Screenwriter Michael Waldron has been getting asked a bit about Wanda Maximoff’s turn in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. While I’ve talked about it at length, I don’t necessarily hate her storyline. I don’t mind her being the bad guy and I don’t mind her turning to the darker parts of her character. What I do mind is how rushed it felt and how parts of the story just felt like a “Well, she’s bad, so she has to be fully bad, and this is the way to do it,” without any kind of nuance.
But Waldron makes a great point in a new interview about how he understands the pain that fans of WandaVision and Wanda feel. “I guess I would say to the WandaVision fans, like, I get it,” Waldron told The Playlist. “Watching a character you love do bad things sucks. That elicits a strong feeling, which is what we’re trying to do in the movies. We never would have done it if it didn’t feel like the next step in her character journey.”
Yes, I get that. It was the next step for the character if you look at her comic book history, but it also did not need to be as drastic and fast as it ended up being in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, which is my problem with it. But I do know that people don’t like that she became the “villain” of the story, either. Waldron went on to explain how he interpreted WandaVision, and again, I think he’s pretty spot-on with this.
“To me, my interpretation of the story of WandaVision was, that Wanda is confronting her grief in that show, but I don’t think she’s necessarily conquering it,” Waldron explained. “It’s a show about her living in denial to some extent and she’s conquering her denial, but I don’t think that she’s properly reckoning with her anger over what she’s endured, and that anger is what she carries with her as she walks away with the knowledge that she is the Scarlet Witch and with the Darkhold, this evil book.”
And again, he’s right. Her journey wasn’t over, and that was clear throughout Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.
Let’s focus on the Darkhold
What I do love a lot about Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is that this movie makes the power that the Darkhold can have over someone very clear. It preys on you, and so Wanda’s actions, while still her own, are heavily influenced by the book, and that’s something that clearly was part of Waldron’s thinking, as well. “And I think it’s that anger that the Darkhold preys upon and pushes her on what is — to me and I think to Wanda — a very justifiable, noble journey. She just wants her kids.”
So his thinking on Wanda isn’t wrong. He’s right in his take on the character. I just wish the movie weren’t so rushed in its treatment of her journey or the decision for her to destroy the mountain that held the Darkhold.
(via ComicBook.com, image: Marvel Entertainment)
