[ SECRET POST #5392 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #5392 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.


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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 34 secrets from Secret Submission Post #772.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

You feel how you feel, no right or wrong way to do it. But I couldn't disagree more with you or the people that share your point of view.

How was he hypocrital? He learned from his mistakes as shown by him accepting the possibilities of having some of his actions legally regulated by the UN. Because he was thinking of others. Nothing hypocrital about it. That's call change.

And his whole schtick since Iron Man 1 has been to own up to his wrong-doings and dedicating himself wholeheartly to protect people and making the world a better place (his development of green energy, the application of BARF to medical purposes, and so on). Despite all of the sacrifices he made and how hard the superhero life must have been : costing him his relationship with Pepper in particular (and let's not forget that he was a middle-age man without superpowers or superspy training with a hole in his chest. Also, fighting in a metal amor couldn't have been easy. And I'm not even talking about his PTSD and anxiety) he never felt like he was good enough nor doing enough. That's the whole reason for him accelerating his and Bruce's creation of Ultron by using the mind stone.

His arrogance is only on a very superficial level (he is very confident in his scientifical and intellectual abilities, yes, but with very good, proven, reasons). It has been shown to be more of a persona (which he probably had to endorse to survive being constantly under the public eye since he was a little kid) than a manifestation of his true inner self. That's so in your face to me, that I have trouble understanding how in canon and in fandom it can be taken at face value.

That's the man that was the first to say that "he was a pipping hot mess" or the one that most often made none ambiguous admission of culpabilities (even when he was wrong about that because he's full of self-hatred), "And Ultron, my fault". Then, he always made an active reparation. Real arrogance would be someone that always denied doing anything wrong and, if he does, would be too proud to admit it or do anything about it.

He does have a self-centerness in that he feels deeply responsible for everything bad that happen, even when it's just him not being/doing good enough (in his distorted opinion of himself), and thinking as such that it's his duty to make thing rights. It's not a good mind set, but it's one that's easy to sympathize with for me.

To be honest, I could write so much more in defense of this character, but I'm not going to write a whole master thesis (there's enough material for it).

Everything you're accusing him of could be said about other Avengers or MCU characters. But he's the one that get the most shit on for that, in and outside the MCU.

I, for one, am deeply missing such a layered, imperfect but good (as a person and as a fictional character) character.

[(Anonymous)]

The problem with Tony is that he might have been capable of recognizing a mistake after the disaster has hit, but never well enough to stop making them at all. Every screw up was followed by a massive over correction in the other direction, leading to a new, easily, avoidable different life ruining mistake.

[(Anonymous)]

NA - This is why I love Tony so much. He's a tragic hero. His actions come from a sense of duty and goodness, but his flaw is trying to pre-empt tragedies and be a perfect person to the world instead of being selfish. Look at how okay his life was going when he gave up on trying to be a hero and focused on himself, only to let that go because he can not stop trying to save everyone. And as much as I love him it makes his death completely fitting. The only way he could finally save everyone, was to die doing it. (And hell, that may have not even worked out tbh because reversing the snap when they did was kind of a weird choice, but I don't think the other movies are going to acknowledge that.)

Tony is, dare I say, THE most complex and interesting character in the Avengers. I think quite a lot of hate for him does come from how front and center he is in the Avengers narrative. To me all the Avenger movies are just more Iron Man movies. Tony is the core. Now that he's gone we're getting a refresh of most of the characters because the Avengers are over, long live the Avengers.

[(Anonymous)]

But he does do it all because he is selfish. He does stuff not because it is right, but because he is constantly seeking to alleviate the guilt of his previous screw up to make himself feel better. That is why he overcorrects all the time, he isn't trying to do right for right's sake. Right up to the end though, when he finally realizes doing what is right won't make him feel better and won't alleviate any guilt on his part, and it certainly will not fix of his old mistakes, but because it needs done because it is the right thing on its own merits for everyone else to have a future.

[(Anonymous)]

I agree with AYRT, and I think Tony's motivation is far more about doing right because it's right, and only secondarily about alleviating his own guilt. However, I don't think it's an either/or, and that's a huge part of what makes the character so beautifully complex. He's always trying, dauntlessly, endlessly, to help and to do what's right, but things like his deep-seated fear of being helpless and his sense of personal guilt make everything a lot more complicated for him.

[(Anonymous)]

I can't say I agree with your sentiment, because it pins his turnover to "doing right for right's sake" at the very end when I think it happens much earlier than that, at least after the first Avengers movie if not earlier. I think he is genuine in wanting to help other people, but there is definitely a bit of selfishness in that, no one is 100% pure in their altruism.
What I had meant though about "instead of being selfish" is that it would have been selfish to use his energy to try to better his bubble instead of trying to keep the world from being destroyed. And I don't think his story is about guilt, I think it's about fear.
To me Tony is someone who is trying to do the right thing, but keeps over-extending the scale 1) because he has the means to, and 2) because of an underlying fear. And that spells doom because he has all of the traits of a tragic character (of which one is arrogance!). And the funny thing is, maybe he could have helped the world more, if he wasn't so hell bent on trying to save it all at once (which he dies for).

+1

[(Anonymous)]

THANK YOU. ALL OF THIS

[(Anonymous)]

NARYT but "To me all the Avenger movies are just more Iron Man movies." <-- that's kind of MY main complaint. I would have liked to have more movies about other characters.

[(Anonymous)]

You want a Thor: The Dark World pt2?

[(Anonymous)]

+10000000

[(Anonymous)]

The thing is, people are way exagerating how many big screws up he actually made in the MCU. Because, as far as I can tell, there's only a few of those that are in the present days of the MCU (meaning him being a jerk to Kilian years before he had his self-revelation absolutely doesn't count): selling weapons and Ultron (shared responsabilities with Bruce, Wanda, the mind-stone and Ultron himself). Of course, if you think the Accords were a bad thing you would see it as an overcorrection. I see them as a necessary, amendable thing that had potential to be a good thing if given any chance. Again, other character in the MCU, even other Avengers could be said to have made as much mistakes as he did. But, everyone loves to use him as an easy scapegoat.

+ Infinity

[(Anonymous)]

This all the way. Even Honest Trailers got in on the scapegoating. It’s getting old.

Just dislike a character, don’t try to blame them for every bad thing that happens in the story with negligible reasoning just because you dislike them.

[(Anonymous)]

SA: and selling weapons being pre-revelation, it doesn't actually count I've just realised.

[(Anonymous)]

Here for this comment! Here for it all damn day!<3

[starwatcher]

Thank you so much for this meta. I haven't seen any of the MCU movies; my only knowledge of Tony Stark is through fanfic crossovers with other fandoms that I already know. The fic I've read has shown him in a favorable light -- otherwise I wouldn't have kept reading fic with him included -- and it's not unknown for fandom to take a character with a single good trait and build them up into something much better. <g> I really appreciate the deeper insight into the character that inspires people to write about him. Thanks again.

[tabaqui]

I agree with you 100% but - Civil War should have been an Avengers movie (if they had to make it) and I wish, frankly, they'd *never* made it, because it was just dumb and kinda ridiculous and I can't imagine even Tony, with all his issues and guilt and fix-it impulses and self-loathing thinking anything Ross touched had even the *slightest* value. Especially knowing about the fucking Raft (and hell, Gitmo).

So gross.

But I love Tony, canon or fanon (mostly). Not as much as I love Bucky, and Bucky/Steve, but I'm sad Tony's gone.

[(Anonymous)]

^ This

[(Anonymous)]

He learned from his mistakes as shown by him accepting the possibilities of having some of his actions legally regulated by the UN. Because he was thinking of others. Nothing hypocrital about it. That's call change.

He doesn't really change, though. He signs the Accords, and then he violates them almost immediately by joining Steve and Bucky in Siberia in pursuit of the five other super soldiers. He doesn't truly accept that he might benefit from oversight--he signs the Accords for emotional reasons, but he doesn't alter his actual behavior in any way afterwards.

[(Anonymous)]

+1000

Not to mention dragging Peter in.

[(Anonymous)]

Show me where the Accords allow an unknown, unregistered, superpowered minor to have a suite with an "Instant Kill Mode" Tony.

[(Anonymous)]

This is probably my biggest problem. Each movie is about him Learning A Lesson but by the next movie he's making the same mistakes or worse. With enough repetition the story isn't about a guy learning lessons it's about a guy *refusing* to learn lessons but acting like he has. And that's just... idk really unlikable.

If he were only in IM1-IM3 + Avengers 1 I'd think he was a quippy jerk with a batting average of 0.500 on good movies (which is nothing to sneeze at!) and go on about my way. After Spiderman? I basically have "Tony Stark" blocked on tumblr/ao3. (Exceptions are made for comic book Tony and stories set in/around 2012.)

I'm not interested in converting people to my unhappiness, but I do enjoy venting. Yay anonymous posting.

[(Anonymous)]

Right? He made a criminal-profiling surveillance AI three fucking times AFTER the events of IM3 where he recognized his paranoia/PTSD/anxiety as a personal problem that harmed others and sought help for it (which was a good thing!). Him working on the Iron Legion, Insight, and EDITH is just fucking BAD and I hate that those plots both tried to make it sound like he had a point and tried to brush aside how unhealthy it was for him personally.

[(Anonymous)]

But was he violating them? And if he was, was he violating the spirit in which they had been written? It was an unused, uninhabited bunker except for the possibilities of there being supersoldiers. He agreed to the Accords to protect people and their freedom, not because he cared that much about blindly obeying the law. And it kills me that people praise Steve for breaking out the law in order to help Bucky (and I get that part), even when in "Avengers" he was looking down on Tony for not following orders (which, considering "The First Avengers" was mighty hypocrital of him) or giving him a look when in "AoU" a black market for weapons was mentioned (even if we know that Tony had nothing to do with that. Obadiah was doing it behind his back), but would condemned Tony for helping Steve despite it going potentially against his current best interest and what he was believing in and fighting for. If he didn't help, people would still have shit on him for it, probably pointing out how bad of a friend he was and how hard-headed and cold-hearted he was. It's really fudge him if he does, fudge him if he doesn't.

[(Anonymous)]

Oh my God, this!

To quote a narrow-minded anon upthread: “I feel like I’m going crazy!”

Tony-bashing is such an intellectual dead end, because all the genuinely good reasons for disliking him have been thrown out the window years ago in favor of the same faulty and hypocritical rhetoric.

And I don’t believe every person who dislikes Tony is a Tony-basher, because there’s a difference in intensity and whether good-faith is involved. I also don’t believe every basher is transparently a Team Cap or Stucky stan, because it can really be as simple as them hating Tony without being obsessed with another character or ship. But I have seen Steve Stans who also froth over Stucky use the same tired arguments many times, so the connection is understandable, just not always the case.

[(Anonymous)]

Yes, he was violating them. It was literally the scenario Cap was pointing out earlier in the movie and that Tony was shutting down. The Accords, as Tony wanted them, were to specifically prevent any action, no matter how immediate the threat was, of a superpowered individual of which he considered himself to be, without express consent of the council of global vagueness. He violated them in the letter, and very much in spirit. Especially since his aim was to dump decision making responsibility on other people so he could say, in future hallway conversations, that he was only following a group consensus. That is why the Accords were about Tony evading guilt, and only about that, and Tony couldn't even manage to keep that one up for even a single movie.