“Dropping the shield is a rejection of the Captain America identity and a choice to embrace the Steve Rogers identity,” Anthony Russo says.
please don’t forget that steve didn’t just drop the shield in cacw to show he’s choosing to protect bucky—he also dropped it to show he’s choosing himself. bucky, and his friendship, and the connection to the past that he represents, is of course an inextricable part of that self. but bucky isn’t the only part.
captain america, the mantle that steve’s worn for so long, is arguably most visible through this shield. it was created for captain america. it is his best and most enduring and most recognizable weapon. the shield represents all the honor of the role, and all the responsibility of the role, and all the heaviness of the role. it’s a literal weight to carry. one that people who matter to steve (natasha, bucky, others) have picked up time to time in battle, a metaphorical sharing of the burden.
make no mistake—steve can carry the weight of the shield. he wears it well. he is captain america, insomuch that captain america is the persona the world needed to give him so he was allowed to use his powers to actually do something. but as soon as this mantle, this title, this legacy, this shield, becomes representative of someone else’s ideals rather than his own, steve makes a decision:
drop it.
when he leaves the shield in that bunker in siberia, he’s leaving behind a lot of things: his role on a team that felt more like someone else’s family than his own; the identity created for him by 70 years in the ice and never recrafted to fit who steve was when he got unfrozen; the expectations placed on him by the world at large based on that identity; the need to put faith in and take orders from and represent institutions he’s progressively been losing trust in since the WSC ordered a nuke to hit NYC.
when he leaves the shield in that bunker in siberia, he’s leaving behind captain america as the 21st century has created him.
he’s choosing himself. he’s choosing steve. he’s choosing to be steve. free to put faith in people, individuals. free to stand up for what he believes in. free to be flawed. free to explore who steve even is, in this new world.
like i said—it’s huge that steve gives up the shield with bucky’s arm thrown around his shoulder, but that’s because bucky is a part of steve. and steve is the most important thing being reclaimed, defended, and protected in that final scene.
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