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

[Albert1981]

I guess costs in magic CAN make people become "evil", but I don't think it HAS to. Look at Stephen Strange. The cost for him to use his magic in the comics was to endure an unbelievably shitty diet. That cost didn't turn him into a villain. It just made him mad. And it was funny as hell. To me, I think it is hard to write magic consistently. Lots of readers think it's lame that mystical characters can use "magic" to solve problems (technology has similar issues but at least stories involving "technology" have SOME scientific foundation to them for the most part). I feel the same way with characters using "time travel" and "alternate universes" to solve problems (although what the MCU is doing is actually basing their ideas on quantum physics). If a person from the future went back to change the past, that future would no longer exist so how the hell could that person go back into the past from that future in the first place? So Disney did the whole branching timelines thing to get around the grandfather paradox "problem". I think that's a HUGE reason why folks prefer Infinity War over Endgame. The boring exposition absolutely bogged down the latter movie and confused audiences with its "scientific mumbo-jumbo." Then Marvel Studios doubled down on the exposition in Loki. And apparently in Loki 2 and Ant-Man 3 they're gonna TRIPLE DOWN on it. For reasons I don't entirely understand, the MCU's three main magical characters (Loki, Strange and Wanda) are deeply involved in these stories. Multiversal stories. Where we get to see actors and actresses play uninteresting and clownish versions of themselves...Repeatedly. And it's diminishing MCU audiences in DROVES. But at least they're trying to maintain some rules in this multiversal nonsense (although I think Disney will give up on this effort once they release MCU movie 96 in 2025).

Magic absolutely should have rules in the MCU, characters like Loki, Strange and Wanda either become walking, talking deus ex machines or are regularly "nerfed" through the "Worf Effect". I think magical stories CAN have their protagonists and antagonists possess an innate gift or affinity for "sorcery" or "witchcraft", but it's FAR more interesting (again to me) if they go through an arduous schooling process. I like it when magic use is dependent on acquired knowledge, and it is even more interesting when magic is "difficult to exploit, and a privilege to learn."

I believe audiences can definitely appreciate it if "magic is balanced in that there must be an equilibrium in regards to the laws of nature (as in the Earthsea books). Defying death or bringing a person back from the dead is unnatural and often disastrous, requiring a skilled mage to even attempt such spells. Wizards can also overexert themselves or spend all of their magic at once, rendering them powerless afterwards, so it is not often that mages risk the loss of their powers by using them unnecessarily or putting all of their energy into a single spell." Those are "costs" to me. But nobody turns into "villains" because of them. Characters make mistakes through their own hubris and then try to fix them. Maybe that stuff can't be done in the comic books, but I would reckon it might work in the MCU. Like in the extremely successful Harry Potter franchise. Wanda getting tired and depressed after expanding the Hex in WandaVision didn't turn her into an "evildoer". It just made her really fragile, relatable, vulnerable and human. Costs are good in fantasy stories. They bring an emotional element to them. See where I'm coming from?

If rules aren't important in magic, then why did WandaVision's writers expend so much time and energy trying to give Wanda her "rune magic" in the first place? That series devoted two ENTIRE episodes to explaining and showing how it worked. Lots of WandaVision fans who watched that show were pleasantly surprised at how Wanda bested Agatha at the VERY last second by using "runes" to win the "final boss battle." The runes were also very visually entertaining as well. In fact, you could even say Wanda's runes literally transformed her into the Scarlet Witch. And yet somehow she didn't use them in her very next MCU appearance? Or even try to? Then what's the point of her learning rune magic in the first place? They worked for her quite nicely in the recent past, but for "reasons" she didn't think they would work in similar situations later on? If there are no rules in fantasy stories, magic users shouldn't really cast spells all that often in my opinion. Make the magic unpredictable and dangerous. Don't have the magic users in the MCU pull spells out of their asses to save the day with no build-up. If Wanda killed, injured or tortured other magic users in Strange 2, she actually didn't have to do ANY of those things if you really think about it. She just had to put up some runes and it's game over for her opponents. Wanda wins and nobody gets so much as a fucking nosebleed. As I said before, I don't blame the creators of the MoM for forgetting about Wanda's rune magic. I think they're being overworked. That causes continuity problems in the MCU. Just like in the comics. Hopefully Feige and company can right the ship. Because once the MCU becomes more like the comic books upon which they are based, things will only go downhill from there.