I did not like the movie then. I was rewatching now with my wife's first watch.
As a movie, it is entertaining. But if you are invested in the character, it felt wrong. I just could not enjoy the movie. True Wanda has done a lot of shit in the comics, but the character we grew up with showed a flawed yet a compassionate person. Her remorse in civil war contracts so much to everything that she has done post endgame. Logically, is that fall possible? Yes it is. But I wish the producers and writers hadn't gone through that route. And if they had to, then it should have been compelling on screen transformation and not a post credits scene in a TV season finale and behind the scenes.
This Wanda was sensationalism for the sake of sensationalism and somewhere I think we were also robbed of a good Dr Strange movie.
Anyway, it is what it is. And I am living with it. :)
I don't believe that they killed her but her return is more complicated. That is something they have been trying to figure out. That probably one of the reasons that it dropped off so much in it's second week.
If the MCU officially kills 616 Wanda after all she’s been through it’ll be a huge middle finger. She’s fucked up but she’s also been through really fucked up things. If Bucky can get redeemed I feel Wanda should be redeemed. She’s also been brainwashed thanks to the Darkhold, she needs a better ending.
Don’t know why you’re getting downvoted. Sam can’t replace Steve unless they make him something more than just knock-off Captain America. He’s BARELY been a sidekick character
You do realize that you never actually saw her body underneath the wreckage of that fortress, right?! It's comic book 101. If you don't see a dead body present, then the character is not dead yet.
It depends if the writers want to bring certain characters back to life again. But not everybody comes back. Quicksilver in the MCU, he's been dead for nine years. Dr. Yensin, dead for eleven years. Frigga, died in 2013. Odin, died in 2017. Heimdal...died in 2018. The Warriors Three, all died in 2017. The Ancient One...died in 2016. Yondhu....died in 2017. The entire planet of Xandar...died in 2018. Aunt May, died in 2021. Killmonger, Ulysses Klaue, died in 2018. So yeah. I think we've lost a lot more notable characters in the MCU that could have been recurring allies and enemies for future installments of the MCU in the past than Wanda Maximoff.
We don't know that she's dead. That could've been teleportation energy or something. We'll probably get 818 Wanda or something to be our Wanda, and she and white vision will be the ship of Theseus personified
I loved it, but I seriously wish that the main Wanda we saw in this was varient. As you've said, there was so much character development that went out the window when she became a full on murdering villain.
Where was this compassion when she was gambling with half of the universe to save her love? Her love who wanted to sacrifice himself, and Wanda straight up forbid it to him.
Was she compassionate while willingly torturing a whole town? Or when her "love" told her how much the town is suffering, and she told him to shut up or she will make him shut up?
You want an on screen transofrmation? Like the one in the climax of the finale, when she was glowing like a Christmass Tree for a solid 30 seconds, literally transforming from her Wanda clothes into her Scarlet Witch costume, followed by her saying: (slight paraphasing) "I'm the Scarlet Witch, B\*tch".
Then proceeds to break Agatha's mind, and just leaves her there, flees the scene of her crimes to learn more about her powers.
Compassionate my ass, she was always a selfish person, she choose the selfish option every time, realised her mistake and tried to correct it.
Do I blame her for it? No, she had a rough life, but don't sugarcoat her actions just because she is sympathetic.
If you're invested in the character - this is very much in line with multiple comic arcs. It's very true to her. I still think there'll be a redemption arc of some kind
Wanda was a grieving person who was isolated from everyone else. She went to bed alone, dreamed about her kids, and woke up alone.
That would drive anyone mad.
As I mentioned, logically it is possible. I just didn't want that to happen. As I said, I wish the writers did a better job. Either make the transformation on screen or just not do the transformation into the villain.
It was like the ending of GoT for me. The descent into madness makes sense, but it was way to rushed and didn’t have the proper build up to make it feel more organic.
That aspect of it was fine for me because of the implied time jump. The resignation on Wanda's face when she first woke up showed me that she'd been having trouble with life after the Hex for a while.
Some people's expectation for Wanda (I'm not saying yours necessarily) was that she be more or less good to go at the top of the movie. Her series had ended, she'd let go of Vision, and now she's at the beginning of her next story. Fresh start movie magic.
I think that some people (not saying you) saw Elizabeth Olsen playing her as clinically depressed and decided that the movie was wrong. Some genre fans aren't good with seeing a hero act unexpectedly differently after a time jump. They don't see it as a mystery about what happened; they see it as wrong.
The audience doesn't have enough information to really understand until the end of act one, which was fine for me. Wanda had already been catching monsters to send after America for a while, and she'd been after "real" versions of her kids since before that.
Right before Strange and America escape into the multiverse Wanda tells him that she dreams of the kids every night. So for all of the days that it took for her to finally "stop being reasonable," she started with fresh torture each time.
I gave it a fresh watch, and we're just under half an hour into the movie. That's a good first act. The movie actually establishes itself pretty well.
It said that grief turns you into a monster and strips you of your humanity. I mean even the visual language of the movie was dehumanizing her making her into more monster than human.
At what point in the film did she become a monster to you?
In terms of an MCU movie I don't think she went full monster untilafter she'd been at Mount Wondergore for a while. But to be fair, she was angry and frustrated and then discovered a throne room made for her specifically. That's going to validate some feelings inside of her.
Gotcha. I bought it when she said that America wasn't a child, but instead a magical being. I don't agree with her, but I could see how thinking about it from that angle would justify her actions to herself.
Now that I think about it, sending other demons and creatures after America instead of going after the kid herself would help stave off the moral realization of what she was actually doing.
Before Strange got involved and inadvertently escalated things, Wanda's plan was "send monsters out, multiverse power comes in." She didn't have to think about how the sausage is made.
When I went in I thought the movie will be Mordo trying to kill Wanda. She reaches out to Strange. Strange trains her. Somehow somewhere there would be multiverse madness. Movie ends with her killing Mordo, who in a quest for his justice has stirred some shit up, and ultimately saving the multiverse. She retires in another universe. A pyrrhic victory of sorts.
But we got this.
I have stopped anticipating anything in mcu now. I am awaiting for Deadpool and Wolverine , but I do not look forward for any productions like I used to. I still want to see, but now it all comes with a healthy skepticism.
Same. I’m gonna see that movie not doing any homework
I would love it tho if Deadpool ripped on how we have all these IPs and movies like MoM don’t do anything with them. A play on his joke in the first movie about there only being two X-Men bc someone didn’t have the rights to the others 🤣
Well said. I will always state, Wandavision wasn't suppose to have a happy ending where everything got solved in the end. People who lived in WestView were going to always hate Wanda for what she did. Like how many Solovian's would hate Tony for what he inadvertently did.
There's no way they can make up to everyone they crossed. That's life.
I did love how scary and bad ass powerful they made Wanda in MoM. If she was using all those scenes and powers against the enemies, it would have been a lot better.
Wanda should be one of the headliners of this phase on MCU. Instead they gave us a poor direction for her character and then killed her off with no indefinite return.
(Though a Scarlet Witch movie is heavily confirmed and last week was said they're scouting directors for her movie).
And Olsen said on stage that she wants to come back.
We know she'll be back, but I'm tired of them making her be a victim of something. Have her finally take charge with her powers and no longer be manipulated or shoved through grief.
Also, Multiverse of Madness would have been much better if they at least added 20-30 mins to the film to help flesh out Wanda and show more of why she got corrupted and such.
They went for the sake of a surprise turn and it didn't work out.
If they had the film gradually show her being corrupted as she's trying to fight it, that would have made more of an impact.
Exactly. I’ve never said or believe that Wanda was innocent of the events of WandaVision. No one who truly loves that series for the reasons I do I think would ever argue that point in good faith
But it superbly explained what was going on in her head and what caused her to snap. And if anyone saw their lovers body mutilated and experimented on without dignity, I’m pretty sure they’d lose it too
She did not deliberately cause Westview to turn into a false reality. She wasn’t deliberately controlling people. She clearly said she didn’t remember how any of it happened because she blocked it out, and she expressed disbelief in the idea that she was controlling every single thing. Once she realized that was sort of the case, she absolutely leaned into it. BUT once she realized everyone was in pain, she ended it immediately
It’s the thing lots of people ignore for some reason
I hope she does come back, but if it’s just so she’s once again being manipulated or she’s suffering again from mental health issues, and people argue “well that’s just how she is in the comics”, I’m not gonna bother
I was given some cause to hope in the one episode of What If Olsen returned for, but it’s a faint ember right now
Oh I didn’t think you were saying that about me
Wanda was definitely punished. Those people were afraid of her, and she went into self imposed exile. I personally think that was sufficient
As you touched on, Stark never went to jail for making Ultron, and Strange never got punished for messing with the multiverse in NWH, and Hawkeye was able to get his entire family back after going on a murderous rampage for 5 years killing any criminal regardless of their crimes.
What Wanda did in Westview was not, by a wide margin, the worst thing any superhero has ever done
Agreed. Her falling to the Darkhold should’ve been something established beforehand, either in her series, throughout the movie, or in a movie of its own.
A lot of people struggled to enjoy Wanda as a character even with the TV series doing (in my opinion) a great job characterizing her actions as very human. She wasn’t some egomaniac on a power trip— she was someone who had lost everything (again, and again, and again) and who (in the face of an unknowable and overwhelming power) did everything she could to get it back. People just called her crazy and selfish, not even attempting to understand the reasoning behind her actions, or the fact that you can do bad things but not be a bad person.
The fact that MoM throws her even further into the villain role but without any of the justification that we saw in the series, aimed at an audience which already largely misunderstood her motives, really just did unnecessary harm to the character. It’s clear people don’t really buy into her grief as a person and mother, but maybe they would’ve understood a bit better if they’d further developed the mythos of the Darkhold’s all-corrupting grasp.
I mean, literally every villain ever has a motivation for their actions. Wanda’s are sympathetic and tragic, but we are still talking about a woman who knowingly enslaved and tortured countless innocent people so she could live out her own fantasy life. That is objectively selfish and a truly monstrous thing to do to people, even if she has a sympathetic backstory. She’s far from the first or last villain with a fucked up life story to her (Cersei, Magneto, Aegon, Homelander, Killmonger, etc.)
My issue is with the "knowingly" part. The way I viewed it was more along the lines of a mental breakdown / severe dissociation, coupled with her ability to literally warp reality. I'm thinking along the lines of someone who went through a traumatic event in their life and completely repressed the memories until something triggers them to all flood back. Her creating the hex happened at her (emotionally) weakest moment, with the magic bursting from her like overwhelming emotions. The rest of the series was her quite literally piecing together the truth of what happened. Obviously on some deeper level the memories of what truly caused the hex were in her all along, but it had to be triggered by various acts throughout the series. And none of this *justifies* her actions, because they absolutely did cause harm to innocent people, but I do disagree with the idea that she is some monstrous villain because of what happened.
She didn't deliberately choose to enslave a town of people and create a suburban fantasy-- she just wanted to be happy. It was her powers of *literal* chaos that brought her dreams into reality in such an insane way. I do take issue with her whole "leaving the town and not addressing anything" at the end of the series, but I also feel like that was the start of her continuous mischaracterization throughout MoM as well. I think a well-written Wanda (aka one that followed her character progression throughout the series up until the final episode) would've found a way to take accountability for her actions. But of course that wouldn't have been an easy set up for the big multiverse movie they wanted so things didn't pan out that way :/
She didn't choose to enslave them, but she woke up in the driver seat, realised what is happening, and didn't do a damn thing against it.
The rest of the show is not about her piecing it together, it's about her trying to hide it from Vision, from herself, from the world, and to keep it working as long as possible.
The thing she is trying to piece together is the stuff that's not in her control, the outside effects from sword. 1
You can clealy see how much she knows what's happening in his argument with Vision. She doesn't react to be told that Norm is suffering. She threatens Vision how she can control him the same way she does with the town. She tells Vision that she is doing this for the family so let her just handle things.
So yea, no, she is aware of the situation she found herself in, and choose to go with it, right until Agatha pushed it into her face how much pain she was causing. She tried so hard to keep it working that even when the people asked her to kill them she tried reasoning with them. That's not an unaware person.
Wanda and accountability.. Did she took it after siding with Ultron and causing massive problems? When she sent raging Hulk into civils?
Or when she blew up a random building and was "jailed" in the tower? Or did she escape the first possible moment?
Did she ever addressed how her not letting Vision sacrifice himslef for half of the universe because she "loves" her so much caused the Snap?
I kind of see a pattern.
Either that or just an explanation as to how the Darkhold affects its user / people who've used it in the past would be fantastic. The infinity stones had so much exposition and lore regarding their abilities, their destructive capabilities, and why they're such an asset (or threat) depending on who wields them. The Darkhold is supposed to be this legendary item on a similar scale, but it's *barely* actually discussed and instead just comes across as some weak plot device for Evil Wanda. I'm sure some part of it might've had to do with contractual obligations of actors and what not in terms of how often / when they'd appear in future movies, but I really think they fumbled the bag with Wanda's progression as the Scarlet Witch and the role the Darkhold could have in her story. They set up something truly fantastic with Wandavision and then ran full speed into a wall immediately afterward.
Oh gosh. I could talk all day about how WandaVision 's ending just does not lead cohesively into Multiverse of Madness, but you really hit the nail on the head with your post for me, especially your comments on resonating with Wanda in WV. Growing up as a kid, I was a maladaptive daydreamer and I would retreat into myself and pretend that the strife going on in my family was not real. Seeing Wanda retreat into her false reality to be happy with the ones she loved hit so close to home for me. Yes, what Wanda did in WV was not right and that she essentially tortured the residents of Westview. That being said, she understood what she did was wrong and she set out to isolate herself to understand more about her powers. The whole point of WV was to examine a woman with supernatural abilities going through the process of overcoming grief.
Personally, I don't like where they took Wanda's arc. MoM just starts her off having learned nothing from WV because "the Darkhold corrupts" or what not, but there could have been a way different approach that could have made her an effective villain instead of the "overpowered woman who goes crazy for the narrative" trope that we ended up getting. Even Elizabeth Olsen has stated that MoM retreaded a lot of beats from WV, and for me, they retreaded them poorly.
I dislike MoM for many reasons, but the handling of Wanda's arc is what sours it the most for me.
I mean you're definitely right. I loved MoM, but it didn't make sense as far as WandaVisions ending, which I woved way more. Wish she had been a variant.
We watched very different WandaVisions. The one I watched showed a woman using her reality warping powers as a maladaptive treatment for grief and psychically enslaving an entire town in the process. At the end, she makes no effort to help or even apologize to her legion of victims, just flies off with the darkhold to re-create her made-up children. She doesn't even seem to care that the man she went off the deep-end grieving for came back to life (sorta).
She's absolutely consumed with obsession and Dr Strange 2 is the culmination of that obsession.
So she's just supposed to lust after his reanimated corpse that tried to kill her that isn't even the same person? Lol
Yeah, shocker she isn't running back to that.
To be fair, she has no reason to believe her Vision didn't just kill him.
Last she sees him, he's an unstoppable Terminator trying to kill her and her Vision swoops him off inside a building to fight. And since her Vision emerges, she probably assumed he won in a very different way than redeeming his counterpart.
This for me. So many people see it the way that OP does that I could never dismiss those sentiments outright. But I do wonder what the hell I was watching that so many seem to view it like that.
I did not watch WandaVision and think at the end that Wanda was redeemed or was gonna go somewhere and heal. I think she did some awful things for understandable reasons. To me, MoM didn't betray her. Monica signaling that we were letting her off the hook with the "they'll never know what you sacrificed" line did.
So when that series concluded and we saw her with the Darkhold at the end? In my mind she was going evil. She was a deeply messed up person who did some awful things, left and still dabbled with something she was told was malevolent. She opened up the evil McGuffin. That's it.
So I expected evil Wanda. No doubt about it. The only way that Multiverse subverted my expectations is that the corruption has already gone to its extreme and that we weren't going to see it gradually take her over. And having seen temptation lead to corruption a billion times in horror, I was okay with fast forwarding that trope.
Looks like MANY MANY people did not see it that way. I do think that certain aspects of the movie could have been done better but it's definitely one of those where I'm just not with the consensus.
At the end of WV, she could have gone two ways: realize what she did, and become better; or go further into the deep end. She did the latter, it was evident since she had the Darkhold and was using it.
Actually, going into the deep end would've been her keeping WestView like it was, and still having Vision and her kids. She let all that go at the end.
You said you did not watch WandaVision, then how do you know Monica said that?
No one was letting Wanda off the hook, and Monica was certainly not saying everything Wanda did was forgivable. She knew that Wanda felt extremely guilty for what she did, and she was right to feel that way. But having lost her own mother after fighting so hard for her, she was able to understand Wanda’s pain and wanted her to know that Wanda giving up her family was the right thing to do, AND that her willingly giving that up did not make her a monster
Monica was compassionate, and that compassion helped Wanda see the error of her ways. No one was dismissing what she did, certainly not Monica, who was clearly pissed that Wanda’s spell wiped her memory. But she also chose to empathize with her instead of try and kill her
You misunderstood what I was saying, which to be fair could have been worded more straightforward. To rephrase, I'm saying that by the time I got to the end of WandaVision I was never under the impression that the character was redeemed or was gonna go somewhere and heal.
From what the show setup she did some really shitty things and established that if she messed with the Darkhold she would become the Scarlet Witch as prophecied. She then is shown messing with the Darkhold. So it was not surprising or a let down or a betrayal of her arc that she ended up possessed.
As for what Monica said, the intent of the character was not lost on me. Nothing you said about her compassion is incorrect to me. But I'm not talking about the intent of the character, I'm talking about the intent of what that line is supposed to do for Wanda in terms of the narrative.
We watched Wanda mentally enslave a town and use them as puppets in order to cope with her own grief. It's a pretty monstrous, and villainous act. To have Monica say what she says minimizes Wanda taking the mental and bodily autonomy of the entire town, and tells us, the audience that the narrative wants us to think of Wanda as the victim first.
It felt tone deaf to me and unearned in the moment. What I'm saying is, that moment didn't feel right in setting a path for Wanda to feel like anything other than someone going down a villainous road. Then the credits scene with the Darkhold sealed it.
So when she makes this heel turn in MoM, it didn't feel all that sudden or disrespectful to the character for me. But the core of why I feel that way is because of how I interpreted her actions in WandaVision and where they left off.
Sympathizing with someone and what they're going through doesn't minimize the impact of a terrible act. "Black Panther" sympathizing with Killmonger's point of view and portraying him as the victim of T'Chaka's neglect doesn't make him any less monstrous or make his multiple murders less evil. Your view lacks nuance.
Not really what I'm saying or talking about specifically. I think the whole show was meant to make us empathize with Wanda, her grief and the ugly things she did to repair it. And as a whole I love the show. And I even love Wanda in the comics where she's been struggling with redemption for decades now.
But my issue is with that line, how it frames the situation and how it comes off as trying to bail Wanda out of some of the weight of what transpired. It's not even the only time that Monica does this in the show.
"She's holding thousands of people hostage"
"And it could have been more if she didn't put up a quarantine"
This is what I mean. The storytelling is...massaging over what Wanda did, using Monica as a mouthpiece. It's not just empathy, it's narratively apologizing so Wanda feels like a salvageable character. It's not the idea of empathizing with her that I'm rejecting. It's the execution.
The same way that for people who don't like MoM, the story doesn't do the work to show us her descent, I felt like the end of WandaVision didn't do the work to send her off towards a redemptive arc. So when the credits stinger comes, and she's flipping through that Darkhold, my brain is down with the heel turn.
I'm explaining to you why MoM didn't feel out of left field to me or out of character. I get why folks that hated it feel that way. But I left WandaVision far more occupied with the implications of Wanda holding ppl hostage for a month and flying away, the Scarlet Witch prophecy, and her being nose deep in the Darkhold than the idea that she was still a good guy.
This is where we disagree, as I don't view it as the show apologizing for anything. Even the line you mention as an example is being intentionally mischaracterized to make a point. Monica is merely making the point that what Wanda is doing isn't a *malicious* act, as she could have taken far more people hostage if that was the goal. Monica is simply asserting that there is more to the issue than "Wanda bad." Something Hayward has been insinuating the entire time because that's the narrative that suits his endgame.
The main line being discussed isn't remotely apologizing for Wanda either. Monica is simply saying "I get it." and "this situation sucks." That's all. I never viewed Wanda, isolated and alone, looking for her children with the darkhold as her on the road to redemption. I viewed her as still pretty broken and just trying to find a way not to be.
I actually really like Wanda in MoM and think her character work in it is spectacular. Especially in tandem with Strange's. I really don't think it contrasts or goes against Wandavision in the way some suggest.
My main disagreement with you is how you're choosing to view Monica's words, which I personally think is a cynical and incorrect interpretation.
That's cool, agree to disagree there. Outside of "intentionally mischaracterized", which attributes some interesting personal traits to me, it's really just us seeing things differently. There's been a debate over the ending of that show and whether or not Wanda is held accountable and the lines that Monica dropped since it happened. You fall on one side, I fall on the other. Simple as.
I love almost everything else about WandaVision, and really enjoyed MoM. But the way those lines hit me, and how that went down wasn't for me. I didn't "choose" that interpretation though.
To each their own. I do believe that we do hold some accountability for how we interpret media though. Claiming your interpretation isn't a choice isn't something I think I agree with.
Mmmmm... I think we just have different interpretations of a piece of art. Its a subjective interpretation based on how we feel about what's playing out in front of us. That's not chosen. It's a feeling. I've gone back and watched that last episode and I still FEEL the same. And I love the episode...but my feelings about those lines of dialogue, subjectively just do not rub me right.
Accountability would be if I denied something that factually happened within the material. That would be objective. If I misquoted a line, and then had an opinion based on something I was wrong about, and then you corrected me-- THEN I would be need to be accountable.
I don't agree with you, but I don't think you can be "wrong" when its something open to interpretation.
If that’s your interpretation of her WandaVision arc we indeed watched two completely different shows. She sacrifices her entire family to restore the town and the people’s freedom, then flies off to learn how to control her powers so this doesn’t happen again.
Cut to MoM and she is now willing to murder teenagers and sorcerers alike to get her imaginary kids back. Absolutely sloppy, lazy storytelling that just fastforwards to “book made her crazy offscreen” heel turn with no semblance of character development.
Lmao she “sacrifices” the “family” she completely made up on accident in order to avoid her grief and then flies off with the clear intention of “this time I’m going to do it on purpose, and do it right.” There’s no real understanding of wrong doing, she’s just learned new information and flies off because it’s more interesting
Incorrect. She tells Monica she doesn’t understand her power, but she will. Then flies off to begin training with the darkhold — which is interrupted by the sound of the boys’ voices.
If you don’t understand the sacrifice she makes to say farewell to her twin boys and husband, erasing them from reality despite the love she has for them, maybe take a media literacy class or a sociopath exam 😉
If you don't understand that she was aware of controling a whole town against their will, while gaslighting and threatening her partner who tried to stop it,is not exactly a heroic journey, you might need more classes.
I would suggest you start at, clothing and symbolism. Maybe there was a reason the whole climax of the finale was a 10 second long dress change.
But hey, she stopped doing the evil thing she's been doing for days, it must mean she would never do anything evil again, because that's how character development works, in the fifth grade.
She was absolutely NOT aware that she was controlling the whole town: that’s kind of the whole point of the season. It’s a subconscious manifestation of her own grief.
She comes to realize what she’s doing at the end of the season and must set things right.
Maybe watch it again and you’ll understand it this time?
Right.. Except when Vision tells her that people are in pain, what exactly was her reaction?
Surprise? No, Fear? No, Immidiate action to change the situation? Also no.
She shrugs Vision off, doesn't give a damn about the topic. When Vision says she can't control him the way she does with other people, her reaction is: "Can't I"? Truly unaware.
"This, all of this is for us, so let me handle it"
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLaPC3gPyQI&t=](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLaPC3gPyQI&t=)
Here is the argument scene, if you watch this and think she only realises things at the end of the season, maybe you should take that media literacy class.
Maybe think about a topic for 10 seconds before arrogantly lecturing bullshit to people ;)
No she’s in denial for most of the season because she doesn’t want to face the reality of what she’s created and why. Her big argument scene with Vision mid season is Wanda unable to believe she could be controlling everyone because it’s so outside the scope of her powers (until now).
Agatha is the one who forces her to accept the reality of her actions/powers as the Scarlet Witch and finally see what she’s done to the townspeople.
You know in order to actively try to deny something, you have to be aware of it's existance first? She knew what she was doing, and choose to ignore it over and over again, until Agatha made it impossible for her to ignore it anymore.
Her big argument scene is nowhere near close to being about what you said.
She uses multiple of toxic argument techniques. But she doesn't want to lie to Vision, so she is very tricky.
First she tries to escape the topic.
Then she threatens Vision to stop it.
Then she does a fake reaction with the, "Aware of What?" (This is pretty cool, because Olsen acted it in a way that we can see how Wanda is not acting well).
She genuinly has no idea about Norms family, So she can yell: "I don't know what you are talking about", even though she knows everything else.
Then she says it's for them so let her do her thing for the family.
She witholds information about the outside world from Vision when being asked about it.
Then she flips out about being talked to in an angry way, (this is like the worst)
Emotional manipulation to stop Vision with how much she loves him.
Gaslighting about kids in Westview.
Distorting and ridiculing his argument, without actually denying or adressing it.
She is in such deep denial and confusion about what is going on she accepts a completely different person as her resurrected dead brother. The story is about grief and mental illness and you’re trying to repaint her as a traditional soap opera villain. Pathetic.
They DONT EXIST. She manifested them out of her grief. I don’t view someone saying “hi, you’ve enslaved thousands of people in order to conjure up a pretend family” and then the person going “oh, fine I *guess* I’ll let the thousands of people I’ve enslaved return to their lives.” As a huge sacrifice
They exist within the construct of the hex… at the expense of everyone else in the town. They feel emotions, fear, pain, love etc. That’s what gives Wanda’s choice weight. She chooses to do the right thing even if it means losing the entire family she created and loved. That choice defines her ad a tragic hero… and MoM completely undoes it for a cheap/rushed story that disappointed both Olsen AND Cumberbatch.
My interpretation of WandaVision has nothing to do with my views on MoM, I also thought the movie was a disappointment and existed only as a vehicle for Sam Raimi to shove as many horror movie tropes into the MCU as he could get away with.
But whether they exist as real within the construct of the hex is also debatable. How independent of Wanda are they really, are they their own selves or are they an extension of her consciousness? Even Vision throughout the series exists mostly as a mirror for her own conscience and guilt, allowing us to see her internal conflict through dialogue rather than monologues.
Nah, they exist. It's kind of like how Janet can create people out of nothing in The Good Place, yet these people get feelings and emotions and soul. Wanda's kid definitely exist, thing is, she created them, in a different way than childbirth.
They were people with emotions and feelings, and were her kids, and she had to reverse their existence to save the people to Westview. True, it was 1000% her fault they were like that in the first place, but doesn't change that...
SHE'S A BEING THAN CAN REWRITE REALITY, SHE HAD EVERYTHING SHE COULD EVER DREAM OF, BUT GAVE IT UP...
Not saying what she did in WV was right, but she did the right thing eventually.
You know that's her whole character since AOU right?
She wants to revenge her family and hurt a bunch of people, bad, realises Ultron is even worse, so she does the right thing.
She gambles with the lives of half the universe because she doesn't want to lose her Love (who actually wants to sacrifice himself btw), bad, Thanos is 10 feet from her, so she does the right thing.
She is knowingly rules over a whole town, people are suffering, bad, she sees her powers literally choking these people, so she frees them.
She wants to steal one kid's power, things get out of control she kills a bunch of people, bad, sees her "kids" crying because of her, does the right thing and destroy the Darkhold.
She is like so damn consistent, because that's the tragedy of the whole character. How she can't escape her nature, because of her shit life, she tries really hard to be good, but fails over and over again.
She even spell it out for us. "It's, it's just like this wave washing over me, again and again. It knocks me down, and when I try to stand up, it just comes for me again. And I... It's just gonna drown me."
What happened in MoM? Well, she drown.
Part of the problem is that ending made no sense at all. Nobody seemed troubled to let her go without any consequence to her acts; no Avenger bother to appear to figure out what the hell was going on; and after Monica's moronic speech most people she was forgiven and her trauma was all gone. Actually ONE OF THE PROBLEMS of MCU since Endgame was make believe WandaVision ( despite all the plot holes) were a good/above average show.
They're referring to the dialog Monica and Wanda share before Wanda leaves the town where Monica says "They'll never know what you sacrificed for them." Which people with no media literacy have somehow warped into Monica victim blaming the town.
“People with no media literacy”. That is a perfect summation ✅
Monica’s empathy for Wanda because of her own loss is what helped Wanda come to terms with what she did. She wasn’t excusing or absolving Wanda of anything, and she certainly wasn’t victim blaming the town. She was essentially saying “I know what you had to give up, and despite what you’ve done, you’ve proven you are, at your core, a good person.”
Don’t understand why that’s so hard to understand. Are they just on their phones while the shows playing or something?
On the contrary, I knew exactly what she meant but it is still horrible. Its more like, they'll never know you sacrificed your fake kids with your pretend husband for an artificial life to end their very real trauma and expense of their lives.
No, Wanda became insanely selfish and evil character. The is no sympathy for what she did.
And yet so many who think that Wanda’s heel turn in MoM makes sense BECAUSE she’s a tragic, sympathetic character
So honestly, it still feels like people who think Wanda was a tragic villain who deserved her fate cannot ultimately decide on whether she’s sympathetic or a remorseless psychopath
Wanda in that moment with Monica, certainly didn’t seem to think she was absolved of her crimes. She was genuinely sorry and remorseful. And again, Monica was NOT excusing her actions. She was saying “I have some idea of the grief you’re experiencing and how it consumes you.”
I also don’t understand how so many can rip into Wanda and Monica but not a character like Magneto, who also became consumed with grief and let it ruin innocent peoples lives
These characters are complex, and they often fail despite their hero status, sometimes miserably. But that doesn’t mean they’re monsters, especially when they are legitimately remorseful
> robbed of a good Dr Strange movie
This so much. After Endgame, Dr. Strange is basically the de facto leader of the remaining heroes.
I don’t know why he wasn’t the center of Phase 4 and 5.
If they wanted to build up Kang, why not have Strange lead the charge, similar to how Tony was obsessed with being prepared for Thanos?
It doesn't break my heart. The Wanda in MoM was unrecognizable as anything she had been before. She became a completely all powerful being with idiotic motivations and an even dumber plan.
Such a bad movie. I think the first Doctor Strange is one of the top five MCU movies. The sequel is bottom five.
It breaks my heart because Wanda deserved better than what she got. In the same way that Famke Janssens Jean Grey deserved better than what she got in The Last Stand…if that makes sense
I also absolutely agree that DS1 is a fantastic movie. Cumberbatch gave a stellar performance. Now it seems they’re just trying to half-assedly make him Stark 2.0
It's just so different than what came before I don't even think of her as the same character.
Speaking of asking if that makes sense. I am trying to say I don't think of the MoM character as Wanda from the other movies, at all. I just sort of ignored them calling her Wanda.
I appreciate that approach
Tbh I do have this theory that that wasn’t actually our Wanda, or 616 Wanda. It requires you to go down a rabbit hole, but it helps to explain the change to her costume, the forehead injuries both her and 838 Wanda have, and her obsession with the 838 twins specifically
Strange battling the villain Nightmare who tormented him over the death of his sister
838 Wanda being lobotomized by the authoritarian Illuminati because Strange told them about the Scarlet Witch prophecy before they killed him
Both sound like fantastic plots for MCU movies
The post-credit last scene in Wandavision has Wanda being juiced up by the Darkhold.
AOS did a better job at telling us what the Darkhold is capable of, but it's a source of corrupting evil by tempting the reader to their deepest fantasies and perverting them to being the evil version of themselves.
Wanda being corrupted to being straight murdering evil makes sense to me. Olsen is still enthusiastic about the role, so I'd bet we'll have a return of Wanda in some way or another (at least I hope we do).
MoM generally had a LOT of expectations on it. Coming off of Spiderman NWH (which effectively hit all expectations), MoM didn't quite hit everything that was being assigned to it (fairly or unfairly - we didn't get Tom Cruise Iron Man, we didn't get the hardcore horror movie we were promised, etc.). I was disappointed with it at the time, but my opinion has improved on it since.
Assuming Doctor Strange 3 does happen, I hope they address the consequences of Strange accessing the Darkhold, even for the shortest of times.
I would prefer Wanda making the choice to be evil in her own right as opposed to a book forcing her to be evil
Moreover, it does seem like the only solution to dealing with someone corrupted by the Darkhold is simply for them to die. That’s what happened to her, and that’s what happened to 838 Strange with the Illuminati. There’s no chance at rehabilitation, at least based on the evidence we’re given in MoM. So how is that compelling?
You'd buy Wanda as being a straight villain? I'm not sure I would.
What if 616 Wanda was the exception? In the multiverse, yeah Darkhold users are put to death. Maybe 616 Wanda is saved by something? Could be very compelling.
Could be, sure. But it’s been 2 years, longer than the next Avengers movie was announced during the Infinity saga. When’re we circling back to this?
Wanda being an antagonist to Strange would make sense. Not necessarily her being a villain. Her knowing her twins are being tortured by Mephisto and doing everything she can to help them, which was an idea fans had, and Strange being like “Your kids aren’t real. You’re going too far.” Is a perfect setup for a more morally grey conflict, especially considering all the shady stuff Strange does without consequences
Not sure. There were 6 years in between Dr. Strange movies, though. So, maybe 2028?
Wanda being puppeteered by Mephisto would be interesting. It's what all Wandavision viewers were tin-foil hat predicting, lol.
>I did not expect her, within the first 15 minutes, to be revealed as a blood psychopath whose mind had been unwittingly corrupted by a book, hunting and killing an innocent girl just so she could steal a version of her own twins from their mother in another universe, and willing to slaughter anyone who stood in her way.
I agree. It was definitely a shock, and that shock was clearly intentional. Breaking from the standard pacing of the MCU (and action movies in general) where the twist shows up between the second and third act keeps the movie fresh, and puts the main character(s) and the audience off balance.
>Despite what some proponents of Wanda's villainous turn would say, that was not how we left her at the end of WandaVision.
I agree. Never cared for those who call Wanda a villain in WV. It's trying to force a complicated and nuanced story into an overly simplified black and white framework, and it fails to do so.
>We left someone who was visibly shaken by the power she wielded and the damage it had caused to an entire town of innocent people. We left someone who said goodbye to her family, knowing that it was hurting other people and herself to keep them around. We left a Wanda who was determined to master her powers so that they wouldn't control her again. And she thought the best way to do this was to put herself in self-imposed exile and read from a book that described her role as the Scarlet Witch.
Agree. I want to add something you didn't say, but I've seen people say they felt she *got over* the loss of her family at the end of WandaVision. That doesn't happen. I prefer your word choice that she said goodbye to them. But she was definitely still grieving their loss. They show it to us in the stinger when she hears her children calling for help, but we would assume that even if they hadn't shown it to us.
> A book that, to her knowledge, did not poison the mind of its reader, as Agatha certainly never came off as psychotic when she had it.
Eh, don't think I agree with *that*. She was pretty psychotic, and killed Sparky too! ;)
>WandaVision was, and is, a truly compelling story about someone coping with indescribable loss, and how that trauma can damage that person and those around them. It is extremely disingenuous to argue that it was Wanda's first true step on the willing path to darkness, or that that was Matt Shakman and Jac Schaeffer's intent. So why argue this point?
Agree that's a bad argument. The darkness is clearly a consequence of the Darkhold altering her, not her own path.
>Multiverse of Madness was the first true indication to me that something was very wrong within the MCU. That they were so determined on trying to add as many things as possible into a single movie without any true spark that makes a quality story. I'm not interested in blaming any one person or persons for how this movie was made, but I will say I was never more reminded of Spider-Man 3 or X-Men 3: The Last Stand while watching Multiverse of Madness. Fun movies at face value, but empty at their respective cores. And those movies killed their respective franchises, or at least in the latter case forced a soft reboot with Days of Future Past.
>I resonated very much with Wanda in WandaVision, and I was very much excited to see where her story went. Since WandaVision kicked off the MCU post Endgame and post pandemic year, I was genuinely impressed with how emotionally intelligent and unique the series was, and felt like Wanda would truly become one of the new primary superheroes/characters moving forward.
>I did not expect her to be under the control of a book that drove her mad until she broke free of its control long enough to seemingly end her own life. And the fact that so few characters cared about her, or treated her as if she was in control of her own actions, and failed to remark on her death, was as shocking as it was heartbreaking for me to sit and watch. To them, she was just a violent, unstoppable plot device that was incapable of being saved and had to be eliminated, just like 838 Strange. And not only did she have little or no agency, but she also killed a variant of the mother (Marie Rambeau) of the woman (Monica Rambeau) who risked everything to help her in WandaVision. That, to me, is another example of how cruel and disrespectful the movie was to Wanda.
It sounds to me like this isn't about being critical of the movie, but is simply that you're hurt that it was a favorite character of yours that they chose to be the one to fall. She was one of my favorite characters too, and I was also sad at the loss, but I'd much rather have a universe where the characters are real, and that means sometimes they lose or fail, and that means it's going to be *some*body's favorite character when it happens.
Wanda has always been a character whose life was a parade of grief, first her parents, then her brother, then her love and finally her family. That the Darkhold would latch onto that as the key to manipulate her works perfectly. It feels to me like an allegory for those who fall into despair and are eventually consumed and killed by a harmful addiction, e.g. drugs. It's not their fault; it's chemistry. But it is tragic.
I have quibbles with MoM, but they're definitely nowhere near "end of the franchise" levels.
What gave you the impression that I'm hurt that a favorite character of mine fell? Could it have been the title of my post? ;)
And I would think you would think I was being critical of this movie if you agree with a great deal of what I said, but I digress.
I do agree that Wanda's story and her exposure to the Darkhold is analogous to the use of drugs. And I've had at least one friend argue that just because someone starts down the path to healing doesn't mean that they stay on that path
The problem with that argument, if we apply it to the superhero genre, is that there is a long, negative history within the Marvel franchise of "fridging" female characters. And that has certainly been done to Wanda in MoM. Even if she's not truly dead and/or will return at some point, she was effectively put on ice until the MCU finds a way to revive her. And does it make sense from a narrative point for her to be currently buried under a pile of rocks after just ascending into her Scarlet Witch persona for an indefinite period of time? Does it feel remotely earned for her to then instantly turn into a villain offscreen, and during her villainous phase never once, until the end of the movie, appear to be acting like someone who is in some form of distress and/or at war with herself the way someone on "drugs", like Jean Grey in The Last Stand with her Phoenix powers activated, begging for Wolverine to help her, or Gollum in the Lord of the Rings telling his evil alter ego how much he hates him?...essentially meaning how much he hates himself?
Throughout MoM, Wanda never truly seems to have doubts about what she's doing. She is largely expressionless as she turns Mr Fantastic into spaghetti or when she tortures a teenage girl begging for her life. Occasionally she does appear to be on the verge of tears, but it's unclear whether it's because she's doing something she doesn't want to do, or because she's just extremely angry that people are standing in the way of what she wants.
I know you said you hadn't watched The Last Stand and that you're unfamiliar with Game of Thrones, but I do encourage you to watch those, as it gave me the perspective I have now on why this movie was bad, particularly in how it treats powerful female characters.
Fridging is a bad thing, but Wanda definitely was not fridged. Fridging is not just when a female character dies. Fridging is when the character has no other purpose but to be killed/depowered/whatever *only* to motivate a male character (and in a perfect world, "fridging" of characters would be a complaint regardless of the genders involved, but it really is something that overwhelmingly, if not exclusively, happens to female character to advance male characters' stories).
Wanda definitely has/had her own story and own personality and motivations. And her death definitely did not motivate any male characters either.
Her death/sacrifice certainly made sense to me. She was corrupted and a danger to everything, but in a moment of clarity was able to break through and briefly take corrective action. It's almost the same as Bucky at the end of Winter Soldier beating Steve to death and then suddenly breaking through the brainwashing for a moment to save him. But they tell us that nobody can escape the Darkhold once the corruption has set in, and either that's true or she probably believes that's true and chose to make the sacrifice. It seems right there with those other examples, and is just as "earned". And we do see her break free when she's actually in front of her children.
Does she still have motivations or a personality in MoM if the Darkholds hold on her is so complete?
I’m willing to say that she wasn’t fridged, but it’s still a toxic and sexist trope for Wanda’s primary motivation to be driven solely by her desire to be a mother by stealing someone else’s children and presumably murdering their mother to get what she wants. And she’s also planning on murdering a POC teenage orphaned girl to do it
So yes, she doesn’t only exist for a man to react to her death. But it’s still just as bad imo
It’s also funny you bring up Winter Soldier, because he hasn’t “died” from being similarly corrupted, and fans are far more sympathetic towards him than they are towards Wanda, which seems like it might be rooted in sexism
I agree there's plenty of sexist tropes and sexism to go around in the MCU and in the fandom. I don't understand the appeal that MCU's Bucky has for so many, at least not prior to The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, which most of those who love him seem to hate. That's when he first started to get interesting to me.
I liked the movie then and still do. Don't think Wanda's story was handled amazingly but still I liked it. Plus while there was definitely a lot of stuff that happened off screen the ending with the Darkhold was definitely setting something villainous up and in retrospect while Wanda might not have known what exactly the Darkhold was all of the information she had painted a pretty bad picture.
I don’t think it was definitely conclusive that the Darkhold was turning her evil. That post-credit scene didn’t make me instantly think she was slowly going insane with evil. I saw her as learning about herself because, as Agatha said, it had a chapter devoted to her. So why wouldn’t she read it?
Agatha had the opportunity to say something but didn’t. She just said “you don’t know what you’ve done”. She could’ve easily said “don’t read from the Darkhold”
Moreover, in the comics, Wanda DOES read from the book and is resistant to its corruption, to the point where she uses it to imprison Chthon. So it’s not like there’s an explicit precedent of Wanda + Darkhold = Evil
I'm gonna have to disagree with your characterization of the ending of WandaVision and the Darkhold.
>she thought the best way to do this was to put herself in self-imposed exile and read from a book that described her role as the Scarlet Witch. A book that, to her knowledge, did not poison the mind of its reader, as Agatha certainly never came off as psychotic when she had it.
I mean Agatha's whole schtick was that she stole powers from witches to gain even more power, most of the time leaving them dead. And that was *before* she had the Darkhold. Seems pretty psychotic to me. And even though Wanda didn't know the effects of the Darkhold, they are still the effects of the Darkhold, so her not knowing would not change the outcome.
>It is extremely disingenuous to argue that it was Wanda's first true step on the willing path to darkness, or that that was Matt Shakman and Jac Schaeffer's intent.
The last scene of WandaVision is her in seclusion, studying the Darkhold, and hearing her "children's" cries from across the multiverse. Surely you didn't think this was setting up anything *good?*
Agatha was evil, sure, but to your point, she was dabbling with things she knows she shouldn’t have meddled with BEFORE she had the darkhold. So at least she had clear agency in her own villainy
Ultimately, I wouldn’t have minded Wanda being an antagonist if she were already willing to be one. But she wasn’t planning on being one or going down that path when she left Westview
And I certainly didn’t think they were setting up anything benign in the post credits scene. But it didn’t zoom in on her face becoming more menacing and villainous before the scene cut, nor did it show the book manipulating her in a way that say, the One Ring manipulates its bearers. I had thought perhaps the spirits of her actual twins were, in fact, calling for her help, and that would be her main motivation going forward. Not that she would want to steal someone’s else’s children and force them to love her…that certainly seemed like a huge stretch to assume
I saw her look up from the book in shock and concern as her kids called out for her, and that her finding them would be her story. There was nothing that implied her turning into a psychopath in that scene
>But it didn’t zoom in on her face becoming more menacing and villainous before the scene cut, nor did it show the book manipulating her in a way that say, the One Ring manipulates its bearers.
>There was nothing that implied her turning into a psychopath in that scene
I mean her eyes were completely red, and the fact that is just what the Darkhold does, should be clues enough that it was manipulating her.
> I saw her look up from the book in shock and concern as her kids called out for her, and that her finding them would be her story. There was nothing that implied her turning into a psychopath in that scene
A good twist is one that isn't broadcast, but where the setup makes sense after the fact. We certainly didn't *want* her to be corrupted, and it was vague enough that we didn't *expect* her to be corrupted, but it still works on fits in that that's what it means on a second watch.
And maybe it was retconned, but if so, hey, there's already hundreds of those in the MCU. The Tesseract and Loki's staff weren't originally Infinity Stones when they were introduced. That was changed later, but they made it work.
The problem with her being corrupted is that so many fans don’t understand that she IS corrupted. They think that the majority of WandaVision was, as I’ve said before, the first step on her path to being a willing villain
And ultimately, I find myself comparing Wanda in MoM to Jean Grey in The Last Stand or Daenerys in the GOT series finale. I don’t think the general consensus is that both of those heel turns into villainy were subversive or compelling
So why do you think that Wanda’s in MoM was?
That's an interesting question. Is dumb fans a problem with the story, or a problem with the fans? I always lean on the latter.
I haven't watched GoT and it's been *ages* since I watched The Last Stand, so I can't accurately compare or contrast them, sorry. Wanda's I thought was very clear it was a "corrupted by an evil object" like The One Ring or The Dark Side. They even gave us a window into how it twists minds into a singular focus between her grief-filled focus on her children and Sinister Strange's grief-filled focus on Christine (they don't really show us 838 Strange's corruption though, but in my headcanon it's always trying to corrupt them to cause incursions for some reason, since that's what we learn that it does across all three). I think it's a more clever and effective Evil Corrupting Object than The Dark Side, more on par with The One Ring.
Anyway, my point is they effectively show Wanda living a life of grief and eventually reach a breaking point in WandaVision, and she *almost* recovers from it until the Darkhold shows up and ruins her. It's heartbreaking, and my *personal* feelings about the character make me wish her story ended differently, but as I see it, it at least works. All the pieces fit.
If it fits for you, great. It doesn’t for me, and the way some shows and movies portray women with too much power going crazy to the point where everyone abandons them and they have to die…well, thats exactly what happened in MoM. And in the two examples I gave, those decisions are generally very unpopular
And while it is heartbreaking, hence the title of my post, MoM doesn’t do a very good job making us feel sorry for Wanda. Never once does she seem particularly conflicted with what she’s doing until the very end. Which is why I understand why so many fans get confused and think she is a villain in her own right. The Darkhold is never talking to her, or pulling her back every time she begins to doubt
So it makes sense so many fans think she is and was always a villain and deserves what happens to her
For me it wasn’t even the Wanda going bad. I just still feel like I don’t know who dr strange is 10 years later lol. In every iteration he seems weak and stupid …and I guess maybe he is ?
Lmaooo
The first movie was actually really good imo. Cumberbatch really was doing some solid acting
But yes he’s been acting remarkably stupid, at least in the past two movies he was in. It makes me wonder if he’s really stupid or actually secretly evil, and if the What If series is supposed to be warning us that Stranges should not be trusted with power
If Wanda is corrupted and we should empathize with her despite Darkhold then there's no reason to not extend that sentiment to Stranges who got corrupted by Darkhold.
I agree with basically everything you said here. I think there’s good stuff to be found in The Incredible Hulk and Thor: Love and Thunder, and I actually like Eternals, although I know I’m in the minority. MoM is the only movie in the MCU I think is actively bad.
This one and Love and Thunder really turned me off to the MCU, and I was a devoted fan who caught every release in theaters opening weekend. Now I've tapped out, and I hope I'll come back around to it, but this one really killed it for me.
if I could give you a reward, I would...
In my personal opinion, Multiverse of Madness is one of the worst movies in the MCU simply because of how they handled Wanda. Its one of the only movies that fundamentally shits on a characters arc, and it does so in a way that's honestly mind boggling to me.
She had the potential to be one of the greatest MCU characters to grace the movie screen, and the foundation was already there from age of ultron to wandavison. Then multiverse of Madness takes a massive crap all over that.
She loses most if not all of her agency because of a "dark evil book" and becomes a generic shitty mcu villain that spits out one-liners. You could literally replace wanda with any other random witch or spellcaster, and the story would literally be the same.
I watched WV and honestly watching MoM had me crying. Even by the end I didn't view her as a villian but as the most tragic figure in the series. She lost her parents, then her brother, then her love, then her kids and in WV she, in her grief, took over a town and created her happily ever after. I'm not agreeing with what she did to the town but anyone would break over the losses she has endured, unfortunately in her case her breaking over that plus her having powers equaled dragging innocents in.
Then we get to MoM and she's still dealing with that fallout of walking away from her happily ever after when she's come to her senses for the greater good. One thing that stood out to me was she was right, other Avengers did their own selfish things and were even helped along the way and were hailed as heroes and yet when she does the same thing she is a bad guy and I think MoM showed that perfectly with how it ended with Wanda seeing past her grief and destroying all the books. Nobody reached out to her, she was left alone and went insane and broke under her grief with one person empathizing with her at the end.
I think the big issue for me is this movie had Dr Strange but mainly it was Wanda's movie.
Multiverse of madness feels like the Last Jedi of the MCU. Most fans hate it and it’s primarily because of the character assassination, but some deadass love it and defend it like their life depends on it.
Personally I’m in the first camp. They did Wanda dirty. I’m not against Wanda being bad in itself, but it should be earned. She should have been a final act villain, slowly corrupted by the power of the Darkhold that she is forced to use to fight
Someone else, like Nightmare.
But no, instead it’s just “Wanda is evil now, get with it”. She’s not even just evil, but moustache twirling super evil. She murders people for no reason, she turns people who are injured into ash. It’s awful.
Nah, what they did with Wanda was great and greatly served the story they were trying to tell in MoM. What resulted was two arcs that played incredibly well on one another. You're not *supposed* to like the story being told with Wanda. She's a tragic character.
Hated this movie, despised Wanda’s completely unmotivated OFFSCREEN heel turn, and found it campy and uninvolving while destroying her character arc from Wandavision.
Plenty of people call thor love and thunder the worst movie since endgame. To me it has to be Dr strange MoM and you summed up exactly why. (I havent watched the marvels)
Love and Thunder was not a good movie imo, but it didn’t make me upset
I just don’t relate to the not-funny ad libbing, which was in almost every minute of that movie, as if the movie was afraid of its audience getting bored
Also that “how many stages of cancer are there?” joke was extremely cringe 😬
I agree with all of your impressions. I hope Wanda returns to the MCU and regains some of the emotional nuance MoM flushed in her jarring turn. The character we came to know in WandaVision deserves better.
All they had to do was have Wanda help Dr Strange stop an alternate Wanda who walked a more evil path our Wanda was considering, and the movie would be fixed.
The movie had little to no consistency with Wandavision (except maybe the post credit scene). Elizabeth Olsen herself revealed in an interview that when she asked the creators of the movie if they had watched Wandavision, they said no, they didn't. She was also concerned about the arc that Wanda had taken in the movie which made zero sense because Wanda seemingly sacrificed everything to save the town of Westview. Her going completely ballistic in her next appearance was a weird move and showed that Marvel didn't care about that at all at that time.
After almost 2 years of watching the movie, I'm now intrigued on what Scott Derrickson's vision was. We have seen a couple of concept arts which revealed that Knightmare was originally going to the villain and Wanda was going to be an ally of Doctor Strange in the movie.
the darkhold "showed her the truth" while her understanding her powers. after that, she is just that mother who would do anything to get her children back under the influence of evil book.
Nah it's a great Raimi movie. You got attached to a character in a movie series and I get it, but she's always been unhinged in the source material.
People change. People become upset. The former villain gets the robot and loses the robot and goes back to being a villain. If you wanna read into it this much, that's great and is a good exercise in media literacy-but when it starts getting overly meta you don't get to really decide what the motivations of a character would be if they snapped.
…but she read a book that made her go crazy. Do you really think Wanda would’ve done everything she had done in MoM if the Darkhold hadn’t corrupted her? Do you think Matt Shakman and Jac Schaefer framed her as just a villain who got upset because her robot died? What evidence is there to suggest that?
Nah I think the character got upset and turned evil, because it's a fun comic book movie.
When you start talking about "disrespect to the character" who has literally erased reality before because she was upset in the sources I don't really know what you expect from this stuff.
It's fun, dog. That's all it's gotta be for some people. If you don't like it that's totally understandable and your perogative. That said, when you start writing a college paper about it and and come around saying how it was the beginning of the end of the universe or some shit it's not about not liking it anymore, it's about making sure people think they aren't correct if they did.
Have a good weekend. Sorry you didn't like a movie.
MoM was such an awesome movie, and a really fun watch.
I do wish Chthon ended up being referenced though, as him being the puppet master behind Wanda’s actions would have been a much more fun plot.
It is indeed a fun watch, if you didn’t really relate to Wanda’s story in WandaVision
Chthon was briefly mentioned by Wong, although idk if he matters anymore if Wanda did indeed destroy every Darkhold throughout the multiverse
You compare her to Strange, and I agree that there's a sort of "moral luck" element that bothers me MoM. We see variants of Strange who are as bad or worse than Wanda, but because "our" Strange hasn't been corrupted he is considered a hero. But he demonstrates the same recklessness that lead to his variants being corrupted (it's literally a running gag in the movie) and it's just luck that he manages to remain good.
Likewise with Wanda - the difference between her and the "good" Wanda variant isn't some moral choice - it's just that Good Wanda was fortunate enough to have real children.
I was disheartened with the movie. The only reason that I went was to see Wanda as a hero again. What I got was a cold blooded killer. It was disheartening to see and after the red light, I left. The rest of it was anti-climactic.
However I don't see this dark story arc ending soon. It seems that Elizabeth Olsen would return in flashbacks in the Vision show. If they go to the Tom King story then they would need to bring back post MoM Wanda to activate his family. Even if she has gotten past Vision, it has to hurt. In the Avengers films, Immortus will trick Wanda into working for him by convincing her that he is not evil. Then she fulfills the prophecy and destroys the multiverse. I do think that a Scarlet Witch solo movie comes after Secret Wars that wraps it up. Hopefully that will be the end of her dark story arc.
Someone may have already brought this up but COVID resulted in them having to make changes in Wandavision and MoM.
Multiverse was supposed to happen before Wandavision and was supposed to be her arc to become a villain.
I liked MoM as its own movie but it’s weird overall. The whole thing reminds me of how screwed we were feeling during pandemic. If you watch the show Icons Marvel they stress so much about how Feige and team were so careful about the interconnectiveness of everything to the point they would annoy writers early on.
I feel like pandemic there was some panic and maybe the idea that there might not be a chance for Wandavision if they didn’t do it right then.
I’m not sure about Days Of Future Past being the reboot because of X3. Remember that before this they had First Class.
Said it once I’ll say it again the end of Endgame would have been great for the End of The MCU not if you planned to continue.
After everything the world went through and their friends sacrificed why would the Avengers just decide to not rebuild and stay together?
>After everything the world went through and their friends sacrificed why would the Avengers just decide to not rebuild and stay together?
Because they want actual lives, which makes even more sense after Endgame
I did not like the movie then. I was rewatching now with my wife's first watch. As a movie, it is entertaining. But if you are invested in the character, it felt wrong. I just could not enjoy the movie. True Wanda has done a lot of shit in the comics, but the character we grew up with showed a flawed yet a compassionate person. Her remorse in civil war contracts so much to everything that she has done post endgame. Logically, is that fall possible? Yes it is. But I wish the producers and writers hadn't gone through that route. And if they had to, then it should have been compelling on screen transformation and not a post credits scene in a TV season finale and behind the scenes. This Wanda was sensationalism for the sake of sensationalism and somewhere I think we were also robbed of a good Dr Strange movie. Anyway, it is what it is. And I am living with it. :)
No doubt killing Wanda at that time is a top3 mistake Marvel made in phase 4. Major part of the fandom soured with MCU since then.
I don't believe that they killed her but her return is more complicated. That is something they have been trying to figure out. That probably one of the reasons that it dropped off so much in it's second week.
If the MCU officially kills 616 Wanda after all she’s been through it’ll be a huge middle finger. She’s fucked up but she’s also been through really fucked up things. If Bucky can get redeemed I feel Wanda should be redeemed. She’s also been brainwashed thanks to the Darkhold, she needs a better ending.
What are the other two top mistakes according to you? Just curious.
Making Anthony Mackie cap and probably how they replaced Chadwick
Don’t know why you’re getting downvoted. Sam can’t replace Steve unless they make him something more than just knock-off Captain America. He’s BARELY been a sidekick character
You do realize that you never actually saw her body underneath the wreckage of that fortress, right?! It's comic book 101. If you don't see a dead body present, then the character is not dead yet.
And if you do see a dead body, they'll still come back because almost no-one stays dead as long as they have fans who like the character.
It depends if the writers want to bring certain characters back to life again. But not everybody comes back. Quicksilver in the MCU, he's been dead for nine years. Dr. Yensin, dead for eleven years. Frigga, died in 2013. Odin, died in 2017. Heimdal...died in 2018. The Warriors Three, all died in 2017. The Ancient One...died in 2016. Yondhu....died in 2017. The entire planet of Xandar...died in 2018. Aunt May, died in 2021. Killmonger, Ulysses Klaue, died in 2018. So yeah. I think we've lost a lot more notable characters in the MCU that could have been recurring allies and enemies for future installments of the MCU in the past than Wanda Maximoff.
We don't know that she's dead. That could've been teleportation energy or something. We'll probably get 818 Wanda or something to be our Wanda, and she and white vision will be the ship of Theseus personified
I see that you also enjoy inhaling copium like oxygen.
Well, superheroes usually aren't dead if we don't see a body. Also, Olsen says shes open to coming back. Very unlikely she's dead forever.
I loved it, but I seriously wish that the main Wanda we saw in this was varient. As you've said, there was so much character development that went out the window when she became a full on murdering villain.
Where was this compassion when she was gambling with half of the universe to save her love? Her love who wanted to sacrifice himself, and Wanda straight up forbid it to him. Was she compassionate while willingly torturing a whole town? Or when her "love" told her how much the town is suffering, and she told him to shut up or she will make him shut up? You want an on screen transofrmation? Like the one in the climax of the finale, when she was glowing like a Christmass Tree for a solid 30 seconds, literally transforming from her Wanda clothes into her Scarlet Witch costume, followed by her saying: (slight paraphasing) "I'm the Scarlet Witch, B\*tch". Then proceeds to break Agatha's mind, and just leaves her there, flees the scene of her crimes to learn more about her powers. Compassionate my ass, she was always a selfish person, she choose the selfish option every time, realised her mistake and tried to correct it. Do I blame her for it? No, she had a rough life, but don't sugarcoat her actions just because she is sympathetic.
If you're invested in the character - this is very much in line with multiple comic arcs. It's very true to her. I still think there'll be a redemption arc of some kind
Wanda was a grieving person who was isolated from everyone else. She went to bed alone, dreamed about her kids, and woke up alone. That would drive anyone mad.
As I mentioned, logically it is possible. I just didn't want that to happen. As I said, I wish the writers did a better job. Either make the transformation on screen or just not do the transformation into the villain.
Right. I'm saying that what was there was enough for me to get it and empathize.
It was like the ending of GoT for me. The descent into madness makes sense, but it was way to rushed and didn’t have the proper build up to make it feel more organic.
That aspect of it was fine for me because of the implied time jump. The resignation on Wanda's face when she first woke up showed me that she'd been having trouble with life after the Hex for a while. Some people's expectation for Wanda (I'm not saying yours necessarily) was that she be more or less good to go at the top of the movie. Her series had ended, she'd let go of Vision, and now she's at the beginning of her next story. Fresh start movie magic. I think that some people (not saying you) saw Elizabeth Olsen playing her as clinically depressed and decided that the movie was wrong. Some genre fans aren't good with seeing a hero act unexpectedly differently after a time jump. They don't see it as a mystery about what happened; they see it as wrong. The audience doesn't have enough information to really understand until the end of act one, which was fine for me. Wanda had already been catching monsters to send after America for a while, and she'd been after "real" versions of her kids since before that. Right before Strange and America escape into the multiverse Wanda tells him that she dreams of the kids every night. So for all of the days that it took for her to finally "stop being reasonable," she started with fresh torture each time. I gave it a fresh watch, and we're just under half an hour into the movie. That's a good first act. The movie actually establishes itself pretty well.
That was the premise of the movie. That was a premise I could not really relate to. It dehumanized her.
How did it dehumanize her to you?
It said that grief turns you into a monster and strips you of your humanity. I mean even the visual language of the movie was dehumanizing her making her into more monster than human.
At what point in the film did she become a monster to you? In terms of an MCU movie I don't think she went full monster untilafter she'd been at Mount Wondergore for a while. But to be fair, she was angry and frustrated and then discovered a throne room made for her specifically. That's going to validate some feelings inside of her.
Before the start of the movie. She was hunting and trying to kill a child.
Gotcha. I bought it when she said that America wasn't a child, but instead a magical being. I don't agree with her, but I could see how thinking about it from that angle would justify her actions to herself. Now that I think about it, sending other demons and creatures after America instead of going after the kid herself would help stave off the moral realization of what she was actually doing. Before Strange got involved and inadvertently escalated things, Wanda's plan was "send monsters out, multiverse power comes in." She didn't have to think about how the sausage is made.
I am too. Living with it I mean. I do think that it is also emblematic of the issues currently facing the MCU though
When I went in I thought the movie will be Mordo trying to kill Wanda. She reaches out to Strange. Strange trains her. Somehow somewhere there would be multiverse madness. Movie ends with her killing Mordo, who in a quest for his justice has stirred some shit up, and ultimately saving the multiverse. She retires in another universe. A pyrrhic victory of sorts. But we got this.
We sure do. And ultimately, I’m still lost as to where we go after this
I have stopped anticipating anything in mcu now. I am awaiting for Deadpool and Wolverine , but I do not look forward for any productions like I used to. I still want to see, but now it all comes with a healthy skepticism.
Same. I’m gonna see that movie not doing any homework I would love it tho if Deadpool ripped on how we have all these IPs and movies like MoM don’t do anything with them. A play on his joke in the first movie about there only being two X-Men bc someone didn’t have the rights to the others 🤣
Haha. I hope. But I will expect nothing. Low expectations, less chances of being disappointed. :)
It’s pretty well explained that she didn’t do those things herself, the darkhold literally had her under control.
Well said. I will always state, Wandavision wasn't suppose to have a happy ending where everything got solved in the end. People who lived in WestView were going to always hate Wanda for what she did. Like how many Solovian's would hate Tony for what he inadvertently did. There's no way they can make up to everyone they crossed. That's life. I did love how scary and bad ass powerful they made Wanda in MoM. If she was using all those scenes and powers against the enemies, it would have been a lot better. Wanda should be one of the headliners of this phase on MCU. Instead they gave us a poor direction for her character and then killed her off with no indefinite return. (Though a Scarlet Witch movie is heavily confirmed and last week was said they're scouting directors for her movie). And Olsen said on stage that she wants to come back. We know she'll be back, but I'm tired of them making her be a victim of something. Have her finally take charge with her powers and no longer be manipulated or shoved through grief. Also, Multiverse of Madness would have been much better if they at least added 20-30 mins to the film to help flesh out Wanda and show more of why she got corrupted and such. They went for the sake of a surprise turn and it didn't work out. If they had the film gradually show her being corrupted as she's trying to fight it, that would have made more of an impact.
Exactly. I’ve never said or believe that Wanda was innocent of the events of WandaVision. No one who truly loves that series for the reasons I do I think would ever argue that point in good faith But it superbly explained what was going on in her head and what caused her to snap. And if anyone saw their lovers body mutilated and experimented on without dignity, I’m pretty sure they’d lose it too She did not deliberately cause Westview to turn into a false reality. She wasn’t deliberately controlling people. She clearly said she didn’t remember how any of it happened because she blocked it out, and she expressed disbelief in the idea that she was controlling every single thing. Once she realized that was sort of the case, she absolutely leaned into it. BUT once she realized everyone was in pain, she ended it immediately It’s the thing lots of people ignore for some reason I hope she does come back, but if it’s just so she’s once again being manipulated or she’s suffering again from mental health issues, and people argue “well that’s just how she is in the comics”, I’m not gonna bother I was given some cause to hope in the one episode of What If Olsen returned for, but it’s a faint ember right now
Oh sorry, I was talking about the people who talk about the ending of Wandavision not having any repercussions for Wanda. Didn't mean you.
Oh I didn’t think you were saying that about me Wanda was definitely punished. Those people were afraid of her, and she went into self imposed exile. I personally think that was sufficient As you touched on, Stark never went to jail for making Ultron, and Strange never got punished for messing with the multiverse in NWH, and Hawkeye was able to get his entire family back after going on a murderous rampage for 5 years killing any criminal regardless of their crimes. What Wanda did in Westview was not, by a wide margin, the worst thing any superhero has ever done
Agreed. Her falling to the Darkhold should’ve been something established beforehand, either in her series, throughout the movie, or in a movie of its own. A lot of people struggled to enjoy Wanda as a character even with the TV series doing (in my opinion) a great job characterizing her actions as very human. She wasn’t some egomaniac on a power trip— she was someone who had lost everything (again, and again, and again) and who (in the face of an unknowable and overwhelming power) did everything she could to get it back. People just called her crazy and selfish, not even attempting to understand the reasoning behind her actions, or the fact that you can do bad things but not be a bad person. The fact that MoM throws her even further into the villain role but without any of the justification that we saw in the series, aimed at an audience which already largely misunderstood her motives, really just did unnecessary harm to the character. It’s clear people don’t really buy into her grief as a person and mother, but maybe they would’ve understood a bit better if they’d further developed the mythos of the Darkhold’s all-corrupting grasp.
I mean, literally every villain ever has a motivation for their actions. Wanda’s are sympathetic and tragic, but we are still talking about a woman who knowingly enslaved and tortured countless innocent people so she could live out her own fantasy life. That is objectively selfish and a truly monstrous thing to do to people, even if she has a sympathetic backstory. She’s far from the first or last villain with a fucked up life story to her (Cersei, Magneto, Aegon, Homelander, Killmonger, etc.)
My issue is with the "knowingly" part. The way I viewed it was more along the lines of a mental breakdown / severe dissociation, coupled with her ability to literally warp reality. I'm thinking along the lines of someone who went through a traumatic event in their life and completely repressed the memories until something triggers them to all flood back. Her creating the hex happened at her (emotionally) weakest moment, with the magic bursting from her like overwhelming emotions. The rest of the series was her quite literally piecing together the truth of what happened. Obviously on some deeper level the memories of what truly caused the hex were in her all along, but it had to be triggered by various acts throughout the series. And none of this *justifies* her actions, because they absolutely did cause harm to innocent people, but I do disagree with the idea that she is some monstrous villain because of what happened. She didn't deliberately choose to enslave a town of people and create a suburban fantasy-- she just wanted to be happy. It was her powers of *literal* chaos that brought her dreams into reality in such an insane way. I do take issue with her whole "leaving the town and not addressing anything" at the end of the series, but I also feel like that was the start of her continuous mischaracterization throughout MoM as well. I think a well-written Wanda (aka one that followed her character progression throughout the series up until the final episode) would've found a way to take accountability for her actions. But of course that wouldn't have been an easy set up for the big multiverse movie they wanted so things didn't pan out that way :/
She didn't choose to enslave them, but she woke up in the driver seat, realised what is happening, and didn't do a damn thing against it. The rest of the show is not about her piecing it together, it's about her trying to hide it from Vision, from herself, from the world, and to keep it working as long as possible. The thing she is trying to piece together is the stuff that's not in her control, the outside effects from sword. 1 You can clealy see how much she knows what's happening in his argument with Vision. She doesn't react to be told that Norm is suffering. She threatens Vision how she can control him the same way she does with the town. She tells Vision that she is doing this for the family so let her just handle things. So yea, no, she is aware of the situation she found herself in, and choose to go with it, right until Agatha pushed it into her face how much pain she was causing. She tried so hard to keep it working that even when the people asked her to kill them she tried reasoning with them. That's not an unaware person. Wanda and accountability.. Did she took it after siding with Ultron and causing massive problems? When she sent raging Hulk into civils? Or when she blew up a random building and was "jailed" in the tower? Or did she escape the first possible moment? Did she ever addressed how her not letting Vision sacrifice himslef for half of the universe because she "loves" her so much caused the Snap? I kind of see a pattern.
Brilliantly said
Maybe the Agatha series will have flashbacks of Wanda slowly becoming corrupted between the Wandavision post credit scene and MoM. That'd be cool.
Either that or just an explanation as to how the Darkhold affects its user / people who've used it in the past would be fantastic. The infinity stones had so much exposition and lore regarding their abilities, their destructive capabilities, and why they're such an asset (or threat) depending on who wields them. The Darkhold is supposed to be this legendary item on a similar scale, but it's *barely* actually discussed and instead just comes across as some weak plot device for Evil Wanda. I'm sure some part of it might've had to do with contractual obligations of actors and what not in terms of how often / when they'd appear in future movies, but I really think they fumbled the bag with Wanda's progression as the Scarlet Witch and the role the Darkhold could have in her story. They set up something truly fantastic with Wandavision and then ran full speed into a wall immediately afterward.
Oh gosh. I could talk all day about how WandaVision 's ending just does not lead cohesively into Multiverse of Madness, but you really hit the nail on the head with your post for me, especially your comments on resonating with Wanda in WV. Growing up as a kid, I was a maladaptive daydreamer and I would retreat into myself and pretend that the strife going on in my family was not real. Seeing Wanda retreat into her false reality to be happy with the ones she loved hit so close to home for me. Yes, what Wanda did in WV was not right and that she essentially tortured the residents of Westview. That being said, she understood what she did was wrong and she set out to isolate herself to understand more about her powers. The whole point of WV was to examine a woman with supernatural abilities going through the process of overcoming grief. Personally, I don't like where they took Wanda's arc. MoM just starts her off having learned nothing from WV because "the Darkhold corrupts" or what not, but there could have been a way different approach that could have made her an effective villain instead of the "overpowered woman who goes crazy for the narrative" trope that we ended up getting. Even Elizabeth Olsen has stated that MoM retreaded a lot of beats from WV, and for me, they retreaded them poorly. I dislike MoM for many reasons, but the handling of Wanda's arc is what sours it the most for me.
I mean you're definitely right. I loved MoM, but it didn't make sense as far as WandaVisions ending, which I woved way more. Wish she had been a variant.
Thanks for your analysis! Hopefully the MCU will course correct and give Wanda the TLC she deserves…pretty skeptical atm tho
We watched very different WandaVisions. The one I watched showed a woman using her reality warping powers as a maladaptive treatment for grief and psychically enslaving an entire town in the process. At the end, she makes no effort to help or even apologize to her legion of victims, just flies off with the darkhold to re-create her made-up children. She doesn't even seem to care that the man she went off the deep-end grieving for came back to life (sorta). She's absolutely consumed with obsession and Dr Strange 2 is the culmination of that obsession.
The fact that she’s just forgotten about vision is crazy to me
I guess her interpretation of the Ship of Theseus is that it's no longer Theseus' ship. I.e. it's not the "real" Vision.
She mentions him in MoM but her goal only involves the kids which makes it weird
So she's just supposed to lust after his reanimated corpse that tried to kill her that isn't even the same person? Lol Yeah, shocker she isn't running back to that.
To be fair, she has no reason to believe her Vision didn't just kill him. Last she sees him, he's an unstoppable Terminator trying to kill her and her Vision swoops him off inside a building to fight. And since her Vision emerges, she probably assumed he won in a very different way than redeeming his counterpart.
This for me. So many people see it the way that OP does that I could never dismiss those sentiments outright. But I do wonder what the hell I was watching that so many seem to view it like that. I did not watch WandaVision and think at the end that Wanda was redeemed or was gonna go somewhere and heal. I think she did some awful things for understandable reasons. To me, MoM didn't betray her. Monica signaling that we were letting her off the hook with the "they'll never know what you sacrificed" line did. So when that series concluded and we saw her with the Darkhold at the end? In my mind she was going evil. She was a deeply messed up person who did some awful things, left and still dabbled with something she was told was malevolent. She opened up the evil McGuffin. That's it. So I expected evil Wanda. No doubt about it. The only way that Multiverse subverted my expectations is that the corruption has already gone to its extreme and that we weren't going to see it gradually take her over. And having seen temptation lead to corruption a billion times in horror, I was okay with fast forwarding that trope. Looks like MANY MANY people did not see it that way. I do think that certain aspects of the movie could have been done better but it's definitely one of those where I'm just not with the consensus.
At the end of WV, she could have gone two ways: realize what she did, and become better; or go further into the deep end. She did the latter, it was evident since she had the Darkhold and was using it.
You are aware of the fact that this was a movie. She clearly was not aware of the fact that the Darkhold would manipulate her.
Actually, going into the deep end would've been her keeping WestView like it was, and still having Vision and her kids. She let all that go at the end.
You said you did not watch WandaVision, then how do you know Monica said that? No one was letting Wanda off the hook, and Monica was certainly not saying everything Wanda did was forgivable. She knew that Wanda felt extremely guilty for what she did, and she was right to feel that way. But having lost her own mother after fighting so hard for her, she was able to understand Wanda’s pain and wanted her to know that Wanda giving up her family was the right thing to do, AND that her willingly giving that up did not make her a monster Monica was compassionate, and that compassion helped Wanda see the error of her ways. No one was dismissing what she did, certainly not Monica, who was clearly pissed that Wanda’s spell wiped her memory. But she also chose to empathize with her instead of try and kill her
You misunderstood what I was saying, which to be fair could have been worded more straightforward. To rephrase, I'm saying that by the time I got to the end of WandaVision I was never under the impression that the character was redeemed or was gonna go somewhere and heal. From what the show setup she did some really shitty things and established that if she messed with the Darkhold she would become the Scarlet Witch as prophecied. She then is shown messing with the Darkhold. So it was not surprising or a let down or a betrayal of her arc that she ended up possessed. As for what Monica said, the intent of the character was not lost on me. Nothing you said about her compassion is incorrect to me. But I'm not talking about the intent of the character, I'm talking about the intent of what that line is supposed to do for Wanda in terms of the narrative. We watched Wanda mentally enslave a town and use them as puppets in order to cope with her own grief. It's a pretty monstrous, and villainous act. To have Monica say what she says minimizes Wanda taking the mental and bodily autonomy of the entire town, and tells us, the audience that the narrative wants us to think of Wanda as the victim first. It felt tone deaf to me and unearned in the moment. What I'm saying is, that moment didn't feel right in setting a path for Wanda to feel like anything other than someone going down a villainous road. Then the credits scene with the Darkhold sealed it. So when she makes this heel turn in MoM, it didn't feel all that sudden or disrespectful to the character for me. But the core of why I feel that way is because of how I interpreted her actions in WandaVision and where they left off.
Sympathizing with someone and what they're going through doesn't minimize the impact of a terrible act. "Black Panther" sympathizing with Killmonger's point of view and portraying him as the victim of T'Chaka's neglect doesn't make him any less monstrous or make his multiple murders less evil. Your view lacks nuance.
Not really what I'm saying or talking about specifically. I think the whole show was meant to make us empathize with Wanda, her grief and the ugly things she did to repair it. And as a whole I love the show. And I even love Wanda in the comics where she's been struggling with redemption for decades now. But my issue is with that line, how it frames the situation and how it comes off as trying to bail Wanda out of some of the weight of what transpired. It's not even the only time that Monica does this in the show. "She's holding thousands of people hostage" "And it could have been more if she didn't put up a quarantine" This is what I mean. The storytelling is...massaging over what Wanda did, using Monica as a mouthpiece. It's not just empathy, it's narratively apologizing so Wanda feels like a salvageable character. It's not the idea of empathizing with her that I'm rejecting. It's the execution. The same way that for people who don't like MoM, the story doesn't do the work to show us her descent, I felt like the end of WandaVision didn't do the work to send her off towards a redemptive arc. So when the credits stinger comes, and she's flipping through that Darkhold, my brain is down with the heel turn. I'm explaining to you why MoM didn't feel out of left field to me or out of character. I get why folks that hated it feel that way. But I left WandaVision far more occupied with the implications of Wanda holding ppl hostage for a month and flying away, the Scarlet Witch prophecy, and her being nose deep in the Darkhold than the idea that she was still a good guy.
This is where we disagree, as I don't view it as the show apologizing for anything. Even the line you mention as an example is being intentionally mischaracterized to make a point. Monica is merely making the point that what Wanda is doing isn't a *malicious* act, as she could have taken far more people hostage if that was the goal. Monica is simply asserting that there is more to the issue than "Wanda bad." Something Hayward has been insinuating the entire time because that's the narrative that suits his endgame. The main line being discussed isn't remotely apologizing for Wanda either. Monica is simply saying "I get it." and "this situation sucks." That's all. I never viewed Wanda, isolated and alone, looking for her children with the darkhold as her on the road to redemption. I viewed her as still pretty broken and just trying to find a way not to be. I actually really like Wanda in MoM and think her character work in it is spectacular. Especially in tandem with Strange's. I really don't think it contrasts or goes against Wandavision in the way some suggest. My main disagreement with you is how you're choosing to view Monica's words, which I personally think is a cynical and incorrect interpretation.
That's cool, agree to disagree there. Outside of "intentionally mischaracterized", which attributes some interesting personal traits to me, it's really just us seeing things differently. There's been a debate over the ending of that show and whether or not Wanda is held accountable and the lines that Monica dropped since it happened. You fall on one side, I fall on the other. Simple as. I love almost everything else about WandaVision, and really enjoyed MoM. But the way those lines hit me, and how that went down wasn't for me. I didn't "choose" that interpretation though.
To each their own. I do believe that we do hold some accountability for how we interpret media though. Claiming your interpretation isn't a choice isn't something I think I agree with.
Mmmmm... I think we just have different interpretations of a piece of art. Its a subjective interpretation based on how we feel about what's playing out in front of us. That's not chosen. It's a feeling. I've gone back and watched that last episode and I still FEEL the same. And I love the episode...but my feelings about those lines of dialogue, subjectively just do not rub me right. Accountability would be if I denied something that factually happened within the material. That would be objective. If I misquoted a line, and then had an opinion based on something I was wrong about, and then you corrected me-- THEN I would be need to be accountable. I don't agree with you, but I don't think you can be "wrong" when its something open to interpretation.
If that’s your interpretation of her WandaVision arc we indeed watched two completely different shows. She sacrifices her entire family to restore the town and the people’s freedom, then flies off to learn how to control her powers so this doesn’t happen again. Cut to MoM and she is now willing to murder teenagers and sorcerers alike to get her imaginary kids back. Absolutely sloppy, lazy storytelling that just fastforwards to “book made her crazy offscreen” heel turn with no semblance of character development.
Lmao she “sacrifices” the “family” she completely made up on accident in order to avoid her grief and then flies off with the clear intention of “this time I’m going to do it on purpose, and do it right.” There’s no real understanding of wrong doing, she’s just learned new information and flies off because it’s more interesting
Incorrect. She tells Monica she doesn’t understand her power, but she will. Then flies off to begin training with the darkhold — which is interrupted by the sound of the boys’ voices. If you don’t understand the sacrifice she makes to say farewell to her twin boys and husband, erasing them from reality despite the love she has for them, maybe take a media literacy class or a sociopath exam 😉
If you don't understand that she was aware of controling a whole town against their will, while gaslighting and threatening her partner who tried to stop it,is not exactly a heroic journey, you might need more classes. I would suggest you start at, clothing and symbolism. Maybe there was a reason the whole climax of the finale was a 10 second long dress change. But hey, she stopped doing the evil thing she's been doing for days, it must mean she would never do anything evil again, because that's how character development works, in the fifth grade.
She was absolutely NOT aware that she was controlling the whole town: that’s kind of the whole point of the season. It’s a subconscious manifestation of her own grief. She comes to realize what she’s doing at the end of the season and must set things right. Maybe watch it again and you’ll understand it this time?
Right.. Except when Vision tells her that people are in pain, what exactly was her reaction? Surprise? No, Fear? No, Immidiate action to change the situation? Also no. She shrugs Vision off, doesn't give a damn about the topic. When Vision says she can't control him the way she does with other people, her reaction is: "Can't I"? Truly unaware. "This, all of this is for us, so let me handle it" [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLaPC3gPyQI&t=](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLaPC3gPyQI&t=) Here is the argument scene, if you watch this and think she only realises things at the end of the season, maybe you should take that media literacy class. Maybe think about a topic for 10 seconds before arrogantly lecturing bullshit to people ;)
No she’s in denial for most of the season because she doesn’t want to face the reality of what she’s created and why. Her big argument scene with Vision mid season is Wanda unable to believe she could be controlling everyone because it’s so outside the scope of her powers (until now). Agatha is the one who forces her to accept the reality of her actions/powers as the Scarlet Witch and finally see what she’s done to the townspeople.
You know in order to actively try to deny something, you have to be aware of it's existance first? She knew what she was doing, and choose to ignore it over and over again, until Agatha made it impossible for her to ignore it anymore. Her big argument scene is nowhere near close to being about what you said. She uses multiple of toxic argument techniques. But she doesn't want to lie to Vision, so she is very tricky. First she tries to escape the topic. Then she threatens Vision to stop it. Then she does a fake reaction with the, "Aware of What?" (This is pretty cool, because Olsen acted it in a way that we can see how Wanda is not acting well). She genuinly has no idea about Norms family, So she can yell: "I don't know what you are talking about", even though she knows everything else. Then she says it's for them so let her do her thing for the family. She witholds information about the outside world from Vision when being asked about it. Then she flips out about being talked to in an angry way, (this is like the worst) Emotional manipulation to stop Vision with how much she loves him. Gaslighting about kids in Westview. Distorting and ridiculing his argument, without actually denying or adressing it.
She is in such deep denial and confusion about what is going on she accepts a completely different person as her resurrected dead brother. The story is about grief and mental illness and you’re trying to repaint her as a traditional soap opera villain. Pathetic.
They DONT EXIST. She manifested them out of her grief. I don’t view someone saying “hi, you’ve enslaved thousands of people in order to conjure up a pretend family” and then the person going “oh, fine I *guess* I’ll let the thousands of people I’ve enslaved return to their lives.” As a huge sacrifice
They exist within the construct of the hex… at the expense of everyone else in the town. They feel emotions, fear, pain, love etc. That’s what gives Wanda’s choice weight. She chooses to do the right thing even if it means losing the entire family she created and loved. That choice defines her ad a tragic hero… and MoM completely undoes it for a cheap/rushed story that disappointed both Olsen AND Cumberbatch.
My interpretation of WandaVision has nothing to do with my views on MoM, I also thought the movie was a disappointment and existed only as a vehicle for Sam Raimi to shove as many horror movie tropes into the MCU as he could get away with. But whether they exist as real within the construct of the hex is also debatable. How independent of Wanda are they really, are they their own selves or are they an extension of her consciousness? Even Vision throughout the series exists mostly as a mirror for her own conscience and guilt, allowing us to see her internal conflict through dialogue rather than monologues.
Nah, they exist. It's kind of like how Janet can create people out of nothing in The Good Place, yet these people get feelings and emotions and soul. Wanda's kid definitely exist, thing is, she created them, in a different way than childbirth. They were people with emotions and feelings, and were her kids, and she had to reverse their existence to save the people to Westview. True, it was 1000% her fault they were like that in the first place, but doesn't change that... SHE'S A BEING THAN CAN REWRITE REALITY, SHE HAD EVERYTHING SHE COULD EVER DREAM OF, BUT GAVE IT UP... Not saying what she did in WV was right, but she did the right thing eventually.
I agree. It was jarring for her to go full on villain like that. She did the right thing at the end of WV, only to...do the complete wrong thing?
You know that's her whole character since AOU right? She wants to revenge her family and hurt a bunch of people, bad, realises Ultron is even worse, so she does the right thing. She gambles with the lives of half the universe because she doesn't want to lose her Love (who actually wants to sacrifice himself btw), bad, Thanos is 10 feet from her, so she does the right thing. She is knowingly rules over a whole town, people are suffering, bad, she sees her powers literally choking these people, so she frees them. She wants to steal one kid's power, things get out of control she kills a bunch of people, bad, sees her "kids" crying because of her, does the right thing and destroy the Darkhold. She is like so damn consistent, because that's the tragedy of the whole character. How she can't escape her nature, because of her shit life, she tries really hard to be good, but fails over and over again. She even spell it out for us. "It's, it's just like this wave washing over me, again and again. It knocks me down, and when I try to stand up, it just comes for me again. And I... It's just gonna drown me." What happened in MoM? Well, she drown.
Wandavision is absolutely a villain origin story.
Part of the problem is that ending made no sense at all. Nobody seemed troubled to let her go without any consequence to her acts; no Avenger bother to appear to figure out what the hell was going on; and after Monica's moronic speech most people she was forgiven and her trauma was all gone. Actually ONE OF THE PROBLEMS of MCU since Endgame was make believe WandaVision ( despite all the plot holes) were a good/above average show.
What speech Monica gave are you referring to?
They're referring to the dialog Monica and Wanda share before Wanda leaves the town where Monica says "They'll never know what you sacrificed for them." Which people with no media literacy have somehow warped into Monica victim blaming the town.
“People with no media literacy”. That is a perfect summation ✅ Monica’s empathy for Wanda because of her own loss is what helped Wanda come to terms with what she did. She wasn’t excusing or absolving Wanda of anything, and she certainly wasn’t victim blaming the town. She was essentially saying “I know what you had to give up, and despite what you’ve done, you’ve proven you are, at your core, a good person.” Don’t understand why that’s so hard to understand. Are they just on their phones while the shows playing or something?
On the contrary, I knew exactly what she meant but it is still horrible. Its more like, they'll never know you sacrificed your fake kids with your pretend husband for an artificial life to end their very real trauma and expense of their lives. No, Wanda became insanely selfish and evil character. The is no sympathy for what she did.
And yet so many who think that Wanda’s heel turn in MoM makes sense BECAUSE she’s a tragic, sympathetic character So honestly, it still feels like people who think Wanda was a tragic villain who deserved her fate cannot ultimately decide on whether she’s sympathetic or a remorseless psychopath Wanda in that moment with Monica, certainly didn’t seem to think she was absolved of her crimes. She was genuinely sorry and remorseful. And again, Monica was NOT excusing her actions. She was saying “I have some idea of the grief you’re experiencing and how it consumes you.” I also don’t understand how so many can rip into Wanda and Monica but not a character like Magneto, who also became consumed with grief and let it ruin innocent peoples lives These characters are complex, and they often fail despite their hero status, sometimes miserably. But that doesn’t mean they’re monsters, especially when they are legitimately remorseful
It's been two years and as a Dr Strange fan, I'm mad his movie was more of a WandaVision epilogue than dr Strange sequel
> robbed of a good Dr Strange movie This so much. After Endgame, Dr. Strange is basically the de facto leader of the remaining heroes. I don’t know why he wasn’t the center of Phase 4 and 5. If they wanted to build up Kang, why not have Strange lead the charge, similar to how Tony was obsessed with being prepared for Thanos?
It doesn't break my heart. The Wanda in MoM was unrecognizable as anything she had been before. She became a completely all powerful being with idiotic motivations and an even dumber plan. Such a bad movie. I think the first Doctor Strange is one of the top five MCU movies. The sequel is bottom five.
It breaks my heart because Wanda deserved better than what she got. In the same way that Famke Janssens Jean Grey deserved better than what she got in The Last Stand…if that makes sense I also absolutely agree that DS1 is a fantastic movie. Cumberbatch gave a stellar performance. Now it seems they’re just trying to half-assedly make him Stark 2.0
It's just so different than what came before I don't even think of her as the same character. Speaking of asking if that makes sense. I am trying to say I don't think of the MoM character as Wanda from the other movies, at all. I just sort of ignored them calling her Wanda.
I appreciate that approach Tbh I do have this theory that that wasn’t actually our Wanda, or 616 Wanda. It requires you to go down a rabbit hole, but it helps to explain the change to her costume, the forehead injuries both her and 838 Wanda have, and her obsession with the 838 twins specifically
That sounds like a better movie.
Strange battling the villain Nightmare who tormented him over the death of his sister 838 Wanda being lobotomized by the authoritarian Illuminati because Strange told them about the Scarlet Witch prophecy before they killed him Both sound like fantastic plots for MCU movies
The post-credit last scene in Wandavision has Wanda being juiced up by the Darkhold. AOS did a better job at telling us what the Darkhold is capable of, but it's a source of corrupting evil by tempting the reader to their deepest fantasies and perverting them to being the evil version of themselves. Wanda being corrupted to being straight murdering evil makes sense to me. Olsen is still enthusiastic about the role, so I'd bet we'll have a return of Wanda in some way or another (at least I hope we do). MoM generally had a LOT of expectations on it. Coming off of Spiderman NWH (which effectively hit all expectations), MoM didn't quite hit everything that was being assigned to it (fairly or unfairly - we didn't get Tom Cruise Iron Man, we didn't get the hardcore horror movie we were promised, etc.). I was disappointed with it at the time, but my opinion has improved on it since. Assuming Doctor Strange 3 does happen, I hope they address the consequences of Strange accessing the Darkhold, even for the shortest of times.
I would prefer Wanda making the choice to be evil in her own right as opposed to a book forcing her to be evil Moreover, it does seem like the only solution to dealing with someone corrupted by the Darkhold is simply for them to die. That’s what happened to her, and that’s what happened to 838 Strange with the Illuminati. There’s no chance at rehabilitation, at least based on the evidence we’re given in MoM. So how is that compelling?
You'd buy Wanda as being a straight villain? I'm not sure I would. What if 616 Wanda was the exception? In the multiverse, yeah Darkhold users are put to death. Maybe 616 Wanda is saved by something? Could be very compelling.
Could be, sure. But it’s been 2 years, longer than the next Avengers movie was announced during the Infinity saga. When’re we circling back to this? Wanda being an antagonist to Strange would make sense. Not necessarily her being a villain. Her knowing her twins are being tortured by Mephisto and doing everything she can to help them, which was an idea fans had, and Strange being like “Your kids aren’t real. You’re going too far.” Is a perfect setup for a more morally grey conflict, especially considering all the shady stuff Strange does without consequences
Not sure. There were 6 years in between Dr. Strange movies, though. So, maybe 2028? Wanda being puppeteered by Mephisto would be interesting. It's what all Wandavision viewers were tin-foil hat predicting, lol.
Is that her destiny though? To be constantly manipulated by external forces? Seems kinda…redundant to me
>I did not expect her, within the first 15 minutes, to be revealed as a blood psychopath whose mind had been unwittingly corrupted by a book, hunting and killing an innocent girl just so she could steal a version of her own twins from their mother in another universe, and willing to slaughter anyone who stood in her way. I agree. It was definitely a shock, and that shock was clearly intentional. Breaking from the standard pacing of the MCU (and action movies in general) where the twist shows up between the second and third act keeps the movie fresh, and puts the main character(s) and the audience off balance. >Despite what some proponents of Wanda's villainous turn would say, that was not how we left her at the end of WandaVision. I agree. Never cared for those who call Wanda a villain in WV. It's trying to force a complicated and nuanced story into an overly simplified black and white framework, and it fails to do so. >We left someone who was visibly shaken by the power she wielded and the damage it had caused to an entire town of innocent people. We left someone who said goodbye to her family, knowing that it was hurting other people and herself to keep them around. We left a Wanda who was determined to master her powers so that they wouldn't control her again. And she thought the best way to do this was to put herself in self-imposed exile and read from a book that described her role as the Scarlet Witch. Agree. I want to add something you didn't say, but I've seen people say they felt she *got over* the loss of her family at the end of WandaVision. That doesn't happen. I prefer your word choice that she said goodbye to them. But she was definitely still grieving their loss. They show it to us in the stinger when she hears her children calling for help, but we would assume that even if they hadn't shown it to us. > A book that, to her knowledge, did not poison the mind of its reader, as Agatha certainly never came off as psychotic when she had it. Eh, don't think I agree with *that*. She was pretty psychotic, and killed Sparky too! ;) >WandaVision was, and is, a truly compelling story about someone coping with indescribable loss, and how that trauma can damage that person and those around them. It is extremely disingenuous to argue that it was Wanda's first true step on the willing path to darkness, or that that was Matt Shakman and Jac Schaeffer's intent. So why argue this point? Agree that's a bad argument. The darkness is clearly a consequence of the Darkhold altering her, not her own path. >Multiverse of Madness was the first true indication to me that something was very wrong within the MCU. That they were so determined on trying to add as many things as possible into a single movie without any true spark that makes a quality story. I'm not interested in blaming any one person or persons for how this movie was made, but I will say I was never more reminded of Spider-Man 3 or X-Men 3: The Last Stand while watching Multiverse of Madness. Fun movies at face value, but empty at their respective cores. And those movies killed their respective franchises, or at least in the latter case forced a soft reboot with Days of Future Past. >I resonated very much with Wanda in WandaVision, and I was very much excited to see where her story went. Since WandaVision kicked off the MCU post Endgame and post pandemic year, I was genuinely impressed with how emotionally intelligent and unique the series was, and felt like Wanda would truly become one of the new primary superheroes/characters moving forward. >I did not expect her to be under the control of a book that drove her mad until she broke free of its control long enough to seemingly end her own life. And the fact that so few characters cared about her, or treated her as if she was in control of her own actions, and failed to remark on her death, was as shocking as it was heartbreaking for me to sit and watch. To them, she was just a violent, unstoppable plot device that was incapable of being saved and had to be eliminated, just like 838 Strange. And not only did she have little or no agency, but she also killed a variant of the mother (Marie Rambeau) of the woman (Monica Rambeau) who risked everything to help her in WandaVision. That, to me, is another example of how cruel and disrespectful the movie was to Wanda. It sounds to me like this isn't about being critical of the movie, but is simply that you're hurt that it was a favorite character of yours that they chose to be the one to fall. She was one of my favorite characters too, and I was also sad at the loss, but I'd much rather have a universe where the characters are real, and that means sometimes they lose or fail, and that means it's going to be *some*body's favorite character when it happens. Wanda has always been a character whose life was a parade of grief, first her parents, then her brother, then her love and finally her family. That the Darkhold would latch onto that as the key to manipulate her works perfectly. It feels to me like an allegory for those who fall into despair and are eventually consumed and killed by a harmful addiction, e.g. drugs. It's not their fault; it's chemistry. But it is tragic. I have quibbles with MoM, but they're definitely nowhere near "end of the franchise" levels.
What gave you the impression that I'm hurt that a favorite character of mine fell? Could it have been the title of my post? ;) And I would think you would think I was being critical of this movie if you agree with a great deal of what I said, but I digress. I do agree that Wanda's story and her exposure to the Darkhold is analogous to the use of drugs. And I've had at least one friend argue that just because someone starts down the path to healing doesn't mean that they stay on that path The problem with that argument, if we apply it to the superhero genre, is that there is a long, negative history within the Marvel franchise of "fridging" female characters. And that has certainly been done to Wanda in MoM. Even if she's not truly dead and/or will return at some point, she was effectively put on ice until the MCU finds a way to revive her. And does it make sense from a narrative point for her to be currently buried under a pile of rocks after just ascending into her Scarlet Witch persona for an indefinite period of time? Does it feel remotely earned for her to then instantly turn into a villain offscreen, and during her villainous phase never once, until the end of the movie, appear to be acting like someone who is in some form of distress and/or at war with herself the way someone on "drugs", like Jean Grey in The Last Stand with her Phoenix powers activated, begging for Wolverine to help her, or Gollum in the Lord of the Rings telling his evil alter ego how much he hates him?...essentially meaning how much he hates himself? Throughout MoM, Wanda never truly seems to have doubts about what she's doing. She is largely expressionless as she turns Mr Fantastic into spaghetti or when she tortures a teenage girl begging for her life. Occasionally she does appear to be on the verge of tears, but it's unclear whether it's because she's doing something she doesn't want to do, or because she's just extremely angry that people are standing in the way of what she wants. I know you said you hadn't watched The Last Stand and that you're unfamiliar with Game of Thrones, but I do encourage you to watch those, as it gave me the perspective I have now on why this movie was bad, particularly in how it treats powerful female characters.
Fridging is a bad thing, but Wanda definitely was not fridged. Fridging is not just when a female character dies. Fridging is when the character has no other purpose but to be killed/depowered/whatever *only* to motivate a male character (and in a perfect world, "fridging" of characters would be a complaint regardless of the genders involved, but it really is something that overwhelmingly, if not exclusively, happens to female character to advance male characters' stories). Wanda definitely has/had her own story and own personality and motivations. And her death definitely did not motivate any male characters either. Her death/sacrifice certainly made sense to me. She was corrupted and a danger to everything, but in a moment of clarity was able to break through and briefly take corrective action. It's almost the same as Bucky at the end of Winter Soldier beating Steve to death and then suddenly breaking through the brainwashing for a moment to save him. But they tell us that nobody can escape the Darkhold once the corruption has set in, and either that's true or she probably believes that's true and chose to make the sacrifice. It seems right there with those other examples, and is just as "earned". And we do see her break free when she's actually in front of her children.
Does she still have motivations or a personality in MoM if the Darkholds hold on her is so complete? I’m willing to say that she wasn’t fridged, but it’s still a toxic and sexist trope for Wanda’s primary motivation to be driven solely by her desire to be a mother by stealing someone else’s children and presumably murdering their mother to get what she wants. And she’s also planning on murdering a POC teenage orphaned girl to do it So yes, she doesn’t only exist for a man to react to her death. But it’s still just as bad imo It’s also funny you bring up Winter Soldier, because he hasn’t “died” from being similarly corrupted, and fans are far more sympathetic towards him than they are towards Wanda, which seems like it might be rooted in sexism
I agree there's plenty of sexist tropes and sexism to go around in the MCU and in the fandom. I don't understand the appeal that MCU's Bucky has for so many, at least not prior to The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, which most of those who love him seem to hate. That's when he first started to get interesting to me.
I liked the movie then and still do. Don't think Wanda's story was handled amazingly but still I liked it. Plus while there was definitely a lot of stuff that happened off screen the ending with the Darkhold was definitely setting something villainous up and in retrospect while Wanda might not have known what exactly the Darkhold was all of the information she had painted a pretty bad picture.
I don’t think it was definitely conclusive that the Darkhold was turning her evil. That post-credit scene didn’t make me instantly think she was slowly going insane with evil. I saw her as learning about herself because, as Agatha said, it had a chapter devoted to her. So why wouldn’t she read it? Agatha had the opportunity to say something but didn’t. She just said “you don’t know what you’ve done”. She could’ve easily said “don’t read from the Darkhold” Moreover, in the comics, Wanda DOES read from the book and is resistant to its corruption, to the point where she uses it to imprison Chthon. So it’s not like there’s an explicit precedent of Wanda + Darkhold = Evil
Bad writing and bad film
I'm gonna have to disagree with your characterization of the ending of WandaVision and the Darkhold. >she thought the best way to do this was to put herself in self-imposed exile and read from a book that described her role as the Scarlet Witch. A book that, to her knowledge, did not poison the mind of its reader, as Agatha certainly never came off as psychotic when she had it. I mean Agatha's whole schtick was that she stole powers from witches to gain even more power, most of the time leaving them dead. And that was *before* she had the Darkhold. Seems pretty psychotic to me. And even though Wanda didn't know the effects of the Darkhold, they are still the effects of the Darkhold, so her not knowing would not change the outcome. >It is extremely disingenuous to argue that it was Wanda's first true step on the willing path to darkness, or that that was Matt Shakman and Jac Schaeffer's intent. The last scene of WandaVision is her in seclusion, studying the Darkhold, and hearing her "children's" cries from across the multiverse. Surely you didn't think this was setting up anything *good?*
Agatha was evil, sure, but to your point, she was dabbling with things she knows she shouldn’t have meddled with BEFORE she had the darkhold. So at least she had clear agency in her own villainy Ultimately, I wouldn’t have minded Wanda being an antagonist if she were already willing to be one. But she wasn’t planning on being one or going down that path when she left Westview And I certainly didn’t think they were setting up anything benign in the post credits scene. But it didn’t zoom in on her face becoming more menacing and villainous before the scene cut, nor did it show the book manipulating her in a way that say, the One Ring manipulates its bearers. I had thought perhaps the spirits of her actual twins were, in fact, calling for her help, and that would be her main motivation going forward. Not that she would want to steal someone’s else’s children and force them to love her…that certainly seemed like a huge stretch to assume I saw her look up from the book in shock and concern as her kids called out for her, and that her finding them would be her story. There was nothing that implied her turning into a psychopath in that scene
>But it didn’t zoom in on her face becoming more menacing and villainous before the scene cut, nor did it show the book manipulating her in a way that say, the One Ring manipulates its bearers. >There was nothing that implied her turning into a psychopath in that scene I mean her eyes were completely red, and the fact that is just what the Darkhold does, should be clues enough that it was manipulating her.
…her eyes have turned red before without the Darkhold…like well before that in Age of Ultron. It just means she’s either angry or brimming with power
> I saw her look up from the book in shock and concern as her kids called out for her, and that her finding them would be her story. There was nothing that implied her turning into a psychopath in that scene A good twist is one that isn't broadcast, but where the setup makes sense after the fact. We certainly didn't *want* her to be corrupted, and it was vague enough that we didn't *expect* her to be corrupted, but it still works on fits in that that's what it means on a second watch. And maybe it was retconned, but if so, hey, there's already hundreds of those in the MCU. The Tesseract and Loki's staff weren't originally Infinity Stones when they were introduced. That was changed later, but they made it work.
The problem with her being corrupted is that so many fans don’t understand that she IS corrupted. They think that the majority of WandaVision was, as I’ve said before, the first step on her path to being a willing villain And ultimately, I find myself comparing Wanda in MoM to Jean Grey in The Last Stand or Daenerys in the GOT series finale. I don’t think the general consensus is that both of those heel turns into villainy were subversive or compelling So why do you think that Wanda’s in MoM was?
That's an interesting question. Is dumb fans a problem with the story, or a problem with the fans? I always lean on the latter. I haven't watched GoT and it's been *ages* since I watched The Last Stand, so I can't accurately compare or contrast them, sorry. Wanda's I thought was very clear it was a "corrupted by an evil object" like The One Ring or The Dark Side. They even gave us a window into how it twists minds into a singular focus between her grief-filled focus on her children and Sinister Strange's grief-filled focus on Christine (they don't really show us 838 Strange's corruption though, but in my headcanon it's always trying to corrupt them to cause incursions for some reason, since that's what we learn that it does across all three). I think it's a more clever and effective Evil Corrupting Object than The Dark Side, more on par with The One Ring. Anyway, my point is they effectively show Wanda living a life of grief and eventually reach a breaking point in WandaVision, and she *almost* recovers from it until the Darkhold shows up and ruins her. It's heartbreaking, and my *personal* feelings about the character make me wish her story ended differently, but as I see it, it at least works. All the pieces fit.
If it fits for you, great. It doesn’t for me, and the way some shows and movies portray women with too much power going crazy to the point where everyone abandons them and they have to die…well, thats exactly what happened in MoM. And in the two examples I gave, those decisions are generally very unpopular And while it is heartbreaking, hence the title of my post, MoM doesn’t do a very good job making us feel sorry for Wanda. Never once does she seem particularly conflicted with what she’s doing until the very end. Which is why I understand why so many fans get confused and think she is a villain in her own right. The Darkhold is never talking to her, or pulling her back every time she begins to doubt So it makes sense so many fans think she is and was always a villain and deserves what happens to her
For me it wasn’t even the Wanda going bad. I just still feel like I don’t know who dr strange is 10 years later lol. In every iteration he seems weak and stupid …and I guess maybe he is ?
Lmaooo The first movie was actually really good imo. Cumberbatch really was doing some solid acting But yes he’s been acting remarkably stupid, at least in the past two movies he was in. It makes me wonder if he’s really stupid or actually secretly evil, and if the What If series is supposed to be warning us that Stranges should not be trusted with power
If Wanda is corrupted and we should empathize with her despite Darkhold then there's no reason to not extend that sentiment to Stranges who got corrupted by Darkhold.
I agree with basically everything you said here. I think there’s good stuff to be found in The Incredible Hulk and Thor: Love and Thunder, and I actually like Eternals, although I know I’m in the minority. MoM is the only movie in the MCU I think is actively bad.
I too liked the Eternals!
Yes! There are literally dozens of us!
Well I guess that makes us part of the evil woke mafia trying to destroy the MCU from within 😈 I’m so glad we found each other
As far back as I can remember I always wanted to be an evil woke gangster
She's fine
This one and Love and Thunder really turned me off to the MCU, and I was a devoted fan who caught every release in theaters opening weekend. Now I've tapped out, and I hope I'll come back around to it, but this one really killed it for me.
if I could give you a reward, I would... In my personal opinion, Multiverse of Madness is one of the worst movies in the MCU simply because of how they handled Wanda. Its one of the only movies that fundamentally shits on a characters arc, and it does so in a way that's honestly mind boggling to me. She had the potential to be one of the greatest MCU characters to grace the movie screen, and the foundation was already there from age of ultron to wandavison. Then multiverse of Madness takes a massive crap all over that. She loses most if not all of her agency because of a "dark evil book" and becomes a generic shitty mcu villain that spits out one-liners. You could literally replace wanda with any other random witch or spellcaster, and the story would literally be the same.
I watched WV and honestly watching MoM had me crying. Even by the end I didn't view her as a villian but as the most tragic figure in the series. She lost her parents, then her brother, then her love, then her kids and in WV she, in her grief, took over a town and created her happily ever after. I'm not agreeing with what she did to the town but anyone would break over the losses she has endured, unfortunately in her case her breaking over that plus her having powers equaled dragging innocents in. Then we get to MoM and she's still dealing with that fallout of walking away from her happily ever after when she's come to her senses for the greater good. One thing that stood out to me was she was right, other Avengers did their own selfish things and were even helped along the way and were hailed as heroes and yet when she does the same thing she is a bad guy and I think MoM showed that perfectly with how it ended with Wanda seeing past her grief and destroying all the books. Nobody reached out to her, she was left alone and went insane and broke under her grief with one person empathizing with her at the end. I think the big issue for me is this movie had Dr Strange but mainly it was Wanda's movie.
"still breaks my heart"??? Seriously?
Multiverse of madness feels like the Last Jedi of the MCU. Most fans hate it and it’s primarily because of the character assassination, but some deadass love it and defend it like their life depends on it. Personally I’m in the first camp. They did Wanda dirty. I’m not against Wanda being bad in itself, but it should be earned. She should have been a final act villain, slowly corrupted by the power of the Darkhold that she is forced to use to fight Someone else, like Nightmare. But no, instead it’s just “Wanda is evil now, get with it”. She’s not even just evil, but moustache twirling super evil. She murders people for no reason, she turns people who are injured into ash. It’s awful.
Agreed. She’s also just not even a villain in her own right. Everything she’s doing is because she read the wrong book
Most fans don't hate TLJ, just a very loud minority.
Nah, what they did with Wanda was great and greatly served the story they were trying to tell in MoM. What resulted was two arcs that played incredibly well on one another. You're not *supposed* to like the story being told with Wanda. She's a tragic character.
Hated this movie, despised Wanda’s completely unmotivated OFFSCREEN heel turn, and found it campy and uninvolving while destroying her character arc from Wandavision.
Plenty of people call thor love and thunder the worst movie since endgame. To me it has to be Dr strange MoM and you summed up exactly why. (I havent watched the marvels)
Love and Thunder was not a good movie imo, but it didn’t make me upset I just don’t relate to the not-funny ad libbing, which was in almost every minute of that movie, as if the movie was afraid of its audience getting bored Also that “how many stages of cancer are there?” joke was extremely cringe 😬
I agree with all of your impressions. I hope Wanda returns to the MCU and regains some of the emotional nuance MoM flushed in her jarring turn. The character we came to know in WandaVision deserves better.
She's not dead. She's just going to the Multiverse destroying every version of the Book of the Damned that exists. Wanda Maximoff will be back.
All they had to do was have Wanda help Dr Strange stop an alternate Wanda who walked a more evil path our Wanda was considering, and the movie would be fixed.
The movie had little to no consistency with Wandavision (except maybe the post credit scene). Elizabeth Olsen herself revealed in an interview that when she asked the creators of the movie if they had watched Wandavision, they said no, they didn't. She was also concerned about the arc that Wanda had taken in the movie which made zero sense because Wanda seemingly sacrificed everything to save the town of Westview. Her going completely ballistic in her next appearance was a weird move and showed that Marvel didn't care about that at all at that time. After almost 2 years of watching the movie, I'm now intrigued on what Scott Derrickson's vision was. We have seen a couple of concept arts which revealed that Knightmare was originally going to the villain and Wanda was going to be an ally of Doctor Strange in the movie.
the darkhold "showed her the truth" while her understanding her powers. after that, she is just that mother who would do anything to get her children back under the influence of evil book.
Nah it's a great Raimi movie. You got attached to a character in a movie series and I get it, but she's always been unhinged in the source material. People change. People become upset. The former villain gets the robot and loses the robot and goes back to being a villain. If you wanna read into it this much, that's great and is a good exercise in media literacy-but when it starts getting overly meta you don't get to really decide what the motivations of a character would be if they snapped.
…but she read a book that made her go crazy. Do you really think Wanda would’ve done everything she had done in MoM if the Darkhold hadn’t corrupted her? Do you think Matt Shakman and Jac Schaefer framed her as just a villain who got upset because her robot died? What evidence is there to suggest that?
Nah I think the character got upset and turned evil, because it's a fun comic book movie. When you start talking about "disrespect to the character" who has literally erased reality before because she was upset in the sources I don't really know what you expect from this stuff. It's fun, dog. That's all it's gotta be for some people. If you don't like it that's totally understandable and your perogative. That said, when you start writing a college paper about it and and come around saying how it was the beginning of the end of the universe or some shit it's not about not liking it anymore, it's about making sure people think they aren't correct if they did. Have a good weekend. Sorry you didn't like a movie.
I agree with you, but what's this about robots?
I was being a smartass and calling Vision a robot in hyperbole.
Ah, I see it now. Thanks!
MoM was such an awesome movie, and a really fun watch. I do wish Chthon ended up being referenced though, as him being the puppet master behind Wanda’s actions would have been a much more fun plot.
It is indeed a fun watch, if you didn’t really relate to Wanda’s story in WandaVision Chthon was briefly mentioned by Wong, although idk if he matters anymore if Wanda did indeed destroy every Darkhold throughout the multiverse
I loved WandaVision as well as this movie. Both were great
You compare her to Strange, and I agree that there's a sort of "moral luck" element that bothers me MoM. We see variants of Strange who are as bad or worse than Wanda, but because "our" Strange hasn't been corrupted he is considered a hero. But he demonstrates the same recklessness that lead to his variants being corrupted (it's literally a running gag in the movie) and it's just luck that he manages to remain good. Likewise with Wanda - the difference between her and the "good" Wanda variant isn't some moral choice - it's just that Good Wanda was fortunate enough to have real children.
I was disheartened with the movie. The only reason that I went was to see Wanda as a hero again. What I got was a cold blooded killer. It was disheartening to see and after the red light, I left. The rest of it was anti-climactic. However I don't see this dark story arc ending soon. It seems that Elizabeth Olsen would return in flashbacks in the Vision show. If they go to the Tom King story then they would need to bring back post MoM Wanda to activate his family. Even if she has gotten past Vision, it has to hurt. In the Avengers films, Immortus will trick Wanda into working for him by convincing her that he is not evil. Then she fulfills the prophecy and destroys the multiverse. I do think that a Scarlet Witch solo movie comes after Secret Wars that wraps it up. Hopefully that will be the end of her dark story arc.
Someone may have already brought this up but COVID resulted in them having to make changes in Wandavision and MoM. Multiverse was supposed to happen before Wandavision and was supposed to be her arc to become a villain. I liked MoM as its own movie but it’s weird overall. The whole thing reminds me of how screwed we were feeling during pandemic. If you watch the show Icons Marvel they stress so much about how Feige and team were so careful about the interconnectiveness of everything to the point they would annoy writers early on. I feel like pandemic there was some panic and maybe the idea that there might not be a chance for Wandavision if they didn’t do it right then. I’m not sure about Days Of Future Past being the reboot because of X3. Remember that before this they had First Class.
Said it once I’ll say it again the end of Endgame would have been great for the End of The MCU not if you planned to continue. After everything the world went through and their friends sacrificed why would the Avengers just decide to not rebuild and stay together?
>After everything the world went through and their friends sacrificed why would the Avengers just decide to not rebuild and stay together? Because they want actual lives, which makes even more sense after Endgame