Let’s be honest: Elizabeth Olsen’s Scarlet Witch has always blurred the lines between hero and villain. It always seems that her morals are sitting on the fence and teeter depending on her given situation. It’s almost like she wakes up some mornings and decides to be cut-throat and vengeful, then other days wakes up and decides to fight for peace and justice. From WandaVision onwards, Olsen’s Wanda Maximoff began a downhill descent into power-hungry schadenfreude. Before that, in Avengers: Age of Ultron and the periods between, she seemed to be a do-gooder at heart, always believing that the wrongdoers should get their just desserts.
Then motherhood became Wanda’s central focus. Everything else faded into the background and she became fixated on providing a life for herself and her boys, Billy and Tommy. And motherhood will make you do crazy things. After losing Vision, Billy, and Tommy in WandaVision, Olsen’s Scarlet Witch became hell-bent on finding a way to restore her “perfect” life and live out the remainder of her days with her husband and sons.
WandaVision served as the proof that Wanda’s powers alone weren’t enough, so in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Wanda went on a murderous rampage in search of America Chavez, the dimension-jumping teenager with the interdimensional powers to heighten Wanda’s abilities and restore her ideal lifestyle. Now that Marvel fans have seen glimpses of Good Wanda and Bad Wanda, they have been asked to choose; Reddit has started a debate regarding the concept of Wanda/Scarlet Witch as a hero or a villain, purely based on personal preference.
Some fans are indifferent to the whole debate, believing that Wanda is all-powerful and enjoyable as a character regardless of where her allegiance lies. In the comics, after Wanda forms the “House of M,” the Marvel heroes — including her former allies — begin to debate killing her because her Dark Magic has spiralled out of control. Anyone who knows Wanda has always known that she has the capacity to be heroic but also the motivation to be felonious — it all depends on environmental factors. Wanda can be easily swayed with moral dilemmas.
Other arguments insist that regardless of her moral status, her character development and individual storyline are still thoroughly enjoyable. When we consider Wanda’s growth from Age of Ultron to Multiverse of Madness, her personal evolution is more significant than whether she fights for good or evil.
On the other hand, villains always do it better — it’s a proven fact. With that in mind, Wanda was infinitely more interesting as the full-fledged Scarlet Witch than she ever was as a scared and reluctant Sokovian with limitations to what she can achieve. Even more so, when Wanda’s villain arc finally concludes and she reconciles with her actions, she will undergo the biggest growth of all. All of that is yet to come, which only makes Wanda’s future all the more promising.
If you haven’t seen Elizabeth Olsen as Scarlet Witch in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, you haven’t lived. The action-packed sequel to Sam Raimi’s 2016 film is streaming now on Disney Plus.
Published: Jun 27, 2022 12:54 pm