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

[WallStreeter]

Peggy's popularity is largely due to Hailey Atwell and Marvel finding any reason to have her reprise that role. I dont blame them bc she is awesome and I love seeing her appear any chance we get

I think they will do a multiverse reset to have Captain Carter in the main continuity.

[WallStreeter]

I don't think Agatha was portrayed as evil. Not good, but not evil. That's why they avoided saying why she wanted Wanda's power -- maybe it was for evil purposes, but the only reason she gave was that Wanda couldn't handle that kind of power, which seems true even if Multiverse of Madness hadn't happened.

Anyway whatever the writers thought the Darkhold's effects on Agatha were supposed to be, they were far less than in this movie, because the movie ignores everything that happened in WandaVision. (Not that it would be any better of a story if WandaVision actually set it up, but it didn't.)

Do you think the Wanda we know is going to be the main Wanda going forward? 838 Wanda has real children and is not a psycho murderer and kidnapper. She exists in a world with mutants and we know there are incursions going on. Something I think they hinted a lot about the future of the MCU.

[gurkle]

Do you think the Wanda we know is going to be the main Wanda going forward? 838 Wanda has real children and is not a psycho murderer and kidnapper. She exists in a world with mutants and we know there are incursions going on. Something I think they hinted a lot about the future of the MCU.

No, I don't. I thought they might, based on the plot summary, but in the movie, variant Wanda had no personality at all and almost no lines. She's definitely not the Wanda we know, just a plot device (as usual) for Wanda to massacre the Illuminati.

So if they have plans to bring Wanda back, and they probably do, they'll bring back the one we know.

Even the original "incursion" story didn't cause a multiversal reset even though people constantly speculated it would. I doubt we'll see much different in the MCU, though I don't really trust their judgment any more (Hickman's Avengers is the most boring superhero comic I ever read, so I'm not encouraged by Feige building up to it).

But it's frustrating that Wanda became a sort of role model by accident, not because she's perfect but because people identified with how she makes mistakes and tries to deal with trauma, and then they threw it all away because they didn't know what a popular character they really had until it was too late to change this dumb movie.

[GenericUsername]

Kidnapping, murder, among other things. No one involved with that at Marcel could want children to look up to that. Wanda was the main antagonist for the film. The villain you hoped to see stopped. No one was going to root for her to kill another Wanda and kidnap the kids.

Mind you I don’t know where the incursions are going. If they reset the multiverse, perhaps this Wanda won’t be the main Wanda going forward. She basically became Lore.

And I cannot imagine the Avengers taking her back. Liz Olsen talks about her future involvement with the XMen and Ian MaxKellsn as her father and it looks like they are going to do the Young Avengers. For that they might reset the MCU to be like 838, where Inhumans and mutants are well known, as is the FF.

With a multiversal reset we might see a sane Agatha mentor Wanda.

Liz doesn't have any idea where they are going. She just answers interviewers questions and says everything would be fun. All we can go on is they are leaning heavily into Kang and incursions. It's at least in main story barreling into Secret Wars.

They likely will do YA eventually, but so far have not been announced for this Phase. Maybe next phase. We are getting Agatha's show in a year or two. So maybe Wanda will appear there. But they have nothing else lined up atm and Liz said she's taking a bit of a break.

I'm sure we'll see many multiverse versions of characters, but none stuck around in NWH nor ITMoM so they might be nothing more than easter eggs for fans.

[GenericUsername]

No, I don't. I thought they might, based on the plot summary, but in the movie, variant Wanda had no personality at all and almost no lines. She's definitely not the Wanda we know, just a plot device (as usual) for Wanda to massacre the Illuminati.

So if they have plans to bring Wanda back, and they probably do, they'll bring back the one we know.

Even the original "incursion" story didn't cause a multiversal reset even though people constantly speculated it would. I doubt we'll see much different in the MCU, though I don't really trust their judgment any more (Hickman's Avengers is the most boring superhero comic I ever read, so I'm not encouraged by Feige building up to it).

But it's frustrating that Wanda became a sort of role model by accident, not because she's perfect but because people identified with how she makes mistakes and tries to deal with trauma, and then they threw it all away because they didn't know what a popular character they really had until it was too late to change this dumb movie.

People online are heavily over-exaggerating and getting completely wrong what Secret Wars actually was. And not think about how the MCU only does part of events anyway.

It was mostly Doom and Reed drama.

[Albert1981]

So what's the deal between Wanda/Agatha and the Darkhold? I understand it's an "evil book" that "corrupts" its readers, but is the relationship between user and tome that simple? And do all magic users who use the Darkhold really have to get violent? Remember C.S. Lewis's the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe? The White Queen used her powers to "enchant" a real-life confection called Turkish Delight to gain the loyalty of Edmund Pevensie:

"While he was eating the Queen kept asking him questions. At first Edmund tried to remember that it is rude to speak with one’s mouth full, but soon he forgot about this and thought only of trying to shovel down as much Turkish Delight as he could, and the more he ate the more he wanted to eat, and he never asked himself why the Queen should be so inquisitive. She got him to tell her that he had one brother and two sisters, and that one of his sisters had already been in Narnia and had met a Faun there, and that no one except himself and his brother and his sisters knew anything about Narnia. She seemed especially interested in the fact that there were four of them, and kept on coming back to it.“You are sure there are just four of you?” she asked. ‘Two Sons of Adam and two Daughters of Eve, neither more nor less?” and Edmund, with his mouth full of Turkish Delight,turkish-delight kept on saying, “Yes, I told you that before,” and forgetting to call her “Your Majesty” but she didn’t seem to mind now."

Now THAT's brilliant storytelling. The White Witch used her powers in a subtle but non-violent way to get what she wanted.

I also liked the way J.R.R. Tolkien used "objects" and "items" that "corrupt" their users in a somewhat different way than in traditional superhero fare. As Wikipedia describes Gollum (Sméagol) from the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings:

"Sméagol obtained the Ring by murdering his relative Déagol, who found it in the River Anduin. Gollum referred to the Ring as "my precious" or "precious", and it extended his life far beyond natural limits. Centuries of the Ring's influence twisted Gollum's body and mind, and, by the time of the novels, he "loved and hated [the Ring], as he loved and hated himself. Throughout the story, Gollum was torn between his lust for the Ring and his desire to be free of it. Bilbo Baggins found the Ring and took it for his own, and Gollum afterwards pursued it for the rest of his life. Gollum finally seized the Ring from Frodo Baggins at the Cracks of Doom in Mount Doom in Mordor, but he fell into the fires of the volcano, where both he and the Ring were destroyed.

Commentators have described Gollum as a psychological shadow figure for Frodo and as an evil guide in contrast to the wizard Gandalf, the good guide. They have noted, too, that Gollum is not wholly evil, and that he has a part to play in the will of Eru Iluvatar, the omnipotent God figure of Middle-earth, necessary to the destruction of the Ring. For Gollum's literary origins, scholars have compared Gollum to the shrivelled hag Gagool in Rider Haggard's 1885 novel King Solomon's Mines and to the subterranean Morlocks in H. G. Wells' 1895 novel The Time Machine."

Readers of Tolkien's works have found the DYNAMIC between Sauron's Ring and others who have come into possession of it to be REALLY interesting. The love-hate factor of it is EXTREMELY compelling. The Ring just doesn't make its users "go bad." What exactly is Chthon's relationship with Wanda and Agatha?

[gurkle]

So what's the deal between Wanda/Agatha and the Darkhold? I understand it's an "evil book" that "corrupts" its readers, but the relationship between user and tome that simple?

As usual, it depends on which movie you're watching. In Multiverse of Madness it appears to be this all-purpose evil book that corrupts anyone who uses it and turns them into a psycho killer. In "WandaVision" this did not appear to be the case.

Agatha's show will be from the "WandaVision" team and presumably expand on what they think the Darkhold is or does, but then another team will do their own thing.

TL, DR, continuity in the MCU is fake and every creative team does their own thing. (This isn't a criticism; continuity has to be loose in a franchise like this, and Multiverse of Madness is a bad story but it would be bad even if it didn't contradict Wanda's portrayal in WandaVision.)

[inisideguy]

I may be simple. But to me the concept of her going bad makes total sense. And they explain it. She lost her kids, she has regret on what she did, she has massive trama. She studies the dark hold which corrupts her even more to not think logically. They literally show in the movie the other doctor strange corrupted by the dark hold in two different universes. If he can be corrupted so can she.

Why is this so hard to understand?

[ARkadelphia]

So what's the deal between Wanda/Agatha and the Darkhold? I understand it's an "evil book" that "corrupts" its readers, but is the relationship between user and tome that simple? And do all magic users who use the Darkhold really have to get violent? Remember C.S. Lewis's the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe? The White Queen used her powers to "enchant" a real-life confection called Turkish Delight to gain the loyalty of Edmund Pevensie:

"While he was eating the Queen kept asking him questions. At first Edmund tried to remember that it is rude to speak with one’s mouth full, but soon he forgot about this and thought only of trying to shovel down as much Turkish Delight as he could, and the more he ate the more he wanted to eat, and he never asked himself why the Queen should be so inquisitive. She got him to tell her that he had one brother and two sisters, and that one of his sisters had already been in Narnia and had met a Faun there, and that no one except himself and his brother and his sisters knew anything about Narnia. She seemed especially interested in the fact that there were four of them, and kept on coming back to it.“You are sure there are just four of you?” she asked. ‘Two Sons of Adam and two Daughters of Eve, neither more nor less?” and Edmund, with his mouth full of Turkish Delight,turkish-delight kept on saying, “Yes, I told you that before,” and forgetting to call her “Your Majesty” but she didn’t seem to mind now."

Now THAT's brilliant storytelling. The White Witch used her powers in a subtle but non-violent way to get what she wanted.

I also liked the way J.R.R. Tolkien used "objects" and "items" that "corrupt" their users in a somewhat different way than in traditional superhero fare. As Wikipedia describes Gollum (Sméagol) from the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings:

"Sméagol obtained the Ring by murdering his relative Déagol, who found it in the River Anduin. Gollum referred to the Ring as "my precious" or "precious", and it extended his life far beyond natural limits. Centuries of the Ring's influence twisted Gollum's body and mind, and, by the time of the novels, he "loved and hated [the Ring], as he loved and hated himself. Throughout the story, Gollum was torn between his lust for the Ring and his desire to be free of it. Bilbo Baggins found the Ring and took it for his own, and Gollum afterwards pursued it for the rest of his life. Gollum finally seized the Ring from Frodo Baggins at the Cracks of Doom in Mount Doom in Mordor, but he fell into the fires of the volcano, where both he and the Ring were destroyed.

Commentators have described Gollum as a psychological shadow figure for Frodo and as an evil guide in contrast to the wizard Gandalf, the good guide. They have noted, too, that Gollum is not wholly evil, and that he has a part to play in the will of Eru Iluvatar, the omnipotent God figure of Middle-earth, necessary to the destruction of the Ring. For Gollum's literary origins, scholars have compared Gollum to the shrivelled hag Gagool in Rider Haggard's 1885 novel King Solomon's Mines and to the subterranean Morlocks in H. G. Wells' 1895 novel The Time Machine."

Readers of Tolkien's works have found the DYNAMIC between Sauron's Ring and others who have come into possession of it to be REALLY interesting. The love-hate factor of it is EXTREMELY compelling. The Ring just doesn't make its users "go bad." What exactly is Chthon's relationship with Wanda and Agatha?

Dayum. Where’s the spoiler text son?

[Albert1981]

As usual, it depends on which movie you're watching. In Multiverse of Madness it appears to be this all-purpose evil book that corrupts anyone who uses it and turns them into a psycho killer. In "WandaVision" this did not appear to be the case.

Agatha's show will be from the "WandaVision" team and presumably expand on what they think the Darkhold is or does, but then another team will do their own thing.

TL, DR, continuity in the MCU is fake and every creative team does their own thing. (This isn't a criticism; continuity has to be loose in a franchise like this, and Multiverse of Madness is a bad story but it would be bad even if it didn't contradict Wanda's portrayal in WandaVision.)

Ah, thank you very much. Sounds like a horror movie kind of book. I was hoping that the book was more nuanced and subtle in its aims. Just because it is "evil" and want to do "evil things" is kinda boring to me. You know Kaecilius and Wenwu were also DESPERATE to reunite with their lost loved ones in Strange 1 and Shang-Chi respectively. And they were "corrupted" by messing with things they shouldn't have messed with. But I NEVER felt they were psycho killers. I think audiences actually felt a lot of sympathy for them. I guess that didn't happen in the MoM with Wanda though, apparently.

[gurkle]

I may be simple. But to me the concept of her going bad makes total sense. And they explain it. She lost her kids, she has regret on what she did, she has massive trama. She studies the dark hold which corrupts her even more to not think logically. They literally show in the movie the other doctor strange corrupted by the dark hold in two different universes. If he can be corrupted so can she.

Why is this so hard to understand?

OK, I'm not saying you're wrong, but here's how I see it.

What we know about Wanda, from WandaVision, is that she would rather wipe her children from existence than torture people.

Next time we see her, she is trying to kill a child, and willing to kill anyone who gets in her way, to get copies of the children she gave up. Not even the actual children (who were portrayed as real in the show, despite the movie claiming they weren't).

WandaVision did not say the book corrupts people, just that she had to read it to learn about her true nature. In the final scene she's shown studying her powers and hearing her children call for help -- but in the movie, suddenly she doesn't think they're in danger and just wants multiverse-hopping power so she can kidnap some kids and find cures if they get sick or whatever.

So starting in this movie, she becomes a totally different person, and the only explanation is that a book corrupts people, but they never explain how or why it changed her personality so completely, or why she's only looking for her kids and not Vision. There is no logic to the way she acts, and no logic to her suddenly reforming when her variant kids hate her (because if she's so evil then why would that change her mind? she'd just say they'll stop hating her when they realize she's right).

If they wanted to change Wanda from someone who loves Vision and is willing to sacrifice her kids, to someone who is obsessed with being a mother and doesn't care about Vision any more, they needed to show and not tell. The book is just an excuse for lazy writing, especially since its portrayal, like everything else in the movie, contradicts WandaVision.

But it would be bad storytelling even if the last 30 seconds of WandaVision actually set it up. If we're going to believe such a huge change, we need to see it. They would never have Strange suddenly evil at the beginning of his movie, which is why it's only the variant Stranges who get that treatment, while our Wanda gets character assassinated to serve someone else's story.

[Albert1981]

Dayum. Where’s the spoiler text son?

Sorry I didn't make myself clear, dude! I was talking about Wanda's and Agatha's relationship with the Darkhold in the COMICS. I recall Wanda became not a very nice person sometimes in the comic books when she engaged with the Darkhold. I actually haven't seen the MoM myself!

[inisideguy]

OK, I'm not saying you're wrong, but here's how I see it.

What we know about Wanda, from WandaVision, is that she would rather wipe her children from existence than torture people.

Next time we see her, she is trying to kill a child, and willing to kill anyone who gets in her way, to get copies of the children she gave up. Not even the actual children (who were portrayed as real in the show, despite the movie claiming they weren't).

WandaVision did not say the book corrupts people, just that she had to read it to learn about her true nature. In the final scene she's shown studying her powers and hearing her children call for help -- but in the movie, suddenly she doesn't think they're in danger and just wants multiverse-hopping power so she can kidnap some kids and find cures if they get sick or whatever.

So starting in this movie, she becomes a totally different person, and the only explanation is that a book corrupts people, but they never explain how or why it changed her personality so completely, or why she's only looking for her kids and not Vision. There is no logic to the way she acts, and no logic to her suddenly reforming when her variant kids hate her (because if she's so evil then why would that change her mind? she'd just say they'll stop hating her when they realize she's right).

If they wanted to change Wanda from someone who loves Vision and is willing to sacrifice her kids, to someone who is obsessed with being a mother and doesn't care about Vision any more, they needed to show and not tell. The book is just an excuse for lazy writing, especially since its portrayal, like everything else in the movie, contradicts WandaVision.

But it would be bad storytelling even if the last 30 seconds of WandaVision actually set it up. If we're going to believe such a huge change, we need to see it. They would never have Strange suddenly evil at the beginning of his movie, which is why it's only the variant Stranges who get that treatment, while our Wanda gets character assassinated to serve someone else's story.

The movie literally shows how Two Doctor stranges were corrupted by the dark hold and show it. One he lays down and voluntarily gets killed by black bolt. The other he destroyed his entire world. And that is Strange. Wanda is coming off a dramatic incident, she is messed up. She is isolated, she is studying the dark hold. The leap here isn't great.

[gurkle]

The movie literally shows how Two Doctor stranges were corrupted by the dark hold and show it. One he lays down and voluntarily gets killed by black bolt. The other he destroyed his entire world. And that is Strange. Wanda is coming off a dramatic incident, she is messed up. She is isolated, she is studying the dark hold. The leap here isn't great.

I guess I would say that explaining something isn't the same as showing it. I can't believe something just because they give it a line of explanation.

It's OK to have variant Stranges be crazy because they're not the characters we know, they're just horrible examples of what Strange could become, but doesn't. If "our" Strange made a character change like that, they would show it onscreen.

Wanda is a character we know. If they respected her, they would actually show us how she changed so completely from "I would rather kill my children than torture people" to "I will kill anybody I have to to steal a couple of new children." But just like in Avengers Disassembled/House of M, she became a totally different person offscreen. And her change doesn't even make sense, because it doesn't explain why she's fixated on the kids but not the man she loves.

If they wanted to show how she got there, they should have shown it happening. They didn't, because they cared more about cheap shocks than the character of Wanda.

[inisideguy]

I guess I would say that explaining something isn't the same as showing it. I can't believe something just because they give it a line of explanation.

It's OK to have variant Stranges be crazy because they're not the characters we know, they're just horrible examples of what Strange could become, but doesn't. If "our" Strange made a character change like that, they would show it onscreen.

Wanda is a character we know. If they respected her, they would actually show us how she changed so completely from "I would rather kill my children than torture people" to "I will kill anybody I have to to steal a couple of new children." But just like in Avengers Disassembled/House of M, she became a totally different person offscreen. And her change doesn't even make sense, because it doesn't explain why she's fixated on the kids but not the man she loves.

If they wanted to show how she got there, they should have shown it happening. They didn't, because they cared more about cheap shocks than the character of Wanda.

What they are doing within the movie is showing you through the examples of the other Stranges is exactly how it happened to Wanda. The thing is unlike the other Stranges she overcomes it at the end. Even within Wanda Vision Agatha warns over and over how dangerous she can be if things go wrong. And things went really wrong. She isolated herself. Studied the dark hold for lord knows how long. Became totally corrupted and single minded. Exactly what happened to the other two Doctor Stranges.