#comic wanda is okay because she actually showed remorse for what she did

[whispered-harmony]

oh to be a Billy Maximoff fan and NOT be an MCU!Wanda ass kisser...I mean apologist. 😞

It's hard.

[crazy-addict]

Don’t know why I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, but I think MCU did Wanda a huge disservice. I’m only going to mention AoU and CW for now.

First, her motivations in AoU was stupid, childish, and something she should have grown out of. Then she joins some nazis and essentially does the same thing that caused her grief to so many others. (I know they maybe thought it was SHEILD but at some point it had to be obvious they were not) And there was never any remorse or real character growth shown. And Steve’s claims of “she’s just a kid” we’re insulting to her and everyone around. She was 25, way older than he was when he became captain America. She was a grown women capable of her own decisions.

Second, CA:CW… WTH?!? I don’t even know where to start with that shit show. “I can’t control their fear, only my own.” At least in the movies, that is legitimately part of her powers. And sending her “love” through who knows how many floors of concrete… Based entirely on Clint saying, “Cap needs our help.” No explanation needed let me just shove vision through the floor. (To be honest CW kinda ruined the MCU for me, but that’s not what this post is about.)

I love Wanda. I want to like her character in the movies. Elizabeth Olsen rocks. She does everything she can with the limitations she’s given script wise. She actually occasionally makes you forget how irritating some of the MCU back story for Wanda is. The character (and Olsen) just… she could have been so much more if the writers had allowed it.

I think the problem with comic movies and their plots is that we ignore all the shit and how not okay some of the things are that happen in them are, because we already love the characters.

Alright, just needed to get that off my chest.

[always-and-forever-pan]

MCU Vs. DCU in Character Arcs

The DC universe made me care about their villains, gave them better backstories and semi redemption arcs more in 1.5 movies than the MCU gave any of their characters in 23 movies, 3 short TV shows and numerous shorts.

And I'm honestly kinda mad about it. Mostly because MCU is one of my 3 most favourite fandoms of all time. They're my go-to action movies. But I've only seen Wonder Woman, Birds of Prey and am watching Suicide Squad as I type this.

To make a villain likeable, to bring them back to a hero or an anti-hero, or even just make them a villain we stan, you need to show something that views can get behind, something to make them relatable. Most commonly that's empathy, understanding of wrongdoing, and an active desire to fix their wrongs.

It's why the Winter Soldier works so well, we were given this assassin who's cold-blooded, deadly, the worst of the worst, but once he is a person again he's soft, he feels bad, he's actively trying to make up for it even though it's not truly on him.

And in direct parallel, we have Deadshot, a cold-blooded assassin working for money, deadly, one of the worst people. But then they put him in a team setting and within hours of meeting the team he has formed enough of a relationship with them to literally risk his own head to not have to kill one of the members. And when Harley's plane is shot down any way he is visibly upset and another teammate actually says "You couldn't have saved her".

And we love both of those characters for that. We want that! We NEED that! But where the DCU was able to do that on a smaller scale for some of their others, the MCU didn't do that for anyone else.

(Warning for some salt from here on)

And I hear you arguing "Oh Wanda showed empathy", and sure they showed her feeling bad in CA: CW but the context of that scene, and the lines they gave her made it so she was feeling bad because people were saying mean things about her and not because she accidentally hurt and killed people.

Like don't get me wrong, I was so excited when they decided to make Maximoff's MCU characters because what little of the comic I have seen made me STAN them. But the MCU butt fu*ked those two raw and I'm PISSED.

Like honestly they had the twins join a terrorist organization. Had Wanda mess with Tony's head making her an accomplice to the creation of a murder bot. Had Wanda mess with the teams head and then Bruce's so the Hulk would go on a murderous rampage with no one to stop him. Had them willingly working with Ultron, only to switch sides when he wanted to kill the entire world instead of just a few people making it seem more like a move of self-preservation than actual good motives. Then summed the movie up by saying "Oh her brothers dead so that good enough".

Only to turn around in the very next movie and have her show 0 empathy about the people who died past "They're saying it's my fault". Then they backed it up by her causing physical harm to some she's supposed to love with 0 hesitations.

Then the next time we see Wanda she's with the same guy we just watched her put through god knows how many floors, and within minutes of them being on the screen together she is refusing to allow him to choose between his life and the lives of half the universe. She is an accomplice to the decision of sacrificing an entire Black nation to save her white presenting boyfriend only to decide otherwise at the very last minute as her boyfriend begs her to kill him (Which in itself, MCU WTF!!!).

Even in endgames when she goes up against Thanos they give her some shitty line about "You took everything from me". They made her character revolve around the love of a man like she wasn't a complete person in her own right without him. They made her fighting Thanos seem like she wouldn't have if Thanos hadn't gone for Vision at the base of it when they could have had 1000+ other lines to make it seem like she was fighting for the right things and not just 'cause boy, love'.

The next time we see Wanda she has enslaved an entire town of people. Is forcing them to act against their will and for her enjoyment. The one person woken up while under the influence talks about how it hurts. And then they brush it off with some quip about how the people should be happy because Wanda wasn't doing it with malicious intent, that it was an accident. But still, Wanda shows absolutely 0 remorse for what she's done.

Now having said all of that let's compare her to Harley Quin. Harley Quin also willingly joined a terrorist, in her case, it was a person and not an organisation but still. The first we see of Harley in Suicide Squad we see her enjoying the pain and suffering she's causing, we see her willingly killing people including herself. And they summed it up with "Oh she did it cause she loves him" which I have some massive issues with.

We see Harley willingly steal, and kill, and hurt over the course of both movies. And yeah it's not making her a hero by any standards. But the DCU never tries to push that she's a good person either.

But what they also do is show us a Harley who is affectionate, who wants friends, who mourns when she thinks her love has died. They make us see ourselves in those little moments. They make her funny to offset her heavy crazy weirdness. They show us Harley who is empathic with her team and later with Cassandra.

They make Harley an anti-hero when they have her turn down bringing her love back in favour of saving people. Something the MCU did the opposite of with 'WandaVision'.

Do you see how those are different? Do you get why I can get behind Harley but not Wanda? And I will always say it but I hate that they made Wanda so HARD to like because if you ignore the red flags she is a BOSS ASS BI*CH.

And they did it to Tony as well, gave us so many likeable characteristics and boss moves, but never actually bothered to address personality flaws that lead there. They just made him go from 'not a single F for anyone else' to 'all the F's for everyone except me'.

They did the opposite to Rogers, made him go from 'countries and governments may be flawed but a single dictator having power isn't okay either' to 'I am going to ignore 117 countries and do what I want anyone even if it kills/hurts/maims your citizens because governments are wrong and I know best'

And I'm not saying that one is better than the other, actually, I kind of am saying that DCU did better than MCU here but the point is you cannot expect an audience to love and support a character you are unwilling to show to have humanity, to have empathy. And I really hate (Mostly out of jealousy) that the DCU, a fandom I'm not in was able to get that and the fandom I am in is still wandering in the dark with problematic lessons being relayed to us.

I JUST WANT A REDEMPTION ARC THAT DOESN'T MAKE ME HATE THE MOVIE IS THAT SO HARD!