Ridley Rants: Wanda, Not Grief, is the Real Villain in WandaVision

Grief is a normal, automatic emotional response to suffering a significant loss. It’s a very particular kind of heartache that comes from losing someone important to you. There is a sense that life is now divided between before they died and after. For many people, this sort of intense anguish can be overwhelming and have long-reaching effects on your mental and physical health. It’s not a pain that has a genuine cure, but it is a pain that you can eventually learn to manage.

Anger, sadness, loneliness, and guilt are normal companion emotions to grief. Some common responses to this feeling are denial, depression, and losing interest in activities you usually found enjoyable. However, psychologically torturing an entire town by taking away their free will is not normal. Neither is holding people hostage and forcing them to act out various scenarios in your sick fantasy world. I would even go as far as to say that playing Weekend at Bernie’s with your husband’s corpse is a bit weird, to say the least.

Vision may be dead, but he's still the life of the party!

Let’s take a look at how Wanda got to this place. Her parents were killed in a bombing when she was a child. She was tortured and experimented on by HYDRA. Her brother, Pietro, was gunned down and murdered. Wanda was then snapped out of existence by Thanos after Infinity War, losing five years of her life, and with it, her lover, Vision. Upon being snapped back, she searches for his body and finds that S.W.O.R.D. is tearing apart his cadaver and will not hand his remains over to her, thus denying her the much-needed closure a burial would provide. Understandably, this infuriates Wanda. After everything she’s been through, loss after devastating loss, the people she helped save won’t even show her the common decency and respect she and Vision deserve by letting her properly honor his memory and sacrifice. As a result, Wanda, a complicated hero with immense power that she doesn’t understand, nor knows how to control, experiences incredibly debilitating grief. She’s heartbroken and all alone. Everyone that she calls family is gone, and with no one to lean on, she breaks down. 

I wish I looked this good when I cry

Denying the harsh reality she now faces, Wanda unknowingly creates a new, more comfortable one, quite literally putting up protective walls and hexing an entire town, trapping them inside a bubble of her unmanageable grief. She subconsciously uses her mysterious powers to bring Vision back to life and create children of her own. In creating a magical hex based on the sitcoms she would escape reality with as a kid, Wanda avoids a present that is too painful to endure and retreats into escapism, free to act out her nostalgic childhood fantasies of living an idyllic American life, but with very real-world consequences.

I’m not sure who needs to hear this, but the people who live in Westview aren’t made-up like how her reincarnation of Vision or her children is. They're actual human beings being psychologically tormented by Wanda’s telekinetic abilities, forced to adhere to their given roles and play along to the imagined sitcom storylines she has created. They dream her nightmares and live her grief, all the while being separated from their children and family so that Wanda can have her own back. Although she isn’t entirely in control of her reality, abilities, and situation, we can’t push all the blame solely on Agatha for what’s happening in Westview. While it’s apparent by the end of the series that Wanda wasn’t fully aware of how her grief was physically manifesting, on some level, she had to know what she was doing. It was clear that she was fighting hard against the people trying to bring her actions to her attention multiple times. Wanda repeatedly chose to transfer her pain onto others and remain willfully ignorant. In effect, she decides to do what HYDRA did to her, stripping the innocent of their free will and agency for her selfish purposes.

When reality shows up at your door step

…and you’re not having any of it

Before I venture any further, I need to be clear; Wanda has the track record of a proven hero, albeit one that's vulnerable, error-prone, and complicated. One of the best and most relatable parts of her character is how she’s finally been given the space and screen time to fully express herself and the multifaceted emotions she’s feeling, no matter how messy those emotions may be. In real life and on-screen, a double standard of how men and women are expected to behave persists. How men are forced to act in a patriarchal society in accordance with toxic masculinity aside, men are allowed to do what the Punisher does, and even Hawkeye, going on vengeful streaks of violence without the world so much as thinking twice about it. No one should be behaving that way, but even where anger and apathy are concerned, women are often demonized because society considers these emotions unacceptable for them to showcase. Furthermore, much of the world has little to no empathy for those living with mental illness. I think it’s a lot less difficult for people to ignorantly categorize those struggling with their mental health as “crazy” or “evil” than it is for them to do the work to understand other people’s differing experiences and pain.

Sexism plays a massive role in this characterization because historically, women are viewed as irrational, overly emotional, and incapable of controlling themselves. Society sets different standards for men and women, and in the case of Wanda Maximoff, the age-old stigma persists. Far too often than not, women experiencing psychosis on-screen are portrayed as violent maniacs. In real life, the instance of people with mental health problems perpetrating violent crimes is no more likely than someone without them unleashing violence on society. Hollywood encourages the use of these harmful stereotypes, especially where it concerns women. When a man grapples with their mental well-being in a way that portrays depression, anger, or instability, no one thinks much of it in part because it’s expected. In contrast, women are labeled as unhinged for exhibiting the same behaviors.

In this particular case, even though her mental illness was handled relatively delicately, it still depicts Wanda as out of control and violent at the end of the day. While the audience recognizes how Wanda got to this place and realizes that her power is too much for anyone to handle, even for an Avenger, I still don’t buy the narrative that Wanda didn’t understand how her grief impacted those around her. We can’t negate that Wanda fought very hard against the people trying to burst her hex bubble throughout the show. Though she ultimately listens to Agatha’s revelations as well as Monica Rambeau’s pleas for her to see the truth, you can’t argue that Wanda freeing the townsfolk from her hex resulted from other people’s confrontation of her and not the other way around.

The face you make when you realized you stepped in shit

Even though Wanda wants to be good, she doesn’t do much good in the show. Yes, she is complex and imperfect, something I’m glad to see in a Marvel show because women on screen are often portrayed as two-dimensional (I’m looking at you, Agatha). However, when it boils down to it, Wanda is an Avenger, probably the most powerful one at that, and I expected her to have more in common with a hero than a villain by the end of the series. How can I fully empathize with a person who sits there watching a man almost choke to death in a situation of her making? At the same time, his wife, also a captive in the fantasy world Wanda created, helplessly watches in horror, unable to save him or escape the role Wanda assigned to her.

Once more, after briefly experiencing a moment of clarity from Wanda’s hex, Vision’s coworker, Norm, shouts, “She’s in my head. None of it is my own. It hurts, it hurts so much. Just make her stop!” Additionally, Dotty, a suburban rival of Wanda’s making, once freed, exclaims, “Wanda, my name is Sarah. I have a daughter. She’s eight. She can be friends with your boys if you like that storyline, or the school bully even, really, anything. If you could just let her out of her room— if I could just hold her, please.” I know not everyone handles trauma the same way, and we shouldn’t expect people to, but erasing people’s identities, holding them hostage, and transferring your trauma onto them is not acceptable, no matter how much pain you’re feeling.

Sometimes the truth is hard to swallow

Monica Rambeau confronts the death of her mother, Maria Rambeau, by throwing herself headfirst into work and behaving recklessly with her safety. Jumping into a hex and having your cells rewritten multiple times over doesn’t exactly shout, “I value my life.” Still, while this isn't necessarily a positive way to cope with pain either, Monica was hurting herself, not other people. In contrast, Wanda was hurting herself AND other people. I don’t care how out of control your grief is; you don’t kidnap and subjugate thousands of people. For that reason, I can’t say that Wanda isn’t inculpable for her actions, no matter how much meddling the evil opportunist, Agatha, was responsible for. There is no one size fits all treatment for trauma that will work for everyone; this should be understood, but the problem I take with Wanda is not that she isn’t grieving the way I want her to or how society expects a woman to behave. My issue is that inflicting unimaginable harm onto other people due to your debilitating agony is not only unhealthy but downright cruel. 

In the finale, Wanda, at the constant behest of others, frees the now psychologically damaged Westview residents from the prison she built for them. She then flies away scot-free to live alone in a peaceful, mountainous paradise, much like how Thanos did at the end of Infinity War, without so much as an apology or an ounce of accountability. Never mind taking responsibility for your atrocious actions; Wanda wants to escape liability altogether. She chooses to gain more power after she’s proven time and again that she can’t handle the destructive force that lives inside of her without doing the work to heal first. Wanda may have accepted her part in the events that occurred in Westview, but she did not stick around to answer for her actions. Instead, after all that Wanda’s seen and lived through, she traps Agatha in the same hex she tortured the town with presumably so that she can use her at a later date, further proving that Wanda has learned nothing from this experience. The message of who the real villain of the show is becomes muddled as a result. To the viewers, Wanda is the hero. To the residents of Westview, Wanda is the villain.

Thanos at the end of Infinity War

Scarlet Witch at the end of WandaVision

Mental illness was handled mostly tactfully in WandaVision, but Wanda isolating herself from her support system is the exact opposite of healing. Wanda should not be left alone because it’s pushing her further into instability. Wanda is traumatized. She was traumatized as a child when she lost her parents to a senseless act of violence and again when she was captured, experimented on, and radicalized by HYDRA. She was further mentally scarred when her brother, Pietro, and her lover, Vision, were killed, as well as her two twin boys, Billy and Tommy. Wanda made mistakes, and I won’t trash her for being flawed. No one is perfect, and every Marvel superhero we've seen on screen has their specific issues, which is what makes them all so relatable in different ways. However, Wanda’s mistakes were crimes, not quirks, plain and simple.

I get that Wanda wasn’t entirely aware of the suffering she caused, but you have to admit that Wanda was actively antagonistic towards anyone who tried to shake her out of her delusions. In fact, it was only because of Agatha Harkness that Wanda was able to see things more clearly when she snapped the people of Westview out of the spell Wanda manifested. Furthermore, to say that Wanda wasn’t at least partially in control or responsible for torturing, kidnapping, and tyrannizing the whole town of Westview seems ridiculous and untrue. Yes, Agatha was manipulating Wanda and pulling strings behind the scenes. Yes, Wanda didn’t completely realize how her grief was negatively impacting those around her. Still, for Wanda to not hang back and take accountability for the part she played in the events of WandaVision is not just an exercise in denial but also not a very hero-like thing to do.

I think Agatha and Wanda have more in common than people are willing to admit

When Tyler Hayward, the director of S.W.O.R.D (and resident jackass), labels Wanda as a terrorist, I didn’t entirely disagree with his assertion, regardless of how much I enjoy her character. Wanda can feel empathy and achieve grand heroics. We’ve seen the good she’s performed in past films. However, Wanda is a character that resides in a gray area of morality. I believe she can be good and bad, simultaneously a hero and a terrorist at the same time. What she does to Westview is a blatant violation of the Sokovia Accords and kinda-maybe-sorta morally bankrupt. Sure, when people get depressed, are isolated, or experience extreme amounts of pain, those emotions can turn dangerous, but it doesn't excuse the actions of people who commit crimes. It only helps us better understand why they did it to try to prevent those misdeeds in the future. 

Wanda had a rough go of it in life, but she is a survivor. She is resourceful, adaptive, and by no means weak-minded. Although I realize that she ultimately rejects the delusional fantasy world she created and does the right thing, I’d be remiss to say that Wanda deals with her trauma and grief in a positive way by the end of the series. Wanda needs professional help to confront her difficulty managing stress and regulating her emotions. She needs therapy to reconcile with her pain instead of turning to harmful coping mechanisms that distract her from her problems over and over again.

Alas, getting help wouldn’t make good TV, so I understand why the writers chose this path for her. I’m sure she’ll have a chance to redeem herself in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, but I somehow doubt that will entail sending “I’m sorry” cards to the people in Westview. Nevertheless, Wanda is far from the only Avenger who has done wrong, but this isn’t their show, so to cite their actions isn’t wholly relevant. If I had a blog when all of the MCU movies came out, believe me, there would be posts about it. Tony Stark sold weapons to terrorists. Wanda used to be an actual terrorist. Still, the difference between these two is yet to be seen considering that WandaVision just ended and Iron Man’s story had an entire decade to unfold throughout many films. As I said, Marvel heroes are magnificently dysfunctional and very capable of living in moral gray areas. My critiques of Wanda are in no way a critique of the overall show or the writing quality. WandaVision is an excellent addition to the Marvel Universe, and giving Wanda more screen time and developing her character is long overdue.

Wanda being experimented on by HYDRA alla Agatha’s House of the Undying visions

Now, back to our scheduled programming! Wanda also knows that she, the Scarlet Witch, is allegedly destined to destroy the world. So what does Wanda do? She deep-dives into the Darkhold, aka the Book of the Damned, to amplify her powers, something that she knows by the show’s end that she’s not in complete control of. Still, prophecies shmophecies because teaching herself sorcery is more critical to her than getting professional help and keeping people safe. Agatha warned her about the potential evils her chaos magic could unleash into the world, so why is she still choosing not to listen? Wanda didn’t even learn from her mistakes in the end. Instead, she immediately decides to repeat her past sins by continuing to manipulate, imprison, and torture Agatha, stripping another person on top of an entire town of their agency, yet again.

OK, I hear you—cry me a river, Ridley! Let me play you the world’s smallest violin for Agatha Harkness, the megalomaniac witch who wants to absorb Wanda’s magic. How does Wanda doing to Agatha what was done to her make any sense as it relates to being a hero? When Wanda “sacrifices” her imaginary family so that Westview, a town full of real human beings with real feelings, can escape her hex, Monica says something curious. "They'll never know what you sacrificed for them,” to which Wanda replies, "It wouldn't change how they see me," before promptly dipping out so she can sip tea and study dark magic in the Alps. What exactly did Wanda sacrifice within WandaVision? Vision was already dead multiple times over, and her children were manifestations of her grief and sorrow. However unintentional, she committed numerous human rights violations and manipulated and tortured potentially thousands of people. Of course, the town that she hexed doesn’t forgive her! She most likely wouldn’t have even stopped if it wasn’t for Agatha showing her the truth or if Monica, Jimmy, and Darcy didn’t heroically swoop in to save the day. I know Wanda isn’t a bad person, and she most certainly feels terrible about what she did. However, as we’ve seen, she’s capable of doing truly awful things. Wanda may have saved herself in the end, but at whose expense?

Echo! Play Atomic by Blondie!