Bucky: Who the hell is Bucky?
Bucky: The man on the bridge; who was he?
Bucky: I knew him.
Bucky: But I knew him.
Bucky: No I don’t!
Bucky: No I don’t!
Bucky: Shut up!
Bucky: You’re my mission. You’re. my. mission!
[That’s it. That’s literally it. That’s the whole of it.]
ARE YOU FUCKKIINGGG KIDDING ME HE LITERALLY JUST STEPS IN FRONT OF THE CAR THAT IS ON FIRE AND COULD CRUSH HIS BODY AND NONCHALANTLY MOVES ASIDE LIKE ITS NOTHING I MEAN WHATS GOING THROUGH YOUR MIND BUCKY LIKE OH IM GONNA WAIT TILL THE LAST SECOND TO MOVE BC I FEEL LIKE BEING THEATRICAL
things that are both attractive and terrifying: people who are SO SURE of where they are and where everything else is such that they can do shit like this with zero chance of being crushed by a flaming SUV.
The longer he watches it head on, the better idea he has of exactly how it’s going to land, and how likely he is to have to take additional steps to make sure Fury is Actually Dead after it comes to rest. (Especially since from that position he can see THROUGH the front windshield and thus can see what’s happening to Fury in the seat.)
1. LOOK AT THAT FAMILY RESEMBLANCE, NO ONE SPEAK TO ME OR MY HANDSOME BIRD SON EVER AGAIN
2. Re: Bucky. I’m honestly not sure when Buck would’ve actually killed more people, tbh. Most soldiers in WWII would have been individually responsible for a fairly low number of deaths, if any, but I think that Cap 1 implies that Bucky’s numbers would’ve been much higher that the norm. While he was the Winter Soldier iirc canon says he was used for something like a few dozen assassinations, but idk whether that would include any collateral damage (if he shot THROUGH Natasha to get to a target then surely he took out plenty of other innocent bystanders as well).
I have to say that I think he was really, really messed up by the war and his time as a POW/torture victim long before he fell off the train, and his time as the Soldier probably just made a deeply fucked-up mental health situation much worse. HOWEVER, I don’t necessarily think that he has a worse shot at a happy ending as a post-Winter-Soldier Bucky than he would have if he had made it home after the war. Men of that generation didn’t talk about or seek treatment for mental health issues, and even in the extremely unlikely event that he did try to get help for his PTSD the available resources would have been … not great. Like, Freudian analysis or electroshock, maybe? All of my headcanons for a survives-the-war Bucky are pretty grim, tbh. But post WS Bucky in 2018 is going to A. have his trauma and guilt taken fairly seriously and not be expected to pick up exactly where he left off in 1939 as carefree charming Bucky Barnes, and B. realistically be expected to seek some kind of therapy or counselling or SOMETHING before he attempts to return to any kind of active duty (Not that Marvel would ever actually show one of their characters seeking therapy, God forbid, WOULDN’T WANT TO SET SOME KIND OF WUSSY CRYBABY GIRLY-MAN EXAMPLE FOR THE 13 YEAR OLD BOYS WHO ARE OUR TARGET DEMOGRAPHIC). So like, best case scenario 2018 Bucko has enough trauma to float a barge, a Steve Rogers with some VA meetings under his belt and access to Google, a therapist, a support group and maybe a giant floofy service dog named FUBAR (@yawpkatsi), while best case scenario 1947 Bucko has enough trauma to float a slightly smaller barge, a totally at-sea Steve Rogers, a parish priest, and a bottle of whiskey.
… that was a pretty long and overly elaborate answer to your straightforward question, whoops
The way he twirls the knife as he fights, it’s so obvious he’s had years of training. Years of killing. It’s natural to him while something as easy as human speech and emotion is foreign to him. It shows how Hydra treated him like a war machine rather than a human.
Gonna have to disagree with this. Yes, you’re completely correct about the way he fights. It’s completely natural, but there’s nothing we see that says he doesn’t talk or feel emotion.
When Steve calls him ‘Bucky’, he doesn’t speak with a voice that sounds unused, he speaks easily and colloquially–’Who the hell is Bucky?’
He doesn’t just look puzzled or grunt out a partial question. It’s fluid, it’s normal and it’s in the syntax of a man who’s verbally at ease.
He gives the Hydra soldiers orders with equal ease in Russian. Not only is he at ease with human speech, he’s at ease in multiple languages.
We also see him feeling emotion. He feels when Natasha shoots him in they eye, breaking his goggles. He feels when she immobilizes his arm. He feels when Steve stops him from killing Natasha and they fight. He feels when he remembers Steve–to the point that his brain is so busy trying to put the pieces together that everything Pierce says to him feels unimportant. He feels when he falls on the helecarrier, and feels even more when he’s trapped and thinks Steve will kill him as he lies there.
Yes, the Winter Soldier is all about self control. He understands the value of fear as a weapon. He understands that not letting your enemies see what you’re thinking and feeling gives you an advantage, but that doesn’t mean that he doesn’t feel, or is a machine. It means that he’s very good at his job and very used to controlling the stray thoughts and memories that (if his actor is correct) frequently go thorough his mind, inexplicable and distracting.
To consider the Winter Soldier a machine removes the most poignant part of his story–that while Bucky had no memories of who he’d been, he was still there. He wasn’t a machine, a computer programmed to kill. He was a man whose mind was so twisted that he wanted to do it.
They weren’t overwriting him with a new personality, they were continually wiping resurfacing memories of who he’d been and the values he’d had. They were erasing choices he made as the Winter Soldier while on missions, because learning from past choices and results is how we form individuality and personal ethics. They were making sure his loyalties didn’t change from the one’s they’d given him, because he was capable of both having them and change.
Pierce speaks of ‘one last mission’ because they didn’t plan on him surviving Washington, so apparently controlling him had become more trouble than it was worth, which is really saying something, given his level of skill.
The tragedy of the Winter Soldier isn’t that he was an unfeeling machine–it’s that he wasn’t.
okay but in all seriousness i bet it’s a real hazard to cry or even sit on your bed looking unhappy at Avengers Tower because Steve “Mom At The Ready” Rogers WILL appear in your doorway wearing something soft and saying “Hey.” in a gentle, compassionate voice
“Knock knock,” Steve Rogers probably says aloud, tapping the doorjamb softly with his knuckles and gazing at you with warm maternal tenderness. How will you explain to him that you are sad because of a tumblr post about a dog who delivers the mail
Ok so heres my take: look at his face from the text-less gif on, thats…slightly more upset than anyone should be at a girl noticing your friend and not you.
Shame and self-blaming are incredibly common parts of PTSD, and you can just imagine how Bucky felt getting captured, and after everything he went through (unlike the other Howling Commandos you see all drinking together while hes isolating himself), he’s probably blaming himself for not being smart enough, strong enough, quick enough etc.
And who saves him? His tiny little friend, the one with the huge heart, but the one that always got his ass kicked and needed Bucky to come to his rescue. Now hes this huge super soldier saving him.
I think “im turning into you” doesn’t mean “usually im the hot one and girls dont notice ur skinny ass”, i think it quite literally means, sure, he’s got a big heart, buuut hopefully his big tough bff is around or hes going to get his ass handed to him.
@bloodyneptune I noticed in retrospect that Bucky is not totally okay at any point after Zola first tortured him. Here he is, as you say, drinking by himself in the corner, not with the other guys. He’s not even wearing his uniform tie. I think you’re right that his self confidence was shaken by his experience as a POW. For instance, I think in the train, later they were going after Bucky’s torturer on that mission. He ran out of bullets and he was clearly sick with fear right before Steve tossed him the new gun. I think he was under a lot of strain trying to hold it together in those moments. Bucky saying he had them on the ropes, was trying to reassure himself. Then he falls off the train and wakes up to Dr. Zola standing over him again, and his life becomes a nightmare of continuous physical and mental abuse from then on. Poor Bucky.
Oh man, whats amazing about that (I essayed a whole thing the other day because Im batshit like that) is that Bucky has his own entire storyline going on that you only see through his expressions.
Like, instead of taking up the time to have him talk about it, they just let Seb act it out along side and in the main plot. Like, that small look of total disrepair after “lets hear it for Captain America” which is clearly a victory scene, he’s got his own side story going on. The awesome montage of the Howling Commandos being badass and fun, his little sniper bit? Tucked right between fun, and Steve jovially saluting and back to the kickassery, he looks a lot like the Winter Solder; dead eyed and focusing on the mission, loading another bullet to put in another head.
I mean, you can seen he’s repeating his name and number over and over when Steve finds him, he was clearly already in the process of brainwashing. You’re taught to repeat those things when you’re being interrogated, not experimented on. The best explanation is that he’s trying to keep a hold of his identity. So really, the Bucky we see after he’s rescued is one that already got his toes wet in the Winter Soldier project.
Even when he says he wont follow Captain America, just that ‘little guy from Brooklyn”, I think you can interpret that differently too. The last time he remembers being the big guy, the guy in control, the guy that wasn’t fucked up and was needed to protect someone was with pre-serum Steve. He’ll follow that guy back into the one place he does not want to do because thats whats going to make him feel like he’s tough enough to do it again.
I contend that he held out until they told him Steve ‘died’. He was already going through PTSD, already thinking he was weak and self-blaming for getting himself caught and nearly brainwashed the first time, his last hope had to be “of course Steve will come again, just hold out till then”. If his self confidence and sense of being able to fight was already in pieces, it must have been sort of easy once he knew nobody was actually coming to save him.
A+ analysis It’s interesting that the movie definitely doesn’t spoon feed the story to us. But it’s there all the time. Bucky’s not in First Avenger much and hasn’t got many lines but watching it after WS and CW, wow I saw so much more going on with Sergeant Barnes. I agree that the name, rank and serial number thing showed he repeated it until he put himself into a trance or dissociative state. Then he asked if it hurt when they experimented on Steve to make him a super soldier. Not something I’d think to ask necessarily- does it reflect on the fact that they were already “conditioning” Bucky? Then there’s a great post someone did about Bucky’s and Zola’s expressions when they ran into each other with Red Skull and Cap. I reblogged it a while ago and can find and link you if you want, but the basic idea was Bucky is terrified of Zola and looks right at him, not Red Skull, while Zola stares at Bucky like he’s checking the effects of his experiments, like a scientist looking at a lab specimen. That’s a great example you gave of Bucky’s grim expression when sniping and right after. There’s a wealth of foreshadowing in that first movie and a lot of it is through Sebastian’s acting.
Uggh I know right?? Theres no way they could have fit in scenes of Bucky talking about what he’s going through and keep within the time frame and pacing, really. I think its totally fascinating that instead of just cutting the whole thing, they just let him go through his own plot right along side the main one.
And you don’t really notice unless you’re specifically paying attention to Bucky, because so many of his scenes after he’s captured are within fun, kickass, or silly moments like the Peggy/Steve scene. In the middle of the fun and joking, he’s acting like the mood and tone of the scenes are completely contrary to what’s being presented by everyone elses lines, actions and the way the music and scenes play out.
Actually, I hadn’t considered how oddly out of place “did it hurt” was. I think it would be a question that came long after “what the mother fuck”, “no but what” and “you need to explain this right the hell now because what the everloving shit is happening”.
But duuuude, what they did to him was basically a Hybrid ripoff of the super soldier project, “did it hurt” and “is it permanent” just took on some terrifyingly upsetting alternative meanings. Especially when we know Bucky gets those questions answered.
See what I mean?? They slip in this entirely separate narrative in making it seem like jokes and fun moments, and you almost would miss it if it weren’t for Sebs supernatural acting abilities. It just blows my mind that this shits in Captain America movies.
Have you read about the sounds/music in Winter Soldier? I’ll find it, that shit blew my everloving mind.
what is the fucking point of flipping it you pulled it out of the sheath by the handle there’s no goddamn need for that
why even bother having a special spot easiy to reach in your black leather suit for knives if you’re just going to play with them when you take them out
but on the other hand
hnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnng
(He’s switching grips, largely because someone like Steve ain’t gonna give you an easy target for a straight thrust, especially if he’s got his shield, which makes for a lot of over and underhand stuff. But god yess hnnnnnnnnng.)
Also he LOOKS like he’s pulling it out normally, then flips it around—if you don’t have the advantage of a specific close-up you’d easily miss the little flip and think his blade was pointing toward his thumb. Then when he pulls his arm back across his body you think he’s pointing the knife over to his left, when in reality it is pointing straight at you and he’s about to slam it in your face. The arm movement to pull it out of the sheath that other way is super awkward and telegraphs the fact that your blade’s going to be reversed from the very beginning. But the Winter Soldier is a tricksy bastard. And IIRC, it works—Steve isn’t aware until his arm comes down to strike that he’s about to get hit. Otherwise he’d find a better way to block it.
</fencer>
Now with additional commentary from a fencer. My “hnnnnnnnng” is only exponentially increased.
Tl;dr knife flips are a useful, brutal, excellent tool. When the Winter Soldier is coming after you with a knife you’d better have superhuman reflexes, because he is going to attack you from every possible avenue. If I only hold my blade like a screwdriver, there are a limited number of physical movements I can make, and they are relatively predictable. If I hold it like an icepick, the repetoire changes but is likewise limited. If I can flip it around with absolutely no notice, I’ve effectively doubled how difficult I am to defend against.
Reblogging for commentary, and also because I could watch that gif all day.
All of this, and also, even if he WAS just playing with it, fucking around with a weapon is one of the ways that you get really good with it. With knives specifically, for a guy like Bucky — in both his lives — you’d pretty much have one on you at all times, and a lot of the military life (and probably the assassin life too) involves sitting around being bored as shit waiting for the death and terror to start. You end up playing with your weapons, because they’re there, and that’s one of the primary ways you really learn that weapon inside and out. You might play around, switching your grip, flipping it over and over, learning to catch it by the handle, by the point, learning to throw it, learning the exact weight and the center of its balance and all the other things that make handling it so effortless… it’s all just repetition and asking yourself “I wonder if I can….” and doing it until yes, indeed, you can stab some guy in the face before he can even see you coming.
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