#I call this one: Prelude to an absolute clusterfuck

[charmfamily]

(SEMI) CHARMED KIND of LIFE EPISODE 0: PILOT, PART VII

[wandaposting]

What are the legitimate criticisms against Wanda?

oh boy this probably calls for PROPER CAPS + PUNCTUATION MODE HERE WE GOOOO – w8 tho were u asking about legitimate criticisms against Wanda or legitimate criticisms against Lizzie, because Lizzie’s what I rambled about in my tags sdkfdjsl

OH WELL I’M JUST GONNA ANSWER THE QUESTION HERE WE GOOOOOOOOOOOoOOOO

When I’m critical of a character in most cases, I try to be less “I take issue with this character” and much less “screw this character, I hope this character burns in hell,” because that’s just immature and more “I take issue with choices the writer/director behind this character made to present this character to an audience.”

All my issues with Wanda in the MCU stem from the fact that they put less effort into her character story arc on account of her being a supporting character in a massive ensemble cast. Points that ought to be vital to her character are either sidelined or handwaved in favor of devoting those 30 seconds of screentime to some other character or conflict.

Point 1: Her vendetta against Tony Stark, literally™ her driving force for what we can assume to be half her life and screen time in Age of Ultron. Where did it go? (Even the “You locked me in my room” banter in Civil War is just that—one line of banter tied to a specific situation that says frustratingly little about what their relationship is as a whole.) The writers obviously want you to believe it’s not important anymore, so we can ignore it ever happened. Except that’s lazy hecking writing for something that is supposed to be so integral to her initial character development. We the audience are left wondering if they reconciled off screen, or if she still dislikes him while living on his dime (or payroll) which I imagine is an assumption some Anti Wanda Tony Stans like to make, which is in turn… a reasonable if not subjective assumption. Because we were given nothing that told us otherwise.

(I like to think they reconciled off screen. It makes no sense to me personally otherwise, but it kills me that this has to be a headcanon instead of actual confirmed canon.)

Point 2: That HYDRA Thing. The thing is, anyone who’s That Into Wanda has already read the supplemental material and knows the twins signed up for what they believed to be a front for SHIELD, or some other clandestine operation. I forget which, but they absolutely didn’t wittingly volunteer themselves to a Nazi organization per the AoU prelude (which I prescribe to). However, the canonicity of those MCU preludes are questionable at best (Nidavellir in the Thor: The Dark World prelude =/= Nidavellir in Infinity War). And the vast majority of movie watchers aren’t gonna know jack squat about them, and they don’t need to know about them. You shouldn’t have to dig into obscure supplemental material to understand why the heck the twins would subject themselves to something as shady as HYDRA in the first place. So we get a throwaway line comparing their situation to Steve’s experience with Dr. Erskine, which makes no sense because we already know Dr. Erskine was a nice man and not hecking HYDRA. They really could’ve done better here. And note how, like the Tony Stark Thing, her time with HYDRA is brushed under the rug and never mentioned again.

Point 3: They screwed over Avengers 2.0 (the team comprised of Steve, Natasha, Rhodey, Sam, Vision, and ofc Wanda). So who else noticed that the New Avengers never had the chance to successfully fend off a major threat together, on screen? All we get is Lagos sans Vision and Rhodey, which gets botched at Wanda’s expense, followed by immediate infighting. The OG6 have their unspoken bond and fanfare because of the gr8910 and unprecedented launchpad that was Avengers 2012. I assume a retread of that kind of launchpad with the New Avengers would’ve been considered too redundant for the MCU, but anything would’ve been better than the Nothing Burger we got. We never get the opportunity to grow attached to Wanda as a functioning Avenger of a functioning Avengers team. For a character with precious little screen time, soooo much more of that screen time is dedicated to her being put down / suffering / in a CoMpRoMiSeD situation than rising up to challenges and owning them. Being meguca Wanda is Suffering, basically… which is probably a leaf they took out of comics Wanda.

Point 4: Her powers are still whatever the plot demands them to be lmao. Right now the plot demands for her to be Jean Grey with red jazz hands (who can… also stitch Vision’s vibranium skin back together?? squint), because the MCU apparently isn’t ready for the Scarlet Witch to be an actual witch yet, and that’s lame (Kevin Feige only talking about how her and Doctor Strange are wielding the same ~~energy~~ 2 years ago is lame, because 1) prove it Feige, and 2) chaos magic when???). But I don’t doubt that if and when they are ready, they’ll go ahead and retcon actual magic into her powerset, because that’s the kind of thing that happens to every character named Wanda Maximoff across p much every medium. Except maybe cartoons.

And if you think comics Wanda isn’t actually more of a clusterfuck (I say, with endearment) than MCU Wanda, ho ho ho ho while I certainly love them both I’m gonna respectfully disagree.

but it’s late and this is already a wall of text ramblegeddon skdlfdsljk and i have to sleep

TY FOR GETTING ME TO RAMBLE, ANON