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Funny timing. I just finished rewatching WandaVision the other day. I remember liking it the first time, but it’s better once you’ve seen the films that come afterwards and know more about her character.
Knowing her character from the comics also helps fill out the narrative. I thought the leap from WandaVision to Dr Strange was a jarring heel turn, and I was hoping to get more of the conflicted and confused Wanda in VisionQuest, but now I don't want her to be in it at all.
If anything I thought the show treated her with kids gloves by the end. She did monstrous things to the people of the town. I cannot recall the exact line, it's been a while, but they described the type of torment it was.
The show was told from her perspective. She did monstrous things, but subconsciously. She was as much a victim as any of the other residents (save Agatha of course) and chose to sacrifice her family in order to release her victims. Even the memory-constructed Vision had the morality and humanity to talk her down from the horror she had created.
It was for sure an abrupt heel turn but I thought it was pretty well telegraphed. But I also do know her comics character so I could’ve just had a bias
It was definitely telegraphed, but it felt like they wanted to make it some crazy twist rather than actually show her character transition from tormented and chaotic to murderous villain.
I took her character as more being corrupted at that point than a "heal turn" honestly. Like she wasn't fully in control of herself by the time of MoM
I know they were going for corruption via the Darkhold, but considering the movie begins with her murdering Doctor Strange, it just felt abrupt to me. Like, we're fresh off the heels of her feeling really bad about what she inadvertently did to a bunch of innocent people in Westview, and then all of the internal conflict is just gone.
Hmm, idk she felt conflicted but certainly not BAD imo. She was internally still able to justify her actions. And then the post credit scene of Wandavision was her pouring over the darkhold and her hands started to get fucked up if I remember. If she's willing to use the darkhold then she surely stopped feeling bad if she ever did to begin with. Then not long after that is MoM
Certainly they could have paced things better, but it was just like everything else in this most recent phase, too fast and not enough explanation
TBF, she felt bad about torturing the town. But she was fully aware that they were being held captive. She was just delusional about them being happier under control without freedom. Once she accepted her reality, it didn't seem like a huge leap to her MoM self.
I'd have to watch it again, but my take was that she had subconsciously created Westview, and even when she realized what was happening, she was in deep denial and couldn't really control it. She didn't murder innocent people, especially friends and kids. She didn't even kill the soldiers threatening her family and desecrating her husband's corpse.
I don't know if she could control it. But she also never tried to. Regardless, she totally knew that they were trapped and she didn't care.
However, she was in denial about herself being good. She thought the trapped people were happy. Hence she also didn't murder. That delusion broke at the end of WV. People just assumed she would go good rather than going further off the deep-end. But with the Darkhold there was only one direction to go.
Nah, that character arc was a straight line.
If you know the character, you expect it.
If you know what the Darkhold is, you understand what's happening in that cabin.
But at the end of Westview, Wanda makes a heroic sacrifice. She's unwilling to keep a town enslaved to keep her family. She has to let go of her husband and her children to do the right thing.
Smash cut to MoM five minutes later, and she's murdering Doctor Strange, trying to murder America Chavez for her reality hopping power, and planning to murder her variant in another universe. It's not quite Anakin cutting down younglings, but it was unexpected based on what we actually see in the show and the movie.
WandaVision did a great job with her pathos and conflict. Multiverse of Madness skipped over the rest of her descent into the literal multiverse of madness. Sure, it's a straight line if you extrapolate all the interesting things that happened off screen. But that's the movie I wanted to see. Evil Scarlet Witch is just another generic villain with no redeeming qualities.
Imagine a version of that movie where Wanda starts as an actual ally, influenced by the Darkhold but still reeling from what she did, and what she lost, in Westview. She meets Chavez and realizes what she can reclaim. She reluctantly turns on the sorcerers of Kamar Taj, and then we see, rather than told, that she has been merciful up until that point. We see, rather than are told, the influence of the Darkhold, so that we understand what happens when Darkhold Strange shows up at the end, and what Hero Strange is risking by using it.
I liked the movie. It was OK. I just felt like they sacrificed a better movie to include a first act twist that everyone saw coming anyway.
WandaVision explains what the Darkhold is. Everyone who paid attention knew.