Oh god I feel the exact same way. Strange has his head firmly inserted in his ass in regards to that he is disabled and it rubs me the wrong way. Like he thinks that he can't be himself if he isn't abled. Dude I get the gifted kid gotta-be-perfect attitude but when you crash and burn because you can't do what you used to, you have to find your resilience and refocus your pride or you're gonna spend your whole life wishing for a life that you couldn't possibly have.

Also... winteriron for the win?

Yeah I think that's definitely part of it. Stark's change from pre-kidnapping to post-kidnapping I feel was a mix of PTSD (even tho the movies don't ever call it that except to mock him pbbbbbt), him becoming physically disabled with a lifethreatening heart condition, and him accepting that this happening was absolutely at least partially his fault. In some deleted scenes from the first IM we see him struggle a bit with the fact that yeah now there's a giant piece of metal in his chest and he will Literally Die if the device gives out, it's even used against him in the final cut of the movie for plot. He panics when he first wakes up and finds it and his first action is to modify it to be more practical (after he's done grieving his past life and recoups from the torture, somewhat spurred on by Yinsen since he was doomspiralling a bit). He doesn't have it anymore by the time we get to CW but the way the scene is framed with Bucky driving the shield into his chestpiece is still meant to be shocking because the audience is used to that equalling certain death.

On the other hand Strange spends the majority of his intro movie spiralling so far out of control that he feels the need to travel to a different country to learn magic because he's convinced they'll heal him. And when he's even told by them, you are too egotistical and also we're not healing you like that, he still doesn't change. He spends his movie chasing away those close to him and having a tantrum that his hands shake and I get it! I do! I spent several months grappling with the frustration of having accidentally thrown something precious to me on the floor and it broke because I can't control my own hand tremors.

But even when he does learn magic it's because he had to be shown someone doing it who didn't even have hands, and then when he becomes proficient he doesn't change his outlook at all. He was a jerk going into this and his newfound disability, like Stark, is at least partially his fault. Instead of learning from that and growing as a person he just cannot accept that this is his life now and maybe he should be less of a prideful jerk and then he won't do stupid things like drive while looking at case files or entirely break the universe because he thought he had a handle on things 🤷‍♂️

Stark had his laundry list of character flaws but he still learned and grew as a person, the flaws made sense- I understand where he's coming from when he funds Shield's pre-terrorist AI assassin network. When he builds Ultron. When he signs the Accords. I think these are wrong actions but I understand his mindset. I get why he genuinely tries to kill Bucky. I don't think I could forgive my parents' killer easily either and certainly not if I've been hung up over their deaths for 30 years. Logically in Bucky's case it's not his fault, but since when are grief and trauma and emotion affected by logic?

But I don't feel like Strange has grown at all. He was an egotistical unlikeable jerk with some scathing one-liners before and he's still an egotistical unlikeable jerk with some scathing one-liners. Where is the charm, the charisma? Where is the 'okay yes he's kind of a dick BUT LOOK he's also nice to kids/puppies/his girlfriend'? Stark was always kind of an abrasive asshole but with enough charm and charisma and some genuine niceness peeking through that (general) you kind of forgave him for it. That's absent for Strange, so he's just not as likeable or fun to watch and thus I find myself uninterested in his entire contribution to these movies. Yeah he's kind of taken in a kid or two at this point- he's helped out Peter and now America- and maybe we'll see some of that start to change him. But as he is right now I just find him uninspiring and annoying to watch. He wasn't nice to anyone in his intro movie, he wasn't nice to anyone in Thor 3, he wasn't nice to anyone in Infinity War/Endgame... he was okay to Peter in NWH and nice enough I guess to America in this new movie but... I feel like it's not enough.

BIG SIGH anyway...

I don't actually like Winteriron, again I too would struggle to forgive the man who killed my parents even if he was mind controlled into doing so. I do love Bucky and I again don't think it's his fault, but... there's ✨ complexity ✨ there and also I like Sam/Steve/Bucky better as a dynamic. America sammich 😅

same anon-thanks for the answer! i enjoy reading your thoughts.

i guess i kind of disagree that dean is narratively never punished though i definitely get where you're coming from and agree that all these things CAN be rationalized which is less interesting and detrimental to real character work. i think dean is "punished" in that overwhelmingly horrible things continue to happen to him which i would argue the show sees as "punishment." but you are right in that the show doesn't let him be "wrong" about bigger issues (except i guess debatably the decision to allow michael to posses him).

i think you're right also about it mostly being a problem with sam and cas's lack of reaction to any of this as well (down to neither of them ever finding out that dean killed himself during the widower's arc). cas was MEAN in his first few seasons and shouldn't have hesitated to scream at dean over jack. sam essentially exists as a tchotchke with a tape recorder taped on. honestly in retrospect i think the show permanently fell on its face as soon as season 9 started and never recovered even if i like certain characters/episodes/ideas after that (namely rowena, the love of my life). i also don't know where the narrative shift of "dean is becoming like john now" started but i also think it's poorly handled and always thought it was more interesting that sam was more like john than dean could ever be even with him trying.

yeah I think there might be some miscommunication about what we both mean by “punishment”. like the show is basically just bad things happening to sam and dean over and over again, but dean is framed as the POV character so things like cas and mary dying are seen as largely (if not exclusively) his losses, not sam’s. which personally I view less as narrative punishment and more as, like, a plot device lol. It’s a BAD plot device but IMO it’s done more to generate conflict and drive the plot as opposed to punishing dean.

there’s also sam and cas, who are punished emotionally by the narrative for “disobeying” dean or whatever (I’m struggling to come up with examples atm because my brain is a bit fried but I know there are examples in the show), which is what I mean when I say punishment in the context of the show. however I agree that dean is written in a very unflattering light in the later seasons, possibly deliberately (idk enough about the showrunners to comment on intentionality), but it’s also done in a boring way that I personally dislike because it feels like wanting to have your cake (deancrit) and eat it too (dean apologism).

re: the sam stuff, I know dean says his brother is like john but I never got that impression lol? maybe I’m missing something but like, sam is openly angry and driven towards revenge in the very early seasons but that fades pretty fast. I think dean is presented as the john clone bc he’s put in positions of authority over other people more and acts as a father figure throughout the show to various people, so it naturally comes out more. Honestly I think a lot of it comes down to dean becoming the main character and inheriting all the personal conflict, character flaws, relationships with side characters, etc, so he’s got way too much going on and also does a lot of just, like, insane shit that never gets addressed. S8 is also where I stop paying attention to stuff that’s happening and cherry pick individual eps/arcs from the rest of the show