#the witches' road

[coveredwithsnow]

[the-silence-in-between]

When I sift through my heartbreak about the Agatha All Along finale, the thing I keep coming back to is what a terrible choice it was to make The Road a con.

Now, I've seen folks theorizing (with evidence) that Billy subconsciously created The Road for weeks now, so I'm not going to say that the twist came out of nowhere. The hints were there.

But thematically, episodes 1-7, were about womanhood, sisterhood, and community. We saw Agatha deeply long to be part of a coven, even though she didn't trust anyone and felt so obviously, deeply uncomfortable sitting around that campfire in episode 4.

Episode 8 seemed like it would be continuing that same theme, but once we get to The Twist, episode 9 necessarily has to be all about Explaining The Twist. And so, even though the flashback scenes in episode 9 are truly beautiful, they feel like they belong to another show.

Agatha's Character Development

Think back to everything that episode 1 set up. We've been teased with Agatha and Rio's relationship since the very beginning, but we get nothing about how they met and virtually no backstory for Rio. I had zero illusions that we were going to get some sort of happily ever after for them as a couple, or that the show would be all about them. But this was a seminal relationship in Agatha's life, and given how much the actors were talking things up, I really expected more.

Episode 1 also seemed to set up so much more with regards to Agatha's backstory. There was so much about the Darkhold (and it came back up again in episodes 2 and 3, too), but we never found out how or when Agatha attained it. At one point in episode 1, Agnes tells Rio that every case is always about the specific small town and the secrets buried beneath it, but we don't find out anything new about Agatha's life in Salem or why she was nearly executed, nor do we learn why Evanora thought Agatha was born evil.

In fact, when we look at all nine episodes, Agatha really doesn't have a character arc. Once she breaks out of Wanda's hex, she doesn't grow or change. She doesn't make peace with Rio, or with what happened to Nicky -- she literally chooses to become a ghost because she's too afraid to face him in the afterlife. She clearly longs for sisterhood, but Sharon, Alice, and Lilia are dead, and despite Agatha and Jennifer being incredibly similar as characters, they never make peace with each other. Episode 8 presents Agatha choosing to sacrifice herself for Billy at the last minute as "growth," but she literally drank poison for him way back in episode 3. This was already something we expected her to do.

So we end episode 9 with Agatha in the same position she was in in episode 1, only translucent and filmed through a thick layer of Vaseline. Yes, I know she forms a "coven two" with Billy, but after all the earlier focus on sisterhood, the fact that it's just Billy feels really insufficient. And yes, I know that Agatha will likely return in other MCU titles, but this was her show, damn it, and it felt like a miracle that we even got a show starring a queer character played by a woman over 40. And if Agatha can't even get a character arc in her own show, how am I to believe that she'll get one as a side character?

(On a personal note, I think I have always loved seeing a villain do a heel-face turn because I find something so hopeful about seeing a character overcome and grow beyond behaviors and characteristics that only harm them. I've identified really strongly with Agatha's desire for sisterhood and difficulty opening up and trusting others, and for this show to essentially end with "the only change Agatha is capable of making is dying" is just ... honestly devastating on a truly embarrassing level.)

Breaking the Spell Cast by The Ballad

But beyond the way the need to explain The Twist short-changed Agatha's development, it also retroactively cheapens the ~magic~ of The Road and The Ballad. The Road was presented as a journey that sisters in the craft would embark upon together -- the comics have a really moving storyline where Wanda actually meets her biological mother on The Road -- and in singing along with the ballad, it felt like we the audience were part of that sisterhood, that journey. But now knowing that The Road never existed, and only exists now because of a teenage boy who can't control his magic, it feels like the spell Jac Schaeffer spoke about casting on the audience with The Ballad has been broken. It's no longer something I can sing to make me feel like I'm a powerful witch -- it's something darker and less than what we were promised.

Two Halves That Don't Fit

Because of the shift that had to happen once The Road was revealed to be Billy's creation, so much foreshadowing and character development that were begun in the first seven episodes really seemed to just seemed to have no resolution by episode 9.

Maybe this is the story that the writers set out to tell, with The Twist firmly in place from the beginning. But it just feels like at the 11th hour, someone was like "OMG what if The Road is another hex?" and they shoved it in, sprinkling some breadcrumbs backwards so eagle-eyed fans could spot the clues, but not stopping to make sure that the themes they laid out in the early episodes came to a resolution by the end.

And hey, maybe they originally did that, and Marvel/Disney execs came in and removed stuff at the end to fit better with other MCU properties. (Though if that is what happened, I have very little hope for anyone trying to tell an interesting story within this universe.)

This was obscenely long, and I've begun to ramble. There were parts that I liked about both episodes 8 and 9, but over all I just felt so let down after six weeks of falling in love with this show and the story they told us they were telling. They came so close to perfection and really just dropped the ball at the end.

[agentem]

"So this trial [The Earth Trial] is very bare bones. He’s no longer doing hair, makeup, wardrobe because, on some level, he recognizes how distasteful that is, given that people are actually dying. And so it’s a very bare bones trial, and they just have to grow something. It’s the earth trial. So it’s very simple. They have to grow something in a space with no soil or water or seeds. It’s Agatha who’s able to finally make that click, and so she, ironically, is the one who gets off the road having played by the rules." -- Jac Schaeffer, The Wrap (x)

Agatha Harkness: Only Witch to survive the entire Witches' Road. She passed every trial.

[nyoclosmom]

btw i have both the ballad of the witches' road's (the witchy one and the rock one) sheet music and midi files if anyone needs them

[air--so--sweet]

Spoilers for Agatha All Along

Been thinking about Agatha's trial, and I don't think it was her trial, but I think I might know whose it was.

All of the other trials are about the witches facing something from their past and embracing part of their powers.

Jen had to face the fact she feels powerless since being bound and realise that she is still a capable witch because she still has her knowledge, and that can't be taken from her.

Alice had to face the family curse she's been pretending isn't real, make peace with her past and understand that her mother really was trying to protect her and embrace the fact she actually is a witch and has powers.

Lilia had to face that she couldn't prevent her mother and coven's death, accept the fact that everyone must die eventually, and embrace how her power allows her to see past the illusion of the flow of time and to live her life out of sequence.

When they enter the slumber part trial, they realise it's about communing with the dead due to the blood moon and Rio links it to Agatha because 'who better to commune with the dead than someone who's put so many in the grave'. I don't know, maybe the actual personification of Death? It was the road's attempt at a trial for Rio but there was one problem, Rio isn't part of the coven. Agatha presumed she was as she said that her heart is black and it beats for Agatha Harkness and instead of a fifth name on the list Lilia had drawn a black heart. But Eddie, Billy's boyfriend uses a black heart emoji in a text message when referring to Billy. Because of the sigil Lilia and Agatha couldn't read Billy's name and so when they look at the list all they see is a black heart (Billy says there were five names on the list, it's Lilia who say the final one was a heart, not a name).

After all, Rio has no reason to walk the road, there's nothing for her to get out of it. She simply wants '[her] bodies' as she put it when speaking to Agatha . She does not need to walk the road to get bodies. She loves Agatha, but again, she does not need to walk the road to get Agatha either (after all Agatha was ready to kiss her, it was Rio who stopped it). She also isn't denying her past with Agatha or that she hurt her.

And so what the road created was a messy hodge podge that made little sense. Rio's powers are related to the dead so the trial had the theme of communing with dead. Rio loves Agatha and hates ghosts and so Agatha was in danger because of a ghost. And Rio wants bodies, and so when Alice dies the exit opens. However, as Rio is not a member of the coven, completing her trial didn't bring them further down the road which is why the exit to her trial is the only one that leads upwards.

Edit: I've realised that the exit for Lilia's trial leads upwards as well, but once she flips the tower card that would cause the steps to then lead down. Tbh I think I'm bring a bit delulu with this, but it's what I'm going with for now.

[disregardcanon]

a few ways others influenced how Billy manifested "The Road"

the conversation about "taming your fears" and then "trials" and agatha claiming that they would face a trial for "each skill" shapes not only the setup as A Series of Four Trials, but also the emphasis on PERSONAL GROWTH. Billy ends up focusing in on what he knows about these different women whose minds he can read and who he keeps getting to know more and more as they go around

"i thought this would be obvious, but we should stay on the road" and then teen adding "I STRAY NOT FROM THE PATH!" happily like a student eagerly raising their hand in class. and then agatha is able to say "hello yes favorite student PLEASE make our situation go by what happens in the song i made up with my son. if you believe it then that'll become our reality! yay!"

agatha keeps asserting that billy is the familiar because oh boy! if he doesn't think of himself as Part of the Coven in the same way maybe his brain won't turn on him and get us all killed! yay!

For the first trial, Jennifer says that she "looks like one of her customers", and her business and clientele are BOTH something that Billy is familiar with. From the different versions of the Ballad, he already considers Personal Trauma to be something that's confronted on the Road, so of course he subconsciously chose something that created traumatic hallucinations, and then Agatha is still figuring out How This Thing That Shouldn't Be Is Going to Work so of COURSE she's reticent to drink the weird ominous now surely poisoned wine. she knows that the road isn't a real, cosmic entity that has set rules the way that others think. she fights against the idea that they all have to drink because if she had convinced billy that they didn't... she wouldn't have to! but with the combination of his preconceptions and the rest of the coven, who thinks that this is One Hundred Percent Real... he stays set on the idea that them, the Coven Members, all have to drink.

agatha stops fighting for HEY NO WE DON'T HAVE TO DO THIS as soon as billy decides if she doesn't, he will. she doesn't want to die for this, but she's also not stupid enough to have The Kid That Almost Definitely Is Making This Happen drink the wine instead of her. it actually IS better for her to be incapacitated and them have a chance to get out than to poison the kid who's clearly Doing The Magic Here,

For the second trial, Billy has some information from Alice about how her situation with her mom went via Being Right By Her During Her Hallucination and Alice Telling Him Things. from the hallucination: we get lorna playing with the cigarette lighter, saying she could feel alice's grandmother die thousands of miles away, smoke, and "I CAN'T PROTECT YOU!" he was right outside the door, where i'm sure he could hear her thoughts. this gives him enough to clearly connect Alice with fire in his mind. the rest of the trial was just... him knowing that alice has issues with her mother and her mother's version of the ballad, and creating a circumstance where she'd work through that issue. he really lucked into it being a protection spell for a proper generational curse.

other bits of trial number two: "seriously, we're an album cover waiting to happen!" teen exclaims. the walls of assorted Bad Things That Happen to Witches and then lorna wu merchandise.

he doesn't actually know nearly as much about agatha as the others, because he can't read agatha's mind. i think that the ouija board trial was the first one where his brain was just "huh, okay... what are the vibes of talking to spirits?" lilia establishes that spirit magic can't be hers because it was a con and establishes herself as divination for later, and then RIO is the one that makes it agatha's. i haven't totally figured out why, though. or what his subconscious had in mind for what "passing" the trial would look like. evanora and nicky were definitely the real ghosts pulled in with the help of the ouija board, but the reasoning behind it is a lot less... clear to me than the others.

the outside of the road was treacherous enough to keep sharon inside, but it didn't kill him and i don't think that it would have. the goal of that subconscious bit of magic was a fence, vs the subconscious use of the Trials, which according to the ballad, being used to construct it, COULD be deadly. (if one be gone we carry on, spirit as our guide). then of course when agatha, lilia and jen got sucked under it, despite how angry he was... it was a conscious enough use of magic and he didn't ACTUALLY want them dead.

the divination trial was pretty clearly set up in his brain for lilia. the tarot, the old timey european aesthetic of the set, and then the different witch costumes assigned to different witches to represent how he views them. it also makes sense that they couldn't figure out how to "pass it" before lilia got there because neither billy nor agatha are very good at tarot and they were just sniping at each other about how to do it, vs lilia who divined her whole life and was able to use the power boost billy's powers gave her to go out with a bang.

the green trial, i think, was a desperate last moment brain attempt to just shove them in a room and get results. the aesthetic was Scary Morgue because he finally had rio/death to slot into the green witch part of his brain. the idea, then, became Give the Survivors What They Came For, then they can leave. they got jen unbound and she got to disappear. agatha guided him through getting tommy a body and then he got to disappear, and then his brain kept agatha there until she was able to get at her own reason for being on the road: starting anew. then it let them all out.

[thenightling]

Marvel's released another version of The Witches' road. This is the fifth version for people keeping score.

First there was

The Winding Road (Country style version)

The Witches' Road (Sacred chant version)

The Witches Road 70s Glam Rock version.

The Witches Road 70s Glam rock Agatha's coven cover version.

And now Japanese pop style version. (In English). Same lyrics as the 70s Glam version.)

I'm starting to collect them because honestly... The song is the best thing about Agatha All Along.

[zipadeea]

something something Agatha and Nicky were homeless, they were nomads, coven-less wanderers accepted by no one, loved by no one but each other. The road was their home, the road was their home and Nicky wrote a song about it, he wrote a song about his home as he walked the road with his mother. And then he died, Nicky died and all his mother had left of him was a lock of his hair she wore close to her heart and a song that he wrote that came from his heart.

And his mother turned that song into a con and used it to kill people.

No wonder Agatha still isn't ready to face her son.

[danawinter]

someone else has probably already brought this up, but, what is the end of the witches' road? does it even exist? or at least, does it exist in the way the show has suggested its existence until now?

as the show explained the road in the first few episodes, i assumed that the road is a path you walk, facing the fears and struggles of you and your coven, and in the end you get to claim your reward and go home. and initially i was focused on how this reward works; do you get to decide what you want, or does the road decide for you? but now i'm wondering what the end of the road consists of. is it a location, or a person/spirit/creature?

and then i started thinking about how agatha is supposed to be the only survivor of the witches' road. but, and i say this with all the love in the world for our coven of chaos we've come to know in this show, that cannot possibly be right, right? was there never a coven of witches more capable than the coven we've seen in this show?

so, if no other witches have survived the witches' road, what happened to prevent them from reaching the end of the road? unless, they did.

my current theory is that there is no end of the road. or, more specifically, there is no final destination that you reach and then get a prize and then just walk into your old life again. i believe the witches' road will give you what you are missing, however, it will be followed by your death. you could call it a "glory at the end", as the ballad does.

(this started running a little long so i'll continue with my reasoning under the cut)

let's go through our deaths so far. first up is mr shart sharon. it's hard to know exactly what her truest heart's desire was since we knew only a little of her. and since she wasn't a witch, the road's rules might not even apply to her. but we do know that she seems to have been very lonely since her husband died. and then on the road she got to live her final moments as part of a group of women having a nice time, hanging out, with a bottle of wine. however, as she found what she was missing - a sense of friendship - she had reached her end of the road and died.

then we get to alice. she entered the road hoping to find out what happened to her mom; and connected to that there seemed to be a desire to understand her own protection magic. through her own trial she finds out what her mother was trying to accomplish with her music. and i think this also cemented a better understanding of her identity as a protection witch. and so when alice had found what she was missing - answers about her mother and powers - she had reached her end of the road and died.

and most recently, lilia. initially, lilia's desire was a bit vague, i think the closest we got was her wanting to gain control over her shop again. but i think we can see in the seventh episode that lilia's actual desire was much more about her understanding the point of her powers, especially in a world that did not seem to care for witches - a world that would just hunt them or mock them by misrepresenting them in movies and other stories. and throughout her trial she finally gets to understand both her powers and the meaning of being a witch within a coven. and so when lilia found what she was missing - an understanding of her life - she had reached her end of the road and died.

and an additonal moment i found interesting in episode 7 is when lilia describes how her powers have become more erratic recently. when jen asks her why, lilia suggests that it might be because she's 'close to the end'. jen thinks she means the end of the road, when we already know that lilia means the end of her life. could this be a hint that they are one and the same?

the main obstacle i could find to this theory, is of course that there is a survivor of the road in agatha. however, firstly, a lot of us have been wondering if agatha ever walked the road to begin with (which now has also been mentioned by billy within the show). and secondly, agatha being the exception to a death rule, when she's literally in a centuries-long back-and-forth relationship with lady death, does not seem impossible.

so the main thing i'm wondering about now, if this is true, what does that mean for the end of the show? does everyone have to die? if agatha did actually survive the road once before, can she do it again? also, if agatha did survive the road, and knows that this is how the road works, is she just willingly leading everyone to their death? i mean, she is a witch killer, so i shouldn't be shocked, but she does seem to care about them now. then again, that could all be an act.

and then of course, where does wiccan come in? i highly doubt they're gonna be killing him in this show. and i do have a feeling jen might survive this show as well. does that mean there is a way to cheat out of dying on the road? or maybe it just means this theory is crumbling before my eyes so i guess i'll just leave it here

[hecksilver]

OH MY HECKING HECK GUYS!!!! WHAT IF SHARON 'Mrs. Hart' COMES BACK IN THE LAST EPISODE AS THE PERSONIFICATION OF HECATE THE TRIPLE GODDESS TO GRANT THE COVEN THEIR WISHES?!?!!?!??!??!!?

and then it ends with something like "oh, the witches' road is the friends we made along the way or smth..."

[belanekra]

The way Agatha really said "the one good thing in my life is dead, time to immediately be evil."

[thembo-x]

Like, witches who walk The Road undergo trials where they must face their fears under the very real threat of death, but those who can finish the Road will find what they want the most or what they are missing.

Did that not happen to Wanda, Agatha, Billy, Jen, Alice, and Lillia? Is that not why Jennifer emerged right by the entrance to Westview?

[agentem]

Westview

In the first episode ("Agnes of Westview"), Agnes says the town is important. That it's about this place and these people.

What if there is something about Westview that has drawn all these witches to it? I know Agatha said there would be "witchy enough" people in a two mile radius but the only one who is "witchy enough" and not outright witch is Sharon Davis.

Maybe THAT'S why the Witches Road opened for them? I thought the timing of it was weird. It doesn't seem like the song opened the road like it was supposed to?

(What if the Road really is in Westview, New Jersey and that's why their public transit system failed? LOL.)

I don't know. In the trailer there is a shot of Jennifer Hale seeming to come up out of someone's lawn. Like she burrowed from the Road back to the surface somehow...?

[soverymediaaddicted]

A lyric quiz I just made for Agatha All Along and The Ballad of the Witches’ Road.

Are there any real witches on this site? Or just has-beens and could’ve-beens?

[burninblood]

Down, down, down the road, down the witches' road...

[xmascritter]

Hello tumblrinas!

As someone who read Scarlet Witch: Witches' Road as well as its sequels World of Witchcraft and The Final Hex, the main marvel comics covering the witches' road as a concept,

Heres all some things in the First Two episodes of Agatha All Along that were potentially/ are references

Agatha being a cop: while Agatha is a ghost in the actual comics (long story) with Wanda being the main character, the book witches road itself honestly gives the energy of a buddy cop mystery (that Im still really sad they didnt continue into the second book, by far the weakest of the trilogy) in some ways since agatha is always there, with wanda acting almost as magic police and going around to solve problems and fight evil magic users or creatures. Starting off with her trapped in a crime scene drama might be reference to the original tone of the book

I thought Id have more but I was so distracted by alice actually being there I lost it. Anyways, if I had to bet, heres some things I think will happen later on in the show:

Lorna Wu and Alice Gulliver!: In the witches road trilogy, Alice Gulliver aka The Wu is introduced and appears a couple times, her whole schtick is she infuses weapons with magic. Sound familiar? Her mother was The August Wu of the Coral Shore, who died and dissapeared under mysterious circumstances, which may sound familiar since thats also Lorna's title. In the book shes a hong kong policewoman, but I understand the change since we needed her to be accessible to agatha, and honestly her being a hot topic security guard is maybe the funniest thing.

They meet Hecate. This ones pretty self explanatory, they meet hecate in the books, comics love having hecate be around cause theres literally 3 different roles she could play in the story, hecate appears in the comics, if I had to guess she will probably make a direct appearance at some point since theyve already made their maiden mother crone reference speaking of which

Maiden, mother, crone. They meet Wanda on the road. This may seem like a weird guess, but time is incredibly wobbly on the road. Its actually a major plot point in the comic inspiration that they meet Wanda's mom on the road (which I have some beef with but thats for a different rant), a feat which wouldnt be possible if not for the fact time ain't linear on the road. Its like the tower from The Boy and the Heron/How do You Live. So long as they've been on the witches road, you can meet them on the witches road, alive or dead. And wanda was certainly powerful enough to go on the road solo, even in this version. And we just so happen to have a teen whos name is blocked by a mysterious protection spell who Agatha serves as an aunt figure to. Billy literally gets reincarnated into a normal kid the comics, I would bet money thats billy and he realises who he is because they encounter wanda on the road.

Possible Declan Dane/Dían the Emerald Warlock cameo, we see his backstory in the witches road as well, he gets mad at wanda after she breaks his curse on the entirity of ireland (long story) and I would not put it past agatha to have done that

The goddess at the end of the road. In the actual witches road, no ones made it to the end until the end of the 3rd book when wanda, her mom, and agatha make it and see the goddess of magic at the end of the road being strangled by chaos. Considering theyve established wanda being so heavily tied with chaos magic, I would not be surprised if this time the blame is on wanda for doing it.

Anyways, looking forward to seeing how the story evolves