Ok so Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness sees Wanda chasing down America Chavez
in order to steal her powers so that she can be reunited with her kids.
Though some people are calling Wanda, Wanda-mentional, I think she’s the perfect villain for this
film which feels like the first horror hero movie we’ve had in the MCU.
I know her turn is very divisive but throughout this video I wanna argue why I absolutely
love her, the horror movies that Raimi pulled from to make her scenes even more intense
and why she’s one of my favourite comic book movie villains ever.
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With that out the way, thanks for clicking this now let’s get into why we think Wanda
is the perfect villain.
Now Wanda, she’s been through a lot in her life.
Not only did her home get blown up along with her parents in it she also ended up getting
experimented on by Hydra when she was very young.
This led into the events of Age Of Ultron where her brother was killed in front of her
which was then followed by Civil War where the whole world turned on her and blamed her
for killing lots of kids.
To add to that when Infinity War rolled around she had to murder the man she loved to save
the universe but this ended up proving to be pointless when Thanos brought him back
and killed him in front of her.
Then there was Wandavision where she ended up creating a perfect life for herself only
to have it all taken away.
Wanda has been through a lot and since she was first introduced all the way back in 2015
she’s arguably had the most tragic arc out of any Marvel character.
Now though there is criticism that she ended up doing a Daneyrs and going crazy all of
a sudden, you have to remember that she was out in the wilderness with the Darkhold for
months.
Most of the time whenever the devil is described in stories, he doesn’t come to you trying
to kill, his tactics are often way more subtle and this embodiement of evil is often just
someone who tempts us with giving up our morales in order to get what our heart desires.
That is very much what the Darkhold represents and whilst it corrupts Wanda it also promises
her with a better life.
It then gets it’s claws in Wanda which is why we find her buried under rubble inside
her own mind whilst the Scarlett Witch is showing up at breakneck speed.
In the film we discover that every universe other than the 616 has a version of her where
she’s happy with her kids and everynight Wanda goes to sleep dreaming of this better
life.
Upon waking up she’s faced with the cold hard truth and even without the Darkhold you
can see how this would break someone mentally.
Now Wanda, much like Age Of Ultron, was first introduced as a villain in the comics but
over the years we watched her transform into a hero before her power ended up proving too
much.
In stories like Avengers Disassembled and House Of M we’ve seen how she’s been someone
who can do exactly what she wants and there in lies her downfall.
Like Silas Stone says in Zack Snyder’s Justice League, the challenge isn’t doing it, it’s
not doing it.
Wanda is one of, if not the most powerful person in the universe and therefore she should
be able to have what she wants.
Now her being the villain here makes her the perfect opposite to Strange.
Wanda is unwilling to sacrifice what she wants for the greater good and she will happily
kill Dads on Mothers Day just cos there’ll be someone to look after the kids.
Juxtaposing this, Strange could’ve had a happy life but instead he sacrificed the timestone,
got dusted and came back 5 years later having found out that the love of his life had moved
on.
To make things worse her husband is a massive Doctor Strange fan and he ends up having to
stand at the wedding pretending to be happy watching her walk down the aisle.
Wanda also tempts him with another universe in which he can be with Christine but he turns
this down as the cost of killing America will be too great for him.
It puts them at complete opposite ends of the spectrum and shows two powerful magical
entities that could both have what they want but they decide for themselves to take different
paths.
Just before they meet at Karmar Taj Wanda says that it won’t be her that comes for
America, it’ll be the Scarlett Witch.
So her showing up at Karmar-Taj to tempt Stephen when she never did this at this forest is
showing the extent of her posession.
She’s using the same tactics that the Darkhold used on her in order to try and tempt Stephen
with a better life where he will finally obtain the happiness that he lies about having.
Now Wanda’s design in the movie is based heavily on a lot of Movie villains.
There’s Samara from the ring who’s infamous tv crawl she immitates when exiting the Mirror
Dimension, the Wicked Witch Of The West’s Haunted Forest trees that we somewhat see
at her home when the illusion is broken, elements of Carrie with the oil all over her face,
Terminator when she limps along after the heroes with her eyes glowing red similar to
how the machine did at the end of his first film, Snow White which we even see playing
on a tv in other Wanda’s home, The Exorcist when she appears from the corner and snaps
X’s neck and there’s a lot of references to past works.
It plants this idea in our head that she’s a classic horror monster who is completley
unstoppable.
When we did our analysis of The Batman we talked about how Matt Reeves leaned into villains
like Michael Myers and Jason Vorhees in order to give the idea to audiences that Batman
was somewhat of a supernatural being.
His slow walking was used to intimidate those that he faced and Wanda very much pulls from
those same archetypes.
Making her a one dimensional character also makes her a force of nature and whatever Strange
and co throw at her, she has the ability to get around or bounce back from.
I know there’s a lot of criticism about how the illuminati are handled in this movie
but personally I think that what they do is a brilliant way to make us realise just how
powerful that Wanda is.
For years fans have cried out for not only John Krasinskis to be fan cast as Mr. Fan-cast-ic
but we’ve also been desperate to see Professor X in the MCU.
These are given to us in the film and just when we think they’re gonna save the day
they’re ripped apart by Wanda, which also rips our hearts out in the audience.
Look, look at me, you can see the moment my heart breaks in two watching Professor X get
his neck broken.
I think everyone is gonna have a kind of knee jerk reaction to it at first but with the
X-men and Fantastic Four both getting movies in the future, I think it’s safe to say
that they’ll be back.
We will no doubt get them again and those who hate this might even come to appreciate
how much of an FU it is to fans.
Ey, Ralph Bohner showed us Feige likes to troll and watching Wanda drop the coldest
lines I’ve ever heard in a comic book movie just elevates this scene so much.
She drops the What Mouth line and bit about Sue Storm being there to raise Reeds kids
back to back and it shows how she will no longer let anyone stand in her way.
Now though it’s not really labelled as such, this film is very much a Versus movie.
We’ve had a number of them over the years like Godzilla Vs Kong, Batman V Superman,
Alien Vs Predator and so on and so on.
They’re very much a staple of big franchises and though I like them, I have to admit that
at this point they all follow the same sort of formula.
When Godzilla Vs Kong was first getting filmed I think we all knew that it would end with
the pair teaming up together in order to stop a bigger threat that was actually behind the
scenes controlling it all.
Most of the movies in the genre end with the two opposing teams putting their differences
to the side in order to fight a bigger bad guy and this was even somewhat the structure
that Marvel used for Captain America Civil War.
Many people even expected a secret villain in this and when those Chthon looking monsters
showed up in the trailers it seemed like that was what we were gonna get.
What Multiverse Of Madness does though is that it keeps The Scarlett Witch as the main
villain and because of this it doesn’t cheapen her in the end.
The Dark Knight Rises showed that you can often strip one of the main talking points
of your film if you do a bait and switch at the end and I think it was smart of Marvel
to just be like ‘nope, Wanda is the bad guy.’
The film ends with her coming face to face with her children and a version of her self
which she ends up attacking.
This scares her children so much that she realises the monster that she’s become and
lies through her teeth saying that she didn’t hurt anyone.
She’s then faced with a version of herself who is the mother that she should be rather
than the person she’s become.
She tells her that they’ll be loved which finally breaks Wanda and makes her realise
her wrongdoings.
Even in this moment Scarlett Witch is so powerful that she can only be defeated by herself and
this strategy to take her into the life she could’ve had makes her see where she’s
gone wrong.
At her core Wanda still is a hero even though we’ve just watched her brutally murder people
for two hours and over the last 7 years we’ve followed the growth of the character as she’s
went from villain to hero and back to being a villain.
She’s arguably been on the most complex arc out of any MCU character and pushing her
over the deepend like this was not only surprising, but damn right divisive and for good reason.
We often don’t wanna see the faults in the heroes that we respect but watching her corrupted
by her selfish attitudes very much acts as an example of us of what not to do.
This is also mirrored in Strange who could potentially be with a version of Christine
at the end of the film but he forgoes this because of the incursion that it would cause.
Strange is such a hero in this moment because Wanda has been such a big villain throughout
the movie and them being at opposite ends of the spectrum is the perfect way to drive
the narrative.
Wanda very much feels like shes a monster from an 80s kids movie back before everything
got heavily sanitised and the horror she brings in the film is used expertly to terrify not
only the characters in the film but also us as an audience.
It’s masterful storytelling that allows her to become the perfect villain that this
film needs and in the hands of anyone else I think that Wanda may have underdelivered.
Instead Elisabeth Olsen completely knocks it out the park and delivers whats probably
her most memorable performance in the MCU.
Scarlett Witch was incredible and hopefully I’ve helped to make you appreciate the movie
a little bit more if you came out of it not liking the choices that they made.
Obviously I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below so make sure you drop
them and just to let you know…
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If you want something else to watch then make sure you check out our breakdown of perfect
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We break down the entire thing so it’s definitely worth checking out if you wanna know more.
With that out the way thank you for sitting through the video, I’ve been Paul and I’ll
see you next time.
Take care, Peace