#Might do another tfatws one depending on how well this does lol

[astudyinimagination]

The Falcon and the Winter Soldier and treating people as things

All right, I posted a link to my Wordpress earlier but after further consideration I’m just gonna throw the whole text here on Tumblr.

I just want to start this out by saying that I still haven’t read Discworld, although I really need to get on that because then my best friend and I can have even more to talk about, lol. But I do know a few things about Discworld, not because of my bestie, but because of @fialleril.

What does all this have to do with The Falcon and the Winter Soldier? (Warning: here be spoilers up through the end of episode 4.)

Well, I’m up to speed now on TFATWS. And it’s good. Really good. And a big part of that is what the story is doing in regards to morality.

It doesn’t feel like a black-and-white sort of morality. That type is being questioned, I think, pretty closely. Morality is tied up in TFATWS with the value of human life.

How much is human life worth?

So here’s the connection to Discworld. One of the characters, Granny Weatherwax, is talking with another character, Mightily Oats (not making this up), about the nature of sin:

Granny Weatherwax: “There’s no grays, only white that’s got grubby. I’m surprised you don’t know that. And sin, young man, is when you treat people as things. Including yourself. That’s what sin is.

Mightily Oats: “It’s a lot more complicated than that...”

Granny Weatherwax: “No. It ain’t. When people say things are a lot more complicated than that, they means they’re getting worried that they won’t like the truth. People as things, that’s where it starts.”

Mightily Oats: “Oh, I’m sure there are worse crimes...”

Granny Weatherwax: “But they starts with thinking about people as things...”

Treating people as things.

On one end of this scale, you have Sam Wilson. An acceptable target is a clearly delineated one, like the terrorist group in the opening of the show, or the people shooting at you in a firefight. Sam hasn’t yet gotten his hands dirty. He is just trying to make the world a better, safer place, and life has inherent worth. Even, grudgingly, Bucky’s.

On the other end of this scale, you have Baron Zemo. An acceptable target is anyone standing in his way. An acceptable target is a super soldier, regardless of anything they might believe. He is trying to rid the world of super soldiers, whom he believes are inherently dangerous. His motivations are understandable, but he clearly has zero respect for the value of human life. Everyone around him is a means to an end. In other words, a thing.

And jumping off the deep end to meet Zemo is John Walker. An acceptable target is also anyone standing in his way. An acceptable target is someone to take his grief and rage out on (in a horrifically brutal way). Even before that, he called Bucky a valuable asset. A thing. Perhaps we should rate Walker at a lower point than Zemo, actually. Walker has been trying to be the perfect soldier, and he was cracking under the strain before Lemar’s death (I understood what the writers were doing, but that was still Not Great, but that’s also a conversation for another time). In following Steve’s career, Walker entirely missed the point that Captain America was never supposed to be the perfect soldier, but a good man. I am going to go out on a limb and say that I don’t think there’s any coming back from this, not unless he goes out Darth Vader-style, and there’s someone I’m more worried about who could also pull that stunt.

Karli Morgenthau is cruising towards the Zemo/Walker end of the scale, but despite having deliberately caused fatal and nonfatal casualties already, I don’t think she’s quite there yet. You could see it in her first talk with Sam, especially when she did talk about people as things and then caught herself because she truly doesn’t want to think like that. You could see it in her interactions with her group. What separates Karli, at this point in time, from Zemo and Walker is that her sense of morality is grounded in helping people. There are no cold philosophies like Zemo’s, and no crushing weight like Walker’s. Karli is seeking to help people in need, and she is lifted up by them at the same time. It does not excuse the murder, or the threat made to an innocent mom and her children. But I think it means that she could still come back from this. And what I’m very afraid of is that she’s going to either go entirely off the deep end as well, or she’s going to redeem herself Darth Vader-style. The writers have gone this far in presenting a sympathetic extremist. I’d really like them to not chicken out and go a cheap route with a female antagonist.

Poor Sharon. I’m not sure how to place her on this scale, but it’s not good. It’s not good, and it’s so sad.

Last but definitely not least, we’ve got Bucky Barnes. And Bucky wishes his hands were as clean as Sam’s. For a long time, he was robbed of his personhood, and reduced to being a thing, and he is still struggling with the trauma of that. Bucky has so far been employing an “ends justify the means” mentality, but I don’t think he wants to. Stuff has to be done, and sometimes it’s not good, and he knows it’s not good. He doesn’t want to treat people as things, but he feels he has to, and Zemo might not control him any longer but he’s not helping. And perhaps worse still, Bucky is treating himself as a thing. He’s clearly regarding himself as a weapon that can be used against their problems. He’s got a long way to go yet to regain his personhood.

What happens now depends on how each character treats the other people in this sordid little drama — as people, or as things? I await the last two episodes with much anxiety. (Mostly because, I’m not gonna lie, I want Karli to be okay. I just want her to be okay, guys.)

#The Falcon and the Winter Soldier #TFATWS #Sam Wilson #Bucky Barnes #mcu #tfatws spoilers #marvel #Sky rambles #Discworld #treating people as things