#I don't think the Westview residents not dying is a point in Wanda's favour though

[valkyrieandstrangeridingaragorn]

I'm not one who likes to engage in "whataboutism", but I will ALWAYS maintain that between Wanda and Clint, what Clint did in his grief was morally worse than what Wanda did in Westview.

I think it's a point in Wanda's favor that she had an accidental unleashing of her powers in a moment of anguish. And no one died in Westview.

(I'll even bite and argue that Clint's crimes as Ronin were morally worse than Wanda's kills in DSMOM because Wanda at least has the defense/excuse of being corrupted by the Darkhold, while Clint was completely himself when he committed his crimes.)

It's an interesting debate. A lot could be written about free will, self-awareness, temporary insanity and grief. I think Clint's experience is a little more complex than what those comments try to imply... but if I start talking about my beloved hawk guy I might end up with a crazy-ass long answer, so let me focus on Marvel instead.

I never took the Hawkeye series as an attempt to justify his crimes as Ronin, he was given a story that tackled his guilt and let him move on from that. And THAT is the main issue here imo.

Marvel is wildly inconsistent when it comes to judging and framing characters. You can't tell me Bucky has to make amends and take responsibility for the Winter Soldier, and then refuse to acknowledge Clint's crimes in EG + let him off the hook in the season finale of his series while other characters still have to pay for shit they did a decade ago.

How are we not going to complain? The Hawkeye series came after TFATWS where Bucky was retraumatized & victim blamed and after the Loki series where everything in his past is ignored and he's even blamed for things he didn't even do. So of course when we see a story where Clint is allowed to move on, a lot of people are mad. And rightfully so!

But the problem is not that Clint is being given narrative protection, the problem is that victims are being treated as executioners in other movies/series. At least Wanda was treated beautifully in her series, but she's the odd one out.

And I think that's why many fans see Clint's series as justification for Ronin. But it's not. At least not for me, I think both he and Wanda got series that focused on their pain, guilt and grief. Wanda got ep8 and Clint said this in ep4:

"Everybody dealt with the Blip in their own way. I continued doing what I was trained to do. […] Hurting people. Investigating first, but in the end, my job has always been to hurt people. […] I was a weapon. I was aimed by the right people at the right targets, so… […] (Those mistakes are) tied to me. Tied to my family. That’s why I’m here. And I can’t go home till I fix it."

I don't think that's narrative protection, that's giving a character the chance to move on from his mistakes, which is something we don't get often. He got an awful lot of narrative protection in EG but I didn't see that in his series. One of the main differences though is that his victims were never humanized nor given the time of day, whereas Wanda's get names and we know them pretty well.

Either way, if it comes to comparing his and Wanda's actions.. dunno. Like I said at the beginning, he was aware of what he was doing but man, that pain and grief must have been insane. He was retired while all the others were fighting Thanos. Imagine him finding out about that. I know it's "cool motive, still murder" but... I don't feel comfortable pitting them against one another, you know?