This scene will forever give me shivers
THE most underrated scene in the entire movie. It was perfect. And do you know how often I see gif sets of it? This is the second one I’ve seen since the movie came out (It’s been over 5 months, now).
So let’s just pause for a moment from reblogging gifs of Tony’s sass, Loki’s sex appeal, or Bruce’s fluffiness and just appreciate this nameless, old, German guy and how, even though he knew he would probably die, he stood up to a tyrant to prove that the human race wouldn’t give up their freedom so easily.
emily why the fuck you think it necessary to give me these feels
Seeing as that took place in Germany, think that there’s no better place that that scene could have taken place in. Givin’ the time frame, he or his parents could have easily lived through WWII. They bowed to a tyrant once; Never again.
Learn from your elders people- let him be an example.Friendly reminder that he implied that he was a Holocaust survivor.
^^^ THAT ^^^
The INSTANT he stood up I knew he was a Holocaust survivor and it gave me huge chills.
Another twist I’ve heard on this scene as that this man was a former Nazi, and that he understood that he had aided a tyrant and spent the rest of his life trying to make up for it. And that’s why he sounds so sad and resigned when he says “there are always men like you.” Because he was one.
In a way it kind of parallels the red in Natasha’s ledger, and Thor’s guilt for somehow pushing his brother into madness AND almost causing an interdimensional war, and Tony’s method of taking the easy way out, and Bruce’s bloody green record, and Clint’s compromise, and Steve’s lost past and uncertain future; everyone is running from their demons and trying to atone.
It’s a powerful scene no matter who the man is — whether he’s former Nazi, Jewish survivor, or simply someone who watched more or less helplessly as his beloved country marched into a war no one could possibly win. He could be speaking of Hitler from any number of perspectives, including that of wishing he had stood up before during the War.
It’s even possible that he’s not referring to Hitler at all, but to any one or more of the very prominent and powerful men of that age, including Churchill or Mussolini. Maybe he is speaking from the perspective of a soldier who saw his unit die in one of the many horrible battles; or the perspective of a Jewish sympathizer like those who hid Anne Frank; or the perspective of a former Nazi underling; or the perspective of a Jewish Holocaust survivor; or the perspective of a Pole who saw his country fall in the first engagements of the War.
It doesn’t matter, really. What makes the scene so powerful is that he could be any of those, could have any kind of terrible history — all we really know is that he is old enough to have lived through the War. And like Steve, it left marks on everyone. So he stands up, and draws his line. Not again, he says, for whatever reason.