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