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

[Covetous_One]

Sadly, they made her into a very, very mediocre villain, and ignored all thd elements that make her intersting, she's actually one of the weakest in the MCU, and IMHO a strong contender for most poorly written. People dismiss Malekith or ,Venko, Killian, etc, yet their motives are actually more well thought out and explained than Wanda's, and when you compare Thanos, Vulture (the scene with him in the car with Parker is far more intimidating and yet also more nuanced than anything Wanda says or does in MoM), Mysterio, etc.

What makes her interesting to most people unfortunately is that she is often portrayed unhinged. The lengths she went to for her goals surprisingly attracted a lot of attention to her character. Some just saw this as continuity of WandaVision of a slow decline into madness. Her reasons my be mediocre, but they are understandable to some.

[Galerion]

What makes her interesting to most people unfortunately is that she is often portrayed unhinged. The lengths she went to for her goals surprisingly attracted a lot of attention to her character. Some just saw this as continuity of WandaVision of a slow decline into madness. Her reasons my be mediocre, but they are understandable to some.

[gurkle]

It's been said many times, but anti-hero Wanda is the WandaVision version, hero-turned-villain Wanda is the version we thought we were getting who will do anything to rescue her children after they were calling out to her, and what we got is more like Avengers Disassembled "turned into someone we don't recognize offscreen for no good reason" Wanda.

[GenericUsername]

Yeah Wanda isn't an anti-hero in Strange 2. Because the people she was killing was not reasonable. They weren't bad guys. They just weren't willing to go along with her kidnapping a teenager to kidnap someone else's kids. She was a straight up villain.

[GenericUsername]

Which is not necessarily a bad thing. Jedi are basically space monks and just like in real-life I don't see many people lining up to be a part of something like that. It's just that Star Wars has become so big that many see Jedi more as space superheroes and the movies have incredibly black and white story-telling with zero nuance to it. It's unfortunate because the material at hand lends itself to something with more depth. Thankfully at least other Star Wars media has picked up the slack when it comes to that topic though obviously much of it is not even canon anymore.

It's definitely bad that they assume someone is guilty just based on their own prejudices.

[gurkle]

Yeah Wanda isn't an anti-hero in Strange 2. Because the people she was killing was not reasonable. They weren't bad guys. They just weren't willing to go along with her kidnapping a teenager to kidnap someone else's kids. She was a straight up villain.

But not an effective villain, because nobody could take her seriously as a villain for the reasons we've talked about many times (her turn happens completely offscreen, her motivations don't make sense, etc). Thanos is a good villain because he thinks he's right and we believe he thinks he's right. Wanda just isn't thinking at all until she suddenly turns good again for no good reason.

We've talked here before about how she could have been a convincing villain, like if she decided her kids were in danger and didn't care who she hurt to get them back, or if she just went through her corruption arc onscreen.

I don't know if making her a better villain would have been better or worse for the character, but one reason the movie's audience score was lower than usual may just be that it has such a weak villain ("weak" in the sense of motivations, not power levels, which aren't as important to a good villain).

[CJStriker]

Yeah Wanda isn't an anti-hero in Strange 2. Because the people she was killing was not reasonable. They weren't bad guys. They just weren't willing to go along with her kidnapping a teenager to kidnap someone else's kids. She was a straight up villain.

But not an effective villain, because nobody could take her seriously as a villain for the reasons we've talked about many times (her turn happens completely offscreen, her motivations don't make sense, etc). Thanos is a good villain because he thinks he's right and we believe he thinks he's right. Wanda just isn't thinking at all until she suddenly turns good again for no good reason.

We've talked here before about how she could have been a convincing villain, like if she decided her kids were in danger and didn't care who she hurt to get them back, or if she just went through her corruption arc onscreen.

I don't know if making her a better villain would have been better or worse for the character, but one reason the movie's audience score was lower than usual may just be that it has such a weak villain ("weak" in the sense of motivations, not power levels, which aren't as important to a good villain).

Me and another LCS owner Friend that has been collecting and knows comic books and issues better than anyone I have ever met both in RL and on the Net, we Both agree Wanda in MoM cannot be considered a Straight Up Villain.

He saw the movie and it is just like Jean Grey, when you have an outside being like a Demon or Entity influencing your actions your actions during that time cannot be counted of your own will and that is what happen to Wanda. Anyone online in any video saying that is simply not considering the Darkhold Factor, the Influence of it, Demon Wanda that I have even clearly seen and then when broken she destroyed the darkhold when her true self, not a meat puppet. It would be a definitional wronging to real villains to put Wanda of MoM into the camp and while I get why we are upset over the movie; it is wrong for us to fall into that camp.

By the End my LCS friend easily said by his view Wanda can come back and be great as always, that has been the comic book way for decades and I fully agree with that view and have by verbatim said it here for Wanda during episodes in the Comics and any other heroes that go through the same.

So I just don't think at all we should fall into that camp saying Wanda is a clear head villain, she was a tragedy taken over by the Darkhold, like the other Strange’s where in others universes that did way worst and that could be blamed on the Darkhold as well.

[Covetous_One]

But not an effective villain, because nobody could take her seriously as a villain for the reasons we've talked about many times (her turn happens completely offscreen, her motivations don't make sense, etc). Thanos is a good villain because he thinks he's right and we believe he thinks he's right. Wanda just isn't thinking at all until she suddenly turns good again for no good reason.

We've talked here before about how she could have been a convincing villain, like if she decided her kids were in danger and didn't care who she hurt to get them back, or if she just went through her corruption arc onscreen.

I don't know if making her a better villain would have been better or worse for the character, but one reason the movie's audience score was lower than usual may just be that it has such a weak villain ("weak" in the sense of motivations, not power levels, which aren't as important to a good villain).

I saw more complaints about a lack of proper fight scenes. Most people wanted to see Wanda and Strange go all out on each other. Also most posts that I have seen said the Illuminati fight should have been longer.

[gurkle]

I saw more complaints about a lack of proper fight scenes. Most people wanted to see Wanda and Strange go all out on each other. Also most posts that I have seen said the Illuminati fight should have been longer.

Yeah, I think people went in thinking they would see a team-up with Marvel's two most popular magic heroes, and/or a big fight between them, and instead they got neither.

With the Illuminati, I personally liked the joke, which was that these huge cameos show up in the movie and then they instantly get slaughtered. But I truly believe most viewers didn't really care that much about cameos (just like most viewers of WandaVision didn't care who "Pietro" turned out to be), so if the main conflict had been better that wouldn't have been a problem.

[GenericUsername]

But not an effective villain, because nobody could take her seriously as a villain for the reasons we've talked about many times (her turn happens completely offscreen, her motivations don't make sense, etc). Thanos is a good villain because he thinks he's right and we believe he thinks he's right. Wanda just isn't thinking at all until she suddenly turns good again for no good reason.

We've talked here before about how she could have been a convincing villain, like if she decided her kids were in danger and didn't care who she hurt to get them back, or if she just went through her corruption arc onscreen.

I don't know if making her a better villain would have been better or worse for the character, but one reason the movie's audience score was lower than usual may just be that it has such a weak villain ("weak" in the sense of motivations, not power levels, which aren't as important to a good villain).

Her being a villain is never a good thing because her character suffers for it. Happened in comics, and she's killed off (at least for now) in the movies. It just doesn't work out. And it misses the point of the character. Her thing was perseverance through struggle. They then decide to have her succumb to it instead.

She's just not afforded the same treatment as other heroes gone bad.

[MaximoffTrash]

Which is not necessarily a bad thing. Jedi are basically space monks and just like in real-life I don't see many people lining up to be a part of something like that. It's just that Star Wars has become so big that many see Jedi more as space superheroes and the movies have incredibly black and white story-telling with zero nuance to it. It's unfortunate because the material at hand lends itself to something with more depth. Thankfully at least other Star Wars media has picked up the slack when it comes to that topic though obviously much of it is not even canon anymore.

Jedi are more like fantasy Knight Paladins, the specific type who functions under some theocratic regime or something. The thing that makes Jedi weird is that they are "superheroes" with incredible amount of religious and political influence. But the civilization they operate under is a secular one.
It's also rather weird when you think about how Jedi are closely tied to a democratic civilization while the fundamentals of their teachings suggest none of that.(Again, they feel more like Knight Paladins who fit well with a "right/just" feudal Kingdom or something.) It's kind of a "morally lucky" situation to me.

[Galerion]

Yeah Wanda isn't an anti-hero in Strange 2. Because the people she was killing was not reasonable. They weren't bad guys. They just weren't willing to go along with her kidnapping a teenager to kidnap someone else's kids. She was a straight up villain.

I would classify that as a good guy turned bad. Now if she will continue as an anti-hero or becomes good is unknown. I do hope for the former though. She can make up for what she did but that won't suddenly make her a saint. That is unbelievable and IMO pretty unsatisfactory. But then I prefer characters with an edge to them so your mileage may vary. Just don't turn her into a doormat just so you can claim she is "good". If you talk shit you should still get hit.
Let her deal with her own problems and leave playing the hero to the others. She will show up if the threat is big enough that it warrants her participation. Basically just like it is with Thor or Captain Marvel who spend most of their time not even on Earth.

It's definitely bad that they assume someone is guilty just based on their own prejudices.

Well it is a shockingly consistent trait of them. Ever saved all the Jedi in hiding in KOTOR 2? If you expected some gratitude from them you were in for rude awakening.

Jedi are more like fantasy Knight Paladins, the specific type who functions under some theocratic regime or something. The thing that makes Jedi weird is that they are "superheroes" with incredible amount of religious and political influence. But the civilization they operate under is a secular one.

The monk comparison was more that their believes and rules are similar to real-life monastery institutions with the whole celibacy thing and such.

[MaximoffTrash]

But not an effective villain, because nobody could take her seriously as a villain for the reasons we've talked about many times (her turn happens completely offscreen, her motivations don't make sense, etc). Thanos is a good villain because he thinks he's right and we believe he thinks he's right. Wanda just isn't thinking at all until she suddenly turns good again for no good reason.

We've talked here before about how she could have been a convincing villain, like if she decided her kids were in danger and didn't care who she hurt to get them back, or if she just went through her corruption arc onscreen.

I don't know if making her a better villain would have been better or worse for the character, but one reason the movie's audience score was lower than usual may just be that it has such a weak villain ("weak" in the sense of motivations, not power levels, which aren't as important to a good villain).

TBH I would like it's shown more obviously that Thanos care more about being right than actually doing right. (Like suggesting his method on Titan would not have worked anyway, but Thanos wanted to believe his plan could have worked.)

[MaximoffTrash]

I would classify that as a good guy turned bad. Now if she will continue as an anti-hero or becomes good is unknown. I do hope for the former though. She can make up for what she did but that won't suddenly make her a saint. That is unbelievable and IMO pretty unsatisfactory. But then I prefer characters with an edge to them so your mileage may vary. Just don't turn her into a doormat just so you can claim she is "good". If you talk shit you should still get hit.
Let her deal with her own problems and leave playing the hero to the others. She will show up if the threat is big enough that it warrants her participation. Basically just like it is with Thor or Captain Marvel who spend most of their time not even on Earth.

But what if I don't like characters who beat people on a whim, especially when the individual is incredibly powerful?
Edgy characters who react to minor insult with immediate violence felt cheap lot of times. It's the "above thou" ones that are more interesting to me.
And Wanda should definitely "play the hero", at the end of the day she is still a superhero character. I would say the opposite, leave those bombastic threat event to others and let her care for the small folks.

[CJStriker]

I saw more complaints about a lack of proper fight scenes. Most people wanted to see Wanda and Strange go all out on each other. Also most posts that I have seen said the Illuminati fight should have been longer.

Yeah, I think people went in thinking they would see a team-up with Marvel's two most popular magic heroes, and/or a big fight between them, and instead they got neither.

With the Illuminati, I personally liked the joke, which was that these huge cameos show up in the movie and then they instantly get slaughtered. But I truly believe most viewers didn't really care that much about cameos (just like most viewers of WandaVision didn't care who "Pietro" turned out to be), so if the main conflict had been better that wouldn't have been a problem.

Yea the "Team-Up" was a Lie told by Marvel Brass/Producers working on the film and that is a major problem. This is not some surprise cameo like keeping secret Andrew Garfield in NWH, saying something that would determine a major plot point in a movie that fans where already on edge about, saying by some point Wanda and Strange would be together but not just not fulfilling that promise but going SO Far in the opposite direction that would be called a blatant Lying to Fans that wanted to see what they promised, a Wanda/Strang Team-Up movie.

That is Very bad cause I get doing twist and surprises, but if these twists and surprises come close to completely and nearly ruining characters and concepts fans have come to love about aspects of the MCU that will backfire on the MCU as time goes on. How to you explain to kids or fans wanting to see their favorite heroes be heroes, promising that and then do a got you to them?!

This kind of trolling seems to be a constant in phase 4 MCU to much since WandaVision with Ralph B. and I worry will now thanks to MoM made allot of fans, me include, lose allot of trust in the MCU. They are still the gold standard and mostly I still am a fan of what they have done and what is coming out, but stuff like that really hurt them in my eyes. They gained my trust and they lost it with such IMO a Lie and now they will have to do allot more to try to gain it back that they worked so hard before to build with me and I am sure other fans.

I am still hopeful and positive for the future, but current MCU needs to stop the twists, trolling and broken major promises before the do irreversible damage to their brand.