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

[Daedra]

I hope mom doesn’t have long term negative affect on Wanda. She really can’t catch a break

At one point things have to actually turn for the better, Now that that they got evil wanda out of their system maybe we will finally get something new and original

[Albert1981]

That's what writers are paid for. To come up with stuff though. It's fiction. Books for decades have fleshed out magic pretty well. There is no excuse for it really. If a writer is best only at non-fiction, they need to stick with that. Leave fiction up to writers with an imagination.



Cost of magic doesn't need to exist to flesh out magic. And that discussion is cyclical so I'm not gonna say much more about it.



I didn't hate Aaron's run, but different forms of magic exist and don't fall under Aaron's depiction.



The biggest issue is for ITMoM they only needed to really watch WandaVision. There wasn't much of Wanda in the other stuff. It's just 6 hours of their time. 3 hours per day on a weekend. Very doable. I don't understand the approach either. But I think they are getting to the point in movies that they got in comics where it was all big events and not really the world building that made the universe popular.

I guess you're saying that the MCU needs better writers? Maybe they should start paying them more. Quality doesn't come cheap. I would save a TON of money on worthless cameos and focus more on stories as opposed to gimmicks. Surprised you didn't actively dislike Aaron's work on Strange. Folks on the Strange thread did not like him. I think the reason why writers embrace the "whole magic comes with a cost" concept is because they don't wanna have to keep track of a bunch of rules established in previous movies/shows/books. It gets confusing. I remember Aaron saying he was never really interested in writing any sort of rules for magic. "If you write too many rules you start to take the magic out of magic; it needs to stay mysterious and mystical. We do have one rule in the book: everything Strange does has a cost to it." But as you say, comic books regularly disregard stuff that came before so the rules of magic will continue to remain inconsistent which I think sort of hurts the magical corner of Marvel Comics.

And as you and gurkle stated before, I AGREE with you when rules can really bog down storytelling with tedious exposition. They're doing it in the MCU right now and it's SO boring. I think the exposition in Loki and WandaVision diminished those two shows. But if the MCU is gonna dive deep into time travel, alternate universes and magic in future phases, they have NO CHOICE but to do it. I just think general audiences are gonna lose patience with all this talking. I know I am.

Have you ever watched Midnight in Paris and/or Field of Dreams? Both of those movies use "time travel" and "magic" in them. And neither of them even attempt to explain why and how this happens. But for MOST viewers I imagine, the supernatural elements in those stories were things they didn't question. THAT'S magic to me. Good movies will do that to you. I know Woody Allen has pretty much been unofficially "cancelled" these days, but I really enjoyed his quote about nostalgia in Midnight in Paris:

"Nostalgia is denial - denial of the painful present... the name for this denial is golden age thinking - the erroneous notion that a different time period is better than the one one's living in - it's a flaw in the romantic imagination of those people who find it difficult to cope with the present."

I think the MCU is indulging in nostalgia in a way that's sort of unhealthy with all this time travel/multiversal stuff. Unfortunately, it makes them a lot of money. Ever since WandaVision concluded, I don't think the MCU has made ANYTHING with heart in it. They're just talking about how things work, what happened in past movies/shows/centuries, and discussing peoples' feelings. It's annoying.

As regards to the MoM, I think the creators should have just focused on Strange 1. It's his sequel. Strange's first movie is like a two-hour watch. And apparently much better than Strange 2. I will say this, I think it's actually kind of sick for Disney (of all companies) to create drama over a woman grieving the loss of her dead children. It was gross in the comic books and I think a lot of "casual" audience members who aren't into this kind of thing will be REALLY offended. But Marvel Studios just doesn't seem to care. They're already working on future projects as we speak. I'm PRAYING that Thor 4 doesn't make light of cancer, but if they DO do that, I think the MCU's future is in REAL jeopardy.

[Cruelrain]

Does comicbook Wanda have a resistance in getting posseased or evil by the Darkhold?

I know Orlando made Wanda say this in Darkhold Alpha but there are other comics where she said something similar?

That only her can control the true Darkhold

[GenericUsername]

Executives can mandate that comics by read and even out this mandate in the contract. Ditto for prior MCU work featuring the heroes.

According to creators, they were given a lot of freedom on this. Which I can believe, because it's Raimi. And Disney usually isn't too keen on movies being this violent.

[GenericUsername]

Does comicbook Wanda have a resistance in getting posseased or evil by the Darkhold?

I know Orlando made Wanda say this in Darkhold Alpha but there are other comics where she said something similar?

That only her can control the true Darkhold

In comics you originally could only be possessed by Chthon by reading the Darkhold in Wanda's lore. And originally the Darkhold wasn't a book linked to possession at all. It just granted wishes. So writers have taken a lot of liberties on it. And it doesn't seem to have one true canon.

[GenericUsername]

I guess you're saying that the MCU needs better writers? Maybe they should start paying them more. Quality doesn't come cheap. I would save a TON of money on worthless cameos and focus more on stories as opposed to gimmicks. Surprised you didn't actively dislike Aaron's work on Strange. Folks on the Strange thread did not like him. I think the reason why writers embrace the "whole magic comes with a cost" concept is because they don't wanna have to keep track of a bunch of rules established in previous movies/shows/books. It gets confusing. I remember Aaron saying he was never really interested in writing any sort of rules for magic. "If you write too many rules you start to take the magic out of magic; it needs to stay mysterious and mystical. We do have one rule in the book: everything Strange does has a cost to it." But as you say, comic books regularly disregard stuff that came before so the rules of magic will continue to remain inconsistent which I think sort of hurts the magical corner of Marvel Comics.

And as you and gurkle stated before, I AGREE with you when rules can really bog down storytelling with tedious exposition. They're doing it in the MCU right now and it's SO boring. I think the exposition in Loki and WandaVision diminished those two shows. But if the MCU is gonna dive deep into time travel, alternate universes and magic in future phases, they have NO CHOICE but to do it. I just think general audiences are gonna lose patience with all this talking. I know I am.

Have you ever watched Midnight in Paris and/or Field of Dreams? Both of those movies use "time travel" and "magic" in them. And neither of them even attempt to explain why and how this happens. But for MOST viewers I imagine, the supernatural elements in those stories were things they didn't question. THAT'S magic to me. Good movies will do that to you. I know Woody Allen has pretty much been unofficially "cancelled" these days, but I really enjoyed his quote about nostalgia in Midnight in Paris:

"Nostalgia is denial - denial of the painful present... the name for this denial is golden age thinking - the erroneous notion that a different time period is better than the one one's living in - it's a flaw in the romantic imagination of those people who find it difficult to cope with the present."

I think the MCU is indulging in nostalgia in a way that's sort of unhealthy with all this time travel/multiversal stuff. Unfortunately, it makes them a lot of money. Ever since WandaVision concluded, I don't think the MCU has made ANYTHING with heart in it. They're just talking about how things work, what happened in past movies/shows/centuries, and discussing peoples' feelings. It's annoying.

As regards to the MoM, I think the creators should have just focused on Strange 1. It's his sequel. Strange's first movie is like a two-hour watch. And apparently much better than Strange 2. I will say this, I think it's actually kind of sick for Disney (of all companies) to create drama over a woman grieving the loss of her dead children. It was gross in the comic books and I think a lot of "casual" audience members who aren't into this kind of thing will be REALLY offended. But Marvel Studios just doesn't seem to care. They're already working on future projects as we speak. I'm PRAYING that Thor 4 doesn't make light of cancer, but if they DO do that, I think the MCU's future is in REAL jeopardy.

I don't know what MCU writers are paid to say that they need more money. I know that comic book writers have not been paid much over the years, and aren't paid much again when their stories are lifted for the MCU.

But despite pay, there are always good and bad writers. There are good writers that have bad stories and vice versa. I would not doubt that writers are underpaid at all. But that blame would still fall on Marvel and Disney. Just like them oking what happened in this film. Or happens sometimes in comics. There isn't just the writers that make these things.

I thought the idea that magic was broken was interesting but might not have been Aaron's idea. Strange fans don't like that he's always being depowered, controlled or losing his SS title. Which is valid. Marvel uses their magic users as a plot device too much.

MCU audiences aren't against dialog or anything. And judging from some reactions were confused about the stuff in Strange 2. So some explanation of the different types of magic, other than gold good, red bad would have been nice.

I don't think the multiverse stuff is even them going into nostalgia, because all the stories they've plucked from are modern for this.

[GenericUsername]

A corruption arc is necessarily a breakdown. It could have been about Chthon seducing her with power or something.

It's not the corruption nor a challenging arc. It's that it already happened with more depth and nuance than this cheesy movie. They even had Wanda reassured by her own self like she was with Monica. This was a far worse WV.

[Galerion]

Does comicbook Wanda have a resistance in getting posseased or evil by the Darkhold?

I know Orlando made Wanda say this in Darkhold Alpha but there are other comics where she said something similar?

That only her can control the true Darkhold

They way I see this scene and what followed is that if she would have read it like the others she would have also succumbed to it. I feel her dialogue here is more a hint of the plan that she had. I can certainly see that Wanda would be the only one who could actually contain the Darkhold in herself considering her connection to it and Chthon.

[MaximoffTrash]

Does comicbook Wanda have a resistance in getting posseased or evil by the Darkhold?

I know Orlando made Wanda say this in Darkhold Alpha but there are other comics where she said something similar?

That only her can control the true Darkhold

She never actually read any copy or pages before in the comics I think.
But generally skilled mages are resistant to the effects, Morgan Le Fay straight up pulled the plug on Chthon when things weren't working out well for her, Montesi family are naturally resistant and they have spells developed from Darkhold knowledge. Average mortal can be taken pretty easily though as shown in the 90s Darkhold comic.

[MaximoffTrash]

They way I see this scene and what followed is that if she would have read it like the others she would have also succumbed to it. I feel her dialogue here is more a hint of the plan that she had. I can certainly see that Wanda would be the only one who could actually contain the Darkhold in herself considering her contain to it and Chthon.

She was still using the Darkhold to contain Chthon though, also the original plan is basically "get a vaccine from Darkhold so you can be resistant to Chthon's influence later". Sure the plan didn't work out, but the original plan implies it is possible to "vaccinate yourself". Considering none of those recruits were mages, it kinda make sense the plan failed.

[MaximoffTrash]

In comics you originally could only be possessed by Chthon by reading the Darkhold in Wanda's lore. And originally the Darkhold wasn't a book linked to possession at all. It just granted wishes. So writers have taken a lot of liberties on it. And it doesn't seem to have one true canon.

It did contain the ritual to possess people I think.
Modred used the Darkhold to make Wanda and later Pietro possessed by Chthon, but neither of Wanda nor Pietro had to actually read the book.

[MaximoffTrash]

I hope mom doesn’t have long term negative affect on Wanda. She really can’t catch a break

I don't think those kinds of characters can suffer too permanent of damage, but it would waste a lot of time for them to recover.

[GenericUsername]

It did contain the ritual to possess people I think.
Modred used the Darkhold to make Wanda and later Pietro possessed by Chthon, but neither of Wanda nor Pietro had to actually read the book.

But the actual possession was by Chthon, where he is really missing here. Where this was boiled down to the book and Chthon is just mentioned.

[MaximoffTrash]

But the actual possession was by Chthon, where he is really missing here. Where this was boiled down to the book and Chthon is just mentioned.

Yeah, I thought we are just talking about the comics.
MoM's handling of those magic artifacts are generally just not that inspired.
While I don't really like Chthon possession plot that much(just the general them of Nights of Wundagore), the plot of MoM might as well be a straight up possession to save people some brain juice lol.
(I still think my failed writer as a villain story can reverse-uno the whole thing on Waldron lol.)

[gurkle]

But the actual possession was by Chthon, where he is really missing here. Where this was boiled down to the book and Chthon is just mentioned.

Apart from everything else that didn't make sense about the script, the effect the Darkhold has on Wanda is really unclear. Sometimes they act like it's her own choice, sometimes they act like "Wanda" and "The Scarlet Witch" are different people... and then of course she suddenly snaps out of it when the kids are afraid of her, which makes no sense even in this script, because why would that stop her? She's been so crazy and evil she would just rationalize it that the kids will stop being afraid once they realize she's right. Olsen and Raimi, probably deliberately, played it like Wanda was a different person for most of the movie and turned back into her old self at the last minute, but why? No one knows or cares.

It's such a mess and while "House of Harkness" may try to make sense of the Darkhold (even if Wanda doesn't appear in it), it's a waste of a movie and unsatisfying to everyone: even people who hate Wanda can't enjoy seeing her get her comeuppance because her behavior makes no sense.

I think the only way to enjoy this movie is to forget about character (Strange, or Wanda, or anyone) and just enjoy it as cheesy fun. I know people who enjoyed it but very few who think the story makes sense.