History Headscratchers / CaptainAmericaCivilWar

** There are an awful lot of [[ForWantOfANail what-ifs]] that go unusually right for Zemo. How does he know Cap never told Tony all along and his big reveal is met with a laugh and "Yeah I knew that years ago pal"? Wha if Tony actually succeeded in arresting Cap and Bucky at the airport? What if Tony never stopped Cap at the airport at all and Cap showed up with Sam, Clint, Wanda and Scott backing him and Bucky up whereas Tony has no idea where they are or how to find them? What happens if Cap couldn't save Bucky and the UN police killed him? Or T'Challa killed him? What happens if Bucky wasn't able to escape from the UN Compound and/or he does but Cap isn't able to go after him? What happens if Thor shows up who can easily break up the fights? Zemo's plan required a few too many random things to go right.

* In Thor: Ragnarok, Thor and Hulk were not on earth. In Team Thor, the two heroes are seen on earth. Both of the titles happened during Captain America: Civil War. How is that possible?
** Team Thor is a non-canon mockumentary. ''Ragnarok'' makes it clear that Thor and Hulk hadn’t seen each other since ''Age of Ultron'', leaving no room for Team Thor to be in continuity.

** Even if they saw it coming, how could they “pull back on some of their ops?” The entire point of Cap’s argument is that the Sokovia Accords would prevent them from taking action when they need to. This means that he considers all of the operations they have pulled to be necessary. They can’t pull back because that would mean ignoring a dangerous situation that needs the Avengers to solve. Should they have let Crossbones steal a biological weapon because it would be more “pragmatic” to not do so much? It probably wouldn’t have mattered anyway because the events of ''Avengers'', ''The Winter Soldier'' and ''Age of Ultron'' were enough to cause government action (that last one in particular, hence them being called the Sokovia Accords) so the damage was already done.

** That's not actually what the machine does. It just uses your memories to construct a scenario that you can manipulate. So with Tony, it didn't alter his memories to replace his presumably less than pleasant final interaction with his parents with the one shown. It just allowed him to a view a simulation of how the encounter could have played out so he could deal with his unresolved parental issues, and actually seeing the what-if scenario with his own eyes would make him feel better than he would if he just imagined it. It's a super high-tech therapy session. Tony even pointed out that it's laughably impractical, and no one in their right mind would have ever backed it. So using this thing on Bucky would help, but it's far from a magic fix.

* Tony says that "they don't grant visas to weapons of mass destruction", clearly meaning that Wanda is too powerful and dangerous for the US to feel comfortable granting her official entry to the country. But if her papers, or rather lack thereof, are a problem, then why is she on the team in the first place? Surely someone could've foreseen that this might cause some problems? (Not even the problems of the kind shown in the movie. There are a lot of things you can't do or have a lot of difficulty doing when you're undocumented, has she never tried to do a single one of those? She seems like she at least regularly goes out to the grocery store, so she can't be spending ''all'' her time on Avengers property where it doesn't matter.) Or why hasn't someone attempted to sort out the situation for her? Various members of the team have money and government connections, couldn't they at least try to get her something? (Maybe they did try and fail offscreen, but from how the characters talk about it, it really does seem like this is the first time "Wanda has no visa" has come up. Although, of course, there is a simple answer to all of the above: writing issues.)

*** While Tony trying to kill Bucky was definitely an irrational decision, the film never tries to paint him as justified and even Tony eventually realizes that he was in the wrong, as shown by his attitude in later films. The whole point of the scene is that he has RevengeBeforeReason on his mind, and this is what ultimately leads to the fall of the Avengers. T'Challa summed it up pretty well. "Vengeance has consumed you. It's consuming them." Also one point to your point about how Steve only heard Zola imply this and doesn't know for sure, well we know that but Tony doesn't, the way Steve says it Tony would think Steve did know the full truth.

** In real life, the UN would never negotiate such accords without asking the opinion of those involved, or without even informing them at all. In the comic book version of ''Comicbook/CivilWar'', before the Superhuman Registration Act was put into power, there were lengthy committee hearings preparing for it, and representatives of the superhero community were allowed to voice their grievances to the committee.

*** While Tony trying to kill Bucky was definitely an irrational decision, the film never tries to paint him as justified and even Tony eventually realizes that he was in the wrong, as shown by his attitude in later films. The whole point of the scene is that he has RevengeBeforeReason on his mind, and this is what ultimately leads to the fall of the Avengers. T'Challa summed it up pretty well. "Vengeance has consumed you. It's consuming them."

** ''Film/BlackPanther2018'' makes it pretty much explicit. T'Challa's got superhuman abilities thanks to some Wakandan chemical compounds.

* ''Film/BlackPanther'' made it clear that the entire world saw Wakanda as a small, backwards nation with nothing to offer. In this film, King T'Chaka announces that "stolen Wakandan vibranium" was used to create Ultron and destroy Sokovia, and no one bats an eye. If everyone knows Wakanda has a supply of one of the most impossibly valuable materials on Earth and everyone thinks Wakanda is a helpless backwater, how is Wakanda not visibly always under attack by hostile powers trying to take their vibranium? Alternatively, how does everyone not already know that Wakanda is an unstoppable super power?

** I just rewatched this and I had to fast-forward through that scene cause it annoys me so much that he didn't even try this. At this point the only explanation I have is, "So the movie can happen". As logical as it would have been to do _anything_ at all to try and drown out the words or plug his ears it wouldn't have looked as cool. Also at that point maybe Bucky was too angry to think clearly? I dunno, still annoys me.

** The later revelations in ''Series/TheFalconAndTheWinterSoldier'' that Sharon Carter is the Power Broker, and Zemo knows the Power Broker, raises the possibility that Zemo might've had some inside help.

* Is everybody forgetting that Wanda is more responsible for the destruction caused by Ultron than Tony because not only did she indirectly create Ultron by mind raping Tony, she also fucking helped Ultron acquire the vibranium it needed and released the Hulk on a large city that could have killed a bunch of people.
** Regarding the MindRape the best I can offer is that while Ultron did happen because of it, Wanda did not force Tony to make Ultron, it was still his choice, he could have made something different to protect the earth that did not involve plugging dangerous alien technology into the internet. Also Ultron was already an idea of Tony's. Regarding helping Ultron and siccing the Hulk on Johannesburg though, though, the writers have seemingly forgotten that Wanda did that stuff after "Age of Ultron".

** That's not actually what the machine does. It just uses your memories to construct a scenario that you can manipulate. So with Tony, it didn't alter his memories to replace his presumably less than pleasant final interaction with his parents with the one shown. It just allowed him to a view a simulation of how the encounter could have played out so he could feel better about his unresolved parental issues. It's a super high-tech therapy session. Tony even pointed out that it's laughably impractical, and no one in their right mind would have ever backed it. So using this thing on Bucky would help, but it's far from a magic fix.

** Assuming that all Ross knew about his end goal was for the Avengers to "tear each other apart," he probably assumed that by tearing each other apart, Zemo meant for them to kill each other, just as the Avengers' other enemies wanted to kill them. Since they're still alive, Ross thinks his plan failed. Zemo however had a different interpretation of those words, hence why he responded, "Did it though?" to Ross's statement.

* This is driving my crazy. I remember Tony mentioning at the start that his "memory machine" (for lack of a better name) could be used to remove or manipulate traumatic memories from an individual, but at no point is this ever brought up again or even alluded to for the possibility of fixing Bucky's emotional trauma.

** That's not actually what the machine does. It just uses your memories to construct a scenario that you can manipulate. It's a super high-tech therapy session. Tony even pointed out that it's laughably impractical, and no one in their right mind would have ever backed it. So using this thing on Bucky would help, but it's far from a magic fix.

** Team Thor is a non-canon mockumentary. ''Ragnarok'' makes it apparent that Thor and Hulk hadn’t seen each other since ''Age of Ultron''.