One thing that kind of fascinates me about that, though, is that this is actually a job he’s much better suited for. And that’s what Erskine designed him as: Steve isn’t the perfect soldier, he’s the good man. Could he have been, if he was one of many?

http://www.bleedingcool.com/2016/05/25/captain-america-writer-nick-spencer-gets-death-threats-on-social-media/

People, don’t do this.  This is wrong.

Death threats are never acceptable.

But it’s worth noting that bleedingcool clearly just did a search for the word “die,” because several of the tweets there aren’t threats on Spencer at all. They’re people horrified that Steve Rogers is a person who’d want to see them dead. And that conversation is, I think, very much appropriate.

Because the thing that I think we sometimes forget, but that Agent Carter brought into delightful focus, is that in terms of how Steve Rogers is remembered by society, Phil Coulson- or any other fan- actually does know him better than Steve does. Certainly better than Bucky or Peggy or any of the Howling Commandos. They all experienced the events, but they experienced them as their own protagonists. (This is why, as much as I love them, stories where Bucky remembers his history partly through narrative accounts of Captain America don’t always work for me: just because they experienced the same event doesn’t mean they lived the same story.)

Even Steve’s memories are more focused on him as person than him as symbol, so he must constantly feel like he’s in a parallel universe, surrounded by his history that is also not his own history. Coulson could probably tell him more about his own experiences, and more accurately, than he could explain them himself. But Peggy? Peggy’s memories are fundamentally less valuable as part of the cultural consciousness because recounting her lived experiences would displace Steve as the hero of his story. Right now all of society is gaslighting her out of her very real memories of some of the most important experiences of her life.

I was scared to even hope for the idea that Agent Carter could be exploring what it means to be seen as a secondary character in someone else’s narrative, but based on these episodes that seems to be one of the main themes of the show, and I could not be more delighted.

I actually really disagree with “Phil Coulson- or any other fan- actually does know him better than Steve does” because what the fake show on Agent Carter showed was that the Captain America narrative was changed to suit society. As Jarvis says to her, “Captain Rogers relied heavily on you. For courage, strategy, and moral guidance. You were his support.” To minimize/dismiss Peggy Carter from his narrative means his narrative is not correct and is in fact missing a vital person from it. She helped pivot Steve from the war bond tour to an actual hero/soldier, including by getting him to where the 107th was and in his last battle. (And that’s just Peggy, we’re assuming the Howling Commandos became part of the Captain America narrative in MCU immediately, but the only proof we have is that they are shown in the newsreels with him, and they were joined by other soldiers and nothing canonically pointed them out as more important in CA:TFA.) Other/modern fans may have a better overview of what else was happening during his experiences (a better understanding of WWII, the larger context of fighting Hydra, etc), but to say they “could probably tell him more about his own experiences, and more accurately” is absurd. Steve can’t tell you about how the Captain America image has grown/changed/shaped and been shaped, but he will definitely have a better understanding of what Captain America and Steve Rogers actually did in WWII, since he did them. History is erasing Peggy Carter’s role and no matter when she is re-added to the narrative (if she ever is), that gap will always be a factor in how well people can understand Captain America’s actual experiences. (And lbr, historians have to fight tooth and nail when they are contradicting firmly held stories of cis white males that serve as a fundamental part of our collective historical knowledge, and a lot of times those contradictions will be continuously smothered/hidden/dismissed even in the face of overwhelming evidence.) 

I think the first comment was on point and I really love when it gets explored in fanfic - that the Captain America myth is not the reality, and so what happens when we are faced with that reality? (There’s a reason dead heroes are an easy sell; we can re-package them however we want.) But the Captain America myth is not his actual experiences, it is a story, and no one will ever be able to accurately tell Steve those experiences over the person who lived them, especially because vital parts of that experience (Peggy) are erased. They may be able to tell the story better than him (since he’s missing seventy years of it being shaped), but not his actual experiences.

But seriously that Agent Carter was not at all subtle about how Peggy’s story is getting erased was amazing. As a secondary character in someone else’s narrative she is being dismissed while getting boldly contrasted with how she is the main character of her own narrative. That each narrative has equal weight, and we get to see how the stories shape each other (everything Peggy does in Agent Carter is the reason Steve is with SHIELD in Cap 2) even as we’re also told how the myths about them are being built (and the myth of Peggy as a damsel in distress in the general public - not to mention the later myth inside SHIELD of Directer Carter - is just as false a myth as what they turn Captain America into) is incredibly cool. 

I guess my answer is that arguably, “truth” or what “really” happened is subjective. If Steve remembers one thing, and all of society remembers the other, as far as cultural knowledge goes Steve DOES have less than a fan does.

That said, I realize I wasn’t entirely clear, so let me rephrase slightly: Steve knows best what Steve’s experiences were, but because he experienced the actual events, Steve understands less about Captain America’s experiences than an avid Cap fan would. Even when he was alive, Cap was a legend. Steve is a person. They can’t be the same.

This is not in any way to devalue the work that Peggy or any of the Commandos did, because I think it was vital and it’s a story that should be told more. And it’s not to undermine the importance of the events that happened (er, within the fictionally-constructed “happened”). But accuracy isn’t an absolute, and seventy years after the fact, what’s considered accurate may not be what was considered accurate then. Captain America was more of a symbol than a person even when he was alive the first time, and even though in some ways they were the same person, in other Cap was a person Steve never really knew.

I know that this isn’t JUST a refutation to America in 2017 and also every Cap comic since Brubaker, but at the same time, how can I not see it like that?