Marvel Cinematic Universe Part II

[GenericUsername]

I don't get why everyone's bashing telepathy here. The most overused power is super strength or flight. It can be done correctly, if writers were consistent. I mean, you could say the same about reality manipulation

Reality manipulation isn't nearly as common as the others, but chaos magic doesn't just include reality manipulation. It's just one of the many things under the umbrella. Super strength and flight also being very common doesn't make telepathy less over-used. It just means they repeat powers too frequently.

[Sutekh]

I think the main reason Whedon made Wanda a psychic instead of a mage is because back in 2015 Marvel was still kind of hesitant to dive into the mystical side of comics. They wrote Thor and the Asgardians as "powerful aliens" instead of gods, for example.

I feel like the buck stops at Whedon. He (or, perhaps more accurately, the writers who succeeded him after he left...) already did the same thing with Willow in Buffy, making her 'magic' include kinda generic telepathy and telekinesis, at times, rather than, like, spells and potions and, yanno, *magic.* That sort of thing showed up a lot in other genre shows, with the Charmed witches or the demons in Supernatural, kind of shorthanding 'magic' by having the 'magic' folk fling stuff (and people) around telekinetically, which felt super lazy to me, but now they've gotten so conflated that modern fans don't even see that magic has been more or less erased, replaced by all this shorthand psychic stuff.

D&D didn't help, with wizards casting spells named telekinesis, ESP and clairaudience/clairvoyance, pretty much drinking psychic's milkshake right in front of them (and watering down 'magic' in the process, IMO).

[Drops Of Venus]

The magic vs telepathy discussion is pointless, because telepathy usually is already a powerset within magic. Multiple mages are able to tap into TP/TK powers through their magic. Making things levitate is a standard magic power, and that's also a standard power a lot of telepaths have. The effect is the same, you just change the source of the power. As we saw in WandaVision, Wanda can still do her mind trick thing from AOU (when she sneaked on Agatha to make her relive her Salem days), but now we know she does it in a ''magical'' way as a opposed to the basic telepathy we thought she had before. So, like... nothing changed much. She still can be considered a telepath, but we know the scope of her powers are bigger now.

[GenericUsername]

The magic vs telepathy discussion is pointless, because telepathy usually is already a powerset within magic. Multiple mages are able to tap into TP/TK powers through their magic. Making things levitate is a standard magic power, and that's also a standard power a lot of telepaths have. The effect is the same, you just change the source of the power. As we saw in WandaVision, Wanda can still do her mind trick thing from AOU (when she sneaked on Agatha to make her relive her Salem days), but now we know she does it in a ''magical'' way as a opposed to the basic telepathy we thought she had before. So, like... nothing changed much. She still can be considered a telepath, but we know the scope of her powers are bigger now.

And I even told the person that I'm ok with the nightmare powers as long as they are just a minor part of her power set and her comics canon powers get the focus, but they decided to create this whole argument from that. It's weird. There's nothing wrong with wanting a fave to be primarily who they are in comics canon.

[CosmiComic]

Reality manipulation isn't nearly as common as the others, but chaos magic doesn't just include reality manipulation. It's just one of the many things under the umbrella. Super strength and flight also being very common doesn't make telepathy less over-used. It just means they repeat powers too frequently.

There's only so many powers. Of course some will be repeated. I still don't see how that makes telepathy overused.

And I even told the person that I'm ok with the nightmare powers as long as they are just a minor part of her power set and her comics canon powers get the focus, but they decided to create this whole argument from that. It's weird. There's nothing wrong with wanting a fave to be primarily who they are in comics canon.

Of course there's nothing wrong with that. I just don't see the big deal in giving an extra power to her

[CosmiComic]

Her reality warping has limits unless she taps into a stronger power (The Twilight Sword, Simon's Ionic powers, the Life Force). Magic changes things on a smaller scale usually. Even Eldritch magic does. Doctor Strange is full of reality bending stuff. It's not the same as shapeshifters who are limited to changing themselves but can do so at will without a spell or a stronger power.

Ok, but if she can turn, let's say, a piece of wood into glass, why can't she make herself invisible, for instance?

[GenericUsername]

Ok, but if she can turn, let's say, a piece of wood into glass, why can't she make herself invisible, for instance?

Because it's a limitation in her power. And not how her power works.

[Sutekh]

Ok, but if she can turn, let's say, a piece of wood into glass, why can't she make herself invisible, for instance?

Niche protection, I'd assume. (A writer's 'rule' that keeps one character from drinking all of another character's milkshake and making them useless to the narrative. Everybody gets a niche, and they are the one that gets to shine in that niche, so stay in your lane and wait your turn!)

But also, in-story, imagine if you had a muzzily controlled somewhat dangerously unpredictable power to make stuff blow up and twist into funny shapes and transform into other stuff when you point at it. Would you want to use that power *on yourself?*

I sure wouldn't. Not until / unless I was 100% sure that my reality-twerking powers don't respond to subconscious desires, or that my wishes aren't granted by a killer GM who likes to twist the wording to mess with me (like, say, Bendis), or whatever.

[GenericUsername]

There's only so many powers. Of course some will be repeated. I still don't see how that makes telepathy overused.



Of course there's nothing wrong with that. I just don't see the big deal in giving an extra power to her

Because it being overused is not dependant on the limitation of variety. The limitation of variety is because of a limit on imagination.

The issue is her having so many powers already. Seriously, look up all the stuff that chaos magic in total can do. She only has a few of those things and still has a lot of abilities. She already has the nightmare power in the MCU anyway. She just doesn't have it in comics, but she doesn't have some of her comics abilities yet in the MCU. She has enough powers and there are plenty of characters that have telepathy. It's a useless argument. Arguing for the sake of arguing when I've already said I'm fine with it being a minor power in the MCU. No I'm not fine with it being tacked on in comics. And that's not gonna change. I'm not changing how a feel about it.

[CosmiComic]

Because it's a limitation in her power. And not how her power works.

How does it work, then? And how does that limitation work?

Niche protection, I'd assume. (A writer's 'rule' that keeps one character from drinking all of another character's milkshake and making them useless to the narrative. Everybody gets a niche, and they are the one that gets to shine in that niche, so stay in your lane and wait your turn!)

But also, in-story, imagine if you had a muzzily controlled somewhat dangerously unpredictable power to make stuff blow up and twist into funny shapes and transform into other stuff when you point at it. Would you want to use that power *on yourself?*

I sure wouldn't. Not until / unless I was 100% sure that my reality-twerking powers don't respond to subconscious desires, or that my wishes aren't granted by a killer GM who likes to twist the wording to mess with me (like, say, Bendis), or whatever.

When you put it like that, it kinda makes sense. But these limitations seem to be she can't make one thing into something else unless it's exactly something else. Like, she can't make a wooden chair into an invisible wooden chair; she has to make into a glass one, if I'm getting it right. Why is that?

[CosmiComic]

Because it being overused is not dependant on the limitation of variety. The limitation of variety is because of a limit on imagination.

The issue is her having so many powers already. Seriously, look up all the stuff that chaos magic in total can do. She only has a few of those things and still has a lot of abilities. She already has the nightmare power in the MCU anyway. She just doesn't have it in comics, but she doesn't have some of her comics abilities yet in the MCU. She has enough powers and there are plenty of characters that have telepathy. It's a useless argument. Arguing for the sake of arguing when I've already said I'm fine with it being a minor power in the MCU. No I'm not fine with it being tacked on in comics. And that's not gonna change. I'm not changing how a feel about it.

I'm not sure what your first sentence means

And Idk what you mean by 'not changing how I feel about it'. I don't recall anyone saying you can't. No one is 'arguing uselessly' just because you don't like what they're saying.

[GenericUsername]

I'm not sure what your first sentence means

And Idk what you mean by 'not changing how I feel about it'. I don't recall anyone saying you can't. No one is 'arguing uselessly' just because you don't like what they're saying.

I'm not sure what's confusing about what I said in the first sentence. Lack of variation of powers is not an excuse for copy/pasta powers on characters that don't originally have the power.

And the second point is what makes the argument useless. I wasn't arguing that I had a problem with MCU Wanda having the nightmare power. I am fine with it as long as it's minor.

[CosmiComic]

I'm not sure what's confusing about what I said in the first sentence. Lack of variation of powers is not an excuse for copy/pasta powers on characters that don't originally have the power.

Um, ok? Who's copying powers? Adding another power someone else has isn't copying, IMO

And the second point is what makes the argument useless. I wasn't arguing that I had a problem with MCU Wanda having the nightmare power. I am fine with it as long as it's minor.

Ok, we've established that. I assumed we were discussing something else now

[GenericUsername]

Um, ok? Who's copying powers? Adding another power someone else has isn't copying, IMO



Ok, we've established that. I assumed we were discussing something else now

Copy/pasta means they take something and give it to multiple sources. Many characters have the same powers. That's copy/pasta.

[CosmiComic]

Copy/pasta means they take something and give it to multiple sources. Many characters have the same powers. That's copy/pasta.

I guess you could call it that, but I wouldn't use that term myself.