Captain America: Civil War *SPOILERS*

[Kalen O.]

I mostly agree with your overall argument, but I think this specific point is probably not accurate. Presumably Stark and/or T'Challa did tell Ross about what happened in Siberia, otherwise there would have been no impetus for arresting Zemo. And while the revelation of the truth might have served as mitigation in the trials/punishment for Cap's Avengers, it wouldn't necessarily lead to their summary release. There would still be an official process to go through. But by breaking them out of the Raft, Cap circumvented the law (again) and turned them all into fugitives all over again. I don't fault him for doing so, as he has no incentive to trust Ross (who, among other things is a massive hypocrite), but what happened in the bunker doesn't automatically wipe away everything that happened before. As for Tony . . . strictly speaking, he didn't violate any law or order by going to Siberia (as Ross never told him not to). In fact, when all was said and done, he attempted to apprehend Cap and Bucky but was unable to. So he could go back to Ross and say he was trying to do his job and that he might have succeeded if Ross had listened to him and supplied him with backup.

I would agree if not for the fact that we have no evidence that Ross has any idea what happened in Siberia - I don't think that Zemo being locked up is proof of that. It could easily be argued that Zemo was sent to Wakanda to be locked up because of the death of T'Chaka, but I don't actually think that's what happened. My interpretation was always that T'Challa just took Zemo directly to Wakanda without asking permission or informing anyone else of what happened. Zemo's crimes weren't just against Wakanda, he bombed an entire UN summit with 117 signatory countries involved in the Accords, of which Wakanda was one, having agreed to the Accords. Given that the Raft is where the Avengers were locked up for breaking the Accords and the threat level Zemo's imprisonment in Wakanda treated him as, I'd have thought Ross and other Accords members would have argued for Zemo to be locked up there too, since his crimes were against all the UN countries involved, not just Wakanda because their king was the only one we saw explicitly killed in the blast. T'Challa was shown to prioritize Wakanda's needs and justice over all else in his pursuit of Bucky, so to me it seemed that he wasn't interested in fighting the UN over who should get custody of Zemo, and he just took him.

Similarly, I don't see any reason to suspect Tony told Ross what happened in Siberia or even that he went there at all. In fact, given how eager and willing Ross was to have all the Avengers locked up, I would argue that he would have pushed to have Tony prosecuted for breaking the law. I don't think its a loophole that can be exploited, saying that Ross didn't tell him NOT to go to Siberia. It was repeatedly stated that the Accords were meant to be an oversight committee, it was to make the Avengers sanctioned rather than vigilantes. IMO there was a clear implication that the Avengers were not to act in any kind of combat scenario without explicit authorization, hence Steve's worries about 'what if there's something we have to do, have to be a part of to save people, but the committee won't let us'. So I don't think Ross would have just let Tony off with a stern warning for going to Siberia behind his back, he would have gone after him to his full capacity for acting like a vigilante rather than going through proper channels. I definitely can't imagine that he wouldn't have dropped some kind of stern warning about playing by the rules or not helping his friends when he called Tony to assist in defending the Raft from a break-in. The fact that the scene played that for laughs, with Tony defiantly placing Ross on hold to me spelled out that Tony wasn't remotely afraid of repercussions from that, which I can't imagine being true if he were already under scrutiny for going off to play vigilante again without Ross' permission or knowledge.

However, future movies may prove you right and me wrong here, and I'm willing to concede that. But as is, based on what we saw, my interpretation of things is that neither Tony nor T-Challa felt inclined to tell anyone what happened in Siberia and T'Challa took Zemo for crimes against his nation alone while Tony went home.

[TooFlyToFail]

Even if Cap had the immediate area they were looking for Crossbones in evacuated, it wouldn't have made a difference because Crossbones left that area in his escape. Cap can't evacuate the entire city.

As far as Wanda goes ... if he asked her to lay low rather than lock her yp against her will and without her knowledge it would have been less of an issue.

1) It didn't have to be the full city, just the market area that was obviously full of people that these guys could try to flee within.

2) Laying low is still limiting what she can do; making it sound nicer doesn't change what would be happening. Also, where would she go is she was allowed to leave? She could also run away. Confining her to that amazing facility was the best compromise.

[dragonmp93]

1) It didn't have to be the full city, just the market area that was obviously full of people that these guys could try to flee within.

2) Laying low is still limiting what she can do; making it sound nicer doesn't change what would be happening. Also, where would she go is she was allowed to leave? She could also run away. Confining her to that amazing facility was the best compromise.

Well, they could have tell her that she need stay out of the public eye, but no, Stark made the decision by himself.

[XPac]

1) It didn't have to be the full city, just the market area that was obviously full of people that these guys could try to flee within.

2) Laying low is still limiting what she can do; making it sound nicer doesn't change what would be happening. Also, where would she go is she was allowed to leave? She could also run away. Confining her to that amazing facility was the best compromise.

They were driving for several minute before they abandoned their vehicles in that market. There's no way Steve could have evacuated a radius that large even with the aid of local authories. You'll get a block maybe tops. Realistically there was nothing Steve could have done in t g at situation.

And yes laying low limits what she can do ... but the point being he would talk to her about it and get her consent. You wouldn't need to keep her prisoner if she agreed to it, but Stark didn't even bother asking and that's really the problem.

[Iron Fist]

Wrong thread

[TooFlyToFail]

Guys like Ross are frankly the reason why the accords will fail. Had he shown even a degree of willingness to work with the heroes bc ass on the evidence they had, I think it would have gone a long ways in showing Steve was perhaps a bit paranoid. But instead we see right out of the gate that heroes need to go around the government to do what needs to be done.

It doesn't matter! Because that argument right there is exactly WHY Steve was against signing the Accords in the first place, and Tony's the one who shot it down. That argument just proves Steve was right to be wary, and the movie explicitly shows Tony understanding and agreeing with that the second he decides he knows better than Ross what the proper course of action is. Tony gave up the moral high ground the second he did that and yet the movie ends with him still a sanctioned Avenger because he didn't tell anyone what he did while Steve is left to break out the other Avengers on his own for the same crimes Tony committed.

It's not that Tony's argument never had any merit. It's that Tony couldn't even adhere to the very things he was arguing for, and yet still acted like he was in the moral right over all the other Avengers who fought against the law for the exact reasons you're outlining here.

He didn't get Moscow permission to go into Siberia. He did essentially the very thing the accords were designed to prevent. And he did it for the same reason Steve was against signing the accords in the first place ... he rightly believed he knew better. Stark even told Steve he would be arrested if they knew what he was doing.

Again the main difference between Steve and Stark is that Steve is honest about it while Stark will try and bend the rules behind their backs.

I think all this could be avoided IF Stark, and Rogers, were also given a seat in that circle of influence, so that they can have a say in what everybody does. Honeslty, I don't think Steve would've hated that, and I don't know why, neither brought it up.

Still, at the end of the day, I still think that the fighting was pointless, and didn't need to happen. Giving Rogers a seat at the table would've given him away to keep tabs on the people in charge; something he couldn't do in Winter Soldier.

[Kalen O.]

What law did Tony break? He didn't start all of this, and he was trying to catch Cap without resorting to violence, nor did Steve try to work with the others from the jump.

Tony wasn't told "Don't go to Siberia." He went there to follow up with a lead, and didn't endanger innocent lives doing so. He's also the one that evacuated the airport, is he not? He went there to see if Cap was right, but he was probably still going to try to bring them in. It's not worse than aiding, and abetting, a wanted man, like Cap was.

Ross was clear from the get go. By acting without any official oversight from legitimate government agencies, he considered the Avengers to be vigilantes. By definition, they were breaking the law each time they acted in a military/police capacity without authorization from some form of government.

That means the Accord was never a matter of just don't do things we tell you not to do. It was deputizing the Avengers. They spelled it out, there was to be a UN panel authorizing their missions, telling them when and where they had the authority to act.

In acting on his own accord, rather than following the chain of command he himself had helped to put in place, by not passing it up the chain or informing anyone of his new information or seeking new orders, Tony was literally taking the law into his own hands the second he jetted off to Russia to help Steve and Bucky, the same as Clint and Scott and Wanda had all shown up to help Steve and Bucky. He was reverting back to being a vigilante, doing what he believed was right rather than waiting for the law and his overseers to grant him the authority to engage. And yes, while he ended up trying to take Steve and Bucky down, that was purely a reaction to finding out Bucky's involvement in his parents' deaths. He was acting on his own agenda there, not trying to bring them in to face trial for defying the Accords. Prior to that revelation, he had called a truce of his own free will and disregarded Ross' previous orders to bring them in, as he walked side by side with them to confront the threat they had been trying to face all along.

No matter how you spin it, Tony willfully circumvented the same Accords he'd fought his own teammates to uphold. He engaged as a vigilante, according to his own personal agenda, from the moment he left his chopper in his suit after the scene at the Raft. Hell, even during the Raft, as after all, hacking the supermax prison's security feeds and preventing Ross from overhearing Sam tell him where to find Steve was at the very LEAST obstruction of justice.

[kalorama]

I would agree if not for the fact that we have no evidence that Ross has any idea what happened in Siberia - I don't think that Zemo being locked up is proof of that. It could easily be argued that Zemo was sent to Wakanda to be locked up because of the death of T'Chaka, but I don't actually think that's what happened. My interpretation was always that T'Challa just took Zemo directly to Wakanda without asking permission or informing anyone else of what happened. Zemo's crimes weren't just against Wakanda, he bombed an entire UN summit with 117 signatory countries involved in the Accords, of which Wakanda was one, having agreed to the Accords. Given that the Raft is where the Avengers were locked up for breaking the Accords and the threat level Zemo's imprisonment in Wakanda treated him as, I'd have thought Ross and other Accords members would have argued for Zemo to be locked up there too, since his crimes were against all the UN countries involved, not just Wakanda because their king was the only one we saw explicitly killed in the blast. T'Challa was shown to prioritize Wakanda's needs and justice over all else in his pursuit of Bucky, so to me it seemed that he wasn't interested in fighting the UN over who should get custody of Zemo, and he just took him.

Similarly, I don't see any reason to suspect Tony told Ross what happened in Siberia or even that he went there at all. In fact, given how eager and willing Ross was to have all the Avengers locked up, I would argue that he would have pushed to have Tony prosecuted for breaking the law. I don't think its a loophole that can be exploited, saying that Ross didn't tell him NOT to go to Siberia. It was repeatedly stated that the Accords were meant to be an oversight committee, it was to make the Avengers sanctioned rather than vigilantes. IMO there was a clear implication that the Avengers were not to act in any kind of combat scenario without explicit authorization, hence Steve's worries about 'what if there's something we have to do, have to be a part of to save people, but the committee won't let us'. So I don't think Ross would have just let Tony off with a stern warning for going to Siberia behind his back, he would have gone after him to his full capacity for acting like a vigilante rather than going through proper channels. I definitely can't imagine that he wouldn't have dropped some kind of stern warning about playing by the rules or not helping his friends when he called Tony to assist in defending the Raft from a break-in. The fact that the scene played that for laughs, with Tony defiantly placing Ross on hold to me spelled out that Tony wasn't remotely afraid of repercussions from that, which I can't imagine being true if he were already under scrutiny for going off to play vigilante again without Ross' permission or knowledge.

However, future movies may prove you right and me wrong here, and I'm willing to concede that. But as is, based on what we saw, my interpretation of things is that neither Tony nor T-Challa felt inclined to tell anyone what happened in Siberia and T'Challa took Zemo for crimes against his nation alone while Tony went home.

The current movie proves you wrong here. Zemo was locked up in the exact same kind of high-tech isolation cell Bucky was being held in when he was arrested by Ross's task Force. Those things aren't standard issue. And he was shown being read the riot act by Everett Ross, the administrative head of Thaddeus Ross's task force, who explicitly said that he was in charge there. It's made plainly clear that Zemo was being held under the authority of Accord, not in Wakanda, which means Thaddeus Ross knows all about what happened. Also, T'Challa made a very clear point about Zemo being brought to justice as opposed to seeking revenge. Simply tossing him in a hole in Wakanda as opposed to putting him on trial under international authority wouldn't have been justice.

[PhantomStranger]

Guys like Ross are frankly the reason why the accords will fail. Had he shown even a degree of willingness to work with the heroes bc ass on the evidence they had, I think it would have gone a long ways in showing Steve was perhaps a bit paranoid. But instead we see right out of the gate that heroes need to go around the government to do what needs to be done.

And that said government would as happily locked them ALL up, as Ross said to Tony.

Everyone should also keep in mind that the UN allows some of the most atrocious human-rights abusers to sit on the Human Rights Committee. Which in and of itself shows how little faith should be placed in the 116 out of 117 number. Good number of those "yes" votes had nothing to do with "accountablility" and everything to do with leashing the Avengers so that they couldn't operate in specific nations.

[TooFlyToFail]

They were driving for several minute before they abandoned their vehicles in that market. There's no way Steve could have evacuated a radius that large even with the aid of local authories. You'll get a block maybe tops. Realistically there was nothing Steve could have done in t g at situation.

And yes laying low limits what she can do ... but the point being he would talk to her about it and get her consent. You wouldn't need to keep her prisoner if she agreed to it, but Stark didn't even bother asking and that's really the problem.

1) So where is War Machine, and Vision? If they were there, as back up in the surrounding area, watching if they try to escape, that may not have happened. I did bring up using Vision and Rhodes if working with the people wasn't viable.

2) And what if she says no? Does Cap say "Oh well, I tried."? Even if Cap asked, he was setting an example of not laying low, so i would've been a "do as I say, not as I do" scenario.

[kalorama]

1) So where is War Machine, and Vision? If they were there, as back up in the surrounding area, watching if they try to escape, that may not have happened. I did bring up using Vision and Rhodes if working with the people wasn't viable.

It started as a covert surveillance mission. War Machine and Vision don't exactly blend in.

[TooFlyToFail]

Ross was clear from the get go. By acting without any official oversight from legitimate government agencies, he considered the Avengers to be vigilantes. By definition, they were breaking the law each time they acted in a military/police capacity without authorization from some form of government.

That means the Accord was never a matter of just don't do things we tell you not to do. It was deputizing the Avengers. They spelled it out, there was to be a UN panel authorizing their missions, telling them when and where they had the authority to act.

In acting on his own accord, rather than following the chain of command he himself had helped to put in place, by not passing it up the chain or informing anyone of his new information or seeking new orders, Tony was literally taking the law into his own hands the second he jetted off to Russia to help Steve and Bucky, the same as Clint and Scott and Wanda had all shown up to help Steve and Bucky. He was reverting back to being a vigilante, doing what he believed was right rather than waiting for the law and his overseers to grant him the authority to engage. And yes, while he ended up trying to take Steve and Bucky down, that was purely a reaction to finding out Bucky's involvement in his parents' deaths. He was acting on his own agenda there, not trying to bring them in to face trial for defying the Accords. Prior to that revelation, he had called a truce of his own free will and disregarded Ross' previous orders to bring them in, as he walked side by side with them to confront the threat they had been trying to face all along.

No matter how you spin it, Tony willfully circumvented the same Accords he'd fought his own teammates to uphold. He engaged as a vigilante, according to his own personal agenda, from the moment he left his chopper in his suit after the scene at the Raft. Hell, even during the Raft, as after all, hacking the supermax prison's security feeds and preventing Ross from overhearing Sam tell him where to find Steve was at the very LEAST obstruction of justice.

Fine, fine.

I think that offering them a seat at the table, or Tony and Steve demanding one, would've made everything work in the end, if they did it from the jump.

[PhantomStranger]

But it had to be to the public? She couldn't just give it Fury, who could've used it without making said info public?

Putting that information in any one person's hands invited even more shennanigans trying to stop that one person. Put that information in everybody's hands and there's simply no way to re-bottle the genie.

[TooFlyToFail]

It started as a covert surveillance mission. War Machine and Vision don't exactly blend in.

Uh...Vision can't be covert, all of a sudden? They be in the sky, and watch from there, too.

[TooFlyToFail]

Putting that information in any one person's hands invited even more shennanigans trying to stop that one person. Put that information in everybody's hands and there's simply no way to re-bottle the genie.

Well, now bad people that aren't Hydra, have access to that info now.

Hell, why not give it to Cap? Idk, just anything is better than release god knows what into the wind for everybody to have access to.