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Endgame and Post-Endgame Steve Thoughts
Jul. 1st, 2021 12:47 pmI have read a lot of complaints about Endgame since it came out especially a lot about Steve and his fate. Personally I was good with how things ended with him. Sometimes reading complaints over and over will shift my view but in this case nope. I think that’s interesting enough that every time it comes up I find myself going over again why it doesn’t bother me, and have finally decided to write down some of those thoughts.
[Mainly I'm doing it right now because Loki is now out and I'm going to watch it soon and there's a good chance it will stomp all over this entire essay and how I think Steve's jump to the past and new life went and thus I want to get this down before then. Personally I hope that doesn't happen of course. I'm very happy with what I think and I would be really disappointed if Loki+'s time agency shenanigans revealed everything I thought to be wrong. But just in case have 2000+ words on what I think.]
1. > One of the biggest issues that a lot of people have is that they have decided to take the writers Word of God on how the time travel worked as fact. That it’s a closed loop and Steve went into the past, lived his life with Peggy in the main timeline and everything played out as we saw just with an additional Steve hidden in the background. With that view I absolutely understand why people hate his ending. If that’s what I got from it I too would hate it. If that's the direction the MCU decides to go with it I will not be happy. (Don't let me down Loki+!)
Luckily whatever the writers meant to portray that’s not actually what we got in canon. In canon it is made very clear multiple times that you cannot change your past and that if you go back and try you will simply create a new timeline. I guess you could assume that somehow it was a closed loop where Steve went back to the ‘70s and his presence changed nothing but I just don’t buy it. If Steve was Peggy’s unknown husband then it would have come up. Hell, Sharon as her niece would have known Steve was her uncle. Unless they’re trying to imply he changed his face? Eh. It just doesn’t work. It doesn't make sense.
How I see it - Steve returning to 1970 to return the Tesseract (preventing that time from becoming unstable with the loss of an Infinity Stone) and then in choosing to stay ended up creating a branching timeline. As per the rules stated in Endgame. Until the MCU canonically states differently that is what I got from the movie.
2. > There was a lot of anger at Steve abandoning Bucky and Sam to return to the past. I get the anger if you shipped either pairing or were heavily invested in their friendships. It's hard to think Steve after having lost both for five years would willing choose to lose them again only days later. That is harsh. But while I liked both friendships a lot I wasn't that heavily invested in either. Steve was very close to both, especially Bucky, but he also lost them and lived without them for five years and that had to have changed Steve. Because of my lack of investment and my view of where Steve's mental state was (which I'll go further into below) it didn't bother me as much. It's sad and wonderfully angsty and I feel for all three men but also I'm okay with it.
3. > There's a lot of disgruntlement from a lot of Steve fans over Steve choosing to abandon the future to return to the past. It made them look at both the character and his character arc over the series in a different, mostly negative, light. They thought his arc was about letting go of the past and learning to live in the future and that this choice was all about showing that actually he was failing in the future this whole time. I can get that. I've had no real thoughts about Steve's character arc so there was nothing to fall down for me. Steve clearly was trying and had adapted very well to the future but also not in some ways? It just didn't feel out of the blue for me.
4. > There was also a lot of disgruntlement over Steve 'giving up the fight' in the future to 'retire' in the past. They saw it as him abandoning not just his friends but the fight, abandoning the core of who he is as a character. Again if that's what you got from the movie anger and upset is completely understandable. But giving my liking of his end more thought made me realise that that wasn't what I got from Steve's story. I see Steve going back as him rediscovering his fighting centre and being about him finding himself again.
I absolutely agree that Steve retiring in the past and giving up fighting to make the world a better place makes no character sense. Especially in the closed loop idea where he literally relives all the horrible things that happened in the MCU [Hydra-in-SHIELD, the Winter Soldier, Thanos and the Snap, Howard&Maria's murders, much etc] without apparently trying to stop or affect any of it. That absolutely is character assassination. The thing is I don't buy it. That's why I'm not unhappy. We don't actually get to see a lot of Steve's POV on why he made that choice, we don't get to see much of what happens when he went back or of the life he made. That is all left up to the person watching the movie to fill in (at least until they do make something canon.) For me I filled it in very differently then the people disappointed and angry did.
5. > What it comes down to for me is Steve’s mental state and the place he's in after the timejump in Endgame. Steve is not actually a character I think about a lot. I like him fine but as a supporting character. I don’t love him but I don’t hate him. He’s fine. But all this anger over his fate and my complete lack of it has made me consider him and his actions more. One thing I come back to is that exchange between Steve and Tony in Age of Ultron where Tony tells them they’ll fail and Steve replies “Then we’ll fail together”. And then they all did fail and it cost the world and universe so much. Tony’s anger when he returned after the Snap I think hit Steve hard especially having these words flung back in his face. When we jump five years we learn that while Natasha has been keeping the Avengers going Steve is not a part of them. He’s helping people with support meetings. (And I’m sure in other more physical ways.) He feels – broken down.
Steve’s whole thing from the moment we meet him is that he always gets up, that he never backs down or gives up a fight. But in a post Snap world it feels like he did. Like losing the big picture broke his ability to keep fighting that way and all he could do was concentrate on the small individual picture around him. Then they get the chance to make it right and in the process both Natasha and Tony die.
Here’s why Steve’s fate worked for me: He went back to return the Tesseract and ended up finally having his dance with Peggy. And somewhere in all that he decided to stay there. Why? He knows, according to how time travel was explained to him (and not Word of God) that he can’t change his own past, so why stay there?
My thought: to have another chance to change the future. Steve lost his will to fight post-Snap and he regained it when he was brought the chance to undue it. He’s looking at the big picture now. In the past, dancing with Peggy, Steve finds himself with the opportunity to change everything, to right all those mistakes and wrongs, to make things better. That’s what I think happened.
Steve didn't give up the fight, he just moved it to a different board.
Steve knew Bucky and Sam would be okay. He was abandoning them but he was doing it to also save them. Or a version of them. He was doing it to save Natasha and Tony. He was doing it to stop at least one version of Thanos from winning. Sure, it's harsh for Bucky and Sam but were both doing okay and Steve knew that.
So yeah, my thoughts on Steve's ending. I liked it. It felt sweet when I initially watched the movie and after reading a lot on how much people hated it I realised that I still liked it because it made sense to me on a character level.
Of course my suppositions here aren't actually canon. The canon left it open and weirdly unanswered (at least Feige hasn't as far as I'm aware said anything against the writers Word of God that it's a closed loop instead of being a branching timeline like the movie implied) and thus it's possible I am completely wrong and a future instalments will go with the closed loop set up and I will be very disappointed and mentally go 'not my canon' so it doesn't ruin it for me (though I'm not invested enough for it to ruin the MCU for me) and because my idea is obviously much better.
6. > Someone once said that Steve was a man out of time and his choice to return to the past only doubled down on that and I agree. I actually love that about him. Especially that it's something he does to himself this time. He's never going to fully be in the right time unless he lets himself because of all his time travel. He is going to be a stranger to the '70s as much as he was when he showed up in the 21st century. However I like to think that he did find a home there and while he wasn't able to fully settle and set down roots in the 2010s he did manage it in his new timeline because a) he always had a fight (which is exactly where he wants to be), and b) he had a goal in life. He knew his purpose - to prevent the various tragedies of the future and make a better world - and it gave him meaning and allowed him to set down roots and be happy.
7. >
a.> For a lot of people there is a lot of fridge horror in the idea of there now being two Steve's when he goes back (future!Steve and frozen!Steve) and with the idea of Steve 'stealing' frozen Steve's life. They wonder: does he just leave that Steve frozen in the ice? Does he act like he was that Steve? Does he free him but still gets together with Peggy aka 'taking' that Steve's life?
b.> There are also a lot of people angry at the idea of Steve messing up Peggy's life - that she got over him, got married and had children and had a life - and him going back was wrong. That he was unmaking her children, that he had no right to make choices that affected her life like that. That by going back he as making the choice for her.
First I have to start off with how freaking annoyed I am by all the sexist concern trolling about Peggy and the idea that Steve showing up derailed her life and that he somehow took the choice for her future from her. It's freaking 1970 - a full 25 years after Steve's 'death'. She is the head of SHIELD. She has had literal decades of living her life. If she did end up getting together with Steve it was her choice. If she was in a relationship with someone and left them for Steve that was her choice. She is not a child. She's not even still in the immediate throes of her grief/loss over his death because again it has been literal decades. To go 'oh Steve took that future away from her' completely erases any agency and choice she has in her own life and it's a little infuriating. She's not a bit piece in Steve getting his happy ever after - it's her life, it's her time, and it's her choice.
Hell, we don't even know if they did end up together. It's left implied but not actually stated. He goes back, they dance and they certainly look happy and content together, and then we next see him as an old man who answers no questions. And if they did get together there's nothing to say how it happened. Maybe it was immediate, maybe it took years of working together and getting to know each other again and pining before it happened.
Second, on the frozen!Steve issue it is certainly a very awkward situation. But I don't think that Steve would leave him there. I don't know that he knows exactly where he was found or how to free him and thus I'm not sure how long it would take but I do think that freeing Steve would be on Steve's to do list.
Third, I actually don't think there would be a Steve/Peggy/Steve triangle. I feel like once frozen!Steve was defrosted he and Peggy would have their dance but I really can't see them restarting their relationship even if future!Steve/Peggy weren't together. It's been 25 years and Peggy has changed while Steve has stayed the same and I'm not sure they'd actually work as a couple.
Which is why future!Steve/Peggy actually works for me. Both of them are older, have been through separate but difficult situations and both have grown and changed. I really like the idea of them meeting again, having their dance and then spending time getting to know each other as people as they work together to change the future. Them struggling with that past love, them working as partners and maybe not always seeing eye-to-eye but always having each other's back and then them falling in love again is honestly kind of awesome to me.
Fourth, I like the idea of both Steve's and Peggy working together to capture the winter soldier and save Bucky. I feel like in this situation our Steve/Peggy getting together would lead to that Steve concentrating a lot more on Bucky, and maybe Steve/Bucky happening. I find the complicated relationship between the four super interesting one their own too.
Fifth, I see our Steve and Peggy slowly gathering an inner circle of trusted people (Steve, Bucky, Howard, Jarvis, Fury etc) as they work to change the future. To a) rid SHIELD of Hydra and b) to prepare for Thanos.
eta> Okay, so I went to look up some information about the timeline and according to the wikis Steve actually returned the Tesseract and then travelled to 1949 to reunite with Peggy. Which I totally missed. Though to be fair I have only watched it once. But I thought there were only enough Pym particles for him to go to those specific times only and forgot the dose to return (or assumed that's what he used to return old, either way.)
This throws me off a bit but I stand by basically everything I've stated here. It being 1949 instead of 1970 does mean that Peggy isn't as established but it doesn't actually change my opinion. 1949 means that Agent Carter still happened. She is still grieving for Steve's death but she also spent two seasons dealing with that grief and had moved past the immediacy of it and starting to live again, including dating. And regardless of when Steve shows back up whether they get together or not is a choice Peggy makes.
I still think it's an alternate timeline, I still think Steve told Peggy the entire truth, I still think they became partners in changing the future for the better, I still think they freed 1949!Steve and 1949!Bucky from being the winter soldier.
The only thing it really changes is the potential dynamics between future!Steve and Peggy and Peggy and 1949!Steve, and potentially how things play out there. In this case I think that future!Steve and Peggy don't actually get together - unless 1949!Steve is left in the ice for a significant amount of time. If they get 1949!Steve out within a year or two I feel like he and Peggy would be more likely to end up together because their experiences are closer. However, if it takes a significant amount of time (because technology or not knowing exactly where he is) I think future!Steve and Peggy working so closely in that time would probably lead to them getting together.
[Mainly I'm doing it right now because Loki is now out and I'm going to watch it soon and there's a good chance it will stomp all over this entire essay and how I think Steve's jump to the past and new life went and thus I want to get this down before then. Personally I hope that doesn't happen of course. I'm very happy with what I think and I would be really disappointed if Loki+'s time agency shenanigans revealed everything I thought to be wrong. But just in case have 2000+ words on what I think.]
1. > One of the biggest issues that a lot of people have is that they have decided to take the writers Word of God on how the time travel worked as fact. That it’s a closed loop and Steve went into the past, lived his life with Peggy in the main timeline and everything played out as we saw just with an additional Steve hidden in the background. With that view I absolutely understand why people hate his ending. If that’s what I got from it I too would hate it. If that's the direction the MCU decides to go with it I will not be happy. (Don't let me down Loki+!)
Luckily whatever the writers meant to portray that’s not actually what we got in canon. In canon it is made very clear multiple times that you cannot change your past and that if you go back and try you will simply create a new timeline. I guess you could assume that somehow it was a closed loop where Steve went back to the ‘70s and his presence changed nothing but I just don’t buy it. If Steve was Peggy’s unknown husband then it would have come up. Hell, Sharon as her niece would have known Steve was her uncle. Unless they’re trying to imply he changed his face? Eh. It just doesn’t work. It doesn't make sense.
How I see it - Steve returning to 1970 to return the Tesseract (preventing that time from becoming unstable with the loss of an Infinity Stone) and then in choosing to stay ended up creating a branching timeline. As per the rules stated in Endgame. Until the MCU canonically states differently that is what I got from the movie.
2. > There was a lot of anger at Steve abandoning Bucky and Sam to return to the past. I get the anger if you shipped either pairing or were heavily invested in their friendships. It's hard to think Steve after having lost both for five years would willing choose to lose them again only days later. That is harsh. But while I liked both friendships a lot I wasn't that heavily invested in either. Steve was very close to both, especially Bucky, but he also lost them and lived without them for five years and that had to have changed Steve. Because of my lack of investment and my view of where Steve's mental state was (which I'll go further into below) it didn't bother me as much. It's sad and wonderfully angsty and I feel for all three men but also I'm okay with it.
3. > There's a lot of disgruntlement from a lot of Steve fans over Steve choosing to abandon the future to return to the past. It made them look at both the character and his character arc over the series in a different, mostly negative, light. They thought his arc was about letting go of the past and learning to live in the future and that this choice was all about showing that actually he was failing in the future this whole time. I can get that. I've had no real thoughts about Steve's character arc so there was nothing to fall down for me. Steve clearly was trying and had adapted very well to the future but also not in some ways? It just didn't feel out of the blue for me.
4. > There was also a lot of disgruntlement over Steve 'giving up the fight' in the future to 'retire' in the past. They saw it as him abandoning not just his friends but the fight, abandoning the core of who he is as a character. Again if that's what you got from the movie anger and upset is completely understandable. But giving my liking of his end more thought made me realise that that wasn't what I got from Steve's story. I see Steve going back as him rediscovering his fighting centre and being about him finding himself again.
I absolutely agree that Steve retiring in the past and giving up fighting to make the world a better place makes no character sense. Especially in the closed loop idea where he literally relives all the horrible things that happened in the MCU [Hydra-in-SHIELD, the Winter Soldier, Thanos and the Snap, Howard&Maria's murders, much etc] without apparently trying to stop or affect any of it. That absolutely is character assassination. The thing is I don't buy it. That's why I'm not unhappy. We don't actually get to see a lot of Steve's POV on why he made that choice, we don't get to see much of what happens when he went back or of the life he made. That is all left up to the person watching the movie to fill in (at least until they do make something canon.) For me I filled it in very differently then the people disappointed and angry did.
5. > What it comes down to for me is Steve’s mental state and the place he's in after the timejump in Endgame. Steve is not actually a character I think about a lot. I like him fine but as a supporting character. I don’t love him but I don’t hate him. He’s fine. But all this anger over his fate and my complete lack of it has made me consider him and his actions more. One thing I come back to is that exchange between Steve and Tony in Age of Ultron where Tony tells them they’ll fail and Steve replies “Then we’ll fail together”. And then they all did fail and it cost the world and universe so much. Tony’s anger when he returned after the Snap I think hit Steve hard especially having these words flung back in his face. When we jump five years we learn that while Natasha has been keeping the Avengers going Steve is not a part of them. He’s helping people with support meetings. (And I’m sure in other more physical ways.) He feels – broken down.
Steve’s whole thing from the moment we meet him is that he always gets up, that he never backs down or gives up a fight. But in a post Snap world it feels like he did. Like losing the big picture broke his ability to keep fighting that way and all he could do was concentrate on the small individual picture around him. Then they get the chance to make it right and in the process both Natasha and Tony die.
Here’s why Steve’s fate worked for me: He went back to return the Tesseract and ended up finally having his dance with Peggy. And somewhere in all that he decided to stay there. Why? He knows, according to how time travel was explained to him (and not Word of God) that he can’t change his own past, so why stay there?
My thought: to have another chance to change the future. Steve lost his will to fight post-Snap and he regained it when he was brought the chance to undue it. He’s looking at the big picture now. In the past, dancing with Peggy, Steve finds himself with the opportunity to change everything, to right all those mistakes and wrongs, to make things better. That’s what I think happened.
Steve didn't give up the fight, he just moved it to a different board.
Steve knew Bucky and Sam would be okay. He was abandoning them but he was doing it to also save them. Or a version of them. He was doing it to save Natasha and Tony. He was doing it to stop at least one version of Thanos from winning. Sure, it's harsh for Bucky and Sam but were both doing okay and Steve knew that.
So yeah, my thoughts on Steve's ending. I liked it. It felt sweet when I initially watched the movie and after reading a lot on how much people hated it I realised that I still liked it because it made sense to me on a character level.
Of course my suppositions here aren't actually canon. The canon left it open and weirdly unanswered (at least Feige hasn't as far as I'm aware said anything against the writers Word of God that it's a closed loop instead of being a branching timeline like the movie implied) and thus it's possible I am completely wrong and a future instalments will go with the closed loop set up and I will be very disappointed and mentally go 'not my canon' so it doesn't ruin it for me (though I'm not invested enough for it to ruin the MCU for me) and because my idea is obviously much better.
6. > Someone once said that Steve was a man out of time and his choice to return to the past only doubled down on that and I agree. I actually love that about him. Especially that it's something he does to himself this time. He's never going to fully be in the right time unless he lets himself because of all his time travel. He is going to be a stranger to the '70s as much as he was when he showed up in the 21st century. However I like to think that he did find a home there and while he wasn't able to fully settle and set down roots in the 2010s he did manage it in his new timeline because a) he always had a fight (which is exactly where he wants to be), and b) he had a goal in life. He knew his purpose - to prevent the various tragedies of the future and make a better world - and it gave him meaning and allowed him to set down roots and be happy.
7. >
a.> For a lot of people there is a lot of fridge horror in the idea of there now being two Steve's when he goes back (future!Steve and frozen!Steve) and with the idea of Steve 'stealing' frozen Steve's life. They wonder: does he just leave that Steve frozen in the ice? Does he act like he was that Steve? Does he free him but still gets together with Peggy aka 'taking' that Steve's life?
b.> There are also a lot of people angry at the idea of Steve messing up Peggy's life - that she got over him, got married and had children and had a life - and him going back was wrong. That he was unmaking her children, that he had no right to make choices that affected her life like that. That by going back he as making the choice for her.
First I have to start off with how freaking annoyed I am by all the sexist concern trolling about Peggy and the idea that Steve showing up derailed her life and that he somehow took the choice for her future from her. It's freaking 1970 - a full 25 years after Steve's 'death'. She is the head of SHIELD. She has had literal decades of living her life. If she did end up getting together with Steve it was her choice. If she was in a relationship with someone and left them for Steve that was her choice. She is not a child. She's not even still in the immediate throes of her grief/loss over his death because again it has been literal decades. To go 'oh Steve took that future away from her' completely erases any agency and choice she has in her own life and it's a little infuriating. She's not a bit piece in Steve getting his happy ever after - it's her life, it's her time, and it's her choice.
Hell, we don't even know if they did end up together. It's left implied but not actually stated. He goes back, they dance and they certainly look happy and content together, and then we next see him as an old man who answers no questions. And if they did get together there's nothing to say how it happened. Maybe it was immediate, maybe it took years of working together and getting to know each other again and pining before it happened.
Second, on the frozen!Steve issue it is certainly a very awkward situation. But I don't think that Steve would leave him there. I don't know that he knows exactly where he was found or how to free him and thus I'm not sure how long it would take but I do think that freeing Steve would be on Steve's to do list.
Third, I actually don't think there would be a Steve/Peggy/Steve triangle. I feel like once frozen!Steve was defrosted he and Peggy would have their dance but I really can't see them restarting their relationship even if future!Steve/Peggy weren't together. It's been 25 years and Peggy has changed while Steve has stayed the same and I'm not sure they'd actually work as a couple.
Which is why future!Steve/Peggy actually works for me. Both of them are older, have been through separate but difficult situations and both have grown and changed. I really like the idea of them meeting again, having their dance and then spending time getting to know each other as people as they work together to change the future. Them struggling with that past love, them working as partners and maybe not always seeing eye-to-eye but always having each other's back and then them falling in love again is honestly kind of awesome to me.
Fourth, I like the idea of both Steve's and Peggy working together to capture the winter soldier and save Bucky. I feel like in this situation our Steve/Peggy getting together would lead to that Steve concentrating a lot more on Bucky, and maybe Steve/Bucky happening. I find the complicated relationship between the four super interesting one their own too.
Fifth, I see our Steve and Peggy slowly gathering an inner circle of trusted people (Steve, Bucky, Howard, Jarvis, Fury etc) as they work to change the future. To a) rid SHIELD of Hydra and b) to prepare for Thanos.
eta> Okay, so I went to look up some information about the timeline and according to the wikis Steve actually returned the Tesseract and then travelled to 1949 to reunite with Peggy. Which I totally missed. Though to be fair I have only watched it once. But I thought there were only enough Pym particles for him to go to those specific times only and forgot the dose to return (or assumed that's what he used to return old, either way.)
This throws me off a bit but I stand by basically everything I've stated here. It being 1949 instead of 1970 does mean that Peggy isn't as established but it doesn't actually change my opinion. 1949 means that Agent Carter still happened. She is still grieving for Steve's death but she also spent two seasons dealing with that grief and had moved past the immediacy of it and starting to live again, including dating. And regardless of when Steve shows back up whether they get together or not is a choice Peggy makes.
I still think it's an alternate timeline, I still think Steve told Peggy the entire truth, I still think they became partners in changing the future for the better, I still think they freed 1949!Steve and 1949!Bucky from being the winter soldier.
The only thing it really changes is the potential dynamics between future!Steve and Peggy and Peggy and 1949!Steve, and potentially how things play out there. In this case I think that future!Steve and Peggy don't actually get together - unless 1949!Steve is left in the ice for a significant amount of time. If they get 1949!Steve out within a year or two I feel like he and Peggy would be more likely to end up together because their experiences are closer. However, if it takes a significant amount of time (because technology or not knowing exactly where he is) I think future!Steve and Peggy working so closely in that time would probably lead to them getting together.
