Doctor Strange: In The Multiverse of Madness

"In retrospect Wanda surrendering and being arrested by Fair Cop Rambeau or or Jimmy Woo rather than the corrupt Haywood would have been the ideal end to Wanda Vision. She could easily have been called into action as Thunderbolt or released for superhero work or whatever in a future installment."

Do you know how corrupt the government is in these types of worlds, if she had surrendered, she would have given the United States a weapon to destroy Wakanda.?

That is to say, they are the same people who revived Vision, to use him as a weapon.

Edited by LucienRen on Feb 17th 2023 at 1:23:59 AM

Well there's an interesting plot right there?

eta: It would least involve Wanda trying to do the right thing. Any incarceration on her part would be purely voluntary. (again a la Faith in Angel)

And again that was why I was making the distinction between her surrounding to Rambeau/Woo and Heywood.

Edited by dcutter2 on Feb 17th 2023 at 9:25:40 AM

Thanks to the new Black Panther movie, we know that the MCU version of Amanda Waller is the leader of the CIA.

See, now that would set up Wanda to appear in the Thunderbolts, but she'd be so broken compared to the rest of the line-up.

Unless you placed an inhibitor collar on her and something, but she could always break free and then...

I'm just describing the plot to Suicide Squad (2016), aren't I?

Well it would prolly be a better go around than that film

x5 Hawkeye and Ant-Man got pretty easy home arrest sentences for violating the accords. And Spider-Man got got his charges dropped really easily for what happened in London. Blonsky also sat in prison the entire time and was never forced to be used as a weapon.

If Wanda gave up it could also have gone that way as well.

To which I always ask, "what would her going to prison actually solve?" Because she still wouldn't have any effective control over her powers, they still wouldn't have a way to properly contain her if she suddenly went off the deep end, nothing would've been solved. Her surrendering would've been little more than a symbolic gesture, as they had no possible way to contain her and keep others safe from her abilities without committing major violations of civil and human rights, such as 24/7 sedation. And there would always be the risk of her powers going haywire while under watch.

Wanda can be redeemed without subjecting her to physical or emotional abuse and punishment. As long as they show her recognizing the effect her actions had, how wrong they were, and knowing that she'll have to live with that knowledge and guilt for the rest of her life, while making a pledge to do better (as in, the position she was in at the end of WandaVision), that's honestly all that matters.

I mean, the girl had a mental breakdown and then got brainwashed by the most evil book in existence. And while there will be people like Ross or Hayward or the people of Westview who want to go after Wanda with Torches and Pitchforks (even though Wanda did kill a lot of sorcerers, I think the ones left appear to understand that Wanda wasn't exactly in a sound state of mind; America seems sympathetic to her during their final scene, Stephen does acknowledge that she "set things right" like in Westview, and I think they imply the same sentiment for Wong), that doesn't mean she should be deprived of the chance to do better.

That said, I do feel sorry for whoever gets the burden of trying to clean up the mess, because they'll have to toe the fine line that exists between "Wanda was corrupted by the book and had no will or agency" and "she can't be redeemed after what she did and she must be punished at all times (a la Loki)."

Edited by dmcreif on Feb 17th 2023 at 5:21:27 AM

Yes it would be a symbolic gesture for Wanda to go prison. That's the point. It's a symbolic message saying 'I don't think I am above the law. I will abide by the restrictions of society and not enforce my will on people just because I can'.

And then pretty much is what Wanda has to do for redemption, to make that admission and change her behaviour to match imo.

(It exactly what happens in the more interesting first half of Hancock as an example)

Eta: and to everyone pointing it out. Thank you, there are a lot of examples other than Faith I'd forgotten about.

Eta 2: rather than prison as mentioned above (which should be rehabilitive and not lunishment focused anyway in a civilised country but i digress) substitute a secure psychiatric ward for intensive ptsd and grief counselling if you prefer. Though it's highly unlikely Wanda could pull off an insanity plea)

Edited by dcutter2 on Feb 17th 2023 at 10:26:50 AM

I can't imagine the amount of guilt she felt as soon as she realized all those innocent sorcerers in Kamar-Taj and those "heroes" on the Illuminati ("heroes" in quotes primarily because of the totalitarian vibes the Illuminati give off) had to die because of her selfish motives and that she was played by the Darkhold all along. Wanda's going to have to live with that fact, and I think that and being viewed as a pariah are consequences enough.

Going forward, she will probably be despised by a lot of people, have to struggle with the Darkhold "prophecy" and whatnot, but that's the thing about character development: it'd be to get the viewer to be intrigued in what Wanda is going to do next to try to make amends or heal from her trauma. It can't be easy to achieve for someone in the position she's in, and that's what would make the journey and them reaching the destination much more satisfying.

...I mean, that's what's happened for her in the comics. In the comics, she's a redeemed hero who overcame her mental instability, learned from her mistakes by facing consequences and has made amends with those she hurt the most (the mutants). Hell, she also is at her most powerful by absorbing the demon who tormented her, while staying mentally stable and willing to help anyone in need. It'd be cool to see something like that adapted for the MCU.

The last government agent she knew used her boyfriend's body to create a new weapon, not surprisingly she didn't turn herself in to the same government.

And as Black Panther demonstrated, arresting a bad apple doesn't solve the problem.

I think we're talking past each other here because I don't feel that addresses what I've said.

Yes, I get that as I've repeatedly explained.

I mean, the big issue with arresting Wanda is that her powers are such that anything would be voluntary on her part. Since she's a Reality Warper, being in custody is something she could easily get out of no problem if she decided she didn't want to stay there any longer.

No question about it, she did bad things in both Westview and here in this movie. But in both situations, there are also lots of other extenuating factors in play that mean that there really isn't an easy resolution on what to do with her. In WandaVision, it was an outburst of Wanda's grief that led to the Hex being created, and Westview essentially being held hostage; the extenuating circumstances are Wanda's fragile mental state, coupled with her grief, lack of understanding of her powers, years of unprocessed trauma, and even everything to do with SWORD's role in the mess. In Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Wanda read a very dangerous Tome of Eldritch Lore while trying to learn about her powers. She wasn't entirely herself.

Come to think of it, Wanda wouldn't exactly be the first person in the MCU to end up in this particular dilemma. Because this is something similar that could be said about how Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. resolved the Calvin Johnson / Zabo situation. The extenuating circumstances behind Calvin's crimes were such that locking him up would just be unfair and cruel given everything he went through, but letting him go would make it seem like he got off easy after everything he did. Coulson erasing Calvin's memory and giving him a new identity was probably the best thing he could have gotten.

Edited by dmcreif on Feb 19th 2023 at 11:06:01 AM

Yes, I agree Wanda being in some form of custardy would be entirely voluntary owing to her powers. Again, that would be the point. That she could use her power to her own ends and desires and escape but has decided that's not the moral thing to do and therefore doesn't.

How culpable Wanda is for her actions in WandaVision and especial Mo M is very much up for debate. That would be something for the courts to argue and decide in sentencing if she was found guilty. I'm not sure she could prove she was so far gone to not know right from wrong (at least in WV) for an insanity defence to work.

I think you folks may be meaning different things by redemption. There's an internal component of 'makes a conscious choice to change' but there's also an external component of 'takes action to rectify the harm caused.' The former doesn't require anything except a decision, but the latter, yes, willingly surrendering to authority and accepting their judgment (whether that's prison/community service/rehab) is a form of attempting to rectify the harm caused.

Very nicely phrased. I agree.

Whatever the case, Multiverse of Madness took such a torch to Wanda's character that no matter what form of redemption she gets, there's now this certain amount of distrust that will forever follow her both in and out of universe. I mean, she learned her lesson in WandaVision, vowed to do better and all that...and then that was all thrown out and put Wanda in a position where she'll now have to relearn it all over again. (Admittedly, a redemption arc would also have been a lot easier for a writer to do post-WandaVision purely because no one died in Westview, and at the risk of sounding like I'm using "whataboutism", what Wanda did there wasn't all that bad compared to things other hero characters in MCU have done, such as Clint Barton's five years as a serial killer, or Valkyrie trafficking slaves for the Grandmaster, etc.)

Maybe Wanda doesn't necessarily need a redemption arc so much as she needs to have a characterization that sticks and isn't going to be thrown aside in the name of spectacle or shock value.^note Which probably hasn't been helped by the fact that in the projects where Wanda is unambiguously one of the heroes (Civil War, Infinity War and Endgame), she's largely just a supporting character in an ensemble cast and doesn't get as much focus. Whereas the projects that do give her more focus and screentime (Age of Ultron, WandaVision and Multiverse of Madness) are the ones where she acts more villainously.

Edited by dmcreif on Feb 21st 2023 at 2:27:01 PM

Nah, if she does come back, I don't think this will follow her. Wanda's character has always been on fire. We've been having "Should Wanda be in prison?" debates since Age of Ultron, when she deliberately launched a Hulk attack against a populated city.

Wanda has always done bad shit and then skated away from it. At least with the Darkhold, Wanda has an excuse this time.

And she's hardly the only superhero to get away with shit, either. The MCU runs on Protagonist-Centered Morality. There's no reason why Wanda's return would be handled any differently.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Feb 21st 2023 at 11:42:20 AM

The selective condemnation doesn't help. It says a lot about DSMOM's framing, for instance, that Doctor Strange is judged throughout the entire movie while characters like, say, the Illuminati never get their actions questioned, meaning in turn that very few people question their morality (I say that as someone who views Wanda killing the Illuminati as an unintentionally heroic act, given that everything about them gives me totalitarian vibes that remind me a lot of HYDRA). Hell, I've even seen Defender Strange get condemned for trying to take America's powers while Wong doesn't get the same treatment for suggesting to our Doctor Strange that he do the same.

Strange gets judged because this movie is ostensibly supposed to be about him. It's his movie, and his movie wants to interrogate and confront one of his character flaws as the central fixture of its story.

This is precisely why Wanda's treatment in MOM varies so wildly from WV. WandaVision was Wanda's show. She was the principal character. The story was about examining her character and interrogating her flaws. And so it functioned as a detailed examination of her trauma and the effects on her behavior.

MOM isn't about Wanda. She's just the villain. So she gets the Bitches Be Cray-Cray treatment, while Strange is the one that the film examines and interrogates.

The film questions Strange's choices and characteristics because he's its main character. Simple as that.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Feb 21st 2023 at 1:09:20 AM

Perhaps Wanda will return when the avengers are about to be killed by Kang (or whoever the hell the villain is), where Wanda reveals that she has been training all these years to be able to fight at Kang's level.

Yes they do, Strange questions their actions plenty of times. Then they refuse to take Wanda seriously and are all killed as punishment by the narrative.

Although Reed does try and talk Wanda down, and while Blackbolt did have a screw ready, he may not have used it unless Wanda proved to be unwilling to yield.

Wanda just jumped to make him murder himself right off the bat.

Also, Xavier seemed pretty reasonable, showing Strange what the deal was, and even giving him a guide to what he needed to know.