Throughout Wanda Maximoff’s time in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, she’s been questioned. Is she a villain? Can the Avengers trust her? Whatever you may think about Wanda Maximoff, one thing was made abundantly clear: She’s not the villain of WandaVision and she never was.
**Spoilers for the entire series of WandaVision lie within.**
WandaVision was a beautiful look at grief, how we cope, and the lengths we will go to protect ourselves and those we love. For Wanda Maximoff, she’s a character who has suffered time and time again and never really had the chance to stop and unpack everything that happened to her.
So when she finally does look at her loss, it is completely out of her control. She breaks and creates this dream world, where she can play house with Vision in a sitcom reality and isn’t forced into pretending like she’s fine for the sake of the Avengers and the rest of the world. The problem is that Wanda is then controlling the entire town of Westview, New Jersey by default. What was great about the season finale of WandaVision is that it made it clear that it all happened by accident.
Wanda didn’t seek to trap an entire town. She didn’t realize she was fully controlling everyone, and she said that she didn’t do it on purpose to Agatha when she entered into her mind in the finale.
The show went even further to prove that the villain was and still is Director Tyler Hayward by having him shoot at a child simply because they were Wanda’s children.
At this point, I know I sound like a broken record about Wanda Maximoff, but the fact of the matter is that people still think she’s a villain, and I love that WandaVision went out of the way to prove that that isn’t the case and never was. Wanda is the Scarlet Witch, a powerful being who can manifest magic without using a spell.
She’s a threat, for sure, but Wanda has proven time and time again from Age of Ultron up through Endgame that she is willing to do what is right for the good of society. She destroyed the Mind Stone while it was still attached to Vision to stop Thanos, whether it worked or not. She came back from the Snap and instantly joined in the battle. She took a mistake she made in the beginning of Civil War so close to her heart that she worried about what it meant for her and her powers.
Everything about Wanda has been her learning how to control her gift and use it to be the hero the world needs. The most selfish thing she did was accidentally control this town, something she knew was wrong and knew that the people of Westview would never forgive her for.
Even when Wanda Maximoff does something wrong, she doesn’t feel the power and lust for more. She internalizes it and puts the blame on herself, even when things do happen out of her control. Everything about her is growing, and she’s learning more about who she is, and I can’t wait to see what it means for her in Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness and the rest of the MCU.
(image: Marvel Entertainment)
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