WandaVision - Disney+ (***Spoilers***)

Mr.Nice Guy wrote: »

I expect her to behave like a heroine since that's what she's written to be. She's not the only hero to go through immense trauma. Bruce Wayne loses his own parents in front of him too, sees those that fight alongside him suffer torture, lose their lives, but doesn't decide to take his pain out on Gotham - quite the contrary. And not to mention we've seen her fight with the Avengers before this, so she knows what it's like to fight on the right side. It's really not worth going through mental gymnastics to defend this.

You're also overlooking the fact that the 'they'll never know' line was uttered by Monica, who is supposedly the sane, sensible one. The one who is basically representing the viewer's perspective. It's a bit like Hitchcock at the end of Psycho trying to get the audience to sympathise with Norman, as opposed to the victims of his madness.

And you pointing out she's a witch brings up something that hadn't occurred to me - since she had the power to trap Agatha in a mind prison, shouldn't it be considered likely that she also has the power to make the town she mentally tortured forget their trauma? So not only did she not have the class to apologize, she couldn't even bother her backside to undo the damage she did!



Now you're just being pedantic. From Wikipedia:



And here's Paul Bettany on the only scene he contributed:



Call him what you want - android, synthezoid, the tin man - he can't have children over the space of a 24 hour period or whatever it was.

I'm reminded of The Simpson's gag relating to illogical things in shows like this: 'whenever you notice something like that, a wizard did it'. It seems the Marvel die-hard defence from now on is going to be: 'whenever you notice something like that, a witch did it.'



I like how you're happy to use scientific models to make a defence for Wanda's mind control, but apparently not when it relates to Vision reproducing!

That she suffered grief is not in dispute. What is being challenged is the idea that because of this grief the audience should forgive her extraordinary cruelty against an entire town who had nothing to do with it. That motivation is fine for a supervillain, but not a hero. You're going out of your way to defend this purely because it has Marvel's prints all over it.

It was mentioned earlier in the thread that Marvel are dealing with consequences for characters such as with Bucky's counselling. I'd like to see that tried with Wanda, attending a group therapy discussion for people who tragically lost their children. And after they get done talking about how they lost loved ones to a range of accidents, illnesses, etc. then Wanda can get up and say: 'I know how you all feel. I lost my imaginary boys - who I knew for a whopping fortnight - that I gave birth to with my inhuman husband. We're all the same.' I suspect that wouldn't go down too well because it's insulting.

Mr.Nice Guy wrote: »

My main hill is the whole 'let's feel sympathy for the selfish sod that tormented an entire town so she could act out her imaginary dream life.'

Big whoop that she is off having a mope somewhere. What about the mothers and the kids in the town that she used for her own selfish ends, and the years of therapy they will likely require to even have a chance at a decent life?

'Not everyone is good or bad' is a lazy excuse for her actions. As I mentioned previously, Bruce Wayne saw his parents killed in front of them and he didn't respond to that by taking out his pain on the innocent citizens of Gotham. That's the difference between a real hero and a psycho pretending to be one.

Mr.Nice Guy wrote: »

It's not good storytelling when the hero behaves like a supervillain and refuses to take ownership for the sh*tty things they've done. How do you not get this? Banner actually feels bad for the stuff that he does - that's why he doesn't want to transform! Winter Soldier didn't ask Tony Stark for sympathy or to think of how much he had to sacrifice when he murdered his parents. I'm not saying 'shades of grey', and characters having a dark past are always wrong. I'm saying the way Marvel did it with Wanda's characters was the sh*ts. It was laughably bad, to the point where millions of people are trying to make sense of it.

Imagine you were a mother in the town. You've experienced what Wanda went through as regards her grief. But you've also had your infant child separated from you for weeks, if not months. You have been deprived of your own freedom of thought. Your child is terrified of what has happened and you're looking at years of therapy ahead. And when you are finally free of it, you see Wanda dress herself in new red threads, imprison her foe in a mental prison, and then make absolutely NO effort to apologize for what she put your family through and everyone else, nor to try and fix it. Do you feel this is someone worthy of your sympathy? Be honest.

If Marvel want to make this halfway realistic, Wanda should be running away from more lawsuits than Harvey Weinstein. And even he faced the music.

Mr.Nice Guy wrote: »

'The world isn't all good or bad' is quite a defence for a character using her own grief to take over the minds of an entire town, including separating children from their parents, traumatising them to a degree many will never get over.

This isn't Wolverine-esque shades of grey here. This was a different level entirely, akin to something a villain would do. Her 'sacrifice' was giving up a fantasy of her own warped making, and she didn't even have the class to apologize or look to make amends for what she did, as she hovered away like a selfish coward.

Awful writing for an awful character.

Potential-Monke wrote: »

Some good arguments from both sides, but I think there's something missing here. A lot of the audience won't have kids, so may not be able to make the emotional connection between Wanda and her delusion-created-not-real-but-real-to-Wanda-and-those-under-the-Hex kids. I don't have/want/like kids, so that whole part was lost to me, and doesn't take away from the fact that she was, in effect, the villain of her own show. If you change it so that it was all Agatha's doing, there'd be no question. But because it's Wanda's doing, people want to find empathy with her. But she still committed an act that a villain would commit.

Yes, emotional distress, etc, but doesn't excuse it. Doesn't excuse the fact that she knew she was causing pain and distress to the residents but kept brushing it away, preferring to keep with her delusion. We see it multiple times, she changes reality to suit her when things are not going her way, from the bee-man scene to her 24 hour pregnancy to child birth, to the kids "growing up" instantly to suit the narrative. They were no more real than Vision, and we all know Vision was dead so he too was part of the delusion. She knew this, but still kept doing it, and only when she basically had no other option, she decided to end the delusion and break the hex.

But I do fully expect there to be some serious repercussions later on. They touched on it with other characters, but there's at least one villain coming from that town in the future. I also get the whole thing was because of grief and how she completely wrongly dealt with it, but it's hard to have empathy for her. It really is. Take away the kids and happy life delusion, and everything else was a negative for everyone else involved. If it were a real event, the vast majority would not feel sorry for her. They would rightly want to hold her to account, at the very least. I also don't understand how she could just walk away with all that external agencies involved and waiting for it to end. Maybe I wasn't paying attention enough at the end.

Also, do people really think she was just learning how to control her powers at the post credit scene? That came across way too evil to me. I don't think she's finished with this delusion. And someone mentioned above the kids will be back but as teens, so that's more or less a given if that's the case. At this stage, I think Marvel would be best to turn her into a recurring protagonist, a proper good villain. I just can't see how she can redeem herself to be a "good guy" again. Just like I think Bucky is not a good guy either, so no rush to see that series. I also just don't like him and think Winter Soldier is in the lower end of the MCU films, and I know that's not a popular opinion.

I'm not giving out about the writing, that doesn't usually bother me because I'm not learned enough to poke holes. But if they were going for an empathetic feel sorry for her approach, I didn't get that. I got the opposite.

pixelburp wrote: »

Finally watched through to the end of this; and my opinion didn't really sway in any strong direction ultimately. Certainly, there's an argument this was one of the more character-focused and emotionally meaningful MCU stories - but for one character really, and by the end, it completely reverted to type; failing to resist the desire to ultimately act as yet another bridge to future stories, and a launchpad for new characters. It just makes it all feel less like a story, and more like a product. It even broke out a Sky Beam during the crash-bang-wallop last acts. It's so, so very lazy as iconography goes, and I'm way past having an appetite for those kind of climaxes. It was admittedly brief, but still. Enough with the Sky Beams.

Those first three episodes truly were a chore to get through, and in the end, didn't really represent any interesting or strange direction the show's promotions had hinted. Were I really harsh I'd almost say this was as cookie-cutter as Ant-Man or any of the other shoulder-shrug, low effort MCU films, just with a clumsy metaphorical veneer. While moments like the Modern Family cutaways, or the contrived traffic stalling felt like the worst kind of padding: certainly, it fueled the feeling this was a feature film script elongated into a 9 episode series. Well, 6 episodes, given those first three were nothing. That perhaps was initially pitched as a MCU cinema-bound film, but with the advent of Disney+ got retrofitted into a series as a headline item for the service. I'd like to see if an enterprising editor could take the 9 episodes and condense this into a 2.5 hour film - without losing the important story or emotional beats.

I can't muster the enthusiasm for the Falcon/Winter Soldier show, being as it is yet another set of characters I care nothing for. Loki's where I'm pinning my hopes now; though he was always best used in small doses, so we'll see. I'm hoping Marvel at least use the apparent alternate universe it's set in, rather than stick riggedly to the MCU format.

I really dislike this new approach of making villains good guys, absolving them of wrong doing. The most grievous case being Jason Statham's heel about turn in the Fast franchise. I'm sceptical about this, we literally saw her drain the life from a whole coven of witches. The only thing I can see working is if they do an Agatha All Along series where we basically see her being behind various events throughout history but even then how do you not make her the protagonist.

When you look at her actions, has she really been a true villain? I think she is much more of a grey character, all we've seen her do that was villainous was absorb powers that killed a coven that was about to kill her and then try to take the powers of a witch who was holding an entire town hostage.

I think her continuing to do what is best for her in any show would be well within what we've seen from the character so far (somewhat Loki like).