So, yes. It has been a while since Civil War came out, lol. But I wanted to watch it a second time before I officially posted my thoughts ...

Captain America: Civil War: Tony Stark, The Broken

Alexa Mintah

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So, yes. It has been a while since Civil War came out, lol. But I wanted to watch it a second time before I officially posted my thoughts and I didn't get a chance to do that until this past weekend. Interestingly enough, my opinions actually didn't change from my original analysis (long story short: I'm mostly Team Cap, but I probably would've acted more like Black Widow, because a compromise was needed); in fact, rewatching it only reinforced my opinions on the Accords... as well as opening my eyes to another facet of the movie that I'd never taken very long to consider.

That facet is what we're going to talk about today: the infamous, controversial, genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist, Tony Stark.

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Frankly, I've never liked him. I always thought he was arrogant, annoying, and only half as funny as he thought he was. He's been my least favorite Avenger since the Avengers became a thing, but, while that hasn't necessarily changed, I did feel for him more in this movie than any other. Not because I agree with him more—in fact, I think almost every choice he made in this movie was 110% wrong—but because I could understand why he made those choices.

In previous movies, all I could see of Iron Man was his arrogance. I mean, yeah, he had a smidgen of character and a little bit of backstory, but he still mostly felt like this pompous rich kid in a big suit of armor who thought he could do it better than everybody else. He didn't have powers or skill or true virtue, he just made this suit (which I guess was exceptional) and decided to become a superhero (as well as tell the entire world that he was). By my estimation, he had a few genuinely heroic moments per movie, but apart from them, he was irritating, cavalier, and painfully conceited. I understood that all that haughtiness probably hid some deep insecurity, but frankly, I did not care because he made me mad. Also, he created Ultron. And Ultron caused major problems for my Sass Master. I could see a hint of something deeper, especially after his encounter with Scarlet Witch in the second Avengers, but overall, let's just say, I was pretty happy when he decided to leave at the end of Age of Ultron.

But then he came back in Civil War, and I could see how much he was hurting.

I never saw that before. How deeply riddled he was with guilt and fear and pain. Before Civil War, to me, his actions only reflected a heart full of arrogance; in this movie, they clearly reflected a heart full of suffering. I honestly believe that he—along with almost every other person in this movie—was doing the thing that he honestly believed to be right. I think he was wrong in a lot of ways, but only because he had made the oh-so-easy mistake of confusing regret with conviction. Because of the events of the previous movies, the way his mind had been fractured by his repeatedly broken heart, his reasoning had been distorted so that he believed he was doing the right thing, the only thing, to keep the Avengers—what remained of his family—together. He confused his self-condemnation over all that had gone wrong with the confidence that he was for once in the moral right, instead of making the wrong decisions time and time again, decisions he felt had led to all the bad he saw around him. He thought he'd finally got it right this time, so yes, he stuck to his guns against the opposition of a close friend, fighting for what he thought he believed in up until the very end (literally, up until the end, considering what went down in those final scenes and how he basically lost sight of everything).

When I think of it that way, a part of me admires him for standing his ground. I think it was the wrong ground to stand on, because nothing about the Accords would actually fix the real problem: the fact that the worlds are riddled with evil, and sometimes bad things happen to good people, and that's the fault of the bad people not the good. But he had come to a point where he truly believed that the Accords would begin to fix those things, that innocent people would finally stop dying on his watch, that he was finally making a choice that would actually come out right in the end.

I think he was tired of seeing people die, watching his world be ripped apart, and standing useless in the ruins.

So he tried to fix it. And while I normally don't give an A for effort, the way this movie portrayed his brokenness... well, I still won't give the A and I still don't love him (I really don't), but my heart goes out to him. Instead of getting this swelling feeling of animosity every time his name is mentioned, I want him to find some way to find peace in spite of all that he's done and all that has been done to him. I want him to find a way to move past his pain and actually be the hero that, for some reason, I think Cap still believes he can be. The hero that Tony himself thought he was, but never quite became.

I want him to make a comeback, to change, to grow, to heal. I want him to realize his mistakes and bring the Avengers back together, as a powerful, principled, good team fighting against the evils both in and out of this world.

United. As they should be.

So what did you think of Captain America: Civil War? Which character did you find the most interesting? (I actually don't know if Iron Man is the most interesting to me, because I also think Wanda, Bucky, and Black Panther would be really cool to examine). Whose team would you have chosen? Can't wait to hear from you all, and I will see you in the comment section!

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