Why was Zemo in Bucky’s book?
In TFATWS, Zemo tells him “I took the liberty of crossing off my name in your book. I hold no grudges for what you thought you had to do,” but I can’t figure out why Bucky would have felt the need to atone for something done to Zemo. Sokovia had nothing to do with him. Am I missing something important?
Commentaires
Zemo was on the first list
I think Zemo was on the revenge list for that, no?
So Zemo is on his list because he helped Zemo do bad things in Civil War.
Part of his healing process is making amends to correct the wrongs that were done and to ease his own conscience. I’m not saying he did anything by wrong. He had zero control over what he did. But in universe, he is doing what he needs to do to forgive himself.
Dude, I'm literally an abuse survivor, so I know full well about the guilt abuse victims feel. Which is also why I know that doubling down on that guilt and making victims responsible for their own abuse is not a means of allevaiting it.
Telling Bucky to make amends is akin to telling a SA victim to apologize to their attacker using the "logic" the victim thinks is was their fault. It nothing more than victim-blaming.
I can safely assure you there is no therapist on the planet who would endorse victim-blaming as a theraputic treatment. So yeah- there's no mental health aspect. At least not one any health professional would endorse.
I’m sorry you went through abuse. That sucks. I did too as a kid. Mine was physical, mental and emotional. But as a result of my abuse, I was mean to my little sister. I never apologized to my abuse for my abuse. But I did apologize to the victim who I abused. That’s basically what Bucky is doing.
I went to therapy too. And part of my therapy was learning to recognize my triggers and learn to not overreact when I am triggered. You misunderstanding what I was saying has obviously triggered you. I’m sorry for whatever you went through. But I am not your abuser. I am not supporting the abuse you suffered. I’m not victim blaming Bucky. I’m saying that this is what was happening in the movie and that people who abuse others, even if they themselves are abuse victims, should make amends to the people they harmed.
You yourself said he was expected to make amends to Zemo. Zemo is on his amends list. Zemo was one of his abusers. So yes- he very much is being told to make amends to his abusers. Even with Senator --- whatshername Bucky is depicted as the one *with the power* not as the person she used to attain power. Its like if they suddenly decided Pierce was actually a victim and Bucky was using him.
>I’m not victim blaming Bucky.
Well you are, even if its indirectly by supporting the victim-blaming narrative of the show which is trying to depict Bucky as not only the victimizer, but also holding him responsible for everything HYDRA did- including their abuse of himself. By calling him an enabler and by depicting him as an active, consenting and willing participant.
Its really "he wanted it!" So yes- victim blaming.
>Bucky's list was of people he had wronged and people who he helped wrong others. This is shown in the first episode where he brings the senator who whoever she is to justice and his flashbacks of what he did to the old guy's son.
>So Zemo is on his list because he helped Zemo do bad things in Civil War.
As I said, Zemo was on the list because he helped Zemo do bad things. He wasn’t making amends to Zemo. He needed to make sure Zemo faced appropriate justice. By the end of TFATWS, he had bade sure Zemo faced that appropriate justice.
He had power over the Senator in the show because he had been freed from the mind control so no one could make him a victim again. And he helped her get into power so he is making amends not to her, but to society for helping her gain power and do bad things.
The show is not holding him accountable for the abuse Hydra did to him. No where is it ever said that. He is being held accountable for his actions because even if he was under someone else’s control, what he did was still wrong.
If an abuse victim commits a crime at the command of their abuser, it’s still a crime and they are still guilty of it and they are still held accountable. Yes they are a victim but they are also responsible for what they do to others. Bucky’s is a special circumstance because he was mind controlled. So instead of being put in jail like someone in the real world would be, he just has to go to counseling and help bring the bad guys to justice.
No where is anyone saying that he wanted it. Never. You are allowing your own experiences to cloud the reality of what’s being said. You are misunderstanding the intent because you are triggered and just seeing your own abuse in what is being portrayed.
I hope you are getting the help you need to work through what happened to you. But you are wrong about the show and about what I have been saying.
That's not how it was described though: she was called the "pawn" and Bucky spoke of the "power I gave her"- past tense. So depicting him as the victimizer and her as the victim.
Further we have remarks like "HYDRA were my people". No they were his captors. "I don't do that anymore"- like being the Winter Soldier was a career choice. Or like calling an SA victim a prositute.
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The show is not holding him accountable for the abuse Hydra did to him. No where is it ever said that.
Except all the above and the time Sam called him HYDRA's "enabler".
> He is being held accountable for his actions because even if he was under someone else’s control, what he did was still wrong.
If someone broke into my house, held my kids at gunpoint and threatened to shoot them if I didn't do as they said, should I still be held accountable for what they made me do? What I did was wrong, but I was under compulsion/duress at the time. There is a general understanding that people shoundn't be held accountable for actions performed under duress.
>If an abuse victim commits a crime at the command of their abuser, it’s still a crime and they are still guilty of it and they are still held accountable.
This is no diffrent to the above: if my abuser made me steal a car by threatening to phyically harm me if I refused, should I still be held to account? Even the law makes allowances for this.
Yet again, in Bucky's case the actual abusers walk free whilst the victim is forced to make amends. And Zemo was already in prison: so there was no need to make him face justice.
Further, we don't see any other mind control victim in the MCU being forced to make amends. We don't see Clint being forced to make amends to te familes of the SHIELD Agents he killed. We don't see Natasha being forced to make amends, or Wanda. or Tony.
Only Bucky- and only he is explicitly called an "enabler" of his own abuse. So yes: victim-blaming. Calling a victim an enabler of their own abuse is victim blaming. 100%.
Yes, if your abuser made you steal a car by threatening to harm you, you would still be held accountable. Likely not to the extent someone would if they did it without coercion but you still committed a crime.
Abuse is a very complex thing but it does not mean you get a free ticket just because someone made you do it. If someone held a gun to your head and told you to shoot someone else, do you really think you would suffer no consequences if you did it?
I seriously don’t understand how your view can be so skewed. No where is it ever said or shown that his abusers walked free. The people who were controlling him were either killed during the events of Captain America: The Winter Soldier or they were likely arrested afterwards. Any that are still free are that way because they ran and were never found.
Just because we don’t see it on screen doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.
- Natasha’s amends happened before we ever met her.
- Clint may have been forced to make amends in some way in the three years between the events of The Avengers and Age of Ultron.
- Wanda ran after the events in WandaVision. Then she went full evil and then died.
- Tony spent the entirety of the MCU making amends out of his own guilt. He shut down weapon’s manufacturing, created a foundation to help victims after events the Avengers were a part of and was fully on board with the Sokovia Accords because that was a way he felt he could be held accountable.
I don’t remember Bucky ever being called an enabler in the show. Maybe I’m remembering wrong but given your track record of misunderstanding things, I’d be willing to bet it’s never said or even implied.
You are taking a show that is all about the main characters working through their trauma and struggles and trying to twist it into something it isn’t.
Please, talk to your therapist about this because you are just way off base. I’m done engaging with you because your perceptions are so twisted by your past that you can’t see the truth.
Clint was never forced to make amends for what he did under Loki's control: it was never bought up again and he simply went home. He also never had to make amends for his 5-year- long murder spree as Ronin.
Wanda was working for HYDRA willingly and set Hulk loose on a city. Again,: no amends.
Tony made countless weapons after he'd supposedly stopped including Ultron, EDITH and the Iron Legion. He killed more people *after* he was meant to have stopped being an arms dealer than he did before. Strange amends.
Tony broke the Accords before Civil War even ended and got away with it before committing one attempted murder and one major assault as well as property damage and letting Zemo escape. None of which he was held accountable for or even admitted to.
Come on now. I don't get to tear up the very law that's meant to keep me in check and still say I'm being accountable
>Yes the law still holds you accountable even if forced to do the actions.
Not of your name is Tony Stark.
>You being under duress is taken into consideration but that doesn’t magically absolve you of your actions.
The person who made you do it should be held equally or more accountable. Yet with Bucky he's held responsible not only for what he did under duress but for the actions of the person who put him under duress as well.
>I seriously don’t understand how your view can be so skewed. No where is it ever said or shown that his abusers walked free.
Senator Atwood wasn't hiding. She was literally out in the open still a Senator. Years after HYDRA'S collapsed despite having collaborated with them.
Doctor Nagel wasn't hiding: he openly admitted to having worked for HYDRA until their collapse and wasn't pursued afterwards.
So yeah: as per my analogy: I'm being held accountable for what I was made to do under duress whilst the person who held my family hostage gets off Scot free.
>I don’t remember Bucky ever being called an enabler in the show.. , I’d be willing to bet it’s never said or even implied.
"You were stopping the people whose evil you enabled as the Winter Soldier". A direct quote from Episode 5.
That argument reflects a complete ignorance of the psychological and legal aspects of what makes someone guilty. First of all, learn one thing: **Bucky was NOT coerced, he was mind-controlled,** meaning he did NOT have the slightest degree of agency. From the perspective of trauma psychology (I say this as someone who formally studies the subject), **when a person is subjected to a mental state in which they are NOT in control of their actions and are also subjected to abuse and control by a third party, their moral agency is considered null and void, meaning they cannot be held responsible for anything whatsoever.** The legal aspect supports this, and there is a legal defense called automatism. So no, **Bucky is not psychologically, legally, or morally responsible for what he was forced to do when he literally had no control over his body. This applies to any mind-controlled character.**
Except for the ENTIRE REASON THE AVENGERS WERE FIGHTING IN CIVIL WAR. Zemo framed Bucky for the bombing at the UN that killed king T'Chaka and how many others. Bucky was hunted across Europe until he was captured and Zemo, impersonating a psychologist, reactivated Bucky's winter soldier brainwashing to hurt or kill even more people. It's literally the entire setup for that movie but based on these comments, a lot of people seem to have forgotten.
I'll see myself out.