Tag: alexander pierce

sebastian-bucky:

From Captain America #11 – Ed Brubaker

A comprehensive mental evaluation of Codename: Winter Soldier was conducted over the course of the past week. Diagnoses are varied, but most in Dept. X Science Team believe that his mental state is becoming unstable. In the three years since he was awakened from stasis, it appears his mind is seeking to fill in the holes of his memory, or possible rebelling against the implanted programming he received originally. The subject has recently begun to exhibit more than usual curiosity, even to the point of questioning orders from superiors, and once in the past month, he attacked a fellow operative, nearly killing him. On interrogation he could not explain his actions.

One theory is that just as he has reflex-memories which allow him to be such an effective operative, he may also have a deeply buried sense of who he was, or at least of what kind of person he was. As such, this deeply buried idea may be causing him mental stress and triggering turmoil in his thoughts. Another theory, which is more disturbing, is that he may actually be remembering his previous life, though in small pieces only. It is therefore our recommendation that Codename: Winter Soldier be kept in stasis between missions, and then he undergo Mental Implantation at every awakening. We believe this will correct his instability issues, so he can continue to be of use to Department X.

sherloques:

Captain America: The Winter Soldier Audio Commentary:

“This is another moment where Redford really makes the villain human, he’s got a point. That’s the thing: authoritarianism is rearing its head again. The movie tests philosophy. He’s a bureaucrat who is not much further than the bureaucrats we’ve all come to know in our lives. His thinking is just an extrapolation of a kill list, which is if there are ten individuals deemed dangerous do you have the right to kill them? What if there’s a thousand? Well, what if there’s ten thousand or if there’s a million? At what point, if we can effectively psychologically profile people, then we have one? And what are the constraints of that profile? Where do you draw the line?”

sherloques:

Captain America: The Winter Soldier Audio Commentary:

“You think
Pierce’s come down and the assassin is here to kill him, but the reversal is
he’s here for instructions. This sort of structure, where someone comes in to a
place thinking they’ll be alone and somebody is already there, happens 3 times
in the movie. It is slightly symbolic of the fact that HYDRA’s been there all
along. Fury’s there when Steve comes in, Winter Soldier is here, and Fury’s
there again later in the cave.”

sherloques:

Captain America: The Winter Soldier Audio Commentary:

“It’s such a great moment there with Chris Evans and Robert Redford. People have remarked how in an earlier age Robert could have played Captain America. It’s really nice how they are two peas in a pot. There’s just a wonderful game of chess going on between these two characters. You get to see Cap, who you wouldn’t think would be equipped to play this kind of game, is actually equipped to play it a little bit. And the whole thing builds towards a very critical moment for him as a character where he is forced to lie. Who does he trust: does he trust Fury or does he trust Pierce?”

agent13ofthessr:

alexander pierce and wilson fisk are the mcu’s scariest, most effective villains not because they can control armies of aliens/robots/whatever, but because they can control people. they are frightening because they are absolutely ruthless in the ways in which they manipulate, intimidate, and flat-out murder people to further their own ends.

they are believable because we can identify with their concern and love for those they care about; they do not exist in a vacuum. they have daughters and grandchildren and girlfriends and mothers, and they care about their loved ones. 

and they are horrifying because they believe that what they are doing is right. they aren’t in the game for the sheer love of being evil; they’re in it because they believe so fervently that their way is the best way–because they conflate the expedience of eliminating “undesirables” with doing the right thing.

pierce and fisk are terrifying and i love it.

puck39:

puck39:

You know, as much as I think Sebastian’s reactions are hilarious, the mainstream entertainment media’s unified insistence that Bucky is the villain fucking scares me. Not only is it grade A+ unquestioning victim-blaming, they’re also doing exactly what Hydra wanted them to do….

“The part that scares me even more about this is – I wonder how much of this is conscious? Because if they don’t even recognize what they are
doing, and I’m betting most of them don’t, that is terrifying to the
next level.”- jamie-sf

That’s kinda what I was thinking about when I made the post tbh.  When I said deliberate I didn’t mean the heads of media corporations sit around like Bond villains petting cats, twirling their mustaches and deciding to make a big conspiracy over Bucky being the villain, although some people took it that way. 

I meant more that I have never seen any media outlet correctly identify Pierce as the villain, even though that’s exactly what the movie is about, and the fact that all of them do it trumps coincidence.  Why they all do it could be a variety of things, from them honestly not having seen the movie and relying on other people’s reports, to them not thinking about the content they’re watching and not questioning ingrained societal values, to assuming that because Steve directly fights Bucky that makes him the villain.  (As an aside, there’s something really interesting about Steve and Pierce being the main characters, being foils, and yet their final conflict is not with each other but with secondary characters. I might meta that later) It could be a mix of reasons. 

I just get concerned about it because by all of them taking this stance, it reinforces the idea that Bucky is the villain is the “correct” interpretation, and people who don’t really think about what they watch will absorb that message and not question it, and they will not realize that Pierce is the real villain of the movie and that Bucky is innocent.

It gets even more dangerous in America, because it teaches not to question white rich government-based power, instead to blame the innocent in the crossfire, and considering we’ve seen the direct, blatant misuse of government power not only in the last couple months but within the last half a decade or so, this is a very, very, very dangerous thing to be teaching people, intentionally or not. 

While I don’t think the individual reporters themselves are necessarily doing something wrong on purpose, seen within the greater context of media influence (and the media does have influence, a huge amount of influence on what we know and how we think) this becomes a huge problem.   

Okay -responding to a couple of different points since I do agree with you but I also didn’t respond in much detail at all.

I suspect it is mostly unconscious/subconscious. The Winter Soldier is the villain. His name is in the title. He’s dressed in black. He shoots (and temporarily kills some) of the good guys. He’s literally coded as the bad guy of the piece by the simplistic code of superhero movies/comics. [Batman aside.] [And after I wrote this I see you said the same above….]

But there is also the deliberate level of it too. The Fox News aspect, if you will. The deliberate misleading of the public to see the older white well dressed male in power as simply doing as he sees best. I have no doubt there are people who walked out of that film angry that Pierce got killed. He was leader and he was trying to protect people. It is a great twist on the early American 70s political thrillers that the Russos and the writers were inspired by. I do wonder if the mass media machine deliberately is encouraging that impression, which is also terrifying.

There is also the coded power of the military here (and echoes of the Cold War with the Soviet slugs [side note: that is really archaic language to be using around military hardware. They simply wouldn’t call it that in the real world.] by having the person in power doing questionable things with it. From the STRIKE teams on the ship, to chasing down Steve, to the Winter Soldier’s support: this is all mercenary or intelligence agencies, mostly in uniform. And they are doing the bidding of the power structure. It’s a parallel to the ‘goodness’ of the military in First Avenger too.

Steve – Pierce

I do wonder if there is an echo here of what Steve might have been if he’d lived the same life and time periods that Pierce did. There have been a lot of metas about how they look alike ( a young Redford has more than a few similarities to C. Evans) but their dedication to their idealogies is not dissimilar. They are incredibly stubborn and idealistic men. They are both charismatic. They are both driven by fear but with very different outcomes.

Sebastian Stan

Finally, I was bemused and then pleased when he was asked at Sundance if kids were afraid of him. His response was (approximately) that they patted him on the arm and felt sorry for him. So children do see the truth of the story.