Inspired by that awesome Hulk/Iron Man Tumblr post (that seriously, if you have seen Avengers, read!), I just had a revelation about two other characters that I nerdily have to talk about.
SPOILERS IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN AVENGERS DO NOT READ OR EVEN SKIM THIS
The characters in question are Captain America and Hawkeye, by way of Hulk and Black Widow. Hawkeye spends the first chunk of the movie brainwashed by Loki and upon meeting all of the soon-to-be Avengers, he’s a henchman trying to destroy the Helicarrier. Upon getting ‘recalibrated’ by Black Widow, Hawkeye learns of the coming strike against Loki and his invading army. Black Widow believes in the cause, so Hawkeye does. Plus he wouldn’t mind bugging Loki some.
Then Captain America enters the room to recruit Black Widow and asks her if she knows how to fly the jet they’ll need to get to Manhattan and stop Loki and the alien army. She says no, but Hawkeye says “yes.” At this point, Captain America doesn’t know Hawkeye at all. He looks to Black Widow for her opinion, her measure of character, and she gives him a nod. Cap then says to Hawkeye, again a character that he only knows as “arrow guy who caused a Helicarrier engine to explode,” he says to him “you got a suit?”
Captain America does not care about your past. He doesn’t care about your misdeeds or mistakes. He only cares about the purity of your motive and the real measure of your character. This sentiment is also reinforced when, just after waking up, Hawkeye asks Black Widow how many men he killed. She replies with, “don’t do that to yourself.” I love that the Avengers don’t let actions Hawkeye was not in control of deter their trust in him. Cap gets the word from Black Widow that Hawkeye is good, and Captain America takes her at her word, and trusts Hawkeye enough to put himpretty much in charge of the battle.He trusts Hawkeye to watch over the entire team, be their “eye in the sky,” just because he knows Hawkeye wants to be trusted and therefore believes he deserves to be. No questions asked.
This is mirrored earlier on when Captain America first meets Bruce Banner. Cap says to Bruce that he heard he’s a genius, and Bruce replies “Is that all you’ve heard?”, implying the big raging green monster, and Cap replies “that’s all I care about.”
If you believe in yourself, Captain America believes in you.
If you don’t believe in yourself, Captain America sees the greatness in you and believes in that.
For as awesome as all the fight scenes between our heroes are in Avengers, it’s these truly phenomenal, inspiring character moments that have my brain gushing love. I love this movie.
