(Having too many thoughts on the weekend)
This is sort of a rehash of this meta but can we talk about how one of Hollywood's permanent fixtures is "follow your heart"? It turns up everywhere, from action to space opera to chick flicks to animation, but probably features most in rom-coms and kid movies.
Steve's arc literally starts with Erskine pointing at his heart and telling him that's the reason he deserved to be a super soldier. But as often is the case, he loses his way: he gets swept into the propaganda machine and is spat out as a dancing monkey in spandex. He's "Captain America" but he has no real battle experience, no team to fight with, and he seems unable to remember why he wanted to join the army in the first place.
Not a perfect soldier, but a good man.
This is the line we remember -- Steve is not a good soldier because he has demonstrated time and again that he won't blindly follow an order that he cannot morally agree to. But he isn't always a rebel.
And these are your only two options? A lab rat or a dancing monkey?
(...)
You know, for the longest time, I dreamed about coming overseas and being on the front lines, serving my country. I finally got everything I wanted and I'm wearing tights.
When he met Peggy again, he had spent months trying to tell himself that he's serving his country, just not in the way he imagined. He stoically pushes on with something he doesn't like and isn't good at because he doesn't think he has the right to rebel.
So it is key that when Steve does get the impetus to rebel, it is for Bucky, and it is the first time he stands up against his superiors and do what his heart tells him. TPTB are telling him to stay put, logic is telling him that he has no chance, but his heart says he has to go -- and he does, and for that he is rewarded the prize of actually becoming the person he wanted to be: a soldier, a leader, and someone who finally gives meaning to the title of "Captain America".
And each time after that Steve "follows his heart" and breaks rank from being "a good soldier", he does it because of Bucky. At the end of CATFA, he was always going to go after Hydra and the Red Skull, but Bucky's death changes his trajectory to "I'm not going to stop until all of them are dead".
When we get to CATWS, Steve is in a similar quagmire of self-doubt and uncertainty. He's talking to Sam in vague terms about quitting and finding something more meaningful. He's herded onto an anti-Shield path by Fury's death and Zola's reveal, but that was not the moment the penny dropped, so to speak.
Remember the brief exchange before Sitwell was pulled from the car on the Causeway?
Insight is launching in 16 hours.
We're cutting a little close here.
I know, we'll use him to bypass the DNA scanners and access the Helicarriers directly.
Now look at Steve's new plan when he meets up with Fury.
We have to get past them, insert these server blades. And maybe, just maybe we can salvage what's left...
We're not salvaging anything.
And what happened in between?
Stopping the Helicarriers was their plan as soon as they found out Hydra had infiltrated SHIELD. It was still the plan when Sitwell told them that the Helicarriers would be programmed to kill according to Zola's algorithm. But the stance became a firm "SHIELD, Hydra, it all goes" when he realised who Hydra held hostage.
CACW was essentially all about Steve staying true to his heart. His insistence on preserving their autonomy is being mocked as arrogant. Tony has been pushing for greater security for years, but Steve can't get out of his mind Zola's words: "HYDRA created a world so chaotic that humanity is finally ready to sacrifice its freedom to gain its security".
Bucky -- specifically, the world's treatment of Bucky -- allows Steve to see his fears about the Accords come to fruition. Despite Bucky's innocence, he was afforded minimal justice, dignity or autonomy in the events. At various points of the story, Steve had wavered and nearly compromised, and it is Bucky's circumstances that gave him the resolve to stay true to his beliefs. Bucky's circumstances also directly lead Steve to his final choice of relinquishing the shield and carrying Bucky away, symbolically walking away from what the world has imposed on him and moving forward with what his heart believes.
Steve's arc through the three movies was the biggest "stay true and follow your heart" arc in the MCU...and his heart was always, narratively, where Bucky was.
