What Does The Ending Of Captain America: Civil War Really Mean?

Who Wins?

Civil War is built around the conflict between Captain America and Iron Man, and the marketing really steered into that debate, but actually deciding who wins isn't all that easy.

In the comics, Iron Man is the undisputed victor - during their climactic fight, Captain America realises the terror and destruction they're causing and relents, handing himself in to the authorities. In the film, Steve Rogers does have a similar moment of realisation, but because the movie has been so different up to this point the outcome is very different.

The basic events of the fight would suggest that Cap wins - he beats Tony Stark and with his defiant "returning" of the shield to the Starks draws a line under how pathetic he knows views the conflict as - but the hollowness of that righteous decision when juxtaposed with Iron Man left battered and bruised should make it clear that physical victory isn't what Civil War is, nor ever was, about.

After all, the debate wasn't originally over friendship or whether Bucky's to blame for the death of the Starks, but the morals behind superhero registration. In it's carefully paced opening hour, Civil War explains where each character falls on the debate spectrum and then lets those forced team allegiances divide them down the middle, letting personal tensions spill over.

This, along with the later ambiguity of the fight, leaves the decision of who's right up to you (the same goes for those later questions of Bucky's role in Tony's parent's death and whether Cap was right to hide it). And, with the ending seeing Tony go one way, with Rhodey still believing the Accords the to be the right thing, and Steve the other, freeing Falcon and co. from The Raft, it's clear that there's likewise no real winner. Well, aside from...