winter soldier
Apr. 8th, 2014 06:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
holliHaving seen it three times in four days (yeah, you heard me), I am having a LOT of thinky thoughts about Cap 2. I may manage to discuss them at length, at some point; right now, I mostly seem to want to write fic. But I am curious about something.
How long do y'all think Bucky actually spent as the Soldier? In relative-to-him terms, I mean? Because I was thinking about it, and given what we know (mostly in cryo; two dozen known assassinations) it... might not actually have been that long? I mean, due to the vagaries of having to cast actual actors Sebastian Stan's obviously only aged a couple years, but when you work it out I actually think that's correct-- he can't have been Soldier-ing for much more than two years, maybe three at the outside.
I mean, even if we assume those two dozen are only the known missions-- even if there's twice as many-- it seemed like they couldn't keep Bucky's memories suppressed for more than a few days without wiping him. So call it a week per mission, forty or forty-five missions, add half a year or even a year for initial brainwashing and training-- you don't actually end up with that much time.
I am mostly pointing this out because I keep reading fic that frames it as SEVENTY YEARS OF UNDENDING BLOOD AND SUFFERING, when that can't possibly be the case. Plus a lot of the time there's an assumption that Bucky has no way of ever fully recovering, that he's going to be Broken Forever in some fundamental way, which-- dude, there are people in real life who spent longer periods as POWs, some in pretty horrible conditions, and went on to have healthy, happy, functional lives. One of them's a senator!
Granted, none of them were turned into brainwashed murderbots, but there is still some basis for comparison. And when you take into account that Bucky was a thoroughly decent, fairly together guy before he fell, and that he'll have Steve's unconditional support once Steve finds him, I feel like it's entirely possible for him to recover, and faster than you'd think from some of the fic I've been reading.
How long do y'all think Bucky actually spent as the Soldier? In relative-to-him terms, I mean? Because I was thinking about it, and given what we know (mostly in cryo; two dozen known assassinations) it... might not actually have been that long? I mean, due to the vagaries of having to cast actual actors Sebastian Stan's obviously only aged a couple years, but when you work it out I actually think that's correct-- he can't have been Soldier-ing for much more than two years, maybe three at the outside.
I mean, even if we assume those two dozen are only the known missions-- even if there's twice as many-- it seemed like they couldn't keep Bucky's memories suppressed for more than a few days without wiping him. So call it a week per mission, forty or forty-five missions, add half a year or even a year for initial brainwashing and training-- you don't actually end up with that much time.
I am mostly pointing this out because I keep reading fic that frames it as SEVENTY YEARS OF UNDENDING BLOOD AND SUFFERING, when that can't possibly be the case. Plus a lot of the time there's an assumption that Bucky has no way of ever fully recovering, that he's going to be Broken Forever in some fundamental way, which-- dude, there are people in real life who spent longer periods as POWs, some in pretty horrible conditions, and went on to have healthy, happy, functional lives. One of them's a senator!
Granted, none of them were turned into brainwashed murderbots, but there is still some basis for comparison. And when you take into account that Bucky was a thoroughly decent, fairly together guy before he fell, and that he'll have Steve's unconditional support once Steve finds him, I feel like it's entirely possible for him to recover, and faster than you'd think from some of the fic I've been reading.
