Did you stop to think about who the real villain of The Falcon And The Winter Soldier was? Let me tell you it wasn’t the Flag Smashers nor was it Sharon Carter.
The story of The Falcon and The Winter Soldier targeted a lot of villains of the MCU but failed to address the real villain. The series had Flag Smashers as their primary villainous group, then there was John Walker, the soldier who lost his way somewhere along the line and then there was Sharon Carter, who turned out to be the mysterious crime- boss of Madripoor, however, there was another villain who hid in plain sight. This real villain had such an influence on the story that all of the other villains existed because of them (in a way). It was the Government or the government bodies to be exact. It was the actions of these various government bodies that gave rise to each villain that we saw in the series, i.e., the Flag Smashers, John Walker, and Sharon Carter. Let’s find out how
The Government Bodies As The True Villain
The Falcon and The Winter Soldier indirectly highlighted the wrong aspects of the government like zero accountability system, racial injustice, and negligence towards people but failed to address them completely. If we analyze the series deeply, we find that the government and their actions were very unjust and ultimately set up the origins of the villains. The G.R.C. or Global Repartition Council was the government body that was assigned to deal with the displacement of third-world economic migrants that lost their jobs and were evicted from their new homes by either local governments or their original owners before the Blip, and people that lost everything while blipped.
The GRC started to plan a way to deport all the displaced to their countries of origin whenever they wanted or not as fast as possible by force-if-necessary, which ended up just increasing the tensions among the refugees and GRC. This ultimately led to the formation of the “anti-nationalist” group, The Flag Smashers. The Flag Smashers dealt a lot of damage to the government, stole their money, robbed their resources killed their workers. Had the government not taken such harsh steps, Karli Morgenthau and the crew would never have been driven to fight against the government. Similar was the case of John Walker, who was simply given an ideal to live up to without clarifying if they wanted a soldier or a superhero.
John’s act of killing a Flag-Smasher was unjust for a superhero, on the other hand, it was logical for a soldier to do so after his comrade had been K.I.A. by the Flag Smashers. Instead of guiding him to the correct way, they gave him a court Marshall which was in no way befitting for a brave soldier who did everything in his power to serve his country.
More Mistakes By The Government
The government in the MCU had a biased sense of justice in Sharon’s case. Sharon stole Captain’s gear from her agency, thereby joining Team Captain America in defying the Sokovia Accords. Because of her actions, she had to leave her country and stay on the run for her life. While every other person who helped Team Cap was pardoned, Sharon’s act were never forgiven, which drove her to become the infamous crime lord of Madripoor, the Power Broker. Sharon Carter, who was once a loyal agent of the U.S. government, was forced to abandon her ideals and principles because the government was too ignorant to acknowledge her actions and accordingly grant her pardon.
The worst case of government cruelty was seen in Isaiah Bradley’s case. Isaiah Bradley was a super soldier just like Steve Rogers. He defied orders from his superiors in order to save his fellow soldiers, the same thing that Cap did for Bucky and other POWs in HYDRA’s grasp. While Steve was let off even without a warning, Isaiah was arrested, imprisoned, and experimented upon by the very government that she served and protected. Isaiah’s suffering was the greatest in my view because he lost his job, endured inhumane torture, and lost his wife who died without any closure.
The government officials often speak about how the government serves the people, a government “Of The People, By The People, For The People”, the very principles upon which the nation was sullied by the government bodies in The Falcon and The Winter Soldier. While all other villains were highlighted in the story, the root and real villain hid in plain sight and escaped unnoticed.
