Amputee Dichotomy

As far as traumatized superheroes with more issues than fingers and/or toes go, Tony Star has always been more of my jam than Bucky Barnes. However, I think that Bucky manages to portray both of the common archetypes of an amputee in modern media.

Generally, I think there are two types of amputees in a movie. There's the villain, usually the antagonist of a horror movie who lost a limb in a horrible accident and has been seen as a monster ever since. And then there's the war hero, who loses a limb in a battle - sometimes while saving someone - and struggles to accept who he is now even while everyone he knows reaffirms their love for him and tells him how heroic he is.

Bucky fits both of these. As the Winter Soldier, he's a nightmare and that shiny chrome arm with the USSR star will likely be the thing that catches most of your attention before he shoots you - if you even see him before he does. As Bucky Barnes, he is a hero who has lost his arm while captured by the enemy and who struggles with what has been taken and what he has done. And it's interesting how Bucky isn't entirely okay with either of these archetypes being applied to himself - how he doesn't want to be the monster but he also doesn't want to be the war hero.

And while there are obvious in-universe reasons for that which relate to his history, it's interesting to think about how that could be applied to those two narratives as a whole. Neither of them are particularly great depictions of amputees, amputees aren't monsters and not all amputees are war heroes - or even heroes at all. Neither of them feel like they should be accepted by society, like they should continue to be accepted as good depictions of amputees in our society. And it feels like in both cases, we should strive for other narratives and discover something more true to our reality.