Film / Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness

Spoilers for all Marvel Cinematic Universe works preceding this one will be left unmarked. You Have Been Warned.

Enter a new dimension of Strange.

"You break the rules and become the hero. I do it, I become the enemy. That doesn't seem fair."

— Wanda Maximoff/The Scarlet Witch

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is a 2022 Superhero Horror Dark Fantasy film and the follow-up to 2016's Doctor Strange. The 28th theatrical film (34th overall installment) of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the 11th entry in Phase Four, it also follows up on the events of WandaVision and Spider-Man: No Way Home. The film also marks both the return of director Sam Raimi to a Marvel property, coming fifteen years after the conclusion of the Spider-Man Trilogy, and the return of the trilogy's composer Danny Elfman to the MCU seven years after co-composing the soundtrack of Avengers: Age of Ultron.

After his botched attempt to restore Peter Parker's secret identity nearly resulted in a massive multiversal crisis, Doctor Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) must now prevent another one as he faces a new threat in the form of Wanda Maximoff/The Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen), who's been unable to cope with the loss of the children she materialized when she altered the reality of Westview and wants to be reunited with them at all costs. Wanda recklessly uses spells from the witchcraft book known as the Darkhold, which has the effect of corrupting her mind, and she's after America Chavez (Xochitl Gomez), a teenage girl who has the power to open portals to other parts of the Multiverse. It's up to Strange to protect Chavez from Wanda's multiversal rampage.

The cast also includes Chiwetel Ejiofor as Karl Mordo, Michael Stuhlbarg as Dr. Nicodemus West, Benedict Wong as Wong, Topo Wresniwiro as Master Hamir, and Rachel McAdams as Dr. Christine Palmer.

The film released in US theaters on May 6, 2022, with half of the international releases happening on May 4 and 5.

Previews: Teaser, Trailer

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Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness contains examples of:

Tropes A-C

• Aborted Arc: The Stinger of the first film is not addressed other than Strange implying he's fought Mordo over the years off-screen; given the nearly decade-long time gap between the films (in-universe), this makes sense.
• Accidental Misnaming: When 616-Strange learns Blackagar Boltagon's name, he expresses incredulity at the name and mispronounces it as "Blackagar Boltagard" when he tries to repeat it.
• Actor Allusion: Once again, Bruce Campbell's hand is possessed and attacks him.
• Actually Pretty Funny: Reed Richards visibly smiles after Strange makes fun of the name "Fantastic Four" by asking if he and his team "charted in the '60s".
• Adaptational Diversity: The Illuminati, in the comics, consisted entirely of white males in its first incarnation, and even then, only one woman and two people of color joined in subsequent iterations. Here, the group includes two women and two people of color from the get-go. Downplayed, as the disabled Charles Xavier is a member of the group in both the film and the source material.
• Adaptational Villainy: Wanda gets this again, to a greater extent than even Avengers: Age of Ultron. As bad as her “No More Mutants” moment in House of M was, comic Wanda still didn’t ruthlessly butcher her way through other universes just to reunite with her sons. Also, unlike the comic, Wanda here made all these horrible choices pretty much entirely under her own volition (with at most the Darkhold affecting her already volatile state of mind), instead of it being the result of her being manipulated by other characters and suffering several mental breakdowns as it was in the comic version.
• Advertised Extra: Michael Stuhlbarg is billed on the poster, despite the fact that he appears in one scene at the very beginning. In fact, he does less in this film than he did in the last!
• An Aesop: Life might not be perfect, but it's best to find happiness in what you do have rather than be miserable by focusing solely on what could have been.
• Aesop Amnesia: To say that Wanda didn't learn her lesson from WandaVision would be dramatically understating things. Justified and reinforced in that the Darkhold corrupts the minds of those who read it, and Wanda (who has a very long Trauma Conga Line) was still in a fragile state of mind after the events of WandaVision. Even after accepting Vision's death, she was solely focused on finding the variants of her sons who are still alive.
• Agony of the Feet: When Wanda attacks the Illuminati, she doesn't wear shoes, due to her taking over her Earth-838 counterpart while she's sleeping at home. The ensuing battle causes a mess of broken glass to hit the floor, and while it does slow Wanda down for a bit, it doesn't stop her (if anything, her hobbling makes her look even scarier).
• All for Nothing:
  • As Wanda bitterly notes during her assault on Kamar-Taj, she had to obliterate the head of the love of her life in order to prevent Thanos from getting the Mind Stone, and it meant nothing since the Mad Titan could simply rewind time to undo her actions.
    • Everything Wanda does in this film ends up being for naught as well. After slaughtering her way through Kamar-Taj and the Illuminati, possessing and traumatising her Earth-838 self, and repeatedly torturing and attempting to kill America, she finally reunites with Billy and Tommy... who immediately scream and flee in terror. This rejection is what finally triggers her Heel Realization.
  • Illuminati Strange began using the Dreamwalking from the Darkhold, seeking a way to stop Thanos. Not only did he not succeed, he accidentally destroyed an entire universe in an effort to save part of his own.
  • The second act ends with a futile attempt to get to the book of Vishanti, which is destroyed as they reach it.
• All There in the Manual: Stephen-838, Wanda, and, back in WandaVision, Agatha all end up with blackened fingers thanks to their use of the corrupting magics of the Darkhold. Stephen ends up with an eye in the middle of his forehead. Look around and you'll find that the blackened fingers are due to the fact that the Darkhold isn't just a collection of spells, but a ritual meant to turn the user into a host for the rebirth of the God of Evil, Chthon. Stephen's third eye is the Third Eye of Agomotto protecting him. This doesn't explain why Sinister Strange also had the eye. Probably Raimi was just using all of the elements from the comics for full Body Horror rather than hewing closely to their canon.
• All Your Base Are Belong to Us: Wanda attacks the sorcerers' home base Kamar-Taj single-handedly and wins.
• Alternate Self: Plenty of them given that the film is named "Multiverse of Madness." The most prominent ones in the film are Strange's variants, "Defender Strange", "Sinister Strange", and "Supreme Strange". There's also the Earth-838 version of Wanda, whom 616-Wanda possesses in order to attack the Illuminati to find Chavez.
• Alternate Tooniverse: Strange and America briefly pass through a universe where they become rotoscoped animated characters.
• Alternate Universe: Strange and America pass by several of these, including an animated one, one in black and white, one where dinosaurs still roam the Earth, and even what appears to be Hell itself. Earth-838, the one we spend time in, is not only a universe where the Fantastic Four and X-Men freely coexist with the Avengers, but the meanings of red and green lights are reversed, there is plant life everywhere, there is much more advanced technology, and it in general seems to be a much better place than most universes.
• Ambiguous Situation:
  • Strange suggests that Earth-838's Mordo planted the Darkhold on his version of Strange, which led to the latter's destruction of an alternate universe and Mordo becoming Sorcerer Supreme in turn. Mordo does not confirm or deny it, and the film does not give a definitive answer.
  • The existence of at least one rotoscoped cartoon universe raises the possibility that the worlds seen in What If…? (2021) are actually like that as well, rather than it just being the medium.
• And I Must Scream:
  • In 616-Wanda's mind, 838-Wanda appears to be stuck under rubble of her childhood home (i.e. perpetually trapped in one of the most traumatic moments of her life) as 616-Wanda dreamwalks in her body, trapped and unable to do anything about it.
  • Black Bolt's final moments before being killed by his own power, courtesy of Wanda literally removing his mouth.
• And Starring: With Michael Stuhlbarg and Rachel McAdams.
• And the Adventure Continues: The mid-credits stinger ends with Strange and a mysterious new ally (Clea) going through a portal to fix an incursion he caused, which apparently seems to be happening in the Dark Dimension.
• Animate Dead: One of the many evil spells contained within the Darkhold allows a sorcerer to possess the corpses of the damned. Our hero, Dr. Strange, is desperate enough to use this spell to take control of the corpse of his alternate self to fight Wanda.
• Anti-Magic: At one point, Strange is restrained by a pair of cuffs powered by the Sands of Nisanti which negate his powers. This forces him to rely on his guile and his martial arts skills for a short while.
• Anti-Villain: The Scarlet Witch has the sympathetic goal of reuniting with variants of her children. But she commits many brutal atrocities, including mass murder, along the way and tries to kill a young teenager to achieve her goals, under the corrupting influence of The Darkhold.
• Apocalypse Maiden: This movie confirms Agatha's theory in WandaVision that Wanda is destined to rule or destroy the multiverse. Mount Wundagore and the Tomb of the Damned, origin of the Darkhold, was created as her throne, complete with bas relief carvings depicting her, personally.
• Apologetic Attacker: A flashback depicts 838-Black Bolt killing 838-Strange by saying, "I'm sorry."
• Arc Words: "Are you happy?" Stephen is asked this by his universe's Christine at her wedding and later by 838-Christine. Both times he claims he is, but Sinister Strange calls him out on the lie. At the end of the movie, Stephen asks the question of Wong, who admits he wonders if alternate versions of him are happier but that he's content with the universe he lives in.
• Armor-Piercing Question:
  • Dr. Nicodemus West's question to Strange if there was really only one way to beat Thanos. Although the question has him visibly shaken, he assures him there was.
  • Stephen asks Wanda what she intends to do with the real mother of the Billy and Tommy she plans to claim as her sons. Wanda does look disturbed for a moment.
• Armor-Piercing Response: Strange and America all give Wanda one on her goal. Strange argues that she essentially wants to kidnap the kids from their real mother, and America responds to Wanda saying her kids won't know what she's done by saying that she always will.
• Artifact of Hope: The Book of Vishanti is a "magical book of pure good" that gives the reader the answers to whatever problems they are having (usually in their fight against evil), being the Counterpart Artifact to the Darkhold.
• Aside Glance: Wanda looks directly into the camera for a moment after managing to take control over her 838 variant.
• Ask a Stupid Question...: Not Wong's but Stephen's in response.
  Wong: How are you doing?
  Strange: Why do you ask?
  Wong: You used the Darkhold to Dreamwalk into your own corpse.
  Strange: Oh. Right.
• Asshole Victim: Even with as gruesome as it is, watching the Illuminati get totally owned by Wanda is pretty satisfying, given the way they completely blew off Stephen's concerns, imprisoned him and America, and treat him as the bigger danger. Nobody shed any tears for them.
• Baby Be Mine: After America Chavez goes to Dr. Strange for help, Strange consults Wanda "The Scarlet Witch" Maximoff about what she knows about The Multiverse, and Wanda reveals that following the events of the Westview, N.J. incident, she became obsessed with raising a family. So, when Wanda stumbled onto Universe-838, she saw that the Wanda of that universe was raising a set of Billy and Tommy, and she came up with a plan to use America's power to go get the Billy and Tommy from Universe-838, and raise them as if they were her own sons.
• Back for the Dead:
  • Thanos in a sense, or at least an alternate version of Thanos (sharing his main-timeline counterpart's exact look) during the flashback to the aftermath of Earth-838's Battle of Titan.
  • Similarly, Patrick Stewart reprises his role as Professor X (or rather, an identical Variant) for the first time since 2017's Logan, only for the character to be brutally killed off by Wanda.
• Badass Cape: Strange manages to harness the Souls of the Damned that were attacking him, turning them into a giant cloak of writhing bodies that he can use to fly to Mount Wundagore.
• Bait-and-Switch: Twice with 838-Mordo. As Strange warns America about 616-Mordo's hatred of him, 838-Mordo approaches them... then cheerfully greets Stephen like an old friend, showing no animosity towards him whatsoever. It seems this Mordo will be much less antagonistic... until he drugs their tea, allowing him to take them to the Illuminati, where they will potentially be executed to prevent an Incursion like the one 838-Strange caused.
• Batman Cold Open: The film opens with Stephen and America being pursued by and fighting an unknown monster. Then Stephen wakes up and the plot gets underway.
• Batman Gambit:
  • Seeing the similarities between him and his Earth-616 counterpart, Strange taunts the 838-Mordo to make him lose his temper and attack him. Strange is able to use that impulsive act to free himself from his bonds.
  • As part of the above, Stephen speculates that 838-Mordo planted the Darkhold on his Strange, with the implication that he knew or hoped Strange, in his arrogance and ego, would use the tome, that it would corrupt him, and that his downfall and/or death would allow Mordo to claim the mantle of Sorcerer Supreme for himself. 838-Mordo neither confirms nor denies this alleged Batman Gambitry.
• Battle in the Center of the Mind: 838-Xavier goes deep into 838-Wanda's mind to free her from 616-Wanda's control. Sadly, it doesn't end well for him; 616-Wanda wins with a Jump Scare amidst a self-made cloud of red mist behind him wherein she snaps his neck...which also snaps the poor professor's neck at the same time in real life.
• Beam Spam: Wanda shows how far she's come by combining this with precision, firing off sprays of disintegration beams.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: Scarlet Witch spends the entire movie trying to look for her children in another universe. By the time America Chavez takes her to the kids that she's been searching for, they're understandably horrified of the monster that this version of their mother has become.
• Beware the Superman: The film shows that the raw power possessed by our heroes is a scary thing when used uncontrollably and irresponsibly.
  • Earth-838 Strange's carelessness with magic caused an entire universe to be destroyed.
  • Wanda goes to horrific magical lengths to achieve her goals in this film, including brutally killing several heroes and chasing a child across the multiverse. When her actions terrify alternate versions of her own children, whom she had spent the entire film desperately searching for, she realizes how far she's gone.
• Big Bad: Wanda Maximoff/the Scarlet Witch, who is now corrupted by the Darkhold and became obsessed with reuniting with her children, which drives her to commit many brutal murders and try kidnapping America Chavez. Other villains also exist, but it is her actions that drive the plot.
• Big Bad Friend: In order to stop the multiversal demon chasing after America Chavez from stealing her powers of multiverse travel, Strange goes to Wanda for assistance, asking her to come to Kamar-Taj to help them since she's one of the strongest Avengers and a powerful magic user who helped them defeat Thanos. Wanda counters by offering to host America at her farm instead, but in making the offer she ends up accidentally outing herself as the one trying to steal America's powers and thus the Big Bad of the film.
• Bittersweet Ending: The film ends on a mixed bag for the leads.
  • On the "bitter" side, both Stephen and Wanda lose their loved ones with little chance of getting them back. Stephen and America are able to convince Wanda to free herself from the Darkhold's influence and accept her children can never be brought back nor should variants of them be stolen from their own mothers, but the despair and remorse she feels is too great and she collapses a mountain on top of herself, seemingly ending a grief-filled character arc. Stephen also has to accept that he can't be with Christine, but admits that he still will always love her.
  • On a global scale, the Darkhold and the Tomb of the Damned are destroyed by a repentant Wanda, eliminating a huge mystical threat from all universes. However, The Masters of the Mystic Arts and Kamar-Taj suffer heavy losses, and the Avengers (or a comparative superpowered protector group) have yet to reform, leaving Earth's defenses weakened (and down one more powerhouse after Wanda took herself out). Earth-838 also loses its greatest defenders, the Illuminati.
  • But on the "sweet" side, America trains at Kamar-Taj and has obviously bonded with Wong and Stephen, who is moving on from Christine. Stephen has more adventures to go on with Clea.
• Black Comedy: When Strange kills Gargantos, its eye comes out with a Pop!.
• Black Comedy Burst: When Wong asks if burying Defender Strange on some rooftop is disrespectful, our Stephen responds that he's "buried worse".
• Black Dude Dies First: Double Subverted. Sara, who is black, seems to be the first character in Kamar-Taj that we know anything about who dies; she then turns out to not be dead, only to make a Heroic Sacrifice and get burnt to a crisp seconds later.
• Blatant Lies: "I wouldn't hurt anyone." Nobody's buying it, Wanda, after everything you've done over the course of this film.
• Bloodier and Gorier: Perhaps the most gruesome MCU movie to date, most notably with Wanda's rampage on the Illuminati, especially with the way Black Bolt blows up his own head when Wanda seals his mouth.
• Body Horror: As is tradition for a Sam Raimi film.
  • At one point in the intro, Defender Strange gets impaled through the thigh by the demon pursuing him and America, after which we're treated to a close-up of the necrotic wound on his leg festering and spreading.
  • In her meditation scene, Wanda's fingertips can be seen to have turned black, similar to what happened when she was attacked by Agatha's dark magic at the end of WandaVision.
  • At one point when breaking uncontrollably through several universes, Strange and America Chavez float in a dimension where their bodies and faces look "diced up", with some parts seeming like they belong to someone else or were put in the wrong place.
  • During the fight at Kamar-Taj, Wanda exits from the Mirror Dimension with her body contorted (that she later rejoints with an audible crack, all of which is seen on-screen) while also walking on all four limbs backwards.
  • Half of the Illuminati is killed by Wanda in grotesque ways.
    • Black Bolt's mouth is removed just before he was about to unleash a sonic shout, forcing him to scream and explode his own brain from within.
    • Mr. Fantastic attempts to use his powers, but his body gets shredded into spaghetti-like strands and his head explodes.
    • Captain Carter is severed in half at the hip by her own shield, leaving her legs standing on their own in the background.
  • Strange's possession of a corpse is... not a pretty picture, either — a few of his fingers are bent the wrong way (fixing themselves with precisely the sound one would expect) and some flesh is missing from his jaw.
• Body Motifs: Eyes. There are several close-up shots of people's eyes, and special attention is placed on Wanda's Red Eyes, Take Warning and the third eye that more than one Strange develops when corrupted by the Darkhold. Of course, there's also Gargantos, the giant eyeball monster at the beginning of the film. (Oddly, though, the Eye of Agamotto isn't given that much focus.)
• Bookends:
  • Wanda gets a dark one to Avengers: Age of Ultron. If the Scarlet Witch does indeed die in the temple's collapse, then Wanda exits the MCU the same way she entered it during Ultron — as a tragic villain who, in the pursuit of her short-sighted goals, not only loses her family (for a second time now), but once more leaves behind a trail of death and destruction in her wake.
  • Wanda's entire journey as the Scarlet Witch ended the same way it began: a collapsed structure, with Wanda buried under a pile of rubble, using magic to stop a dangerous weapon.
  • The film begins with Defender Strange and America escaping a being trying to siphon America's power, only for Strange to try and take America's power for himself, for the "greater calculus of the multiverse." At the climax, America is again face-to-face with Defender Strange in a conflict over her power, but this time America is willing to give up her power to "Defender Strange" — in fact, the mainstream Strange piloting Defender Strange's corpse — for the greater good, while Strange is unwilling to make that sacrifice.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: Campbell's cameo as "Pizza Poppa" in the second end credits scene is the most overt use of this trope in MCU history. The spell Strange cast on him causing him to hit himself over and over again finally wears off, and he looks directly into the camera and says "It's over!", right after which the film ends.
• Brick Joke: The Pizza Poppa vendor (played by Bruce Campbell) whom Strange curses when he and America reach Earth-838. The curse finally wears off in The Stinger.
• Call-Back: Has its own page.
• The Cameo:
  • Longtime collaborator of Sam Raimi Bruce Campbell as the "Pizza Poppa" vendor in Earth-838.
  • Raimi's signature Oldsmobile, "The Classic", appears in the incursion-decimated universe.
  • The Living Tribunal can be seen as America Chavez and Strange portal jump.
  • Charlize Theron as Clea in The Stinger.
  • The Illuminati of Earth-838 were able to complete Stark's ULTRON program, and installed it into their robotic sentries, with Ross Marquand being the voice of the sentry.
• Cameo Cluster: "The Illuminati", Earth-838's equivalent of the Avengers, includes John Krasinski as Reed Richards, Patrick Stewart as Professor X, and Anson Mount as Black Bolt, the latter two also being an Intercontinuity Crossover with the X-Men Film Series and Inhumans, respectively. They get about 15 minutes of screentime before getting killed off brutally.
• Camp: The film's style of horror is this. As while the gore and violence can be terrifying, it's also very over-the-top and a little ridiculous, making it quite comical as a result. Given how the film is directed by Sam Raimi though, this was most likely intentional.
• Candlelit Ritual:
  • Wanda is performing a ritual that involves a circle of candles while she uses the Darkhold to dreamwalk.
  • Stephen later performs the same ritual with even more candles when he dreamwalks inside Defender Strange's corpse to save America from Wanda.
• Cannot Dream: America reveals that she cannot dream because, with dreams being established as multiversal windows, she does not exist in other universes.
• Captain Ersatz: Gargantos, which, while the name of a green, one-eyed tentacled monster in the comics, is clearly meant to be Doctor Strange foe Shuma-Gorath, whose name couldn't be used due to licensing problems.
• Casting Gag:
  • In the Japanese dub, this is not the first time a character voiced by Akari Kitou (as America) is being pursued by demons.
  • This isn't the first time Scott Spiegel has voiced the demonic spawn of an equally demonic book.
• Casual Danger Dialogue: The movie atypically averts this trope for the MCU, as for the most of the fight scenes have very little frivolous lines. But played straight in the scene where Strange and Wong's battle Gargantos, where they casually talk about the customary of bowing.
• Catapult Nightmare: Strange bolts awake in a cold sweat after his "dream" about Defender Strange and America.
• Central Theme: Loneliness, companionship, and learning to truly accept your lot. Both the main protagonist and main antagonist start the film having lost the one they loved the most, which visibly shapes their personality. Both are aware of each other's pain quite acutely, as they both are similarly struggling to cope with what they had lost, and they try to make one another concede because they could understand what they are feeling, resorting to force only when it was clear neither would bend to the other. By the end of the film, the two of them have finally confronted their source of angsts, with differing results: Strange accepts life with his new companions and friends, while Wanda, unable to cope with the grief and her murderous rampage, decides to bring down Wundagore and destroy the Darkhold in the process.
• Chekhov's Gunman: A Chekhov's Boomerang variant. The movie opens with Dr. Strange having a dream where some other version of himself dies and falls into a portal. Chavez uses the corpse to tell Dr. Strange that the dream itself was real. Much later, the corpse of this alternate self is later possessed by Strange to allow Strange to fight the Scarlet Witch while trapped in another universe.
• Cherry Tapping: 616-Doctor Strange and Sinister Strange battle using music notes and staves, mostly from sheet music. 616-Strange adds a tiny harp note to the pile of magic, causing the whole mix to explode.
• Clean Cut: Stephen bisects a bus thrown by Gargantos toward him and Chavez right down the middle with a magical saw.
• Color-Coded Wizardry: Strange and the other sorcerers of Kamar-Taj continue to use spells that take on a bright orange coloration, while Wanda's magic is bright red with touches of black, and America Chavez's powers are bright blue. When Strange meets Sinister Strange, his magic is purple, and Defender Strange's magic in the opening sequence is light blue. The shackles that cancel a sorcerer's spells are lit green. All these examples (excepting Defender Strange, whose may be due to interaction with America) continue the thematic color-coding of the Infinity Stones; Kamar-Taj magic is practiced by a monastic sect (Soul), Wanda's powers are world-altering (Reality), America's allow for travel across the multiverse (Space), Sinister Strange taps raw energy (Power), and the Sands of Nisanti come from a magic hourglass (Time).
• Company Cross References: 838-Billy and Tommy are seen watching an Oswald the Lucky Rabbit cartoon, and later, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
• Conservation of Ninjutsu: After managing to find a single opening, Wanda wipes the floor with a small army of the Masters of the Mystic Arts, leaving known major characters Stephen and Wong to face her head-on. They fare slightly better, in that they manage to slow her down. She doesn't manage to kill them, but she does force them to run, hide, or give in to her demands.
• Continuity Drift: Played with. The film further explores the multiverse concepts from Spider-Man: No Way Home and What If...?, but none from Loki.
• Continuity Nod:
  • Stephen tells America that he has had some experience with the multiverse involving Spider-Man.
  • Wong reminds Strange that he is the new Sorcerer Supreme, after we learned that fact from him telling it to Peter in Spider-Man: No Way Home.
  • When Wanda is attacking Kamar-Taj, she preys on one man's fear in the same manner she did with the Avengers in Age of Ultron.
  • After America and Strange are flung through multiple universes, America notes how composed Strange is, and comments how most people puke after such an experience. Strange mentions that it isn't his first time, a reference to how the Ancient One flung him through multiple universes in Doctor Strange (2016) for his attitude and to prove magic is real. He hurls immediately after.
• Continuity Snarl: Our Doctor Strange's universe is given the designation Earth-616. In the comics, this universe has already been designated Earth-199999 and Earth-616 is instead used for the main comic universe.
• Contrived Coincidence:
  • Strange just happens to dream about America right before he meets her for real, giving him a head start on understanding what's going on.
  • It's a plot point that prompts Strange's "Eureka!" Moment. America repeatedly claims she can't control her powers, but Strange realizes that every time she's used her powers, she ended up going to a dimension where she could get help. This leads him to conclude she can control her powers, at least subconsciously, and if she believes in herself and focuses she'll be able to control them properly.
• Cosmic Horror Story: While the first film can generously be called an Urban Fantasy film, this leans more into an off-the-wall Lovecraft story. Sure our protagonists have a better chance at fixing things than the typical genre-protagonist, but pretty much every hero in the film has a moment of weakness that shows that they are all equally likely to turn evil under the right circumstances, the film's Big Bad being a Tragic Monster that actually was a genuine superhero. There are various types of Eldritch Abominations that appear, Acid-Trip Dimensions, all dreams are revealed to be people witnessing the lives (and deaths) of their own variants, there is a Tome of Eldritch Lore wielded by an Apocalypse Maiden (herself the MCU answer to The Antichrist) that goes on a killing spree across universes (accomplishing a lot of this through Demonic Possession), there is an insane variant of Stephen who forces his own variants to kill themselves For the Evulz, Stephen is nearly Dragged Off to Hell on his first attempt at using the Darkhold and entire universes have collapsed in on themselves after repeat exposure to other realities.
• Costume Evolution:
  • Wanda's Scarlet Witch costume has considerably evolved from her last appearance in WandaVision. The costume now has sleeves and more texture, while the crown appears slightly larger and sits lower on her forehead. This change, along with her darkening makeup and the blackened fingertips, is a reflection of her darker turn after the events of WandaVision.
  • The good doctor himself sports a new blue tunic, the first major change since his introduction, while also wearing the Eye of Agamotto higher up on his chest. The Cloak of Levitation gets a blue panel on the back when it is repaired after it's damaged by a blast from Wanda.
• Counterpart Artifacts: The Book of the Vishanti is expressly stated to be the Good Counterpart to the Darkhold; while the Darkhold is an Artifact of Doom that gives the reader exactly what they want (usually unlimited power) and turns them evil in the process, has a bad tendency of changing hands, is intrinsically tied to the lore of the Scarlet Witch, and glows an ominous red, the Book of the Vishanti is an Artifact of Hope that gives those who read it exactly what they need, has been locked away in a Void Between the Worlds to keep it out of evil hands, is implied to be connected to America Chavez's portal-generating abilities, and glows a heavenly blue.
• Creator Cameo: Writer Michael Waldron appears as the best man at Christine's wedding.
• Creepy Changing Painting: Shortly before Wanda Dreamwalks into her 838 variant, 838-Wanda briefly sees a photo of herself smiling, only for that version of her to drop the smile and menacingly stare at her.
• Creepy Crows: There is a moment in the film where a black raven sits in the darkness amidst bare roots and branches and hisses at the camera.
• Creepy Good: 616-Strange takes a level in this in the film's climax, using the Darkhold to possess Defender Strange's corpse and take control of a small army of damned souls in order to fight Wanda.
• Cruel and Unusual Death:
  • The monster Gargantos is stabbed in the eye with a broken street light pole by Strange, which is then yanked out, taking the beast's eye along with it.
  • Master Sara Wolfe is slowly and agonisingly reduced to a charred shell of a person by the power unleashed by the Darkhold when she stabs it.
  • Black Bolt is killed when Wanda removes his mouth after he drew in a breath. With no other option, he lets out a horrified shout that tears his skull apart from the inside out, his head visibly caving in on itself.
  • Mr. Fantastic is killed after Wanda turns his entire body into thinly stretched out pieces and makes his head explode.
  • Captain Carter dies after she is bisected with her own shield.
• Cruel Twist Ending: Subverted. Despite every copy of the Darkhold in the multiverse being destroyed, Strange still ends up corrupted by his brief use of it and ends the movie screaming in pain and opening his third eye. Then the first post-credits scene happens and Strange is perfectly fine and comfortable with his third eye.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Just about every battle against the Scarlet Witch. Even Doctor Strange can barely fight her, and America's newfound power only works on her for less than a minute.
• Curb Stomp Cushion: Only Maria Rambeau Captain Marvel and a possessed Defender Strange have any sort of meaningful impact on Wanda, but they're both ultimately defeated.

Tropes D-I

• Dangerous Forbidden Technique: Any spell from the Darkhold counts as they are very powerful but using the book itself corrupts the mind. One such technique allows magic users to Body Surf via "dreamwalking", which consists in projecting one's consciousness to take over another version of oneself in a parallel universe. Wanda and Doctor Strange use it, but Strange one-ups Wanda by also possessing the corpse of a dead counterpart. This also incurs the wrath of the souls of the damned, who attack Strange as soon as he does the deed.
• Dare to Be Badass: Stephen's little pep-talk to America was to encourage her to use her portal-opening abilities to defeat Wanda.
• Dark Is Not Evil: The movie ends with Strange possessing a corpse with a cape made of the souls of the damned to fight Wanda.
• Dark Messiah: The Scarlet Witch. When Wanda reaches Mount Wundagore, where the spells of the Darkhold were inscribed by Chthon — the first demon — she learns that it isn't just a stone spellbook. The guardians bow to her and the unholy temple is revealed to be a throne from which she is to rule the multiverse.
• Darker and Edgier: The film is a lot darker than most MCU films, featuring a good deal more violence and horror elements. While there's a few jokes and snark, the atmosphere as a whole is tense and oppressing, death (an element that most MCU movies tended to avoid, or glamorize) is presented as brutally and unexpectedly as possible, and the source of the conflict is not an epic match of good vs evil, but rather a grieving mother going off the deep end. It's also the only movie so far where a superhero (Wanda) actually becomes the Big Bad, later killing most of the sorcerers at Kamar-Taj, and then killing nearly all of the Illuminati.
• Dead Alternate Counterpart:
  • An alternate version of Strange is killed in the prologue, with his corpse dropping into the "main" world to be shown to "our" Strange by America.
  • Strange is stunned to arrive in another world to find a Memorial Statue of him and Mordo in charge of that world's Sanctum. Mordo explains that Earth-838's Strange died fighting Thanos. It turns out that was a PR lie, and the Illuminati don't trust Strange because of the real reason that their Strange is dead: they killed him for destroying a whole other universe with his magic.
• Dead-Hand Shot: After Wanda drops a statue on Captain Marvel, the camera cuts to her lifeless hand.
• Death by Irony: Sinister Strange murdered several of his counterparts by dreamwalking them into falling deaths. Regular Strange kills Sinister by blasting him into a fall. For bonus points, Sinister dies inches away from a version of the woman he loved, who was why he murdered those counterparts to begin with. He's also impaled on his own fence, which is one of the last remaining parts of his universe after his actions destroyed most of it.
• Death by Looking Up: Having been Brought Down to Normal, being on the wrong end of a falling giant statue is enough to do in 838-Maria Rambeau.
• Death Equals Redemption: Or does it? Wanda gives her life to destroy every copy of the Darkhold in the Multiverse. We see rocks fall on her, but we don't see her corpse, and we see a powerful flash of red magic afterwards as the temple crumbles.
• De-power: Upon noticing that she can't overpower her outright, the Scarlet Witch opts instead to remove 838-Captain Marvel's powers, before unceremoniously dropping a statue on her.
• Designated Girl Fight:
  • After easily killing both Black Bolt and Mr. Fantastic, Wanda gets in two separate one-on-one battles with Captain Carter and Maria Rambeau's Captain Marvel.
  • Played throughout the whole movie, as Doctor Strange spends much of it not really fighting Wanda, but rather running from her or trying to stall her. Even during the final battle, Strange and Wong spend much of it trying to restrain Wanda instead of actually attacking, and it's America Chavez who ends up physically trading blows with her.
• Destination Defenestration: Sinister Strange comments on doing this to other Stephens in the multiverse, saying that if Strange ever had a dream like he was falling from a high place... that was his doing. Sinister Strange is killed when 616-Strange blasts him out a window and he's impaled on fence posts.
• Determinator: Wanda wants her kids and will stop at nothing to get them.
• Did Not Get the Girl: Dr. West comments that Stephen lost out on Christine when they catch up at the latter's wedding. Exaggerated throughout the movie when it is shown that no versions of Strange and Christine ever ended up with each other.
• Dimensional Cutter: Clea in the first stinger conjures a dagger of mystical energy and uses it to cut open a portal to what appears to be the Dark Dimension. The glowing edges of the portal even flap like cloth.
• Dirty Coward:
  • Invoked and weaponized by Wanda. She knows some of the sorcerers are understandably terrified while putting up the shield, which they continue to do even while she bombards it. However, she then mentally pushes one poor guy into giving into his fear and running away, disrupting the other sorcerers in the process, leaving her able to break the shield.
  • Illuminati Mordo could also count, as he's the only one to not fight Wanda and starts attacking our Strange while he's depowered by the Sands of Nisanti handcuffs.
• Disney Villain Death:
  • 616-Strange defeats Sinister Strange by sending him through the window of his own Sanctum. He lands on a fence and is brutally impaled.
  • Both Strange and Wong manage to kill the monsters of Mount Wundagore by forcing them off a cliff.
• Disproportionate Retribution: Played for Laughs with the Pizza Poppa vendor. For yelling at America to pay for her food and generally being an annoyance to her and Strange, Strange curses him by making his hand squirt mustard in his face and punch himself repeatedly for something close to three weeks. At least the curse wears off in The Stinger, much to the vendor's relief.
• Doppelgänger Gets Same Sentiment:
  • The denizens of Earth-838 respond to Earth-616's Strange as they did to their own. Mordo and the rest of the Illuminati distrust him — to their detriment — because they had to execute their Strange for grievous misuse of magic, while Christine is reluctant to work with him because she never worked out her relationship with "her" Strange before his death.
  • Conversely, Earth-616's Strange is not over Christine, and develops complicated feelings towards an alternate universe version of her as a result.
  • Wanda reacts to every multiversal version of her twin sons like they're the versions she lost and sacrifices her own sanity to see more of them. Her Heel Realization comes when she realizes that this is not reciprocated; their mother is the woman she's hurting, not her.
• Doppelganger Link: The dreamwalking spell from the Darkhold enables someone to control their Variant in another universe. Wanda uses it to hunt down America while she is in another universe with Stephen.
• Dragged Off to Hell: The Spirits of the Damned try to do this to Strange. Thankfully they fail.
• Dramatic Chase Opening: The film opens with Defender Strange accompanying America Chavez to the Book of the Vishanti as a demonic monster chases after them. After Defender Strange is killed, America hops to the "main" universe.
• Dramatic Drop: Strange drops the cup of tea 838-Mordo offers him after he and America realize that the tea has been drugged and its effects begin overwhelming his body. The camera catches the cup dramatically shattering on the floor.
• The Dreaded: Wanda becomes this once she's revealed as the Scarlet Witch. The Masters of the Mystic Arts are fully aware that they do not have the power to hold her indefinitely.
  • Dr. Strange himself serves this to other universes, as variants of Strange have destroyed entire universes, usually inadvertently, to the point that the Illuminati see him as a greater threat than Wanda - to their undoing.
• Dreadlock Warrior: Earth-838 Mordo is a Kung-Fu Wizard with long braided hair.
• Driven to Suicide:
  • The reveal of the particular way Sinister Strange has been driven mad by the Darkhold, with a horrifying twist. He thinks that every version of Doctor Strange is a menace and none of them are happy... so he uses Dreamwalking to travel the multiverse and force his Variants to kill themselves.
  • Wanda's Heel Realization when she sees the variants of her children hiding behind their real mother in fear of her affects her so deeply that she collapses the temple at Mount Wundagore with her in it.
• Drugs Causing Slow-Motion: After arriving in an alternate universe, both Stephen Strange and America Chavez are welcomed in by this universe's version of Mordo, who gives them some tea. However, it turns out that the tea was drugged so that he could imprison them. As they begin to succumb to the effects of the drug, everything slows down and the screen starts to wobble.
• Early-Bird Cameo: The Musical Nod to the theme of X-Men: The Animated Series is officially credited in the end credits as "X-Men '97 Theme", a series which would not debut until nearly two years after this film's theatrical release.
• Easily Forgiven: This film deconstructs this trope a bit. Wanda seemed to be easily forgiven by the heroes after casting the Hex on Westview, and flew off with the Darkhold. Now, she's gone full supervillain, hunting a child to kill and take her power so she can cross the multiverse and kidnap the children of her alternate self.
• Eldritch Abomination:
  • Defender Strange fights a writhing mass of what looks to be lava if it was drawn in squiggly lines, with blades and maws and a very inconsistent shape, which desperately tries to devour him and America.
  • MCU Strange later fights a green, cyclopean monster named Gargantos (though clearly supposed to be Shuma-Gorath) that wouldn't look out of place in the Cthulhu Mythos.
• Even Evil Has Standards:
  • The Scarlet Witch is an absolute monster, slaughtering dozens just for a chance to Kill and Replace an innocent woman. Despite this, she refuses to try to rule the world like Chthon wanted her to do.
  • The Darkhold is a Tome of Eldritch Lore beholden to a lot of forbidden magics and was made to do terrible things, but apparently the Forces of Darkness draw the line at Dreamwalking into a corpse, various evil spirits threatening to make Stephen "face the consequences" if he continues to Dreamwalk.
• Evil Hand: When the pizza vendor demands Strange pay for the food America took, Strange curses the vendor's hand to attack himself, first by spraying his face with mustard and then punching himself repeatedly.
• Evil Is Not a Toy: Wanda and three variants of Doctor Strange were exposed to the Darkhold. Wanda became the Scarlet Witch and threatened to rule the multiverse. Two of the Strange variants destroyed entire universes. And 616 Strange had the Darkhold for five minutes and had already progressed to animating the corpse of one of his alternate selves and commanding the spirits of the damned — he was only saved by Wanda destroying the Darkhold entirely and there are hints that corruption lingers.
• Exact Words: When Earth-838 Christine warns Stephen he needs a version of himself living in the universe he intends to dreamwalk into, Strange points out that nothing specifies that they have to be "living".
• Expendable Alternate Universe:
  • Averted. Earth-838 Strange was executed for causing the destruction of an entire alternate universe.
  • Deconstructed. Wanda's plan to pull a Kill and Replace on her Alternate Self in order to be with alternate versions of her children is appropriately treated as horrifying, as is her using Darkhold magic to possess said variant, with Strange also pointing out that they aren't really her children anyway. The children are terrified when 616-Wanda ends up in their house at the end of the film, and immediately rush to safety behind their real mother.
  • 616-Wanda ends up killing five out of six Illuminati, the greatest defenders of Earth-838, but nothing is said about Earth-838's status after this. At least, partly, because the only Illuminatus remaining is Mordo, who clearly holds a grudge against 616-Strange.
  • When in search of a Darkhold, Strange ends up in a universe imploding following his alternate self using it.
• Explaining Your Power to the Enemy: Mr. Fantastic tells 616-Wanda that Black Bolt could obliterate her with a single word coming from his mouth, in the hopes that this would intimidate her out of attacking the Illuminati. This is quickly proven to be a very bad idea, as Wanda uses her magic to remove Black Bolt's mouth and swiftly kill him.
• Exposition Beam: In the 838 world, there are plates that supposedly show one's fondest memories. It accidentally allows Strange and America to know more about each other, America learning about Strange's yearning for Christine's love and Strange sympathizing with Chavez and the tragic circumstances in which she discovered her powers.
• Expository Hairstyle Change: Wanda keeps her usual straight hair in her Scarlet Witch look, instead of the teased '80s Hair she had at the end of WandaVision.
• Eye Scream: Stephen defeats Gargantos by shoving a pole into its eye and pulling out the eye with it. The optic nerve being completely ripped out is shown onscreen.
• Face Death with Dignity: Illuminati Strange isn't restrained at his execution, and seems to accept it as necessary, which is fair — he had destroyed an entire universe, after all.
• Family-Unfriendly Violence:
  • Gargantos's death by having his eyeball pulled out is shown in unusually graphic detail for a PG-13 movie.
  • The Illuminati's deaths are just as, if not more gruesome, with Black Bolt's head caving in and blood filling his eyes, Reed Richards's head exploding, and Captain Carter being bisected.
• Final Battle: Earth-616 Strange possessing the corpse of Defender Strange and battling Earth-616 Wanda with it on Wundagore Mountain to save America Chavez.
• Fisher Kingdom: While Stephen and America are falling through different universes, they transform to match some of them, like turning into What If...?-style cel shaded cartoons in one world or being made out of paint in another. Strange remarks on the latter, to which America just responds that you do not want to get stuck in that universe.
• Five-Second Foreshadowing: Pizza Poppa accuses Strange of stealing his cloak from the Strange Museum. Not long after, Strange and America find out that 838 Strange is dead.
• Flechette Storm: Dr. Strange pulls off a magical version when fighting Sinister Strange, turning musical notes into a hail of projectiles.
• Flight: Or rather the surprising lack of it among sorcerers. Without the Cloak of Levitation, Strange had to bind spirits of the damned to become his wings and when Wong was prevented by Wundagore Mountain from teleporting, he had to use a magic grappling hook to go up the mountain in his fight with the monsters there. Wanda doesn't have this limitation, giving her a huge advantage over the sorcerers.
• Forced to Watch: Wanda forces Wong to reveal the location of Wundagore Mountain by threatening to kill several of his fellow sorcerers in front of him, or perhaps return them to unlife and torture their souls in front of him.
• Foreshadowing:
  • One of the promotional posters◊ foreshadows the number of (living) variants of each of the two main characters that appear in the movie.
  • Word of God is that Gargantos' eye was created using a digital scan of Elizabeth Olsen's own eye, as an extremely subtle way of foreshadowing the Big Bad's true identity.
  • Wanda twisting the mirror dimension to her advantage establishes how much her knowledge of all things magic has grown since WandaVision, setting up the moment when she uses the Darkhold to dream walk.
  • The Darkhold turns out to be surprisingly easy to destroy, when a sorcerer of Kamar-Taj simply stabs it with her knife — albeit at the cost of her life. Unfortunately the same is also true for its counterpart, the Book of the Vishanti, which is similarly destroyed in seconds with a basic magic attack. The ease with which the Darkhold can be destroyed also sets up Wanda being able to target and destroy every version of the Darkhold across the Multiverse in one fell swoop.
  • 838 Christine mentions that her employer is the Baxter Foundation mere scenes before Reed Richards is revealed as a member of the Illuminati.
  • Dr. Strange dismisses Wanda's concerns about him being there to chastise or punish her for Westview by telling her that she set it right in the end, and that was never in doubt. Likewise, Charles Xavier tells Strange that just because someone stumbles and loses their way, doesn't mean they are forever lost. Both foreshadow Wanda's ending Heel–Face Turn.
  • Sinister Strange says if 616 had dreams of falling to his death, "that was probably me". Meaning he used magic to murder their AU counterparts. A few minutes later, 616 Strange uses magic to kill Sinister in self-defense. Sinister falls out a window, to his death.
• Forgot About His Powers:
  • While possessing her 838 counterpart, Wanda chases Strange, Christine, and America through a maintenance tunnel on foot, seemingly forgetting that she can fly. Though this might be justified by the Dreamwalking process making it harder for Wanda to use her powers at full strength through a vessel not up to her level.
  • It sure was nice of Wanda to stop siphoning America's powers in the climax and wait patiently for Dr. Strange to show up to save her.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus:
  • While Strange and America are hurled across the multiverse, a taxi cab in an alternate New York is shown advertising Grindhouse Releasing, which is the cult film distribution company that restored and re-released the first Evil Dead film.
  • There are two bonuses during the flashback to the aftermath of the Earth-838 Battle of Titan. While it's been partially melted and broken, the weapon that felled 838-Thanos is none other than his double-edged sword from Avengers: Endgame (or at least its Earth-838 version). A close look at the inactive Infinity Gauntlet also reveals 838-Thanos had only collected half of the Infinity Stones (Space, Power, and Soul) before coming to Titan (as opposed to 616-Thanos having acquired the Reality Stone as well by that point during Avengers: Infinity War).
  • Right before the Book of the Vishanti disintegrates, you can see America's star symbol on one of the pages, this foreshadowing that she will be the key to stopping Wanda's rampage.
  • There's a small statue in the temple of Wundagore that Wanda takes a brief look at. Word of God revealed that the statue is of Billy Maximoff.
  • As Stephen is exiting the Sanctum, two girls are walking behind him. One turns to the other, whispering as if they are some of the New Yorkers who happened to spot a celebrity.
• Friend to All Children: Dr. Strange instantly bonds with America, much like he did with Peter. Furthermore, just like Peter, they become True Companions with him serving in a father figure role.
• Fun with Acronyms: The abbreviation of Multiverse Of Madness foreshadows (however unintentionally) the antagonist's motivation.
• Get Out!: While battling her, 838-Captain Marvel yells at Wanda, "Get the hell out of my universe!" These end up being her Last Words, as she's overpowered and killed seconds later.
• Ghost Planet: In the third act, Stephen and Christine find themselves in an incursion-destroyed universe. They wander through two New Yorks that collided into one another, and there are no people to be found anywhere (unless you count the strewn-about piles of bones outside of the Sanctum). Everything is accentuated by a dark, grimy, wintry setting.
• Glamour: When Doctor Strange approaches Wanda for help on protecting America, he finds her tending to an apple orchard, and she says she's given up on magic after the Westview Incident. After she slips up and reveals she was the one summoning demons to capture America, she reveals the beautiful orchard was an illusion and that it's actually a blackened hellscape with twisted dead trees under a blood-red sky, while she was actually in her Scarlet Witch regalia.
• Godzilla Threshold:
  • Faced with no other way to save America and stop Wanda, Strange has to use the Darkhold to dreamwalk into the corpse of another version of himself.
  • Wanda considers America's escape to another universe enough to Dreamwalk and possess her alternate self, despite the catastrophic damage it might cause. Note that this is the woman who just killed a good portion of the Masters of the Mystic Arts.
• Good Colors, Evil Colors: Everything surrounding the evil spellbook, the Darkhold, is lit in an ominous red, complemented by Wanda as the Scarlet Witch using its power for her own ends. In contrast, the Darkhold's Good Counterpart, the Book of Vishanti, is lit in a pleasant blue light, as are America Chavez's dimension-hopping powers (which Wanda hopes to gain).
• A Good Name for a Rock Band: After being introduced to Reed Richards, Strange notes that "Fantastic Four" had been used by a band before.
• Gory Discretion Shot: While the film doesn't shy away from Black Bolt and Mr. Fantastic's very gruesome deaths, the trope is played straight when Captain Carter is killed. The camera only shows the character's reaction, her bloody shield embedded in a wall, and her body falling over out of focus in the distance.
• Grand Theft Me: The Darkhold spell of Dreamwalking allows the mind of the person performing it to take over the body of a variant of said person anywhere in The Multiverse. Wanda uses it on her Earth-838 self and so does Strange on Defender Strange in the climax, doubling as necromancy since Defender Strange is a corpse at this stage.
• Great Big Book of Everything: The Book of the Vishanti is a legendary hidden Spell Book guarded by the Sorcerer Supreme. It contains many powerful spells and is said to always contain the necessary spells to defeat one's enemies. However, it gets destroyed by Wanda anyway and thus Strange has to look for an alternate way of stopping her.
• Greater-Scope Villain: Chthon, forger of the Darkhold, which drives 616-Wanda, 838-Strange, and Sinister Strange to madness and villainy with its included Black Magic.
• Half the Man He Used to Be: While we don't see it due to the camera cutting to her face, Captain Carter gets bisected by her shield when Scarlet Witch deflects it right back at her with her telekinesis.
• Handy Cuffs: When fighting Mordo, Strange has his hands restricted by magical handcuffs in front of him, and uses his restraints as a shield to absorb Mordo's blow, as well as to attach the magic-nullifying cuffs to Mordo so that the latter can't use his powers.
• Heel Realization:
  • Wanda realizes that she has made a terrible mistake when her sons' variants from another universe are absolutely terrified of her and worried about their real mother whom Wanda had been hurting.
  • 838-Strange presumably had a similar realization, as he's shown calmly accepting his death at the hands of Black Bolt.
• Hero Killer: The first step was killing Vision. Now, with the blood of five alternate universe superheroes and dozens more sorcerers, Wanda Maximoff has taken a degree in good guy slaughtering.
• Heroic Sacrifice:
  • Downplayed. Defender Strange uses a spell as he lies dying to distract a monster from following America Chavez into a portal. However, just beforehand he was more than willing to betray her to obtain her power, even if it was for the reason of protecting the Multiverse.
  • Played straight with Sara, the sorceress who willingly gives her life to destroy the Darkhold.
  • Defied in the climax. America accepts that they can't allow the Scarlet Witch to gain her power, and tells Stephen to take it even though it will kill her. He refuses, and they find another way.
• Hiding Behind the Language Barrier: Upon learning that this version of Doctor Strange doesn't know Spanish, America remarks on that in Spanish to Wong, who responds in Spanish.
• Hope Spot: Several:
  • Strange traps Wanda in the Mirror Dimension. It seems to work except she can use the reflections in the temple to her advantage and eventually manages to break out from the trap.
  • Professor X of the Illuminati manages to infiltrate Wanda's mind and reach the actual 838-Wanda to free her from the Scarlet Witch's control. He ultimately fails and is killed by her.
  • Strange finally manages to get the Book Of Vishanti which can help him to defeat the Darkhold-empowered Wanda without getting corrupted himself. The book is destroyed by Wanda mere seconds after he manages to find it.
  • After Strange gives a You Are Better Than You Think You Are speech to America, she eventually manages to overcome her fears and manages to control her powers, but Wanda is still too powerful for her.
• Horror Comedy: The film is essentially the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s first true horror film. Featuring plenty of brutal deaths, terrifying imagery and a tense atmosphere. However, the MCU’s penchant for humorous quips combined with director Sam Raimi’s own style of campy, over-the-top, horror make for a macabre superhero experience that will make you scream and laugh at the same time.
• Humanoid Abomination: Following corruption by the Darkhold, both Sinister Strange and the Scarlet Witch have become Ax-Crazy Persons of Mass Destruction, with only minimal changes to their appearance (blackened fingers for Wanda, a creepy third eye for Strange).
• Hypocrite: Wanda is shown throughout the film to not be the epitome of morality.
  • Wanda compares Stephen's gambit in Infinity War to her own plan to kill America Chavez and steal her power as "breaking the rules", with the ostensible goal they were both doing it to save lives, and notes that he was called a hero for it, while she was deemed a villain. Given Wanda clearly doesn't care about the lives of anyone but (versions of) her children, this is likely either her own myopia and Motive Decay or an attempt to undermine Stephen's morale.
    Wanda: You break the rules and become a hero. I do it and I become the enemy. [pause] That doesn't seems fair.
  • Wanda's hypocrisy is used for a Bait-and-Switch moment. The whole film, she is desperate to reunite with her children and be a mother. Reed claiming to understand her because he has kids of his own is set up like a Commonality Connection...and then she asks if their mother is still living and uncaringly kills him after learning that the answer is "yes."
    Wanda: Good. There will be someone left to raise them.
  • Wanda calls Stephen a hypocrite when he dreamwalks inside Defender Strange's corpse to fight her. Her argument loses some impact when one considers that Strange is possessing a corpse killed by the monster Wanda summoned, while Wanda possessed a living, breathing woman.
• Hypocritical Humor: America tells Strange that the first rule of interdimensional travel is "you don't know anything"... then promptly proceeds to demonstrate this by assuming that food on Earth-838 is free, as it is on her own world and most worlds she's been to.
• I Did What I Had to Do:
  • Early on, a former colleague of Strange's who was dusted asks him if he really, absolutely had to give up the Time Stone to Thanos, considering all the pain and suffering it caused. Strange reiterates his justification of "It was the only way."
  • This appears to be a philosophy that every Strange across the multiverse ascribes to. Strange even quotes this verbatim at the beginning. However, he ultimately defies this by choosing to believe that America can control her powers on her own instead of absorbing them and killing her in the process.
• I Let Gwen Stacy Die:
  • America believes that she is responsible for her mothers' deaths when she was a child and got scared by a wasp, accidentally opening a portal through which her mothers were sucked away. Stephen tries to make her feel better by telling her that he believes they are still alive and she will be reunited with them some day. She retorts that they could be anywhere in the multiverse and she can't find them.
  • To prove to Sinister Strange that he is a Doctor Strange from another universe, Stephen tells him how his sister Donna died when they were playing on a frozen lake when they were children and she broke through the ice. He feels guilty for not being able to save her.
• I Need a Freaking Drink: A preemptive version. Before leaving Christine's wedding to investigate the attack on America, Stephen finishes his cocktail. If you're about to face some unknown threat that's sending New Yorkers screaming in terror, you might as well have a little liquid courage.
• I Never Told You My Name: Stephen quickly figures out that Wanda is the one chasing America when she says the latter's name without him telling her. She realises that she gave herself away only a few seconds later.
• I Shall Taunt You: Strange finds himself imprisoned by the Illuminati in an alternate universe and his magic powers taken away by special handcuffs. In order to break free, he taunts an alternate Mordo by implying he was always jealous of this universe's Strange and that he indirectly set him up to have him killed and then take the mantle of Sorcerer Supreme. This naturally angers Mordo enough to attack Strange, and in their fight, he partially breaks the cuffs and ultimately allows Strange to escape.
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Sinister Strange is blasted out the window and impaled on the fence posts on the ground, killing him instantly.
• Impending Doom P.O.V.: Before 838-Wanda is attacked by 616-Wanda, we briefly see a first-person perspective of something ethereal stalking her and hiding behind some stairs. This is remarkably similar to a few scenes from Sam Raimi's The Evil Dead (1981).
• Implacable Man: Or in this case, woman. Wanda is terrifyingly relentless in her pursuit of Chavez and will kill anyone who gets between her and obtaining Chavez's powers.
• Improperly Paranoid: The Illuminati focus all the their efforts detaining Stephen and America. The refuse to recognize that if ''Stephen Strange'' is warning you of an unstoppable evil even he cannot face, they should be focusing on that instead of calling her "your little witch".
• Insane Troll Logic: When Wong asks Wanda why she is trying to kill America and steal her powers instead of just making America transport her to a universe where she'll have her sons and be happy, Wanda replies what if the boys get sick or hurt - in the multiverse, there are universes with a solution to any problem that should befall them. At this point, Wong knows she's too far gone for him to reason with.
• Insistent Terminology: Wanda keeps referring to the 838-Universe Billy and Tommy as "her children". Strange reminds her they're not her children, they're 838-Universe Wanda's children.
• Instant Costume Change: Stephen changes his suit to his blue robes to fight Gargantos. The stinger has him transforming out of his civilian clothes to join Clea.
• Instantly Proven Wrong: America takes Strange to another version of New York and takes some pizza balls, confident that in most universes, things don't cost money. Cue the pizza ball vendor telling them that they have to pay for the food.
• Insult Backfire: Strange coldly points out that Wanda's boys were not real as they were created by magic. She immediately replies that that's simply what all mothers do.
• Intergenerational Friendship: In this movie, the middle-aged Strange meets and teams up with America Chavez, a young girl with the unique ability to travel between dimensions. They quickly learn to trust each other out of necessity and sympathize over their respective pasts. At the end of the movie, America tells Strange she is glad to have met him.
• Invincible Villain: Wanda is unbeatable and never loses a fight in the movie. Strange, Wong, Chavez, Kamar-Taj, and the Illuminati can barely slow her down, and what ultimately brings her down is her own Heel Realization of what she has become.
• Iris Out: As Strange passes out in Earth-838's New York Sanctum Sanctorum, the film irises out on his face and immediately irises in on Wanda dreamwalking.
• It's All About Me: At one point, Wong tries to talk Wanda down by asking her, if she truly plans to become the mother to alternate versions of her twins, what will happen to her own counterpart, but Wanda doesn't care about that in favour of finding her family.
• It's All My Fault: Sinister Strange makes it clear that he didn't anticipate, nor desire, the incursion that would result from him dreamwalking to see if there were any universes where he and Christine were together:
  Sinister Strange: I never meant for any of this to happen. I was looking for a world where things were different. Where I had Christine. Where I was... happy. But I didn't find it.
• It's the Only Way: At the start of the movie, Defender Strange uses this to justify killing America while 616-Strange uses it to justify the Endgame. Other characters point out Strange has a habit of using this claim to justify bad plans because he can't think of a better one.

Tropes J-P

• The Juggernaut: As soon as Wanda reveals herself as the antagonist, she proves to be practically unstoppable as she relentlessly pursues America Chavez. She decimates Kamar-Taj while the whole order is mobilized, each of the heroes' spells and traps only delay her for a moment, and even fleeing into another universe simply forces Wanda to mentally comb through the universes until she finds another way to pursue America.
• Jump Scare: Of course, it wouldn't be a proper Sam Raimi film without at least one of these, and there are several throughout the film.
  • At Kamar-Taj, Strange attempts to trap the Scarlet Witch in the Mirror Dimension, not knowing that she is able to warp through reflections. When America looks down at a puddle on the floor, she's suddenly greeted by the Witch's eye, before her arm emerges from a gong and grabs her.
  • During the Battle in the Center of the Mind, a red mist approaches Professor X as he attempts to save Earth-838 Wanda. When it finally reaches him, the Scarlet Witch emerges and snaps the Professor's neck.
  • Wanda chases Strange, America, and Earth-838 Christine down a passageway under the river. After she doesn't bust down a door like she has been the whole time, the three stop and the film focuses heavily on the otherwise empty passage and the water droplets dripping from the ceiling... and then suddenly shows a silhouetted Wanda with red eyes.
  • Wanda and Wong enter a dark cave on Mount Wundagore. As Wanda magically lights the torches around them, a huge monster suddenly springs from the darkness, roaring in Wong's face.
  • After Sinister Strange is killed, 838-Christine checks his body and screams in horror when his third eye suddenly opens (accompanied by a Scare Chord).
  • Before the credits roll, Strange is walking down the street, only to suddenly be hit with what seems like a horrible migraine. The camera frantically cuts around before a split-second focus on Strange having unlocked his third eye.
• Kangaroo Court: Strange's meeting with the Illuminati was essentially a tribunal where they would decide whether they should execute alternate universe Stranges for the crimes of their Strange, with only Professor X speaking on Stephen's behalf. This backfires on them spectacularly when their fixation on the hypothetical danger having a Stephen Strange again might bring that they completely disregard the definite danger that he's trying to warn them about — namely, that Wanda might send something after him.
• Karmic Death: Sinister Strange, who gloated about using dreamwalking to make several other Strange variants leap to their deaths, is killed by the Earth-616 Strange blasting him out a window to fall to his own death.
• Kick the Dog: Losing Vision and her children inspired a nasty cruel streak in Wanda, to say the least.
  • She slaughters many Kamar-Taj sorcerers in her pursuit of America Chavez, when she could have easily just moved past them.
  • When Wong refuses to divulge information about the Darkhold, she tortures his nearby apprentices until he complies. It should be noted that this is no different from what Thanos did with Loki and Gamora in his search for the Infinity Stones.
  • When 838-Reed Richards tries to stop Wanda from going after America Chavez, even trying to empathise with her by mentioning his own children, she casually asks him if he has a wife. When he says he does, she states it's fortunate that his children will have someone to look after them before viciously murdering him.
• Kill the Ones You Love: It obviously pained the Illuminati to have to execute their version of Strange, their comrade and fellow founding member, but they do so anyway.
• Killed Off for Real: Wanda destroys the temple of Wundagore with a collapse and an explosion of magic, destroying every copy of the Darkhold in existence.
• Killing Your Alternate Self:
  • Wanda plans to kill one of her variants once she'll be able to travel to other parts of The Multiverse, so she'll have said variant's children for herself. Thankfully that doesn't happen and she eventually realizes the error of her ways.
  • After failing to find a universe via dreamwalking where he and Christine worked as a couple, Sinister Strange started murdering his alternates by jumping their possessed bodies off buildings.
  • Sinister Strange ends up impaled on the spikes of a metal gate after being blown out of his sanctum's window by the Earth-616 Strange.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: During the music battle with Sinister Strange, 616 Stephen ends up lifting notes from a piano transcription of Michael Giacchino's original theme and throwing them at his counterpart.
• Leitmotif:
  • As he promised during pre-production, Danny Elfman keeps Michael Giacchino's Doctor Strange leitmotif intact rather than composing a whole new theme. Elfman himself compared it to keeping Alan Silvestri's Avengers theme intact during his scoring of Avengers: Age of Ultron and honoring what had come before (while still finding opportunities to play around with it).
  • The '60s WandaVision theme song is briefly used when Scarlet Witch Wanda dreams about Earth-838 Wanda's home life with her sons.
  • Professor X's entrance is accompanied by the X-Men: The Animated Series theme.
  • Captain Carter borrows Alan Silvestri's Captain America motif. Fittingly, she's dubbed "The First Avenger" upon her introduction.
• Levitating Lotus Position: Wanda is levitating cross-legged over a circle of candles as she performs the Dreamwalker spell which allows her to control the version of herself in another universe.
• Logical Weakness: Black Bolt is widely regarded as one of the top-tier powerhouses of the Marvel Universe, able to cause earthquakes on the other side of the world with a single word, and his MCU counterpart appears to be just as powerful. However, all that potential is predicated on the ability to open his mouth. Take that away, and... pop.
• Logo Joke:
  • The Marvel Studios logo in the trailer initially shifts between both different points of the animation and its previous two incarnations, alluding to the Multiverse.
  • The logo in the film proper plays out normally, but replaces a majority of the usual scenes that play out in the second-half with scenes and shots from the MCU that are related to the Doctor Strange mythos (noticeably, Tony Stark's famous fingersnap moment is replaced with Stephen from Avengers: Endgame cuing Tony to do it).
• Lohengrin and Mendelssohn: When Strange attends Christine's wedding, her entry is set to the bridal march of Lohengrin.
• Love Hungry: Strange's usbplot this film focuses on his inability to move on from Christine, to the point of asking if his variants from other universes ever ended up with her. Negative. He confesses he still has feelings for Christine at her wedding which she responds kindly tto, but lets him know they were never going to work out. Finally, he falls for her 838 variant and confesses he loves her, but she also rejects him. It is only at that point, he finally gives up on the idea of having any version of Christine.
• Lovecraft Lite: The many-tentacled, one-eyed monster Gargantos is certainly a Lovecraftian sight to behold, but Strange and Wong can hold more than their own against it.
• Loving a Shadow: Wanda's wish to be reunited with her sons from another universe is this, as they never actually existed in her 616 universe and were only a magical creation by herself in Westview, as pointed out by Stephen.
• MacGuffin: The Book of Vishanti, a powerful tome held in a pocket dimension between universes, said to hold any spell a sorcerer needs, and a counterpart to the Darkhold. Strange spends a lot of time trying to get his hands on it to get the means to defeat Wanda, but it's destroyed before he can barely glimpse at its pages.
• Magic Music: Strange's duel against Sinister Strange involves both sorcerers manipulating musical instruments and notes written in sheets to form projectiles to attack each other. With each strike, different sounds are produced.
• Magic Must Defeat Magic: While Wanda outclasses everyone in terms of raw power, the only people who make any headway against her are more experienced magic-users. She has trouble breaching Kamar-Taj's magical barrier (needing to use mind-games on one of the apprentices to get past), Wong manages to talk his way out of getting killed and Doctor Strange manages to escape by the skin of his nose multiple times.
• Male Gaze: Briefly with Christine-383. When she grabs a fire extinguisher to break open America's cell, she removes her lab coat to reveal a skin-tight suit. She then bends over to grab the extinguisher as the camera focuses on her behind.
• Mama Bear:
  • A dark example of the trope. Wanda acts as if she's being kept away from her children and thus she's willing to kill anyone who would stand between her and them. However, Strange and Wong object that, in reality, her children were illusions anyway and her actions would only mean she'll kill and replace the mother of children from another world.
  • Played far more straight with Wanda-838, whose first thought when released from Wanda's control is to return to her boys.
• Mark of the Beast: The Darkhold marks those who use its magic. Wanda and 838-Strange have their fingertips turn completely black while Sinister Strange and 616-Strange receive a third eye in the forehead.
• Match Cut: Featured prominently in the trailer, a rotating shot of Defender Strange being sucked into one of America's portals transitions into another rotating shot of Stephen waking up in bed and catching his breath.
• Meaningful Appearance: The alternate Stranges. Defender Strange is Red and Black and Evil All Over and he's the one who almost sacrifices America, though reluctantly. Sinister Strange is wearing a dirty, decrepit version of our Stephen's previous outfit; he's stuck in a destroyed, decaying past and a destroyed, decaying universe and refuses to change or fix it. Supreme Strange's sorcerer getup had gold on the chest and seemed to be one of the most put together, regal, and powerful Stranges... until it''s revealed he caused an incursion and was executed. As such, his outfit is dirty and stained when he's executed, and he's not wearing the Cloak. He's also the only clean-shaven one, having given up on being the Sorcerer Supreme and realized the error of his ways as he submits to execution.
• Medium-Shift Gag: During an emergency dimensional travel, Strange and Chavez briefly cross a cartoon universe, one where they literally become splotches of ink and paint, and a monochrome one where it looks like the 1920-30s, with vertical lines and spots. Strange points out the paint one as a truly weird experience out of all the universes he's seen.
• Memorial Statue: Earth-838 memorializes its Stephen Strange with a statue commemorating how he died fighting Thanos. This is a lie; the Illuminati executed him in the aftermath of the battle.
• Mirror Monster: Wanda becomes this when Stephen traps her in the Mirror Dimension. She still manages to attack the outside world through reflections and eventually also escapes this way via Body Horror.
• Mood Whiplash: When Nick tells Stephen that, as a result of the Snap, he lost two cats, it comes off as a bit ridiculous (something Nick himself had often seemed, and Stephen clearly thought he was). Then Nick goes on to say he lost his brother.
• Motherhood Is Superior: When Reed Richards tries to talk Wanda down by telling her about his own children, she asks if they have their mother as well. When he confirms it, she tells him they'll be fine with just her and kills him.
• The Multiverse: It's in the name. While the multiverse in the first movie simply referred to an infinite number of magical dimensions, here, as a result of the events of Loki and Spider-Man: No Way Home, variations of the universe itself with their own Earths are being brought into the fold.
• Mundane Utility: Stephen uses magic to tie his tie before Christine's wedding, and at the wedding, he turns Christine's glass of water into wine.
• Musical Assassin: A battle between Stranges uses magic to turn musical notes into palpable objects, mostly from sheet music (though a harp's sound is used to conjure a small one that helps win the fight).
• Musical Nod:
  • The theme song that plays in the second episode of WandaVision appears during Wanda's dream of her alternate self and sons.
  • Beethoven's Symphony no. 5 and Johann Sebastian Bach's "Toccata and Fugue in D minor" both appear in "Lethal Symphonies", which plays during Stephen and Sinister Strange's fight.
  • Captain Carter borrows Alan Silvestri's Captain America theme, created for Captain America: The First Avenger.
  • Professor X's introduction is accompanied by a snippet of the theme from X-Men: The Animated Series. Fittingly, he also has the yellow hoverchair from the show.
• My God, What Have I Done?: America and Strange don't defeat the Scarlet Witch in battle, but instead America opens a portal to an alternate Maximoff family, showing how horrifying she is to her children and thus the wrongness of her actions. Wanda repents and decides to not only stop, but also destroy the dark spells written on Mt. Wundagore and seemingly kill herself in the process.
• Mythology Gag: Has its own page.
• Near-Villain Victory: As Wanda is an Invincible Villain, everyone's efforts to defeat her are in vain, and she gets America Chavez in the end. America knows she cannot beat her when people more powerful than her couldn't, but she is smart enough to send Wanda back to Earth-838, for her alternative children to witness what she is. Wanda from Earth-838 forgiving and assuring her that the boys are loved is what saves everyone. Shortly, Wanda is the only one that can stop Wanda.
• Neck Snap: Wanda breaks Charles Xavier's neck while he is inside her mind, which also breaks his neck in the real world.
• Necromancer: 616-Strange starts down this path quickly once exposed to the Darkhold, animating his own alternate universe corpse and commanding a legion of spirits of the damned.
• Never Found the Body: As Wanda sacrifices herself to destroy all multiversal copies of the Darkhold, a hail of massive rocks falls down on her within the collapsing Mt. Wundagore. We never see her body after this, leaving open the chance that she is still alive.
• Never Trust a Trailer:
  • The trailers for the movie implies that Sinister Strange is the Big Bad and that Wanda and Strange would team up to face a new threat. In reality, Wanda is very clearly the main antagonist of the movie and she and Strange never work together, while Sinister Strange actually offers to help our hero before they start trading blows. Furthermore, Sinister Strange barely has a presence, essentially being an Arc Villain for Strange for his screentime.
  • The first trailer implied the movie is mainly about Strange messing with The Multiverse ("desecration of reality"), presumably as a direct consequence to his reality-tampering in Spider-Man: No Way Home, and that it's a big deal and gets used by Mordo to get him. It's actually Wanda who's the threat to the Multiverse, via her use of the Darkhold and her obsession with stealing America Chavez's portal-generating power. While the events of No Way Home are briefly referenced in passing, they are entirely unrelated to the events happening in the film. That Mordo is from Earth-838 and not from the main universe of the MCU, and Strange is arrested by the Illuminati purely out of belief that every Strange from every universe will end up becoming an existential threat to said universe no matter what.
  • From that same first trailer, Wong shouting Strange's name as if something bad happened to him. In the actual film, Wong shouts Strange's name in triumph as he found a way to confront Scarlet Witch in the Final Battle — by reanimating and using Defender Strange's corpse through Dreamwalking.
  • 838-Christine is edited out of all of the shots of her and Strange in Sinister Strange's universe in the trailers.
  • Several lines are changed or said by someone else. Of note;
    • "Every night I dream the same dream, and every morning, the same nightmare." This line is said by Strange in the trailer, with Wanda's voice overlapping. In the film, it is only Wanda who says this, talking about how she dreams about her counterparts who have the children she desperately wants, then wakes up to remember she doesn't have them.
    • "You cannot control everything." Said by Wong in both the trailer and the film. However in the trailer, it addresses Strange, referring to Strange's Control Freak tendencies, while in the film, Wong is actually talking to Wanda, trying and failing to talk her out of her plan.
    • "Things just got out of hand." In the trailer, this line is given to Sinister Strange. In the film, it is attributed to The Illuminati's Strange, being repeated by them to Strange, referring to 838-Strange's dreamwalking and the consequences.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Reed, explaining to the enemy what your teammate's power can do was NOT a smart move, especially if she can use a creatively nasty way to prevent said teammate from using his power.
• Nice to the Waiter: Literal example at Christine Palmer's wedding. Before flying off to investigate America's arrival, Stephen finishes his cocktail, presents the empty glass to the waiter, and thanks them.
• Nightmare Face: When Wanda kills Xavier in the Battle in the Center of the Mind, she has a monstruous look very similar to her zombified self from What If…? (2021).
• No Biochemical Barriers: Discussed and ultimately Played Straight. The Illuminati place Strange and America in polycarbonate glass chambers to ensure that they don't spread any alt-universe diseases that their own universe wouldn't have any exposure to or a cure for. This seemingly isn't a problem however, since America has been dimension-hopping for years now, apparently to at least 72 worlds, and isn't carrying anything. Then again, one of her powers is automatically adapting to survive in other potentially hostile universes - someone else may not have been so lucky.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Reed Richards tries to reason with Wanda when she invades the Illuminati's sanctum, even trying to empathize with her by mentioning his own children. He's rewarded by watching Black Bolt die after Reed inadvertently let Wanda know what his powers were, and being torn apart himself after Wanda decides that as long as Reed's children have their mother, they'll be fine.
• Non-Protagonist Resolver: It falls to America to achieve some sort of victory against Wanda at the climax, first by managing to actually hurt her with her punches and then by triggering her Heel Realization. And then Wanda is the one to destroy the Darkhold and all its copies along with herself and Mount Wundagore, ensuring the movie ends on a mostly positive note. Strange's importance in the climax comes down to encouraging America to believe in her own power.
• Noodle Incident:
  • Strange hides the corpse of his alternate self in the roof of a building. Wong quips that doing so must violate some kind of ordinance. Strange claims to have buried worse.
  • The way America states that you don't want to get stuck in the universe where everyone is paint implies that she's been trapped there before.
  • Strange alludes to off-screen clashes with his Earth's Mordo in the interim since the first film and the end of the Infinity Saga.
• "Not So Different" Remark: Strange spends a lot of the movie insisting he's not like his other selves who have made bad decisions like trying to kill America, but late in the movie he finally admits he just didn't want to accept how similar they really were.
• Not That Kind of Mage: It's expressly stated that "Sorcery" and "Witchcraft" are two different magical practices, Wong recognizing the runes covering Gargantos as a product of witchcraft and sending Stephen to Wanda for help, unaware that it was Wanda who sent it in the first place.
• "Not Wearing Pants" Dream: Upon America stating that 616-Strange theorized that dreams are actually windows into one's multiversal lives, Wong mentions a dream where he was naked and being chased by a clown, and wonders if this has actually happened in another universe. America assures him that "somewhere out there, it's real."
• Offscreen Teleportation: A literal case, since Wong can make sling ring portals: after the fight with Gargantos, America books it from Strange and Wong the first chance she gets, and Strange takes a moment to remark that she took his sling ring. In the next scene, America nearly bumps into the two.
• Ominous Music Box Tune: In classic Danny Elfman fashion, the score features a music box in several, unsettling moments.
• Omniscient Council of Vagueness: Strange is brought before one, all of whose faces are initially kept in shadow, with Mordo revealing that they are The Illuminati, comprising Mr. Fantastic, Black Bolt, Maria Rambeau Captain Marvel, Captain Carter, and Professor X.
• One-Liner, Name... One-Liner: Used by Strange in his final interaction with America.
  America: Stephen... I'm glad I fell into your universe.
  Strange: So am I, kid. So am I.
• The One That Got Away: Stephen is still in love with Christine but does not end up being together with her. When he meets 838-Christine, he tells her that he is in love with her in every universe and laments the fact that they just never seem to work out. After having to meet an alternate Strange who became evil in order to have a chance to get with Christine again, Stephen decides to make peace with that loss.
• Our Mages Are Different: When figuring out where the threats are coming from, Wong notes a distinction between sorcery (used by the Masters of the Mystic Arts) and witchcraft, which causes Strange to look for the person he knows who has experience with that kind of magic.
• Outside-Context Problem: Played with. The Earth-838 Illuminati know how dangerous Dreamwalking and using The Darkhold are because their Doctor Strange variant caused an incursion doing that. But they're unaware of just how dangerous Wanda Maximoff is using The Darkhold because their universe's variant is nowhere near as powerful as Earth-616's.
• Parrot Expo-WHAT?:
  838-Mordo: The Illuminati will see you now.
  Strange: The Illumiwhati?
• Person of Mass Destruction: Wanda has taken yet another level of badass since WandaVision.
• Pet the Dog: Before having intentions to kill him for standing in her way, Wanda takes time to make sure Reed Richards' children at least had a caretaker, showing she does have at least an ounce of morality towards innocent children.
• Plot-Irrelevant Villain: Or rather, secondary villain. Despite his prominent showing in trailers, Sinister Strange has very little to do with the plot of the film. His role is minimal, and he mostly serves as another look at what corruption by the Darkhold does to someone, as well as being something for Strange to face when he isn't facing Wanda.
• Possessing a Dead Body: Trapped in another dimension, Strange is able to assist America in the final fight against Wanda by dreamwalking into Defender Strange's corpse in the 616 universe and puppeteering it to Wundagore Mountain.
• P.O.V. Cam: There is a shot from Gargantos's perspective when it hunts America in New York City.
• Power Incontinence: America cannot control her portal powers and can only use them accidentally when she is afraid. She becomes confident in using them in the end after Stephen remarks that she has always managed to get them to just the right universe in the right time and therefore already can control them.
• Pre-Asskicking One-Liner:
  • Wanda delivers a chilling one to Strange before attacking Kamar-Taj.
    "I do hope you understand...that even now...what's about to happen... This is me being...reasonable."
  • Strange gives one to Wanda while revealing his zombie Defender Strange form. Possibly overlaps with Failed Attempt at Drama, as the line is quite campy and the film cuts straight to 838-Christine giving a bemused reaction to the line.
    "This time, it's gonna take more than killing me to kill me!"
• Pre-Mortem One-Liner: Before using the Brazier of Bom'Galiath on a Soul of the Damned, Christine says, "Go back to hell."
• Production Throwback:
  • There are many nods to the Evil Dead franchise:
    • Bruce Campbell's character (a pizza ball salesman) is enchanted by Strange to keep punching himself repeatedly. Amusingly, it's his left hand that keeps punching him, as opposed to Ash's right.
    • America is restrained multiple times (by Gargantos, by a demon in the intro, and by Wanda) in a way that's reminiscent to how the possessed trees attacked in the same film series, though thankfully there's no further violence involved.
    • The POV shots from the fiery demon, Gargantos, and the Souls of the Damned are similar to the POV shots of the Evil Dead demons.
    • An evil spirit is able to use the magic of a Tome of Eldritch Lore to possess the body of an innocent girl and unleash a massacre upon arriving onto the latter's dimension.
    • A demon whisper-screams "I'll swallow your soul!" at Dr. Strange.
    • While in the Mirror Dimension, Wanda cautiously reaches towards reflecting surface, only for her fingers to go through it as if it were a vertical water surface. Ash does the exact same thing in the famous insanity scene in Evil Dead II.
  • Stephen and Wong's fight with Gargantos is very reminiscent of the first fight between Spider-Man and Doc Ock in Spider-Man 2. The hero chases a tentacled antagonist up a building, while a hostage is trapped on a ledge on top of the building. The hostage later is able to distract the antagonist, giving the hero an opening to attack.
  • The reanimated corpse of the alternate Dr. Strange, with his half-decayed face and spastic, jerky body language, bears a striking resemblance to another superhero Sam Raimi directed.
• Psychic-Assisted Suicide: Sinister Strange has been killing variants of himself by Dreamwalking into them and forcing them to kill themselves.
• Psychic Dreams for Everyone: The movie reveals that (at least concerning the MCU-multiverse) dreams are actually real events happening to alternate counterparts. This is also how America Chavez knows she's unique in the multiverse — she doesn't have dreams.
• Psychoactive Powers: America Chavez can only activate her universe-traveling portals when she's scared of something. The first time she opened one was as a child when she got scared by a wasp. It takes until the final battle with Wanda for her to finally work out how to open one without being afraid.
• The Public Domain Channel: The Multiverse's Billy and Tommy are watching old black-and-white cartoons during the first appearance.

Tropes R-Z

• R-Rated Opening: The fight with Gargantos helps set the tone for the rest of the film; the Eye Scream is just the start of the graphic kills to come.
• Reality Bleed: "Incursions" are when two or more universes clash, resulting in the annihilation of one or both. Mr. Fantastic claims that it can be as simple as a person from one universe being in another for a long-enough period of time, and prolonged use of the Darkhold's Dreamwalking spell has been confirmed to cause it. Sinister Strange's universe shows us the results: reality literally melting with Weird Weather, Gravity Screw and a literal field of bones of what remained of the inhabitant.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: As part of his Batman Gambit to get free of his anti-magic cuffs, Strange gives 838-Mordo a scathing one of these complete with accusations that Mordo was jealous of 838-Strange and had engineered his corruption and death out of a desire to supplant him.
  Strange: They’re [the rest of the Illuminati] not coming back, and you just cast your vote to kill your friends. (turns around, then gets an idea) Not that that ever bothered you before. You know, you hated me where I came from, and I bet secretly, my brother, you hated me here. You must’ve been so jealous. I bet you were thrilled when you found out I’d been corrupted. Hell, you probably gave me the Darkhold to begin with.
  Mordo: YOU KNOW NOTHING OF THIS UNIVERSE!
  Strange: I know that killing Stephen Strange was your ticket to getting the Sanctum, becoming Sorcerer Supreme and joining your little circus of clowns, the Illuminati!
  Mordo: I’M READY… (draws his sword) to cast my vote, now! (screams and leaps down to attack Strange)
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: The Scarlet Witch sometimes has glowing red eyes. When she possesses 838-Wanda, that Wanda's eyes briefly turn red as well.
• Rejection Affection: Strange with Christine. It was made clear in their first film that they were through romantically. But Strange once again confesses to Christine at her wedding that he still has feelings for her. She once against tells him it wasn't going to work between them. When he meets 838 Christine, he tries to introduce himself & she interrupts him to tell him she doesn't care to know him. She eventually warms up to him and he confesses again that he loves her and has in every universe. It is here that she again rejects him (although very gently) & encourages him to love other people, whereupon he finally gives up on the idea that he will ever be with her.
• Rise from Your Grave: Strange brings the corpse of Defender Strange into the fight this way via Dreamwalking. Although the corpse doesn't rise from a grave, per se, but rather from underneath the rooftop of a building, the lightning flashes in the background of the scene and the corpse's obligatory Raised Hand of Survival create a similarly spooky (and campy) effect.
• Rule of Symbolism: Time has always been part of Strange's character and he was even once the guardian of the Time Stone. The watch that Strange wears was once a gift from Christine when they were still in a relationship and he still wears it even after they broke up and it broke, representing Strange's inability to move on from his relationship with her. After a heartwarming conversation with her 838-counterpart, he finally fixes the watch, representing him finally moving on with his life.
• Rule of Three: Thrice, the custom to bow to the Sorcerer Supreme is brought up:
  • First sarcastically by Wong, when he turns up at the fight against Gargantos.
  • Then, when several sorcerers at Kamar-Taj bow to Wong and he looks accusingly at Stephen and repeats that it is a custom.
  • Finally, Stephen himself bows in earnest to Wong at the end.
• Runic Magic: Runes are a distinct part of Witchcraft, so the fact that Gargantos is coverd with them thus tips off Wong and Strange that they are dealing with a witch.
• Running Gag: Main universe Strange calls the first alternate universe version of himself "other me". In the Illuminati universe, he proceeds to refer to their Strange as "other other me", and finally Sinister Strange as "other other other me".
• Saved by the Platform Below: After Wanda blasts him, Wong falls from Wundagore Mountain, seemingly to his death. He is revealed a couple of scenes later to have landed on a narrow ledge none the worse for wear. He then proceeds to climb back up in time to help Strange for his final confrontation with Wanda.
• Scenery Gorn: The final universe that Doctor Strange and 838-Christine visit is a heavily decayed version of New York that's twisted and collapsing on itself with almost all color leeched away. The destruction is the result of universes colliding in the wake of that universe's Strange overusing the Darkhold.
• Self-Disposing Villain: After nearly an entire film's worth of wreaking multiversal havoc, Wanda brings down Wundagore Mountain on herself, destroying the Darkhold and saving Strange from having to take extreme action against a former ally. He says she didn't make it, but we don't see the body.
• Self-Guarding Phlebotinum: Copies of the Darkhold are actually fairly easy to destroy, at least to a trained sorcerer — but doing so incinerated the woman who did so.
• Sequel Hook: Our Strange, as a result of Dreamwalking with Sinister Strange's Darkhold, finds that an Incursion is on its way. Clea then appears and enlists his help in stopping it, cutting open a portal to the Dark Dimension, which the two walk into. He also now has a third eye that sometimes pops up.
• Shoot the Shaggy Dog: Strange's only hope of fighting a Darkhold-corrupted Wanda is to find the Book of Vishanti, the only other ultimate source of sorcery knowledge that won't corrupt its users like its Evil Counterpart. Unfortunately, Defender Strange died before he could reach it, and Wanda destroyed it before 616-Strange could manage to use it, forcing Strange to resort to using a Darkhold from Sinister Strange's universe instead and risk getting corrupted by its powers as well.
• Shout-Out:
  • A universe where red means go and green means stop also appeared in the first episode of Sliders.
  • In an unusual case of an architectural shout-out, the design of the Illuminati's headquarters is nearly identical to the interior of the British Museum (for comparison, these are the headquarters, and this is the museum◊).
  • Strange mockingly asks Reed Richards, "Fantastic Four. Didn't you guys chart in the '60s?", a reference to a Motown group also named The Fantastic Four.
  • 838 Christine says the one-liner "Go back to hell" before using a magic relic to shoot one of the souls of the damned, similar to Ash giving a one-liner to a deadite in Evil Dead 2.
  • Wanda gets out of the Mirror Dimension in a way that's reminiscent of Samara Morgan/Sadako Yamamura while moving more like Kayako Saeki.
  • In a possible artifact from Scott Derrickson's and C. Robert Cargill's version of the script, Doctor Strange and America getting drugged and knocked out by a glowing green substance in their tea is similar to an important scene from Sinister.
  • According to screenwriter Michael Waldron, Wanda massacring the Illuminati was inspired by Aliens. Waldron specifically compares the Illuminati to the Colonial Marines and how both parties are built up during their scenes as the ultimate badasses... only for the monster (Wanda/Xenomorphs) to effortlessly rip through them and thus leave you even more terrified of them for the remainder of the film.
  • Strange curses Pizza Poppa with an Evil Hand, just as happened to Bruce Campbell in another Sam Raimi film.
• Signature Style: Meta example with Sam Raimi. Despite being 15 years removed from the superhero genre after Spider-Man 3, numerous stylistic quirks and Raimi-isms that were part and parcel of the Spider-Man Trilogy are intact here (and benefiting from the advances in VFX and cinematography since 2007). The film likewise bears several of his stylistic fingerprints from Evil Dead (from the horror comedy to, of course, Bruce Campbell).
• Single Tear: A single tear rolls down the face of the corpse of Sara after she performs a Heroic Sacrifice to destroy the Darkhold.
• Skewed Priorities: In a case of Dramatically Missing the Point, most of the Illuminati are more preoccupied with their self-importance than accounting to the very fact that the Darkhold is equally as mighty and dangerous as the Book of Vishanti. This costs them their lives in a very gruesome way.
• Skyward Scream: Occurs in the final shot of the film ahead of the credits scenes; as we follow Strange casually walking down the street in his universe, with everything back to normal (relatively speaking), he suddenly falls to his knees in excruciating pain, lifts his head upward, and screams as a third eye opens on his head.
• Slasher Movie: The scene of Wanda using the body of her 838 counterpart to pursue Strange, America, and Christine-838 through the Illuminati's facility is heavily framed to resemble a slasher film. Wanda herself is relentlessly chasing them, breaking through every door in the way, complete with glowing red eyes like the T-800, and even gets a chance to invoke Offscreen Teleportation like Jason Voorhees.
• Sliding Scale of Antagonist Vileness: Despite everything she did, one can still sympathize with Wanda because her entire life was a Trauma Conga Line, she only turned to the Darkhold to understand her powers but ended up in pursuit of the understandable goal of getting her family back, and it ended up driving her to madness, like all who read it.
• Slipping a Mickey: Mordo drugs Stephen and America with tea to bring them to the Illuminati.
• Smash Cut: One abrupt hard cut occurs that's designed to invoke the same emotional whiplash in the character the film is focusing on as the audience; the film cuts immediately from Wanda lovingly tucking her children into bed to her waking up alone in her own bed, the previous scene having been a dream. Further showing the contrast in both sides of the cut is how the soft music in the dream cuts out completely once Wanda wakes up, and how the dark colors in her children's bedroom contrast the stark white of her bedroom.
• Solar Punk: Earth 838 has this aesthetic. Most buildings are covered in growing plants, walkways are wide and paved in grass with small streams flowing through them, and the universe generally has a more open and airy feel than the 616 New York.
• Something Only They Would Say: Sinister Strange initially has doubts that Stephen really is a Doctor Strange variant. Stephen then brings up his sister Donna's death, since it's something he doesn't talk about to others.
• The Stinger: As per usual with most MCU films, there are two scenes during and after the end credits:
  • Mid-credits scene: Moments after the final scene of the movie, Stephen is suddenly stopped by a woman, identified offscreen as Clea, his ally from the comics, who tells him that an incursion throughout reality has occurred, and uses a magical dagger to open a doorway to the Dark Dimension. Strange joins her, unveiling his third eye.
  • Post-credits scene: The pizza ball salesman, who has been hitting himself with his hand for what seems like a long time, courtesy of Stephen's magic, is finally freed from the spell when he regains control of his hand as the spell expires. To say he's relieved would be an understatement.
    Pizza Ball Salesman: [laughs ecstatically] IT'S OVER!
• Story-Breaker Power:
  • Normally, the protagonists have a powerful Reality Warper on their side with Wanda Maximoff, which is solved by making her the main villain of this film. She is being corrupted by the Darkhold and is desperate to cross universes to be in a place where her children exist.
  • The Book of Vishanti gives the user what they need to solve a problem, and enabled the defeat of Thanos 838. It's locked up in a space between the universes and is destroyed by Scarlet Witch not long after recovery.
  • The Darkhold is a top-tier artifact that is up there somewhere with a fully-equipped Infinity Gauntlet. It is packed with all kinds of powerful spells that could break a story wide-open, but the corruption it has on users is a major drawback that gives the protagonists great hesitation against using it. The destruction of the Darkhold in all universes prevents this artifact from factoring into films that take place after this film. However, The Stinger reveals that 616-Strange got to keep some of the book's powers due to using it to face the Scarlet Witch.
• Stringy-Haired Ghost Girl: Wanda looks like one when she crawls out of a reflection in Kamar-Taj.
• Stop Hitting Yourself: In an alternate universe, a civilian annoys Strange and Chavez. Strange thus curses the man to punch himself continuously for a few weeks just to get rid of him. The spell wears off in The Stinger to his relief.
• Summon Magic: Both Stephen and Wanda summon various magical creatures to deal with their enemies.
• Super-Scream: Marvel's own king of this trope, Black Bolt, shows up as a member of the Earth-838 Illuminati. We only get a brief look at his potential before he's gruesomely killed by Wanda, but he's every bit as powerful as his comics counterpart, annihilating 838-Doctor Strange by whispering "I'm sorry."
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
  • America vs Wanda: a teenager with zero experience in both combat and using her powers against someone who's vastly superior in raw power, combat experience and magical skills. The result is a Curb-Stomp Battle from Wanda's part, and all America managed to do is annoy her for barely half minute.
  • Wanda vs Captain Carter: despite Peggy managing to hold her own against Wanda, it doesn't matter because the latter fought alongside her own version of Captan America, meaning she knows Cap's combat style first-hand and it's implied that Wanda and Steve created a combination attack with the shield. When Peggy launches the shield against Wanda, she easily catches it with her magic and returns it to Peggy with fatal results.
• Sympathy for the Devil: Even though 838-Wanda was attacked and her children threatened by 616-Wanda, after 616-Wanda breaks down crying, the variant Wanda has no overt anger. Instead, she walks over to 616-Wanda despite her children's pleas, puts a hand on her cheek, and simply tells her to know that the children will be loved.
• Take a Third Option: Either Strange takes America's power or Wanda does. Stephen convinces America to master it instead.
• Techno Dystopia: Earth-838 has a futuristic version of Manhattan, complete with botany growing everywhere and flying cars. However, WordOfGod states that George Orwell was a major inspiration for this universe, with an authoritarian Illuminati watching over the world and "Memory Lane" stores allowing for authorities to scan your memories, a la Minority Report.
• Teleportation Sickness: After Doctor Strange's first tumble through the Multiverse thanks to America Chavez, he at first insists that he's fine, but then promptly vomits. America mentions that it can happen the first few times one is exposed to her power.
• Tempting Fate: The Illuminati are positive that they can deal with a dreamwalker Scarlet Witch. Then, they actually face her...
• Tentacled Terror: Early on in the film, Dr. Strange fights Gargantos, a green one-eyed Lovecraftian entity festooned with tentacles and spikes.^note While it's referred to it using the name of the lesser-known one-eyed tentacle-monster from Sub-Mariner, it's technically an adaptation of Shuma-Gorath — though that name can't be used due to licensing issues.
• That's All, Folks!: The second coda has the pizza stand guy from Earth-838 finally stop punching himself. He turns to the audience and delightedly declares "It's over!", "it" referring to Strange's spell and by extension the film.
• That Was Not a Dream: Stephen thinks that he has been dreaming of Defender Strange and America, but America reveals that this has actually happened in another universe.
• Theme Music Power-Up: Whenever Wong gets to do something impressive, his little musical leitmotif fills the air.
• Third Eye: Sinister Strange has a third eye on his forehead as a result of reading the Darkhold. In the end, 616-Stephen also gets a third eye, because he had to use the Darkhold to stop Wanda.
• Token Good Teammate: While the 838-Illuminati are ultimately Well Intentioned Extremists at worst, Professor Charles Xavier is the only one openly willing to consider that 616-Strange (the one we're familiar with) is better than his 838-counterpart.
• Tome of Eldritch Lore: The Darkhold is an evil, almost Eldritch, book full of dark magic. It's able to corrupt both Wanda and a variant of Strange into becoming full-blown villains, and even the prime Strange can't completely escape its corruption.
• Total Party Kill: The fate of the Illuminati is to get brutally curb-stomped into oblivion by Scarlet Witch instead of getting heroic last stands. The only survivor — Mordo — is indicated to be their least heroic member.
• Trademark Favorite Food: America Chavez loves pizza, especially pizza balls.
• Transferable Memory: On Earth-838, Stephen and America stumble upon a shop that can project someone's memories. Outside of it is a circle that lets passers-by test it, which Stephen and America do. He sees the date with Christine where she gifted him the watch, and America sees the memory where she accidentally opened a portal for the first time, losing her mothers in the process.
• Truer to the Text: The Eye of Agamotto was previously treated as merely a container for the Time Stone in the MCU. Here it displays abilities more in line with the comics, such as revealing the unseen. It's also worn in a fashion that matches the comic look better.
• Trust Password:
  • On Earth-838, the passage to the book of Vishanti is barred by a door locked by a spell. Strange learns that an alternate version of himself locked him in such a way that only Strange would know how to open it. It turns out the handle has a depression which perfectly fits the broken watch Strange always keeps with him.
  • In another universe, Strange meets an alternate self who doubts that he's coming from a parallel universe. Thus, Strange has to mention one of his darkest secrets: the fact that when he was a kid, his little sister tragically drowned in a frozen pond and his guilt for being unable to save her to prove he's him.
• Two Lines, No Waiting: After the opening scene focusing on America Chavez, the rest of the film alternates between Wanda's quest to steal America's power and Strange's quest to stop her.
• Uncertain Doom: Wanda brings down the Tomb of the Damned to rid the multiverse of the Darkhold's evil, seemingly ending her own life in the process. However, her body is never seen, and a flash of red magic as the Tomb collapses leaves open the possibility that she survived.
• Underestimating Badassery: Mordo and his allies dismiss the powers of the Scarlet Witch and instead insist that Dr. Strange is the stronger of the two. All of them, with the exception of Mordo, who kept guard over Strange, would pay the price for their hubris... Viscerally.
• Understatement: Non-humorous example. According to Mister Fantastic, Supreme Strange's description of him accidentally causing an Incursion and destroying an entire universe was "things had gotten out of hand."
• The Unfettered: A much discussed aspect of Strange in this movie. A lot of points are raised about Strange's willingness to break the rules and cross lines when he deems it necessary. In addition, practically everybody calls him out on his need to be in control and thus be the one to solve problems. For instance, at least one alternate Strange tried to kill America just to prevent Wanda from stealing her power, while another used the Darkhold in an attempt to save his world, only to destroy others as a consequence. Strange decides to learn his lesson and to also trust in others' abilities, thus deciding to give America a Rousing Speech so that she gets the necessary confidence to stop Wanda.
  • Wanda herself says hunting America with demons and defeating the Masters of the Mystic Arts in battle is "being reasonable". What does unreasonable look like? Bodyjacking her alternate universe counterpart, which risks the stability of the multiverse. And Wanda herself.
• Unfortunate Names: Strange can't help but crack up at the name "Blackagar Boltagon".
• Unstable Powered Woman: Wanda seemed to have gotten past this when she gave up her children to set Westview free at the end of WandaVision, but, thanks to the Darkhold, she's done a full Snap Back and is willing to do literally anything to be with some version of the children she gave up. Balanced by the fact that we see that the Darkhold had a similar effect on Stephen in several universes, where he also went on to become a cosmic threat.
• Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Rintrah is one of the students at Kamar-Taj. No one finds this unusual. Granted, with people like Rocket, Groot, Korg, Miek, and Howard the Duck, a giant green-furred minotaur is far from being the weirdest character in the MCU, plus sorcerers by definition would be more accustomed to weird stuff.
• Victor Gains Loser's Powers: There's a ritual in the Darkhold that would let a mage take America's powers, killing her in the process. Wanda gets close to achieving this, but ultimately fails.
• Villain of Another Story: We haven't seen Mordo since The Stinger to the first Doctor Strange film. Apparently, Stephen had had at least one encounter with him that made them bitter enemies offscreen, Stephen explaining to America that Mordo had already tried to kill him more than once.
• Villain Protagonist: Much like Thanos, we get a great deal of focus on Wanda's quest to capture America Chavez as well as Strange's efforts to save her.
• Villain World: A Freeze-Frame Bonus, confirmed by the VFX team here, reveals that the black-and-white Earth Strange and America pass through is one where HYDRA rules the world. According to Michael Perdew, he wanted to include the HYDRA symbol because of its resemblance to Gargantos/Shuma-Gorath.
• Violence is the Only Option: Just after Wanda reveals that she is seeking America, she demands that the Masters of the Mystic Arts hand her over. They naturally object because Wanda is too dangerous and her plan involves killing America and thus Wanda begins her attack on Kamar-Taj.
• Visions of Another Self: America reveals that every dream is actually a glimpse into the life of another version of yourself from another universe.
• Visual Pun: When Strange confronts Wanda in the apple orchard, she's seen clipping the ends off of the trees, or in other words pruning branches.
• Vomit Discretion Shot: Stephen throws up down a chimney after traveling the multiverse with America for the first time, moments after assuring her that he's traveled enough to keep a level stomach.
• Walking Spoiler: The actual plot of the film is hard to explain even vaguely given the reveal that Wanda is the actual Big Bad.
• We Hardly Knew Ye: The Illuminati are introduced dramatically before all being killed off just one scene later.
• Weird World, Weird Food: As America and Strange are walking through one of new dimensions, she explains to him that different worlds have different foods, but most still include some version of pizza — in that world's case, they served pizza balls, a small hint as to how similar and yet so different the two realities actually were under the surface.
• Wham Line:
  • When Strange goes to talk to Wanda about what transpired in New York and what he's learned from Chavez (whom he never mentions by name), this happens:
    Wanda: What if you brought America here?
  • The Illuminati stop Wanda dead in her tracks as she attempts to attack 838-Dr. Palmer's lab. They seem right in their assumption that they can handle her, with 838-Black Bolt readying up a sonic shout to kill her the same way he killed his universe's Strange, and Reed Richards warning her of the powers Black Bolt stores in his mouth. Wanda calmly responds:
    Wanda: What mouth?
  • When Strange prepares to enact a plan involving what he describes to Christine as "slightly more than just dreamwalking", Christine points out that a version of him needs to live in the universe he plans to enter in order for him to dreamwalk. His response reveals his true plan^note To possess the dead body of Defender Strange:
    Strange: Who said they had to be living?
• Wham Shot: The reveals of the full Illuminati lineup, which includes variants of none other than Captain Carter; Black Bolt; Maria Rambeau; Professor X, reprised by Patrick Stewart; and Reed Richards, played by fan-favorite casting choice John Krasinski.
• When Dimensions Collide: A possibility discussed by the 838-universe Illuminati. When someone from one universe goes to another universe, there is a risk of the boundaries between universes being breached, provoking "incursions". It is explained that it could potentially lead in one or both universes being wiped out, which is why the Illuminati seriously consider simply killing Strange and America.
• White Void Room: The inside of 838-Wanda's mind is represented by a vast white void with a few pieces of debris covering over her subconscious self. The debris calls to mind the rubble she was buried under as a child, complete with air-raid sirens that are gradually overtaken by 616-Wanda's demonic whispers. There's also an old TV sitting in the rubble playing scenes from WandaVision.
• Wipe That Smile Off Your Face: Wanda defeats Black Bolt by removing his mouth, causing him to liquefy his skull and brain when he tries to scream.
• With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: Wanda is more powerful in this movie than she has ever been; however, thanks in part to the Darkhold, her mental stability has severely decreased.
• Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: All of Wanda Maximoff's appearances in the MCU have been part of an ongoing Trauma Conga Line, yet they have no hesitation about literally destroying universes to get what they want.
• The Worf Effect: The Illuminati are supposed to be Earth-838's greatest defenders, capable of defeating Thanos on their own without needing to let the Snap happen. Wanda's Reality Warper powers as the Scarlet Witch wipe the floor with them with little effort.
• Worf Had the Flu: According to Wanda's actress Elizabeth Olsen, Wanda was not at her full power in the body of her variant, which justifies how Peggy could fight her.
  "I thought it would’ve been easier, but the way we justified it being harder is because she’s trying to keep this physical connection inhabiting this other Wanda’s body. And so that to us was the limit, was that this is not the most well-tuned… if we’re doing a racecar [comparison]… I don’t know anything about racecars or cars. But if you had a bad car and a really awesome car, you can’t really win a race in a bad car. And so she’s not really in a tuned-up version of herself. And so that was why it created, actually, more of a challenge."
• Would Hurt a Child: Wanda is perfectly willing to kill America to steal her powers, knowing fully well that her power is bound to her very existence, but mostly out of her own desperation. Wanda tries to implicate her willingness to kill America that it's because she's not really a human child, but rather a "supernatural being". Strange says otherwise that she's still a child nonetheless.
• You Are Better Than You Think You Are: In the climax, America believes that Strange will take her powers since she believes she can't properly use them, and she seems to accept it as an inevitability. Instead, Strange gives her a pep talk about how she has a better grasp of her powers than she thinks, pointing out that in all her previous uses of her multiversal portal ability, she's been able to pick the right universe. This gives her the courage to face the Scarlet Witch.
• You Do Not Want To Know: Wong, when he sees Stephen dreamwalking in Defender Strange's corpse:
  Wong: I don't even wanna know!
• Your Head Asplode:
  • Horrifically inverted with the death of Black Bolt, as when Wanda removes his mouth, all the energy from his scream destroys his skull and it visibly implodes.
  • Mr. Fantastic is a straight example, as Wanda effectively spaghettifies him until his head simply bursts.

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"IT'S OVER!"

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