Using the “well, he stopped selling them” argument every time Stark is criticized for selling weapons as an attempt to separate him for the trade and deaths those weapons caused for years is sign of just how privileged he was and I think it’s disingenuous to claim otherwise.
I think it is actually part of the pattern in the MCU as a whole. For a lot of designated “heroes” redemption basically means “stop doing the bad thing”.
Like, Thor simply stopped (even if not really) murdering inhabitants of other realms in imperialistic “interventions” and being openly racist towards them (again, not really) and is never even called out on it. He even gets to say “In my youth I courted war” barely a year after his last attempt at pointless murder of Jotuns. Valkyrie stopped selling slaves and it’s never mentioned again. Hell, Mobius stops supporting genocide of entire universes for made up crimes only after it becomes personal for him and is still painted as a good and righteous guy, worthy of being a judge of the morality of others.
And the ones who are villanized and get ‘redemption arcs’ are the characters who had their autonomy taken from them and couldn’t do anything to stop it…
Character who commits genocide and/or other horrible crimes then (sometimes) realizes their mistakes:
Character who is tortured and/or otherwise forced into doing something bad (even when it’s not as bad as what the first character did):
idk how anyone can watch the winter soldier and not think bucky is the victim. he doesn’t owe a single person an apology. his body was turned into a weapon he couldn’t control and he was tortured/brainwashed for 70 years. it’s not that hard
i do think the situation in civil war could’ve been handled a little better than beating tony to a pulp though…
When did they best Tony to a pulp in civil war?
Berlin? Tony was fine. And Bucky was mind-controlled by Zemo for that fight.
The airport? Tony got a few scrapes and bruises, but he was otherwise fine. Also, that fight wouldn’t have happened if Tony had just listened to Steve’s explanation.
Siberia? Tony was mostly fine. However, the fight only happened because Tony kept trying to murder Bucky.Steve and Bucky had every right to defend themselves and each other! There was only one character who came out of that fight severely injured, but it sure as hell wasn’t Tony
