting himself in a situation where he might be prohibited from doing so entirely (’what if there’s somewhere they need to go, and they don’t let us?’).

So when we look at the scene above with Sam – who BARELY knows Tony (it can be assumed he only met him sometime shortly before AoU since he’s been searching nonstop for Bucky and is not invited to handle Avengers business until the very end of the movie) – we have to remember that he knows Tony almost the least of everyone. All he knows of Tony prior to CW is what Tony’s put on display to the public: his flashy cars/gadgets/expo, his I do what I want attitude (IM2 specifically), and this disarming, seemingly arrogant personality that sets almost everyone on edge. As the audience, we can’t yell at Sam and co. and say “how dare you not sympathize with everything he’s been through!!” when Tony has only just started letting the closest people in his life to him know when something’s wrong in IM3. 

Sam is a good counselor and, yeah, you can argue that maybe he could make an educated guess that Tony’s ego is largely for show, but he’s just been beat down, thrown in prison, and is now face to face with the man who caused the latter to happen. Even if he knew to pull his punches – which he does eventually, when he trusts Tony with Steve’s location and to go as a friend – he’s not exactly in the best mood to. He’s on the defensive and unsure as to Tony’s motive considering they were in a mutual disagreement until he took the A out of the Raft’s AV.

ANYWAY, I just hate this Tony vs Steve, right vs wrong rhetoric, and I think it’s important to remember that the point of IM1-3 was to make this very complicated character sympathetic to the audience, while the rest of the Avengers weren’t given the luxury of watching his development and growth over eight years. I didn’t read the source link, so maybe what I’ve written is redundant, but it’s something I’ve thought about A LOT and just wanted to get off my chest.

@ussenterpeen First of all: thank you SO MUCH for putting something constructive on my post and not just a bunch of wank/character hate. It’s incredibly refreshing, and you make a lot of genuinely good points. 🙂

I’d also like to reblog your commentary (even though I’m tired of reblogging this gifset, honestly), because I think “Sam/the others genuinely don’t know everything about Tony” is a point that needs to be reiterated. I put a simple version of that sentiment on my original tags for this gifset, but I’ve gone through tag reader and have seen a lot of vitriol aimed at Sam for this scene and it was not intention of this post!

And speaking of, I feel it important to tell you that my intention with this post was not perpetuation of “Tony vs Steve”/ “Team Iron Man vs Team Cap” (though I have reblogged many such posts, I’ll admit). This gifset intends to remind us, the fandom, that Tony Stark is more than an egomaniac who has motives rooted only in selfishness and a lack of self-awareness (as many marvel fans claim). The source link also never intended to assume that characters are intentionally mischaracterizing/misunderstanding Tony. It merely pointed out the ways that they do, (citing Civil War-specific examples ranging from MIT ass-kissers to the other Avengers). Accordingly, I meant this post to be an extension of my empathy for Tony Stark. It’s meant to be like “look: here is an example of how people both in and outside of the MCU don’t understand this character. These people either haven’t seen (the MCU characters) or have forgotten (the fandom) these instances that show he’s so different from what they claim. Isn’t that simultaneously tragic and fascinating?”

I’d also like to say, having read the meta you linked to, that I think it’s unfair to say people shouldn’t choose sides (even though these divisive discussions are tiresome). We can simultaneously 1) acknowledge the motivations of both Steve and Tony and 2) decide that we still consider one side to be more “right.” To use myself as an example: I know Steve was, like Tony, operating under compromised judgment and was just doing what he was right. However, I found Steve’s anti-Oversight position to have inherently dangerous implications (i.e. american militarized force ignoring sovereign borders and national laws to act solely based on their own judgment = SCARY AS HELL). I also found his particular mistakes harder to forgive than Tony’s for reasons outlined here and here. Ergo: I side with Tony. And I’m sure others have opposite reasoning (”I get where both are coming from, but I ultimately pick Team Cap because ______”) and it’s fair to let them make that choice.