"CHAOS Magic Woman!" Scarlet Witch/Wanda Maximoff Appreciation 2022

[Daedra]

Give myself a vacation to ferment my thoughts. Annnnnd well, here it goes.

Oh boy I have nothing but passion for this movie.
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And by passion, I mean seething resentment and spite. You may want to ask me what is wrong with the movie, to which I will answer, which part is not wrong? For someone who already claimed this movie is a waste of time at best, it still exceeds my expectation to be one complete disaster on triple fronts, managerial, writing and direction.

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So this movie picked up from WandaVision
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as if it doesn’t exist, don’t try to bullshit/gaslight me with “oh Wanda is reading Darkhold in the credits scene, that doesn’t even add up. That scene suggests Wanda heard the boys calling out to her for help, so her motivation should be “save my kids from wherever they eneded up” but nah, continuity is beneath Waldron/Raimi, and Wanda just want to steal some kids from an AU version of herself. Which again raises the question, where did AU Billy/Tommy come from? You would think this movie will care to explain the nature of those kids to clarification’s sake, but no, they are just there, if not informed otherwise, shouldn’t main-universe Wanda worry about the kids disappearing out of a certain range because that’s how her kids work? Wanda here acts as if she never experienced the WestView events. So tell me, is this Waldron taking notes from grandmaster Bendis about the secret plot-point of random amnesia?

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Wanda’s motivation seems sound
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if you can believe my wild theory that actually, Wanda’s brain consists of a hamster wheel and her thoughts and lines are just generated by that little critter’s labor. There is that infamous line about the kids getting sick and ****, never mind she is one uber powerful reality warping witch, am I supposed to believe “finding cure in another universe” is supposed to be some kind of good argument? Where do the magic and local medication go Wanda? As a matter of fact, a lot of characters have hamsters running their brains, like how Reed just straight up tells Wanda how Black Bolt’s power work, truly the mind of the greatest genius alive, he must have a really chunky hamster for brain.

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The mystical lore sounds so cool
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in the head of the writer maybe, my simple desire to see Wanda as a functional human being that makes sense aside, I am also a huge lore nerd when it comes to Chthon/Darkhold/Elder Gods. What this movie did with the Chthonic lore feels like taking a dunk on a cultist’s unholy bible, I mean Darkhold. For an ancient tome that carries the will of an Elder God, we surely never ever see the book’s influence actually taking effect step by step. It’s like a flu, or food poisoning if you will. Does this Elderitch book of old makes the reader detached from her humanity and make her perceive the world in a less real way, nope, but it surely seems to dampen one’s mental capacity, god knows what it has done to that poor hamster. It’s barely functional in the first place. There are so many nuanced and classic way to write a dark artifact of corrupting power. Lord of the Rings being the classic example, we are shown Frodo’s struggle with the ring throughout the story, and ultimately we know despite his weakness, his heart and will prevail(to some extent.) But, just imagine, what if in the second movie, we start the whole story with Frodo as some kind of dark lord leading an army of orcs slaughtering humans, you might have this simple and civilized question, how the **** did that happen? To which the movie hardly gave any explanation other than straight up telling the audience “the Ring did it”. Now imagine how people will defend that turn of events. Also about Witchcraft and supposed Dark Magic, here is a hot take, magic shouldn’t have inherent moral alignment? What is dark if not the blackness of night and absence of light, what is evil about that? Is fire evil, if not is water evil? I bring this up because Witches/Witchcraft/Darkhold powers are constantly framed as “evil magic” in this movie, and of course it’s thrown around like an insult or a slur, and even the title Scarlet Witch is painted in an inherently evil light.(Anti-Gaslight warning: WandaVision only framed Scarlet Witch as a mythical figure, a being of prophecy, by the nature of a prophecy narrative, it is meant to be doubted, subverted, generally continued in all sorts of clever ways but literally fulfill it.) Waldron showed his complete lack of imagination to write nuanced and creative magic system that D-lister fantasy writer can probably come up with in a whim. Creative bankruptcy at its peak.(And he is already like this back in Loki) Even Dr.Strange 1 handled the whole deal of dark magic better, Ancient One supposedly used Dark Dimension energy to extend her own lifespan, which is frowned upon, but not necessarily inherently evil, because Ancient One for all her fault, was shown trying to protect the world with her prolonged life. The same goes for Agatha in WandaVision to a lesser extent. While Agatha is power-hungry, she is never outright murderous like Wanda in MoM. She is very surgical on what she desires. So considering that, why Wanda cannot be a smart and efficient villain and go straight to the point? Avoiding unnecessary conflicts and get **** done? To which we will reach the next section.

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Sam Raimi’s involvement in this movie is a gift
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containing a ticking bomb. At the first glance of the title, you may notice the Lovecraftian inspiration hidden in the naming pattern. But after watching the movie, a question lingers. What is so Lovecraftian about it? Sure we have generic female slasher villain Ms.Maximoff here, but is she supposed to be TRUE HORROR known to mankind itself? Or just a wimped Stephen Strange and mentally incapacitated Illuminati members. Raimi probably cannot fathom some unspeakable horrors in the cosmos so he went for the next best thing, a crazed woman with immense power and cannot be reasoned with. And classic Dr.Strange villain like Shuma-Gorath(I mean Gargantos) is literally just a squid monster serving as appetizers for the TRUE HORROR of Wanda’s maternal madness. So this movie is indeed a bloated and over-budgeted slasher movie, it’s a very Raimi thing to do so I am pretty sure if Scott Derickson stayed, Wanda would likely not be put into this position. Before Derickson left, the synopsis suggests the main villain is Shuma-Gorath, I know, proper Lovecraftian horror. Unfortunately Raimi needs her slasher witch and Wanda must comply because she isn’t real and at the whim of dudes’ writing pen.

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This movie is also unironically pretty fair when it comes to depicting both men and women alike
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by making them equally boring and dumb, and also dead, and also damaged, and also drained of characterization. You know I made a lot of passive-aggressive accusation of misogyny, so in the spirit of gender equality, I bring you misandry as well. Because I surely feel attacked when they make Christine/Stephen as some kind of star-crossed lovers, and Stephen is borderline obsessive over a relationship which ended 10 years ago in universe. You know what I liked about DS1’s depiction of Stephen? The very ending where he stepped into his new role as a master sorcerer, with his broken hands and broken watch as well as his broken relationship. Not everything is meant to be fixed but he came out as a better person. So as you can see I, as a grumpy boy, really looked up to Stephen Strange for his emotional maturity. Hopefully he will just remain a friend with Christine and go on with his own path. BUT SIKE! What If brought us Dr.Strange: What if he is really good at speedrunning to get his girlfriend killed? I already get this bad feeling when they play up Christine’s role in Stephen’s life, but without actually expanding her characterization. Granted this is done better in DS2 which mind you is a full-length movie, so of course it should do better with her characterization. So here we go, Stephen is somehow still somewhat obsessed with ex-girlfriend 10 years ago. I applaud Cumberbatch for not straight up making a cucked face in that wedding scene. Stephen/Alt-Christine again just feels like another layer of unhealthy obsession play for romance. And right after they pull off their grand love story that must sound so emotional in Waldron’s head.(Yes, I saw a lot of Strange fans loving it, how can you not when it’s the only bread crumbs fed to you, they have no choice but to enjoy those semi-decent stuff. ) Tada! Here is Clea, princess of Dark Dimension, Stephen’s future wife, who he currently didn’t even know, and he just kinda went with her. Like, the most logical explanation here is supposed to be Theron be hot right? Has Stephen learnt nothing about dealing with strange magic ladies? What if she ended up being an evil witch with evil power?(Under the narrow understanding of Waldron’s mind, Faltines should be inherently evil, but I guess if it’s up to him, they won’t even use the Faltine race.)

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This movie is a one of its kind experience of horror
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on an existential level because it asks me the very important question, like why does this movie has to exist? Why out of the all the possibilities in the multiverse, we end up with this piece of shite.

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Done and done, I hope you guys will tolerate my come-back rant,
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It was meant as my quitting rant but the time ranting and writing have me realized Wanda as a character is in the end, too ingrained in me to let go, not just as the form of media I consume, she has also been my inspiration and template of story-crafting, so even if nothing works out in the end, I will remember her the way she was.

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Welcome back, I really enjoyed reading this by the way!

[Witchfan]

Scarlet Witch Briefly Became Marvel's John Constantine
https://www.cbr.com/scarlet-witch-wa...ective-marvel/

[MaximoffTrash]

Thanks, if this movie taught me anything, it's that anything about Wanda can be turned against her lol.(Oh wait, I forget about that in my rant.)
And I officially feel like a Namira cultist now thanks to this movie.(Not for the C-word reason, the other reason.)

Sorry if that is downer language, but I actually feel pretty great.

[MaximoffTrash]

Scarlet Witch Briefly Became Marvel's John Constantine
https://www.cbr.com/scarlet-witch-wa...ective-marvel/

Almost thought it is some new solo for her, but I don't mind more praise for Robinson's run.

[gurkle]

Thanks, if this movie taught me anything, it's that anything about Wanda can be turned against her lol.(Oh wait, I forget about that in my rant.)
And I officially feel like a Namira cultist now thanks to this movie.(Not for the C-word reason, the other reason.)

Sorry if that is downer language, but I actually feel pretty great.

It's funny, I feel the same way. Once I realized last summer's plot summary was real I was so depressed and thought I'd just finally have to stop following this character -- not that there's much to follow these days -- but I actually feel less depressed after it came out.

Maybe I've also reached the acceptance stage that the people who own this character can't be trusted, so I have to just like the version of her that lives in the heads of the people who actually understand her.

Or maybe it's just that the movie's portrayal is so stupid no one takes it seriously as a logical next step for the character, while if she had been spoilers:

a more nuanced villain with non-idiotic motivations, people might have been able to make the case that she has been evil and crazy all along. One of the very worst things about "Avengers Disassembled" was Doctor Strange making this speech that Wanda had always been unstable and delusional, even in the Busiek run where she seemed to be growing as a character. Even people who hated MCU Wanda in "WandaVision" can't really make the same case because the movie clearly is made by someone who didn't even watch the show. So I'm unhappy, but at least the haters aren't happy, and the Wanda stans who cheered for her to go evil are dissatisfied (see Grace Randolph accurately calling out the stupidity of the portrayal after a year of cheering for it). I must live for other people's pain.

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[MaximoffTrash]

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My chat group generally agrees it's way too ridiculous to hate Wanda, granted they are mostly comic readers who developed the instinct to question the writer first and character second. But the discourse about the movie is generally pretty negative and ceaseless meming. Every now and then someone just brings up stuff that is off and everyone just goes free for all on it for the dunk. The most recent being the Darkhold leaking red energy when Evil Strange is holding it, but following the story of WandaVision, it's logical to conclude Darkhold itself doesn't contain Chaos Magic energy(or else Agatha won't go through the trouble to find Wanda, Darkhold is just the guide here.) Yes it's just one tiny detail, but it kinda proves this movie has no concern for consistency or lore building what so ever.

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[jmc247]

I don't think this movie is going to jumpstart any interest in the House of M universe. spoilers:

They had their chance with Xavier, and they didn't even allude to the existence of mutants, let alone Magneto. I think they're not interested in House of M except as the basic story material for Wanda going nuts and committing a big crime, and this movie seemed to throw cold water on the idea of MCU Wanda being connected to the X-franchise.

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I am sure they are going to do it in time, but I don't know if they are going to go the quickie way or the long build way. The quicky way is just plop Wanda and a few other characters off into an alternate universe for a film. New costumes, new characters, little set up, wam bam and done. The emotional stakes would be very limited because its an alternate universe of characters whose lives and deaths won't really matter to the audience. The money brought in would probably be better then MoM, but only marginally so. Vs wait for mutants to be established and then drop the hammer using all of the Avengers and X-Men in a way that like the Infinity series impacts every character. This option takes longer, but the monetary reward is bigger if the creators pull it off. Its also the potentially more damaging option for Wanda if they pull the mutant genocide card. I feel like the next big crossover they are setting up right now is Secret Wars not House of M based on all the incursions talk. But, its possible they pull a 2015 type Secret Wars were alternative universes (HoM vs 616 vs AoA do battle) and then merge them all at the end to deal with the no mutants issue.

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[Witchfan]

Fortnite reveals new Scarlet Witch skin as Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness expands
https://www.bgr.in/gaming/fortnite-l...get-i-1267199/

‘Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness’ fans obsessed with Scarlet Witch’s 4th wall breaking moment
https://www.msn.com/en-us/movies/new...BingNewsSearch

[GenericUsername]

They already did HoM with Wanda creating a false reality to live in and be happy for a time in WandaVision. Vision was even the Wolverine of that story with knowing it wasn't real and trying to break free and get everyone else to realize it too.

I think next is Witches Road or some vague variation of it. Because Agatha's show is next. And there was plenty of catty Agatha in Wanda's solo.

[Witchfan]

Russell Daughterman drew Wanda again
FSFPb7CVsAAgs03.jpg

[Factor]

Can't believe they wasted such a cool costume on such a terrible handling of the character.
I knew I shouldn't expect much from Marvel when it vomes to Wanda, but the movie was depressingly bad. It felt even like a parody at times.

[GenericUsername]

Another to add to the collection! The costumes were so great!

[GenericUsername]

Can't believe they wasted such a cool costume on such a terrible handling of the character.
I knew I shouldn't expect much from Marvel when it vomes to Wanda, but the movie was depressingly bad. It felt even like a parody at times.

Yeah agreed, but hopefully they got possessed Wanda out of their system. I would not mind her actually finding Chthon and absorbing him haha.

[Cruelrain]

Can't believe they wasted such a cool costume on such a terrible handling of the character.
I knew I shouldn't expect much from Marvel when it vomes to Wanda, but the movie was depressingly bad. It felt even like a parody at times.

Raimi style and Waldron writing wasn't a good combo

[Daedra]

Yeah agreed, but hopefully they got possessed Wanda out of their system. I would not mind her actually finding Chthon and absorbing him haha.

One can only hope but I fear they may not resist the urge of adapting the “no more mutants” garbage