Captain America: Civil War (with SPOILERS!) Discussion and Whatever Thread

Actually, I've been thinking that the Accords could be fairly applicable to Thor - at least, a lot moreso than the Registration Act in the comics. Since it's representative of the United Nations and is really only about outlining how the Avengers can act, in Thor's case - separate from the others - it could be framed as a treaty defining how Thor and/or Asgard can interfere with Earth and the nations therein. The idea that a committee could make him do something he doesn't want to do is a sticking point (but then, so is his involvement with the Avengers in the first place), but it's still a fairly reasonable first step.

Makes more sense than in the comics, where Tony tries to browbeat and backhandedly threaten Thor (and implicitly all of Asgard as a whole - such as it was at the time, empty and hovering over the American midwest) into falling under the US government's authority, and gets his ass beat down as a result.

edited 5th Dec '16 6:20:58 PM by KnownUnknown

"The difference between reality and fiction is that fiction has to make sense." - Tom Clancy, paraphrasing Mark Twain.

Pretty much, yeah. It's a standard term for people demanding special treatment, without being functionally different from anyone else. There are superheroes in real life after all - it's just that they're mostly eccentric if not disturbed weirdos that typically cause more trouble than they prevent... which is kinda what the Avengers are doing now.

As for Thor, not being a signatory of the Accords gives him less authority, as he's a representative of a state that no nation on this planet has official diplomatic relationship with. That puts him somewhere between being a refugee in the first film, to a trespasser and illegal alien if he insists on sticking around. Still, first contact with alien intelligence is something of a legal blank, but I wouldn't bank too much on the argument of their superior firepower giving their representatives international legal immunity. In fact, I'd wager dollars to rubles that if the situation were reversed, with human armed forces being able to cross over and totally decimate the Asgardians, there would be outcries of how humanity should follow some prime directive of other, not interfering in the affairs of all the nice and peaceful Viking gods.

Except they are different from anyone else. That's kind of the conceit of the entire universe: that these people are not average, that they have powers and abilities that normal people do not.

No, there really aren't. What you are describing aren't "superheroes," because nobody in the real world actually does what the superheroes in fiction do.

You are still trying to operate using Real World Logic, except the MCU (and MU in general) is not the Real World. It has gods, monsters, aliens, robots, and more. The Sokovia Accords are specifically there because there was no law to prevent the disaster that happened. That's the entire point.

edited 5th Dec '16 11:26:23 PM by alliterator

So does a circus troupe but nobody grants those any law-enforcement privileges. Then again, people with unusual aptitudes partake in police and military operations all the time - they're called consultants. It's even a popular genre nowadays. However, they're still bound by laws, same as anyone else. Meanwhile, following the simple law of not trying to subvert civil institutions with one's personal drone army - which is something more and more applicable to reality - would have prevented the Ultron crisis altogether.

Really, exactly what in having the muscle strength to bench-press a semi makes you exempt from the law? Did democracy suddenly gave way to arm-wrestling competition when I wasn't looking... 'cause Trump still would have won then.

The Endangered Species Act. The Toxic Substances Control Act. The Pest Management Act, considering his usual behavior.

As for Vision and Wanda, isn't this the exact opposite of the typical mutant argument - that they shouldn't be treated differently for their abilities and for pretty much belonging to a different species? A rather glaring double standard here. It's almost as if you demand that aliens, robots and mutants in general should be exempt from any laws they don't like. Loki, Ultron, and Magneto approve.

Honestly, when it comes to Asgard it is better not to rock the boat. Because from their perspective, they rule the nine realms, and that includes the earth. We are lucky that they are happy with letting us do whatever we want, while otherwise providing protection from other alien races who might have worse things in mind. Earth can neither afford to loose this protection, nor to anger Asgard enough that it might retaliate. Putting their crown prince in prison would do both. Which is exactly why Ross' assessment that Thor is like a nuke is so dangerous.

Plus, we're talking about international laws, which are more what you call guidelines than actual rules.

If the Hulk is one of a kind and not quite human, he belongs to an endangered species. His blood is toxic to humans, causing rapid mutation in large quantities. And he's harmful to any settlement he visits. The glove fits.

International guidelines have spared the world from becoming a permanent Fallout LARP session. The thing about superheroes is that, due to creator provincialism, the overwhelming majority of them operate out of a single country - but more importantly, that in the MCU, they operate as part of a single team. If not for the Accords, everyone would have precedent to field their own super-squads or even just dress up spies in garish outfits and call it a day. You can't predict where next-gen weaponry will be developed, and you've given people precedent to use it unilaterally upon completion... for the purposes of world peace, of course.

The fulcrum of egalitarianism is that those regarded as equals must also extend the same courtesy to others - something neither Steve nor Tony do. If they think they know better than everyone else in the world combined, and that laws shouldn't apply to them based on that, then they are no different than the villains they claim to oppose.

"It's almost like you don't actually respond to any of my arguments and instead make random comments to distract people."

Which is exactly what is happening here. And every time a discussion about another aspect of the movie starts, the troper ensures that we are back on the same circular argument as fast as possible. Two threats have already been closed down because of this nonsense, and I am not in the mood to see the same thing happening here or even worse, in the main MCU threat.

So, we were talking about the action scenes...I actually like the final one better than the airport fight, because of the emotional aspect in it...that is, btw, quite interesting, in The Winter Soldier the action sequences got bigger and bigger, but in Civil War, it is the emotional stakes which grow. We go from a mostly impersonal except Crossbone is involved fight to a desperate "Bucky has to survive this" chase scene, to the Airport battle, where the initial conflict escalates and finally to the last fight which really is about life and death.

Though the Airport fight naturally sticks out in scale and because of the different way those abilities clash against each other.

The Asgardians' perspective means jack with a side order of squat given that for the majority of their existence, humans didn't even know they actually existed. For that matter, I find it questionable to say the least that we need their protection given the rise in new superheroes and advancements in technology displayed in the MCU.

If anything the less Asgard is involved with Earth the better if the Thor movie is anything to go by. Hell, Asgard hadn't even heard of the Chitauri until the events of the Avengers.

edited 6th Dec '16 2:02:44 AM by windleopard

In general, the idea that any particular group is too powerful to oppose, and thus they should be treated as also benevolent, reeks of collaborationism. And given how quickly the Destroyer weaponry was reverse-engineered - and this was a behemoth apparently designed to fight Celestials - chances are humanity has all the firepower potential to take on any alien threat, without even the Avengers' assistance.

Wtf are you talking about?MCU's destroyer has nothing to do with Celsetrials.. You need to just stop now. we get it you don't like or can't wrap your head around the narrative purpose of the avenegers within the context of the live action universe they exist in let conventions of the superhero genre. It's officially redundant all across tv tropes

did you know what humanity's protection against thano's forces was? nuking new York. It's not even confirmed if theTesseract, space infinity stone, can be destroyed with a nuuke, so who knows if it would have worked. The national guard was underdeployed and unprepared. Same with NYPD. no one except SHIELD and Hydra dabbles in super magical alien stuff within the invasion's context. Ancient One won't come out. Black Bolt gives two shits. Nova Corps has no idea. Odin thinks that's Thor's problem. Ross can't even hold Hulk without making a bigger mess than he intened for. Yeah the Avenegers WERE needed and still ARE needed. Let's see if a nuke or coulson's destroyer gun can dent all six stones. Let's see humanity fight Thanos and not all die. guess who would do the most amount of saving and beating Asus? The superpower heroish community, not any normal armed forces. why? Because the MCU isn't about the latter. simple

Also it was narrativly prominent for the Avenegers to prove their worth vs "humanity". That has to do with expertise. of course you will ignore all of this I just to go back to the same argument so idk why I'm writing it. pointless.

edited 6th Dec '16 4:26:23 AM by WolyniaBookSeries

Oh, I get the narrative purpose - they tried to do their own Superman story, y'know, unlimited power in a single pair of hands, big responsibility with no enforced accountability etc... only without the actual Superman. Really, Steve was a hair's breadth from being vaporized by Crossbones, Wanda got suckered by a guy with a bow and arrow, Tony and Rhodey are one stray shot away from becoming glorified paperweights, never mind just shooting them sans armor. That leaves Thor, Vision, and the Hulk, but I wouldn't label any one of them as impossible to take down by unconventional means within human reach. The idea that the Avengers are beyond contestation, whether legally or physically, has no basis in the actual setting, but the film still decided to bank on it, and the result, narratively, was flawed. And in-universe, well, the anti-reg side got pretty much what was coming to them. They wanted to operate outside the law, so they got turned into outlaws. Logical, really.

That is not the context of the avenegers.omg. Ugh. Avenegers vs civil war have different functions nvm u don't understand anything outside breaking down tropes to whatever form of realism popping up in ur head. I'm leaving this thread. u have too much of a trope mentality, either characters do x because of one trope or y because of another, and if you don't like said trope you will tear it down. I can't do it anymore bye

So, when events are viewed in light of any realistic consequences, the opposing cry is that this isn't reality; but when they are viewed as part of an intended narrative, the call is to not reduce them into story elements. Consistent.

I'll cut a deal then. If, in the course of the future films, Steve chances upon another team of heroes, entirely or mostly volunteer humans with pretty much the same goals, and fully appreciates their efforts in fighting the good fight, I'll take back everything I've said. However, if he instead gives them the hockey-pad speech, or outright fights them over minor differences in methodology; or if, how unfortunate, they turn out to be moles for the villains, so as to shoot the whole idea down, then there will have to be the admission that separating the capes from the civilians is done on no rational basis. That it's done strictly because the films in general have run out of ideas on how to keep their preferred characters operational and exclusive in what is effectively a post-cyberpunk world.

And if neither thing happens, we can call it a draw, a gray area. Question is how much one believes the story to be about what one thinks it is about.

No, they are simply saying that you're wrong. Civil War wasn't about "power in the hands of one person," no more than Batman v Superman was about that either; in fact, it's silly to even think that, considering the Avengers are a team of people, not one single individual. Captain America never says that his and only his hands are the right ones, he just doesn't think that the strings of the Avenges should be held by a committee, especially in a world where corruption and self-serving interests in rampant.

(Hell, saying that Superman only wants the power in his own hands is disingenuous at best. He only cares about how other superheroes operate if they unnecessarily hurt or kill people — otherwise, he is pretty content to leave them alone.)

But you don't care about all that argument, because your basic argument is "All superheroes must work for the government or else they are fascist pigs that enjoy hurting people." Oh, whoops, I made a strawman, but then so did you.

Because all laws are inherently good, right? I mean, that's what you are saying, isn't it? If the government does it, we all must obey.

edited 6th Dec '16 6:53:39 AM by alliterator

Well, the litmus I'm proposing concerns just that - whether some laws are inherently flawed and thus should be ignored by anyone opting to follow their own conscience for the greater good... or if some people are inherently superior and so should have special privilege to ignore any law they disagree with. If Steve starts acting as though only he gets to say how and by whom should Hydra or similar threats be fought, the answer should be clear enough.

Remember, Steve himself is only a superhero because of trusting the government, in signing up for the super-soldier program. Should a similar project ever be successful for other volunteers, he'd be the one with least grounds to complain.

edited 6th Dec '16 7:23:48 AM by indiana404

The Asgardian Po V means a lot because, as Fury points out, Earth is hopelessly outgunned when it comes to threats from outer space. If not for the Asgadrians, Earth would already be an ice desert. And once the Kree realize that their little experiment actually worked on Earth, it could easily become one big laboratory for them. I certainly don't enjoy the notion of being some sort of lab rat for warfare.

Weather humans like it or not, being part of the nine realms has protected the earth in the Narrative of the MCU. And the decision of Asgard to no interfere has allowed them to develop mainly at our own pace. Now that Earth has drawn the attention of Thanos on itself is really not the right moment to get into a pissing contest over the question if Earth is a sovereign planet or not, especially since in practice, it really doesn't make any difference as long as Asgard focusses on being a shield.

Steve: the safest hands are still our own.

This is an actual line from the movie.

And yet the idea that he himself is just as capable of corruption or self-interest completely eludes him throughout the movie even as that is what is driving him.

Human kind has evolved since then. The Avengers Initiative didn't initially include Thor and Agents of SHIELD and Guardians of the Galaxy have shown you don't need an Asgradian to save the world.

I wish them all the luck getting past an army of Inhumans, Iron Men, sorcerers and other beings that can challenge and defeat alien beings.

To say nothing of how the Kree we saw got his ass kicked by a team that included a Pokemon with a slightly higher vocabulary and a reject from Looney Tunes.

It has also brought all kinds of trouble like Odin dumping the Tesseract on Earth in the first place and later on banishing Thor to Earth which resulted in the Destroyer popping up.

I think Asgard should worry more about making sure their own petty issues with the royal family doesn't end up spilling over into other realms before they decide to play universe police.

edited 6th Dec '16 7:50:43 AM by windleopard

"our own" not "my own"

Remove all those powered people and you have no protection whatsoever against threats from outer space. That is the whole point here.

Apart from the guns created by reverse-engineering said threats from outer space, or the nukes that ultimately took out the last threat from outer space, or... you get the point.

edited 6th Dec '16 7:49:31 AM by windleopard

"banishing Thor to Earth which resulted in the Destroyer popping up."

that was loki fault, granted Odin and Loki need therapy but that ship already said.

"Remove all those powered people and you have no protection whatsoever against threats from outer space"

unfortunaly one of them create marvel skynet which almost end life of earth, the other almost run over south africa and the witch who was part of that is now part of the team.

When the safer hand create problems(including a maniac who make their leader fights) you may want to reconsider things

"My Name is Bolt, Bolt Crank and I dont care if you believe or not"