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I am not going to see this. I am not breaking up with Marvel in general, but (probably for obvious reasons, considering who this journal is for) I am really not pleased with what I've heard about this particular movie. I already went through this "previously well-intentioned but flawed but mostly heroic woman goes craaaazy and evil" routine with Game of Thrones (the last three episodes of which I also absented myself from, and which I did break up with) and I am, quite honestly, fed up with it.
From what I understand, Wanda does sort of redeem herself by way of heroic sacrifice, and her villainy is driven by the Darkhold, but I have a few thoughts about that:
1. She simply could have not read the Darkhold, or been powerful enough not to get corrupted by it. The writers chose to go down this path presumably mostly for shock value, not because it actually does anything to enhance the character or the world.
2. It is not a great look to have the source of her insanity be "I am going to get my kids back OR ELSE." That simply could have been achieved without insanity, if it was something that needed to happen at all.
3. Redemption but then you die is so lazy and overdone as a narrative feature.
4. Given Wanda's obvious mental health issues, suggesting that heroic suicide is a satisfying resolution to her character arc is problematic.
5. The fact that they had to introduce the Darkhold and essentially have Agatha dare her to read it in order to facilitate her villain arc says a lot... namely that they couldn't think of a more organic way to have her go evil, but they just really wanted to because they thought it would be super cool. It wasn't.
6. Having to turn her evil in order to give her narrative license to openly criticize Strange, which sounds like a very valid thing to do, is odd. Wanda has never been shy about criticizing other characters, especially men, and it also tries to call into question the validity of her opinion (which, as far as I can tell, is right and she should say it).
7. Don't love the xenophobia of her accent being stronger in this movie, where she is the villain!
8. Don't love what goes down with Peggy, Maria, and America! Don't love that her most significant onscreen interactions with other women outside of WandaVision are... this. Sorry to Peggy, Maria, and America.
9. Don't love the hints of, uh, blood libel. Yikes, my guy.
I will also point out that it is an even worse look for Marvel to have the character that starts this movie as the longest-standing female Avenger go crazy and then die in a heroic sacrifice... especially considering that their original longest-standing female Avenger, Natasha, also died in a heroic sacrifice pretty recently (which also wasn't great, considering her mental health issues and also considering the canonical reasoning). It's not like they've never had men die in heroic sacrifices, but when Tony did it he got a whole-ass funeral and people still talking about him several movies later.
This whole "woman goes crazy/evil and/or dies" thing is getting to be just a little too common. Even disregarding plots where a character is misled toward evil temporarily and then comes out of it (I'm thinking of, like, Daisy getting possessed by Hive in SHIELD season 3, or Nico veering toward Morgan Le Fay and then veering back) it's happening an awful lot with women and I'm not keen on it. Look back to SHIELD with poor Kara and poor Jiaying, or even AIDA, or hell, even Ruby. Look back to the Defenders group of shows, how they treated Elektra and Trish (and Hope, and Candace, and). Look at Sharon going evil and Karli getting shot in FATWS. Hell, I'm suddenly feeling less and less optimistic about Xialing in Shang-Chi.
And look at how both canon and fandom reacts to, say, Wanda versus how they react to Loki. Wanda, who has canonically explicitly been very abused and very manipulated and tends to feel very bad when she hurts people and tries to correct her mistakes, is written off by many fans as Irrevocably Bad even after the show that, in part, served to explain her trauma and not necessarily justify her actions but make sense of them. Then she's written into a movie as The Villain and right when she comes out of it she's written into a heroic suicide (despite the fact that she could simply have figured out some other way to destroy all of the Darkholds ever and then gone on to calm down and maybe learn how to do magic better from Wong). Loki, on the other hand, spends two movies being unrepentantly bad (though I know there's fanon about maybe he was coerced by Thanos to some degree) and then spends another movie being ambiguous, then "dies," then turns out to have been faking his death and impersonating his dad (a relatively bad thing to do I'd say), then is ambiguous for a while, then is heroic for a hot minute, then dies... and is loved so much by the fandom that he gets a show of his own that serves to let him go on a longer redemption arc and learn more about himself and basically just become more adored by the fans, so much so that he's getting a second season.
(I liked Loki, generally. I wasn't a Loki stan prior, and I'm not really one now, but the show did serve to make me like him and get him a lot more. I'm just pointing out the fandom hypocrisy.)
The point is: female characters sure do seem to suffer for their flaws and sins more than male ones do, both canonically and in fandom. Not great! Not loving it.
And yes, I know Wanda has had villain arcs in the comics. I just think that this film-canon one is unnecessary, out of nowhere, for shock value, misogynistic, and doesn't serve her character. She's already been made to suffer for her wrongdoing (often inordinately, in my opinion) and heaping on more dramatic wrongdoing for the sake of it, but then killing her off in an act of atonement, doesn't further the overall story. It is also not a terribly optimistic way to interpret her state of mind post-WandaVision, because the entire last episode of that show was about how you don't have to fall into your destiny and you can fight to do the right thing.
My hope at this point (knowing that Lizzie is probably going to be in more projects) is that because she died in a heroic sacrifice while purging the thing that was making her behave in an evil fashion, the universe will see fit to resurrect her in future movies, Sailor Saturn style (kind of - we don't need her to be a rapidly aging child). The Darkhold will be purged, the curse of the Scarlet Witch will be purged, and she'll just be a superhero who can just go about her business making amends and actually being treated not like shit, like she always should have been able to do.
Other options include: the arrival of a Wanda from a separate universe (maybe one where she's affiliated with the new X-Men? Maybe one where Pietro also still exists, as does he Magneto-related heritage?) or from earlier in the timeline (yoinked from either post-Endgame or post-all but the after-credits scene of WandaVision, probably) maybe because Strange and Wong or whoever realize they need a her for something and they decide maybe if they find a her from a different place/time and actually like, intervene before it's too late maybe they can fix it. The timeline one is less likely, but I think it would be really resonant, since another of my gripes with the MCU's treatment of Wanda in general is that they seem determined to isolate her from every possible support system: not only do her parents, Pietro, and Vision all die, two of her presumably closest friends (Steve and Natasha) also die, and Clint apparently just forgets to check in on her after Endgame, and any friendship between her and any other Avenger/ally isn't apparently strong enough that they check in on her ever, and what could have been a great relationship between her and Monica is just... dropped, and so on. Maybe if anyone tried to care for her even a little bit we wouldn't be in this position.
I also would like to point out that even in the comics after "no more mutants" she gets to come back from it. There's a whole series abut her learning more about herself and her powers and making amends by doing good things. She deserves that..
Also, I'm just gonna say it: it continues to have been Agatha all along. Agatha is the one who baited her, essentially tried to groom her, gave her access to the Darkhold and basically dared her to read it, etc. Agatha has also been torturing people and fucking shit up, of her own volition, since pilgrim times. Agatha is nothing but a villain, but I guess she was hot in an older lady way and funny, so she gets rewarded with her own TV show while Wanda's character gets assassinated and demonized.
Anyway. At this point I'm not even entirely sure I want canon to try to go down this path, because they've proven time and again that they see her as a cutie to be broken or a convenient scapegoat. Maybe I should just settle for knowing she made amends and do the fixing myself. But if Lizzie is coming back, and for her sake I hope she gets to so they can apologize to her for the mess they put her through, I have to hope it's so they can finally do Wanda justice.
Tl;dr I'm not seeing this movie and for the foreseeable future I will be playing Wanda post-WandaVision but with the understanding that A) she has not picked up the Darkhold or B) she has looked at the Darkhold but is stronger than it and is just going about her business.
From what I understand, Wanda does sort of redeem herself by way of heroic sacrifice, and her villainy is driven by the Darkhold, but I have a few thoughts about that:
1. She simply could have not read the Darkhold, or been powerful enough not to get corrupted by it. The writers chose to go down this path presumably mostly for shock value, not because it actually does anything to enhance the character or the world.
2. It is not a great look to have the source of her insanity be "I am going to get my kids back OR ELSE." That simply could have been achieved without insanity, if it was something that needed to happen at all.
3. Redemption but then you die is so lazy and overdone as a narrative feature.
4. Given Wanda's obvious mental health issues, suggesting that heroic suicide is a satisfying resolution to her character arc is problematic.
5. The fact that they had to introduce the Darkhold and essentially have Agatha dare her to read it in order to facilitate her villain arc says a lot... namely that they couldn't think of a more organic way to have her go evil, but they just really wanted to because they thought it would be super cool. It wasn't.
6. Having to turn her evil in order to give her narrative license to openly criticize Strange, which sounds like a very valid thing to do, is odd. Wanda has never been shy about criticizing other characters, especially men, and it also tries to call into question the validity of her opinion (which, as far as I can tell, is right and she should say it).
7. Don't love the xenophobia of her accent being stronger in this movie, where she is the villain!
8. Don't love what goes down with Peggy, Maria, and America! Don't love that her most significant onscreen interactions with other women outside of WandaVision are... this. Sorry to Peggy, Maria, and America.
9. Don't love the hints of, uh, blood libel. Yikes, my guy.
I will also point out that it is an even worse look for Marvel to have the character that starts this movie as the longest-standing female Avenger go crazy and then die in a heroic sacrifice... especially considering that their original longest-standing female Avenger, Natasha, also died in a heroic sacrifice pretty recently (which also wasn't great, considering her mental health issues and also considering the canonical reasoning). It's not like they've never had men die in heroic sacrifices, but when Tony did it he got a whole-ass funeral and people still talking about him several movies later.
This whole "woman goes crazy/evil and/or dies" thing is getting to be just a little too common. Even disregarding plots where a character is misled toward evil temporarily and then comes out of it (I'm thinking of, like, Daisy getting possessed by Hive in SHIELD season 3, or Nico veering toward Morgan Le Fay and then veering back) it's happening an awful lot with women and I'm not keen on it. Look back to SHIELD with poor Kara and poor Jiaying, or even AIDA, or hell, even Ruby. Look back to the Defenders group of shows, how they treated Elektra and Trish (and Hope, and Candace, and). Look at Sharon going evil and Karli getting shot in FATWS. Hell, I'm suddenly feeling less and less optimistic about Xialing in Shang-Chi.
And look at how both canon and fandom reacts to, say, Wanda versus how they react to Loki. Wanda, who has canonically explicitly been very abused and very manipulated and tends to feel very bad when she hurts people and tries to correct her mistakes, is written off by many fans as Irrevocably Bad even after the show that, in part, served to explain her trauma and not necessarily justify her actions but make sense of them. Then she's written into a movie as The Villain and right when she comes out of it she's written into a heroic suicide (despite the fact that she could simply have figured out some other way to destroy all of the Darkholds ever and then gone on to calm down and maybe learn how to do magic better from Wong). Loki, on the other hand, spends two movies being unrepentantly bad (though I know there's fanon about maybe he was coerced by Thanos to some degree) and then spends another movie being ambiguous, then "dies," then turns out to have been faking his death and impersonating his dad (a relatively bad thing to do I'd say), then is ambiguous for a while, then is heroic for a hot minute, then dies... and is loved so much by the fandom that he gets a show of his own that serves to let him go on a longer redemption arc and learn more about himself and basically just become more adored by the fans, so much so that he's getting a second season.
(I liked Loki, generally. I wasn't a Loki stan prior, and I'm not really one now, but the show did serve to make me like him and get him a lot more. I'm just pointing out the fandom hypocrisy.)
The point is: female characters sure do seem to suffer for their flaws and sins more than male ones do, both canonically and in fandom. Not great! Not loving it.
And yes, I know Wanda has had villain arcs in the comics. I just think that this film-canon one is unnecessary, out of nowhere, for shock value, misogynistic, and doesn't serve her character. She's already been made to suffer for her wrongdoing (often inordinately, in my opinion) and heaping on more dramatic wrongdoing for the sake of it, but then killing her off in an act of atonement, doesn't further the overall story. It is also not a terribly optimistic way to interpret her state of mind post-WandaVision, because the entire last episode of that show was about how you don't have to fall into your destiny and you can fight to do the right thing.
My hope at this point (knowing that Lizzie is probably going to be in more projects) is that because she died in a heroic sacrifice while purging the thing that was making her behave in an evil fashion, the universe will see fit to resurrect her in future movies, Sailor Saturn style (kind of - we don't need her to be a rapidly aging child). The Darkhold will be purged, the curse of the Scarlet Witch will be purged, and she'll just be a superhero who can just go about her business making amends and actually being treated not like shit, like she always should have been able to do.
Other options include: the arrival of a Wanda from a separate universe (maybe one where she's affiliated with the new X-Men? Maybe one where Pietro also still exists, as does he Magneto-related heritage?) or from earlier in the timeline (yoinked from either post-Endgame or post-all but the after-credits scene of WandaVision, probably) maybe because Strange and Wong or whoever realize they need a her for something and they decide maybe if they find a her from a different place/time and actually like, intervene before it's too late maybe they can fix it. The timeline one is less likely, but I think it would be really resonant, since another of my gripes with the MCU's treatment of Wanda in general is that they seem determined to isolate her from every possible support system: not only do her parents, Pietro, and Vision all die, two of her presumably closest friends (Steve and Natasha) also die, and Clint apparently just forgets to check in on her after Endgame, and any friendship between her and any other Avenger/ally isn't apparently strong enough that they check in on her ever, and what could have been a great relationship between her and Monica is just... dropped, and so on. Maybe if anyone tried to care for her even a little bit we wouldn't be in this position.
I also would like to point out that even in the comics after "no more mutants" she gets to come back from it. There's a whole series abut her learning more about herself and her powers and making amends by doing good things. She deserves that..
Also, I'm just gonna say it: it continues to have been Agatha all along. Agatha is the one who baited her, essentially tried to groom her, gave her access to the Darkhold and basically dared her to read it, etc. Agatha has also been torturing people and fucking shit up, of her own volition, since pilgrim times. Agatha is nothing but a villain, but I guess she was hot in an older lady way and funny, so she gets rewarded with her own TV show while Wanda's character gets assassinated and demonized.
Anyway. At this point I'm not even entirely sure I want canon to try to go down this path, because they've proven time and again that they see her as a cutie to be broken or a convenient scapegoat. Maybe I should just settle for knowing she made amends and do the fixing myself. But if Lizzie is coming back, and for her sake I hope she gets to so they can apologize to her for the mess they put her through, I have to hope it's so they can finally do Wanda justice.
Tl;dr I'm not seeing this movie and for the foreseeable future I will be playing Wanda post-WandaVision but with the understanding that A) she has not picked up the Darkhold or B) she has looked at the Darkhold but is stronger than it and is just going about her business.
