So, having hashed out the idea for Civil War's Main Character in the previous thread, I'm following up with a full analysis thread on @Glennbecker's suggestion.
Glennbecker originally suggested a storyform for the movie along the lines of:
Overall: Activity (Zemo & the Accords).
Main Character: Fixed Attitude (Cap is staunch in his refusal).
Influence Character: Situation (Tony's being the face of the avengers tearing his life apart).
Relationship: Manipulation (their differing perspectives on the Accords causing conflict).
I would propose something slightly different:
Overall: Situation - The World is no longer willing to accomodate the Avengers as an independent organization, as indicated by the Accords.
Main Character: Manipulation - Tony suffers from intense guilt that makes him support the Accords and the government as a way to make up for himself.
Influence Character: Activity - Steve consistently acts against the Accords and even against the other Avengers rather than give himself up.
Relationship: Fixed Attitude - Iron Man and Captain America are staunchly and unyieldingly on opposite sides regarding the Accords.
I've also proposed that Civil War also includes a second story (a sub-plot at least) based on Zemo's actions.
Overall: Psychlogy - The characters carry deep and abiding grudges against those they think have wronged them (T'Challa blames Bucky, Zemo blames the Avengers).
Main Character: Fixed Attitude - T'Challa's warrior's disposition gives him both a negative view of politics and a fearsome will to avenge wrongdoing.
Influence Character: Situation - Bucky suffers from mental programming that turns him into an assassin against his will.
Relationship: Activity - T'challa is led to pursue Bucky relentlessly, believing him to be the man who killed his father.
Having spent some time thinking about it I would go so far as to suggest that the Problem of the Overall throughline of the Zemo story is Unending, since that's the nature of a grudge -- to grow consumed with a moral debt that has gone yet unpaid. Ending his own life would certainly have solved Zemo's problem, but he clings to his pain and loss too long, which lets T'Challa catch up to him and ultimately prevent him from pulling the trigger. I'd also propose an Outcome of Fail for the Story Goal since not only did Zemo not succeed in ending his only life, he failed to end the Avengers (cf. Steve's package for Tony at the end of the movie -- also, Infinity War is still coming, so it's certainly a fair bet that there's a team up approaching).
Iron Man's a Change character -- he first changes after hearing about Zemo from Friday (I was going to originally say when he saw his friends in prison, but I think rather that that only reinforced his will to change), falls back when he has a "Dark Night of the Soul" in the middle of the fourth act, and ultimately sticks to his change (as seen by him putting Secretary Ross "on hold" at the end).
T'Challa's another Change character ("I almost killed the wrong man", "the living aren't done with you yet"), and this fits with Bucky being consistent (he never once even considers accepting his situation). Bucky, I would say is hounded by a conflict of destiny-fate (which would fittingly give T'challa a conflict of Truth-Falsehood)... but I'm also willing to consider a conflict of Prediction-Interdiction ("It always ends in a fight" vs the fact that Bucky is trying very, very hard to not be an assassin even to the point of putting himself back into Cryo). In fact, I've just changed my mind and intend to go with that, further changing T'Challa's conflict to Evidence-Suspicion (given that there's next to no actual evidence -- that footage is particularly lousy, really).
That's about as far as I've gotten so far. Does anybody have thoughts?Oops. Sorry for the odd format (and the double post). No idea how I did that.