#wandavision analysis

[this-is-chaos-magick]

Sorry for rambling but I can't just thinking about this and I need people to listen to me I see Wanda smut fics all the time but I can't find post about analyzing and appreciating her character ( I see other fandoms do it with their fav characters I want one with Wanda too) Everything about Wanda's character is making me so freaking sad like i hate that half of her fans only care about her powers and that she's hot... she's more than that..I know it's fiction and it's not that serious but she makes me insane

She has every reason to be angry and be a Villain. because she didn't ask to suffer she didn't ask to be powerful and when she try to do something good and she did, the government put her in the raft everyone acts like she throws the bomb on the building on purpose when it's the only way to save Captain America and everyone around them. People blamed her for her own suffering and blamed her for a tragedy she didn't even cause, She can never come home because the house where all of her happy memories is made doesn't exist. She tried do everything to prove to everyone that she is good and it's not enough. The girl who only wanted people to accept her, the girl who only wanted to be love, the girl who wanted to be good, wasn't good enough

Her and Pietro is trapped under the rubbles of her own house for 2 days, no cause I can't imagine what that must be like? They know their parents are dead. They don't know if they are going to survive. They don't know if someone is going to come rescue them. And when they got rescued. They probably did not have given the chance to grieve their parents. Her parents body are probably unrecognizable and were buried in a mass grave, They are force to grow up too quickly and they have no choice but to accept it.

The reason she ends up so checked out of reality is probably that horrible things keep happening to her, and she has no choice but to go "ok" and move on from that. The moment she first appeared, the way she behave and act it's obvious she have aggression issues and emotional maturity. She used to go to rallies and protests because the government of her country sucks, (shown in aou) and she grew up with her brother, who probably tried to do everything to stop both of them from starving to death. She joined Hydra because she thought she'd be doing something that would help her and her brother, she didn't join them because she agreed with them. ( It's literally implied that hydra is pretending to be shield and is recruiting volunteers)

She did not throw that bomb on that building on purpose; she's trying to save Steve and the people around her. She literally saved a lot of people's lives there, but people keep focusing on her mistake.

Wanda had done so many good things because she was good despite every reason not to. If she is "evil" from the beginning she would have not side with the avengers and just run away after learning Ultron's real plan

She would have not tried so hard to stop the bombs in Lagos if she did not care about other people's life. she save Natasha's and okoye's life, She did everything she could to stop thanos, she did everything the team ordered her to do.

She doesn't want to kill vision because she's afraid of being alone. Westview happened because she couldn't take it anymore. If She is evil she would have not the of people of that town go

"Why didn't she go to therapy?"

Girl, I don't think therapists in the "M*rvel" can help her. You know how people there react to her. If she goes to a therapist, it will probably make her worse. She wants Vision back because he's the only one who understands and truly loves her, and he treats her better than most people there.

She wants her sons back because they make her feel normal and human.They probably reminds her of her life when she is young before everything went horrible. And I don't want to her that "ThEy ArE nOt rEaL" bullshit, They are real to her, she gave birth them. She feels them kicking in her stomach, she touch them she cooks for them, change their diapers, made memories with them, they are not just objects or toys to her, they are her children, she gave life to them, they have souls, they just don't have a physical body

No cause Wanda is happy in Edinburg with vision, those are probably the times where she feels real happiness and thanos ruined everything.

If thanos didn't come, Wanda and vision will be have a real marriage and probably have adopted real children.

Wanda only want people to accept her, she only wanted to be treated like a human being, she doesn't care about being powerful. All of the crimes she committed happened because ever since she's a little she suffered, and I don't care if there are other people who suffers than her, people process trauma differently.

the way Wanda is influenced with something dark and evil and all of she ever wanted is to hug her sons again, she did not want to rule the entire universe she didn't want anything all she ever wanted is to be with her family

Wanda realize she have the power to do everything she wants (darkhold influ.)

that she has a will and that she can make her self happy and I love her for trying.b and I do think she makes stupid and horrible decisions, but so do I, and that's okay;

She's been a hero, a victim, and a villain. because the writers and the shitty universe she's in, don't know what to make of her they accidentally created a character with so many potential and they don't know what to do next and they just killed her off because they think she's not as important like the rest, and majority of her fans just cares about her powers, they only care that she can "solo" people hated Wanda's character because of that. People won't look deeper into her character because the people that claimed to love her also weaponized her. She is doomed by the narrative, ruined by her some of her "fans" and we might not see her again because the universe she's in sucks.

rahhh I am losing it over a fictional woman who has been dead for (?)2 years :(

sorry again for yapping to much I just love this woman so much, my English is not that great sorry if some words are use incorrectly and I am half asleep while typing this so sorry for typos... goodnight

[shutupineedtothink]

ok so I was rewatching the last few episodes of WandaVision for Agatha character purposes and I have some notes:

She threatens to hurt the twins but never actually does (beyond knocking them on their butts one time, no real damage)

When Wanda tells them to go to their room, she says "listen to your mother boys" and hangs back until they're gone

the twins seem to genuinely feel safe around her, she's deceiving them yes, but I'd like to think they can tell that she's not a physical threat to them

We know she wants Wanda's power but we never really hear why. at the time it seems to be power for power's sake but... probably not.

She's very interested specifically in Wanda's power of creation, especially conjuring her family, including someone she previously lost, from thin air 👀

As she's taking Wanda through her trip down memory lane and gets to the stuff with Vision, guiding her through the memory, she says "and you wanted him back" with so much conviction and emotion... it almost feels personal... 👀 👀 👀

bonus: she does not go after anyone in her coven in the flashback, they attack HER first, then she takes their power. and even after that, she says "please, I can be good" and her mother (??) says, "no, you cannot" and attacks her AGAIN, and then she absorbs her power too. We're meant to think this was all a trap laid by Agatha to get their power, but she seems to be at least half trying to actually appeal to them to help her. at the least, she's conflicted about it, and they seal their own fate by attacking her first.

hm. just some food for thought for you. did I miss any??

[isagrimorie]

Watching YouTube reactions to the last Agatha All Along episode I'm struck by how many people seem to disregard Agatha's actual grief and regret over, IMO, accidentally draining Alice to death. (Question mark?)

The Nerdy Nightly channel's review on the episode had a more nuanced take recognizing not only Agatha's complexity but also the metaphor of addiction that applies not just to Agatha, but to almost everyone in the coven.

I'm glad more people are discussing this metaphor for Agatha. It makes Agatha so interesting.

Also, in light of this, I think we can't push past that Evanora's ghost meant for Agatha to drain someone in the coven so they would all turn against her.

It's almost like pushing an addict off the wagon, except pushing Agatha off the sobriety train means people die.

Jac Schaeffer was never interested in simplistic morality plays. She is committed to exploring characters in all their complexities, allowing them to be their fullest, often flawed, selves.

Schaeffer explained her character writing approach while writing WandaVision:

“It was important to us that it be all Wanda and that it would be her responsibility because we didn’t want—we weren’t doing Mephisto, Nightmare, the Grim Reaper, or any other people or entities,” Scheffer explained. “If we’re not going to take the cheap way out that there’s this other force, right, if we’re going to give the gift of storytelling to Wanda, I give the whole power, she also then has the culpability and has the accountability.”

(source: Gizmondo) (hat tip to: @ennn)

(Emphasis mine.)

And it seems Schaeffer's views on writing have changed with Agatha All Along. She doesn't want an easy answer for Agatha's character, and that's genuinely refreshing. For a Disney+ character to be allowed to have her flawed and authentic self?

It feels right. It feels real.

Schaeffer mentions this in a recent interview with Script Mag:

I think the fun of Tony Stark is that he wants to be bad, but he's a hero despite himself. But Agatha is not that. Agatha is not a hero, despite herself. Agatha is entirely selfish and self-serving. I don't know, I feel like it should have been harder. It should have been more like, 'Oh, gosh, how are we going to make this villain sympathetic?' But it wasn't that challenging because she's not. It's never her aim to hurt someone. She doesn't hurt anyone just for the fun of it. She's interested in two things: She’s interested in what serves her and she's interested in witchcraft, specifically, enormously powerful witchcraft.

Schaeffer goes on to say that all main characters in Agatha All Along function as anti-heroes. And the writers go on lengthy debates about the story beats and character choices.

Later on in the same interview with Script Mag, Schaeffer discusses Agatha's hidden motivations.

The way I defined Agatha—prior to the room, prior to anything—is that she's a liar, that it's just masks. This show is about pulling that mask all the way off. And what do we see? What is under the mask? It's hard to talk about at this point because there's so many spoilers inherent in that. 

But I think what you can get from the earliest episodes is that, yes, she wants power, right? That's her superficial goal. That's her super objective. But that can't be it, right? That's boring. What's underneath it? And it's fairly clear from the beginning that she reluctantly wants community, that this is a covenless witch who, deep down, wants a coven. And that's fascinating to me. What did Wanda want? She wanted to be safe and cozy with her family. That was a that was a very clear, true north. But there, the friction was the sort of logistical trappings were untenable. For Agatha, she's in the way of her own thing. And it's much more of a subtext and a fabric that we then exploit and explore deeper into the show.

I love that we haven't been reading Agatha wrong -- Agatha does want, deep down, to have a community but she's been wearing her mask for too long that Agatha's also her own worst enemy. Her reputation and defensive persona push people away.

When backed into a corner, Agatha slips on the mask of a villain because if she hurts them first, then no one can hurt her.

It's so fun and interesting to have a character like Agatha again! Especially within Disney+ Marvel's ecosystem of shows.

Netflix Marvel used to feature similarly complex characters but Disney+ Marvel shows have struggled to find that line.

[swattingredwing]

Agatha and the Wicked Witch

(slight spoilers for episode 7)

There have now been two (as far as I'm aware) comparisons to Agatha as the Wicked Witch of the West (the credits, and in the tarot trial). Not only does this credit foreshadow that Agatha will be green in episode seven, I'm curious about what else it may reveal?

The Wicked Witch in the Wizard of Oz is such an iconic witch, who is portrayed as an evil, one-dimensional witch. And then in Wicked (which is coming out very soon!), we are given insight into her past and how she was created to be a villain that the people of Oz could hate. We see that maybe she is not as wicked as she was made out to be.

Does this sound familiar? A lot of the current theories about Agatha's past and her magic seem to be that Agatha started out as someone who needed help, and wasn't trying to be evil. But what happens when people misunderstand your actions and keep calling you evil? Maybe it's just easier to play the part of the villain.

In WandaVision, Agatha is the main antagonist, and is very much seen as an evil witch that wants Wanda's power for herself. Now, in Agatha All Along, we learn more about Agatha: her past relationships, her affection for Rio and Billy, etc. We learn that maybe she is not as evil as she has been made out to be.

(And hopefully this will not end with her getting melted...Or maybe she will fake her death and run away with Rio....)

[cissa-calls]

Countdown to Agatha: Darkhold Diaries: Day 635

Y/N: “If I were an animal, what would I be?”

Wanda: “Something just terribly cute! Perhaps a little bird?”

Agatha: “What about me?”

Wanda: “Dinosaur. A carnivorous one. You’re old, aggressive, built for violence, experienced immense tragedy, and SHOULD be extinct”

[ijustreallylikecaptainamericaok]

There'll always be torches and pitchforks for ladies like us, Wanda. / You're so much like your mother.

One of the things that grabs me the most about AAA is the overlaps between Agatha, Wanda, and Billy. Agatha and Wanda, both granted immense power that they don't fully understand and struggle to control. Power that caused many to dismiss them as nothing more than monsters, serial killers, and weapons of mass destruction when what they desperately needed was the proper guidance. Not to mention their connections to the Darkhold and how that ties to their longing for their children (though we don't have the full picture on Agatha's situation just yet.)

And then there's Billy. The Demiurge. A being of immense power prophesied along with his mother. Powers newly awoken in the midst of his grief and anger. A kid searching, searching for something so important that he's willing to journey the treacherous Witches' Road in order to get it back.

It all circles back and repeats and I think back to how Agatha could've mentored Wanda, wonder how differently things could've turned out if she had, and hope the cycle can break with Billy.

[csolarstorm]

Marvel should definitely give Jac Schaeffer more projects. I didn't know she helped write Captain Marvel and Black Widow. In retrospect it makes a lot of sense; both of these movies are personal journeys where the protagonist processes the trauma of heir past.

Still, in my opinion neither movie reaches the level of Wandavision or Agatha All Along. I don't know whether that's due to Marvel not trusting Schaeffer enough to write them by herself (sounds about right, especially as the first female solo movies, Marvel would get weird about it) or maybe it turns out Schaeffer is better at writing TV shows with mysteries that gradually unravel.

It also could be that Schaeffer and/or Marvel figured out how to balance her trauma narratives within a more lighthearted fantasy setting where she can couch it in more digestible metaphor. Black Widow was about human trafficking - no amount of funny Russian fake dad jokes could make that go down easier. Although now that I say it, that movie did involve an artificial TV family like Wandavision - I guess this is a hallmark of Schaeffer's writing?

Captain Marvel on the other hand had maybe too many allegories. Yeah it was about breaking away from patriarchal gaslighting, but then there was PTSD from war, or maybe even recovery from brain damage? It's a bit hard to tell at times, there's just a lot. I suppose there's a contrast between the artificial Supreme Intelligence and the very real female captain Mar-Vell that might serve as the recurring "TV versus real life" motif in Schaeffer's other projects. Captain Marvel was made as a 90's alien invasion movie after all.

Meanwhile something both Wandavision and Agatha All Along share is that they use tropes from TV and other media to express trauma in a fun, and unsettling, discordant way. Wandavision will be having a genuinely great time indulging in 60's sitcom when, oh no, it's actually escapism, and Wanda cannot escape the fact that Vision is dead. Horror ensues. Agatha will be in a crime drama where she's solving a case, only it turns out that the case is a metaphor for her barely lucid attempt to piece together the fragments of her memory after the cruel and unusual punishment Wanda inflicted on her. Horror returns. And the crime drama atmosphere will both fit the vibe of her tragedy and at the same time be a genuinely fun crime drama parody. Escapism is both fun and heartbreaking.

So I hope Jac Schaeffer does more of this kind of show, because she's nailing it. And give her another chance at more movies and this time trust her. It's a shame Schaeffer couldn't fit Vision In A White Void Vision Quest into her schedule.

[godlesslostsoul]

Character arcs are everything when it comes to good media. You fall in love with a character or a story because of that well rounded arc, and when it has meaning, even better. Not to go back to Marvel but I'm going back to Marvel. Overall, the MCU has examples of good and bad character arcs.

A couple examples of good: Carol Danvers, Peter Parker, Nebula, Loki, etc. If you look at these characters and their motivations from the beginning to the end, not only does it feel like there's growth, it also feels REAL and makes sense for their character and the story being told.

Now a couple of characters that didn't have the best arc and I can think of at this moment were Wanda and Steve but in SPECIFIC movies. Overall, they're good characters. But Steve in Endgame felt out of touch and Wanda in MoM didn't make sense. I do not understand why Steve would stay behind to be with Peggy. He had a life in the present time and to go back to be with Peggy doesn't make sense ESPECIALLY since he can't do anything to change the past. That's super isolating in hindsight. I do like the theory of how Stan Lee was supposed to be old Steve, but that's not confirmed and doesn't make up for this weird plot point. Then with Wanda, there's a very easy answer to why it felt off. Wandavision was apparently not finished by the time MoM started and the directors/producers had not seen Wandavision yet. So, that obvious disconnect makes sense but I feel like it could have been avoided if Marvel waited and had better inter-department/project communication.

[alfhildr-the-word-weaver]

So I started watching Wandavision tonight, and I do already know some spoilers just from being around on tumblr when it first came out, but we just got through episode 3 and it's hitting me. Basically, this is Storybrooke and Wanda is Regina.

Except instead of taking away everyone else's happy endings, she's just trying to give herself her own. But really, that was what Regina was trying to do too, and it's definitely seeming like Wanda has also taken away the happy endings of others, intentionally or not. So in its essence, this is like Once Upon a Time for comic book characters (but without everyone turning up being related somehow ;) lol).

[prospectivehero]

Watching Wanda in Age of Ultron is fascinating, considering what she'll experience. Fear is an ongoing theme for her. She can sense feelings, but the one we, the audience, hear about the most is fear. She feels the fear in the Avengers and exploits it, exposing each of their wounds. Given her childhood trauma, it makes sense that fear is an emotion that she is familiar with, though I don't think she realizes how much her old wounds still hurt her.

At the beginning of the Civil War, she causes an explosion that unintentionally kills many people, recreating similar circumstances to her near-death experience. She becomes acutely aware of how people fear her which is probably why she submits so quickly to Tony's "grounding". In Wandavision, her spell was arguably initiated by her fear of abandonment becoming real, considering she had lost her brother and boyfriend. After that, it was amplified from episode to episode by her fear of losing the family and community she forcibly imagined into reality.

I haven't gotten a chance to rewatch Multiverse of Madness, so I can't fully commit to this take, but the fear feels like it can be treated as consistent. Now we see the desperation from fear. She has already lost something that felt real, and Wanda will do anything to regain it. I don't know how I feel about Wanda becoming a villain (possibly dying), but I appreciate emotional consistency from movie to movie to show for the Scarlet Witch.

[prettywitchiusaka]

🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️

I know, it's dumb.

I've had people on reddit tell me my interpretation of Wanda's line about how, "They won't see it that way," isn't an admission of guilt. Hell, I had someone compare her to being a "slave owner", and that I couldn't say she was a victim...even though she was because when the show starts she has no idea what's happening just like everyone else.

Such bullshit...Sorry...

I know people are entitled to their opinions, but that last one just really pissed me off. Makes me think they'd be singing a different tune if the show or the MCU as a whole acknowledged Wanda's Romani/Jewish decent, but I digress.

[tunemyart]

So I've just watched the finale and I'm feeling... Weird. I think part of it is because this show started with everything I like in a story (cool badass ladies, a queer romance, found family, redemption, etc etc) and ended up being... Not all that (most characters die, the romance is doomed, and I guess the redemption mostly happened but wasn't entirely satisfactory to me). Also, I'm someone who as Trauma (tm) with death so, I guess my brain's first reaction is "fuck that I just want them all happy and safe" and it takes me a while to accept when stories take these paths, however well written they might be.

Still, I thought it all went a bit fast in the last 2 eps, with parts of the show ringing just a little bit more hollow than I would have expected? I'm left feeling like the characters of Alice, Mrs Hart and Jen were treated a bit superficially (Lillia's story felt more complete). I also wished we had seen more of Agatha's past because spending centuries just conning witches then killing them is... a bit boring? (maybe we learn more about her in WandaVision, I haven't seen it). And obviously I wished we had seen more of Agatha and Rio. It's like the show couldn't decide if it was about Agatha or about Billy (partly because, I'm guessing it's setting up a 3rd show about him?), and with this short format we ended losing a bit on Agatha's part.

Anyway, curious of what you think of all that because your analysis are always super interesting, and like I said my own brain might be a bit biased towards resistance with this one. And obviously would love to read your fanfic(s) should you write any!

So, I've started and restarted a reply to this a few times, but I think what my answer boils down to is: we're meant to have multilayered responses to this finale. We're meant to sit with it. It's meant to change our experience of the show we've had to this point.

I think the best metaphor for this is the fact the revelation that Rio is Death. Bear with me, because I know this got spoiled for us way early on and we all knew it and were all just waiting for the revelation to drop - but imagine for a second that we didn't know that Rio, Agatha's ex-girlfriend and spooky fun vaguely-a-psychopath as played by the delightful Aubrey Plaza, is death. Your perception of Rio would have been turned on its head. Your perception of Agatha would have been turned on its head. Your perception of the Witches' Road and what we're even doing here with Death walking alongside us as a tourist would have been turned on its head.

Now, we all had an incredibly fun time even with the knowledge that Rio is death before we should have had it. But I think some of the power for what it meant for the story - and our perception of what was really happening - was muted.

Jen, at the beginning of 1.08, says, "She told us who she was from the very beginning."

Sit with that - because the same is true of this story.

---

It turns out that the Road is a metaphor for death. This isn't fully illustrated for us until Nicky, the author of the Ballad, walks down the road with Death's hand in his, and we go, oh. Oh.

Agatha tells us in the beginning that the Road doesn't exist, a rare instance of her giving anyone unbridled truth. And sure - the Road that our coven walked down doesn't exist. The Road that all the witches Agatha lured to the deaths believed in doesn't exist. It's a fiction. But it's significant that Agatha lured them all to the Road and killed them. They wanted to walk the Road. They died. Not "they died instead" - it's a two-fold statement. They wanted to walk the Road and they died. In a gruesome way, Agatha's been taking witches on the Witches' Road since the 1750s.

I don't think the significance of that is lost on Agatha, either, especially where we pick up at the beginning of 1.08. Lilia's dead, and everybody's reeling.

Perhaps Agatha more than anybody.

---

I also want to quickly take a look at Rio's accusation of Agatha regarding Billy.

"The bodies are really piling up." "Did you doubt me?" "Yeah, I did. I thought there'd be a trick in there somewhere. And there was! You were distracting me from him."

Because this is a revelation about Agatha's actions toward not just Rio, but any audience watching her - i.e., us the viewers. She's been distracting us! Not from who Billy is, we know that of course, but with regard to what the Road itself is. Agatha's known the Road isn't real the entire time. She's been protecting Billy from that knowledge. She's been protecting Billy from Rio. She's been protecting the coven itself from disintegrating. And, the biggest con woman move of them all, she's been distracting us - with less and less success as the show goes on - from the fact that she is not even the slightest bit in control.

---

So I definitely want to circle back to what you said about how the show started out with everything you like in a story, because oof, yeah, I felt that. I felt that hard in the finale. Coming off the impact of the incredible storytelling in 1.07, and the queer jokes and campy Wicked cosplay balancing out the sad, I think many of us spent the next week expecting some kind of emotional resolution that probably involved the remaining coven banding together in some more of that found family we've felt them becoming along the way.

Here's where things starts going wrong, right off the bat: they don't. Instead, they splinter. Not only are you aware of just how few of them are left (Jen, Billy, Agatha), but Jen and Agatha can't handle Lilia's death. Jen's distraught. The close up on Agatha running away out of the trial and back onto the Road, alone, shows her looking hunted and wild in her guilt. Everything that follows has its seeds in that moment of rending that began with Lilia's death.

From the beginning, the point has been that Agatha Harkness is a covenless witch. It's something we've seen her revel in - maybe simply because she has no choice but to own it. But the fact is that here, for the first time in centuries, she had a coven. She didn't intend to have one - she intended to kill them all in her basement and not think twice about them again. But events transpired the way they did. They became her coven. And one by one, they all died on the Road.

Rio, of course, has the words to cut right to the quick: "Your coven is shrinking," she teases Agatha cruelly. Agatha looks wild - because she's right. The worst thing is that she killed Alice - and she didn't mean to. She didn't want to. But she did, and in exactly the same way she'd intended to kill her at the beginning, the same way she's been killing witches for hundreds of years. "Your coven is shrinking," and it's Agatha's fault. It's Agatha's coven. It's Agatha's coven.

Hold on to that, too.

---

One of the things that I've been mulling over most is Agatha's character. She's so much fun in the beginning. We're all fucking charmed by her. We also don't have the full context of just how much of a serial killer she is.

So for me, at least, watching 1.08 and not only not getting found family, but getting an Agatha so far away from a "redemption" story that she only just barely is willing to not sacrifice Billy for herself, was kind of a rude awakening. Agatha's a lot more of a villain that I was prepared for. Surprise!

Agatha's so far away from "redemption", in fact, that she's only just barely starting to feel empathy for other witches. She's just starting to be affected by people who aren't #1. And that's a trauma response. And it's so, so, so deeply rooted in her that she's only just starting to be able to conceive of the idea of people who care for her. Of the possibility of being able to live in community. She's not ready for a redemption arc. There was no way that the kind of redemption arc she'd need could fit into nine episodes, because so much of it would for her be predicated on a mental shift that Agatha just hasn't arrived at yet. She's still so angry. She's still so traumatized. She's done almost none of the work. And even at the end, even with the final gesture of sacrificing herself for Billy, that's not a final act of redemption, oh Agatha's now a good person/forgiven/insert word frame of choice.

What this show did in terms of redemption for Agatha was set her up to be in a place where she might want it - where she might want to do and be better for Billy, and someday, for Nicky.

And it's significant that that point comes for Agatha in dying… and after death.

---

This show is about death. The Road is about death. Death is a character on the show.

Like, okay, you're saying. Fine. But what about my gay fun times? What about my queer romance, my found family?

And please know that I'm there with you.

I'm not hugely in touch with what the larger fandom is saying and how they're reacting because I have my little echo chamber here on tumblr and a few friends who have actual social media, but even here I get the sense that we're all kind of :/ for fairly similar reasons. What happened to the show I fell in love with?

And for me, the last few days, I think it's been important to realize that the fact that the show I fell in love with didn't suddenly become a different show. It didn't pull a bait and switch. No twists were in bad faith. Everything has been right here in the text of the show from the very beginning.

And I think it's important to see the story that Jac Schaeffer et al. were actually telling vs. our expectations of what they were telling, or worse, what we wanted them to tell. For just one example, I was convinced we were going to see Alice again - maybe Lorna Wu, too. I wasn't expecting it to be for the sole purpose of recognizing that not only is she dead, but to give Alice herself the space to say that it wasn't fair, that she wasn't ready, that she'd just broken her family's curse, that now she can really do something with her life! Because, ugh, yeah! It's not fair, for all those reasons! But that's also death. Likewise, Sharon's just dead, and worse, her death was pretty much meaningless. Lilia rediscovered herself again, and she chose her death to save everyone else - extremely meaningful. But at the end - she's just dead. We don't see her again. She's gone. She, like the others, walked the Road and away with Death.

I loved these covenless witches. I loved them finding themselves together. I loved them bonding around the campfire and discovering community. I miss them all, so so much. But they told us from the beginning how haunted by death all of them were: Alice and her mom, Lilia and her coven in Sicily, Billy and William Kaplan, Agatha and her son and her ex-lover. And of course, Death herself. Forget haunting these individuals - she came to actually join the temporary coven. Like, fuck. They told us what this show was about.

---

This show is about death, but it's more complicated than that: we'll take our cue from Rio again, who, in being Death, is also the original Green Witch. In short, this show is about Green Craft, "growth and decay in constant flow."

So yes - almost every single witch in the coven dies. Yes, it's permanent. No, the queer romance isn't resolved happily. No, Agatha doesn't have a redemption, satisfying or otherwise. And no, none of it follows what we've come to expect from found family story trajectories.

But the focus shouldn't be solely on the decay. There's a whole cycle of growth coming up after it, even now, and it's being made possible by the death and decay that we just witnessed. And most importantly, it's confirmed that this isn't the end of the story - just the end of "Agatha All Along."

---

I'll finish by actually answering your question - I've been sitting with the finale for a few days, because I also felt weird about it. And I think that's the right word: "Weird." Very spooky season-esque, first of all, but also not tipping all the way right into "bad".

The first thing to acknowledge is that no story is perfect - they were limited by nine episodes by what they had the space to show, and finales are really hard to get just right. The second is that you're allowed to not like any or all of it, especially when something happens that asks you to change your entire understanding of the story thus far, i.e. the Road isn't real, or when you have a particular trauma around death and it turns out that that's what the whole show is about in ways we hadn't fully realized. The third is that it's worth sitting with stories sometimes and seeing how they marinate and develop in your brain and your soul over time. All of these things can and should coexist.

This isn't my first go-round with a series finale that initially made me ???, so I was fortunate in that I felt like I had a cheat sheet. I've still got some marinating to do to see how this continues to change for me. But it's helped me to realize that my ??? reaction is what the story wanted me to have - that the characters are reeling right along with me. Not just Alice in shock about her death, but also Billy at the implications of his creation of the Road regarding his responsiblity for what happened on it. We're meant to feel this way… and then we're meant to reconsider the journey we've been on, the Road we've walked with all of them and the death we've died alongside them, and see it anew for what it really is.

[prettywitchiusaka]

Yeah, people’s reactions to the end of Wandavision confuse me. Did these people just miss Wanda being confronted by the people she held prisoner for over a week? Did they miss the part where she admits to Monica that it doesn’t matter whether she did or didn’t sacrificed anything, implying not only her guilt, but that she understands what she did was wrong?

Like is this what media literacy has come to? We can’t acknowledge that the protagonist is both the villain and the victim simultaneously anymore? Or is it only bad when said character has tits and a vagina?

You know it’s crap like this that results in writers like Michael Waldron thinking Wanda’s arc was about her descent into villainy! Okay, it’s not the only reason, but still!  

I swear most of the time when someone asks for characters to "face consequences" for their actions they only ever mean three things: imprisonment, suffering and/or death. Unless you give them one of those, the common belief is that said character has not paid for what they have done and has gotten away with it scot-free. That is insane to me.

A character can face consequences or pay for what they have done in a myriad of ways that do not require imprisonment (depending on the scope of their powers, the mere thought of jail is ridiculous), they do not require suffering (if you torture someone they don't learn shit. Torturers are not good guys no matter who they are and more importantly, no matter who they torture [I'm looking at you, TVA]) and you're not forced to kill a former villain character so they can be labelled as good (but only as long as they're dead. The moment they come back, people say they're villains again).

It sucks because every time a story tries to be a little more complex than that and attempts to treat their evil/morally grey characters differently, they're accused of justifying the crimes or ruining the framing.

I'll put an example with characters I dislike. I never needed Stark to be killed off or hurt or jailed, I wanted him to acknowledge what he had done, to accept his role in it and act accordingly. Thanos needed to be called out on his bullshit that he never cared about the balance of the universe and he was no more than a sadistic narcissist that enjoyed watching others in pain as it made him feel better about himself after his own people rejected and exiled him. I didn't need Walker imprisoned or tortured, I wanted him to realize he wasn't good enough for that shield & that he is in desperate need of an attitude change.

Wanda didn't "get away" from Westview just because she wasn't imprisoned (how can you do that without her explicit consent? The scope of her powers makes it almost impossible to jail her, she can even escape the mirror dimension!) or she wasn't tortured (you seriously think any physical pain is going to hurt her after the insane amount of emotional/psychological damage she has sustained for so long?) or she wasn't killed (what a cheap way to fix a story. I'm looking at you, MoM).

She willingly killed her family so that everyone could escape. How is that "getting away with it" just because she didn't die with them? If anything it's a bigger sacrifice: she has to live every day without them.

[rootspiral]

Agatha All Along deep dive: episode 8 part 4

(Wandavision entries: [1][2][3])

(AAA entries: ep1 [1][2][3][4] ep2 [1][2][3][4] ep3 [1][2][3] ep4 [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][+1] ep5 [1][2][3][4][5] ep6 [1][2][3] ep7 [1][2][3][4][5][6] ep8 [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9] ep9 [1][2][3][4][5][6])

as usual, I'm billy. WE WOULD LIKE TO KNOW, JAC SCHAEFFER

jen filling the gaps with her own headacanons, i see you girl

they're kinda doing their own little agatha deep dive, lol. she's a fascinating specimen, okay? don't you just want to study her in a petri dish?

billy, who's definitely not been projecting his mommy issues on a whole coven (three dead, several unlocked traumas) and hasn't been following agatha around like a lost puppy in need of a mentor: it'S nOT LoYALitY It'S AnALYSiS

that's agatha's entire son, dear lord. 'maximoffs are so dramatic' my ass.

YOU'VE BEEN TRYING TO VIOLENTLY SHOVE HER IN THE WARM EMBRACE OF A COVEN FOR THE PAST THREE TRIALS. for fuck's sake, william.

he's acting so mature and cynical when in fact he's so hurt about the people who died and about agatha's betrayal. he's putting up barriers, he's trying to trick himself into not caring, when crying and letting himself mourn would be much healthier responses! in other words, he's learning alllll of agatha's shitty coping mechanisms.

no but I won't shut up about this, it's the kind of psychological response that really fascinates me. billy has had to learn to lie and censor his true self because he doesn't want to upset his parents. he went through something EXTREMELY traumatic (reincarnating in someone else's dead body? hello?) and he can't process it with the kaplans, he knows it would hurt them too much.

so he finds agatha who is, on paper, someone who can absolutely understand what he's been trough and could totally help and guide him. he's tried to win her over, he's tried to open up, to understand her and to be understood in return. and agatha, DESPITE LOVING THIS KID SO FREAKING MUCH, is so EMOTIONALLY CONSTIPATED that she has rebuked almost every attempt at a deeper connection. and when you do that to a kid, not only you hurt them, you teach them by example. billy is not mature enough to be the bigger person, he sees agatha hurting him, he'll want to do the same. that's the kind of shit parents imprint on you that will be hell to unlearn as an adult.

agatha, who is - I promise you! - truly hurt by billy's words: ahahaha ouch!

I want to strangle her

one moment of silence for jen who's now alone and stuck in the middle between these two

agatha has somehow managed to sell billy's immortal soul to her ex wife while ALSO breaking her own heart AND said wife's heart in the process. and she's having A TRULY NORMAL ONE about it.

aaaaand she goes straight for jen (no pun intended). starts slow and bratty with some kindergarten insults.

OUCH, AGATHA. WHAT THE FUCK?!! AND TWIRLING YOUR HAIR?!

YOU FUCKING BITCH.

oh dear lord look at jen's face. this is actually the first time I see everyone's faces (fuck you lighting department) and it's making agatha's behavior even harder to stomach. and yes by the way, this scene is absolutely a metaphor for microaggression. knowing that jen's big moment is coming is only a half-consolation.

also agatha falling on her face, that's maybe a quarter of a consolation.

of course it is. this is the green witch trial, it's about the circle of nature, it's about life and death beginning and ending and beginning again.

here comes the tantrum!!!

now she yells at billy. and he scrambles to justify himself. this is funny but also SO FUCKED UP??

lilia when billy makes a mess: that's okay baby I got you.

agatha when billy makes a mess: oh are you having a problem? I'M GONNA MAKE IT ALLLLLL ABOUT ME! I'M GOING TO MAKE IT FUCKING WORSE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(fuck she's literally my dad. jac schaeffer I'm sending you my therapy bill)

so, anyway. if a parental figure does this to you? they're being vile and immature. I don't care if they've got their own issues, this is abuse.

(and frankly, learn to recognize this pattern in friends and partners and family too. but it's especially egregious when it's done to a literal child.)

and billy going from apologetic to stone faced. barriers up. he needs to protect himself from her.

while agatha huffs and puffs, jen quietly gets on her knees when she sees the shoes. the camera goes from sharon's shoes to lilia's to alice's.

you guys, this episode is... it's so good? it's not in-your-face like episode seven, but it's doing a lot of subtle things that are getting under my skin

agatha of course plans to barrel through her problems like a rouge zamboni, and just look at jen's reaction! I'm astonished at what sasheer zamata is accomplishing in this scene. I admit the first time around I was too fascinated by hahn chewing scenery to look anywhere else, I got a poorer viewing experience for that. jen has had all her walls up, she's been doing her one note mean girl bit for seven episodes. look at her now. she is crumbling.

god I love me a show that takes very funny characters and let you enjoy them only to pull the rug from under your feet and go: now let's examine why all their funny traits are fucked up trauma responses!

JESUS CHRIST AGATHA

agatha notices billy looking at the shoes and of course mocks him about it. what are you going to do, pay actual respect? cry and properly mourn? like some weak baby???

pay attention now: billy gets mad, and agatha suddenly looks at him with interest and, dare I say, expectation? was she provoking him on purpose?

yes, yes she was. that's the evil of agatha harkness. and I'm not saying her tantrum wasn't real, she was absolutely upset and she relished pouring all her spite and anger and desperation into it. but agatha's theatrics are always happening for a reason. when she's alone she's much more subdued; when she's in public, she vents out her overwhelming emotions trough a big fucking show, so she can make it everyone's else problem. that's the equivalent of when an abuser throws a tantrum and somehow always ends up breaking your stuff, never their own. it's both self-soothing and a scare tactic, two birds with one stone. that's why she went after jen and immediately taunted her about lilia. her words were precise and on target. she enjoyed watching jen squirm.

and yelling at billy just now? it was another one of her calculated risks. what billy is going to do next is anyone's guess, but at least they're not stuck on the Road any longer.

I don't know if I'm making myself clear enough. it's like, how can agatha be so smart and such an idiot at the same time? because she's a coward. because she chooses to. because the alternative is facing her own fucking issues and admitting the truth.

and the truth is scary. the truth is too awful.

next up: billy lands them at the morgue.

great job there, agatha!!

go to episode 8 part 5

[lilia-calderus-pet-goat]

The Self-Fulfilled Tragedy of Agathario - Study / Analysis.

Agatha met Rio over the bodies of her original coven. She was scared, at first. “I didn't do it.” She said. Rio simply said, “I saw.” In a soft voice, “your power is beautiful. Don't ever feel guilty about your talent. You survived.”

Death was the only consistent comfort in Agatha's life — “this is the me you fell in love with.” Agatha wasn't scared of it, not for a long time.

Why should Agatha value life, when death loves her so intimately? When only Death understands her sorrow? When Death is the only one who tells her that she wasn't born evil—because Death is the natural order of all things?

They did live together, in that cottage, for a while. Agatha, “took power from the undeserving—” who *she* deemed undeserving, as said in WandaVision—and Rio collected the bodies. They never had to be apart. Death was her satellite, orbiting around her endlessly, holding her hand because no-one else would. (“I hold Death's hand in mine.”)

But Rio cannot be present for long if there is no body to collect. She needs to be everywhere, in every place, all at once. So she'd be gone for long periods of time, back whenever Agatha would kill and stick around to see her. Split across the fabric of reality, always reaping, collecting, guiding the souls to their afterlife. She may not be the only reaper—but she's the personification of Death, not merely a deity who carries the title. She is finality. She is the “end,” the “goal” the “completion.” The “telos” where all roads lead to. She isn't “decay” but a cycle coming to an end. Transformation. New Beginnings. Change. Growth. She is thr Green Witch, as all living beings return to the earth that gave birth to them.

Nicky came from Agatha's love for Rio, just as Billy and Tommy came from Wanda's love for Vision. There was no spell, no need for incantation. Nicky came from Scratch. Life from Death, like the Green Witch's trial. And that, indeed, is why he was a stillborn.

And because Rio merely appears wherever there is death—the moment she appeared during the childbirth, even though no one else was around, no bodies to collect—Agatha knew immediately.

Rio was inevitable—and she could offer only time. She bent the rules for the woman she loved, because she couldn't bear the thought of Agatha hating her.

And suddenly, the form she fell in love with was terrifying. Because she now had something to love other than death. She didn't find it to be a beautiful comfort amidst her darkness anymore, but a cruel reminder of her son's mortality.

And though once she killed and stayed—to keep death close—like the protagonist of an ancient tragedy, seeing beauty and eroticism and peace and quiet and divinity in Rio—she was suddenly met with discomfort and fear and grief. And so she killed and ran—to keep Death busy. To keep Death occupied. To keep Death away. To earn more time, to delay the inevitable. To not see her face again. “Why do we kill witches?” - “To survive.”

The same Death that rescued her from her mother's cruel arms and cradled her in hers was now the very reason she couldn't be a mother herself. The very reason she couldn't see her son grow.

The very Death that once re-assured her that she wasn't born evil was now a cruel reminder that maybe she was. And you know why?

Her mother treated her as evil because her magick 'takes'—and 'gives' nothing. For Agatha, that's what evil means. That's why she insults Rio by telling her she gave nothing—she *took.* “And that's usually your move, right?”

And the real tragedy of Agatha Harkness is that her villainy was self-actualized. A self-fulfilling prophecy. Agatha hates her powers, even more so when looking at her son. Because, “I cannot heal you, (Jen) I cannot protect you from what's coming, (Alice) and I cannot divine (Lilia) when she (Death) will return.”

So she hates her power, because unlike the others, Agatha cannot—by design—give anything to her son. She can only 'take' from others. She can only 'give' to *Death,* and that's why only Death has ever loved her. And that, now, to her, verifies her mother's statement: “you were *born* evil.”

Not like other witches—like Jen—the 'deserving.' “I left you alone, because what you were doing was important.” “It was bind or burn.”

Because she couldn't save her son. She never could have. And to Agatha, that's because she was “born evil.” Because she never was living—she was surviving, with Death's hand in hers. Her power could only drain life, not better it. The very song that Lorna Wu used to protect her daughter was a cruel reminder that Agatha couldn't protect ber son.

Agatha could never see Rio the same. She could never face her like she had before. Because now, Death was her deepest shame. And she was Death's scar.

She left the world thinking that she sacrificed her son because it's better to be feared than pitied. Easier to blame herself and blame Rio than to admit and register that it was inevitable.

She slept that night without killing witches to spare Nicky's feelings—because he wasn't evil, like her, and she'd never let him think it like her mother did to her—and she assumee that Rio would wait. That she wouldn't strike in the night. What Rio saw as mercy, Agatha saw as the cruelest betrayal.

Rio never stopped pursuing her even as Agatha could never face her. And their love was so powerful, so passionate, but it couldn't overshadow the pain and the grief of something so human as losing a child. Though despite the baggage, they never could be too far from each other. Even within Wanda's hex, even when Agatha didn't remember her own name—she remembered her deep feelings for Rio. Her love, her hate, her passion. Even when she didn't remember why

Rio can't understand why Agatha doesn't want her. “No-one in history has had special treatment like you“ - “Why don't you want me?” - “this is the me you fell in love with” - Because as The Green Witch, the personification of Death—she is the natural outcome of all things and cannot conceive the human aversion to death. “Evil? You're calling me evil?” She doesn't **get it.** She doesn't find her nature cruel, just as she doesn't find Agatha as “born evil.” She sees her as she always had—affectionately. She bent the rules of the universe for her sake. And so she doesn't understand the aversion at all. She feels rejection. And all she wants is to have Agatha again, who keeps evading her for something she couldn't help. And she's devastated, because once, Agatha loved her for the very thing she now hated her for.

So Death can't fathom humanity finding her cruel. Because she knows she can be gentle, and kind, and patient. Because she has been, a million times over. Because she's the one thing that everyone has in common, as Lilia's Maestra said. But what she *can* fathom is grief—because she knows love—“because what is grief, if not love persevering?” And so grief is a feeling of longing, beyond Death. More powerful than her.

And the longing never stops, even for death. And so Agatha tries to kiss her on the road after the “she's my scar” scene. She can't stop herself. Is it because she's desperate to convince herself that Nicky's soul lives on in Billy, meaning perhaps that Rio allowed it to? Is it because, despite knowing it's not her son, she's vulnerable, and thankful that Rio didn't take him too? Is it because she's reminded of the past—and love is beyond death? Beyond fear? Because grief is love persevering?

Regardless—because I could not stop for death, she kindly stopped for me. And Rio doesn't take advantage of the vulnerability. She reminds Agatha of the raw, cruel, heavy truth. “That boy is not your own.” Nothing is better. Nothing is fixed. Agatha isn't kissing Rio here because she's accepted Death, but because she's denying it. And so it's not real. They can only kiss when Agatha finally accepts Death.

So in the finale when Agatha turns to Rio and kisses her, at first Rio doesn't believe it—that she finally wants her again, that she finally accepts her. As if finally letting her grief settle, accepting it as natural, sharing it with Rio.

She forgives Death, but she doesn't necessarily forgive herself. Because she HAS become a villain, because she has used her sweet boy's innocent song to kill, tainting it as to not face Death all these years, when she was stuck in limbo between blaming Rio and Herself.

Now, she only blames herself. She doesn't let it happen again, with Billy. Agatha embraces Death just as Nicky once did, because she wouldn't.

But she's still not ready to pass on. And maybe she never will be. She is a tragic figure with no catharsis, even as she's faced both hubris and nemesis.

And that is the real tragedy of Agatha Harkness, who loved Death above all and feared it all the same.

[malfiora]

Motherhood in WandaVision, Doctor Strange 2, & Agatha All Along

Many, many spoilers ahead

Summary

Starting with the obvious: Wanda creates her and Vision's twins, Billy and Tommy, entirely from her own imagination. After losing them when she takes the hex down, she embarks on a quest to bring them back to life, even if it means tapping into dark forces and killing anyone who stands in her way, as we see in Doctor Strange

During the events of WandaVision, Monica attempts to connect to Wanda, empathizing with her grief over Vision through her own loss of her mother Maria.

As an inverse of Wanda, America Chavez's mothers sacrificed themselves to save her, now making her an orphan as she dimension hops. Wanda initially tries to abduct America to use her powers, and America stops her by bringing her to an alternate universe in which the twins are afraid of her and call out to their timeline's version of Wanda.

Around this time, Billy's soul takes over William Kaplan's body, and while he doesn't remember anything else before that moment, he knows he needs to save his twin Tommy, whose soul is lost. He seeks Agatha to access The Road, which is rumored to grant any who completes it whatever they want. Along the way, Agatha learns who he is.

Billy rejects the idea that Wanda is his mother, claiming he already has a mom (implying William's mother), and Agatha plays along. Still, Billy's reality manipulation and Wiccan costume match Wanda's.

Not long before this, Alice Wu-Gulliver is able to break her family's curse and learns along the way that her rockstar mother's rendition of The Witch's Road ballad was actually a spell to keep Alice safe since her mother couldn't protect her from the curse.

At the end of Agatha All Along, we see that Agatha conceived of her son Nicholas Scratch by herself ("from scratch") but he was doomed to die young. She kills witches to feed him for as long as she can but Rio (Death) inevitably comes to him. It is Nicky's song that sparks the rumor of the Witch's Road, which Agatha uses to trick other witches to steal their power.

Agatha admits to Billy that she is afraid to face Nicky in the afterlife, and that he reminds her of Nicky. They walk off together to "go find Tommy."

Analysis

Grief (defined here as the response to the loss of a loved one characterized by sadness and/or anger and similar emotions) acts as a unifier and motivation. The mishandling of grief leads characters (Wanda, Agatha) to cause suffering to others and steal resources to protect or bring to life their loved ones. Both characters are redeemed by the empathy of another grieving character, usually a grieving child (Monica, Billy, America).

This manifests in grieving parent/grieving child relationships that then lend to a found family dynamic: Monica and Wanda, America and Wanda, Billy and Agatha. Despite Billy claiming that he doesn't see Wanda as his mother (most likely indicating that he sees William Kaplan's mother as his true parent), he still falls into this dynamic, first by default and then willingly.

Motherhood is also tied to sacrifice. On one hand, we have mother figures who sacrifice themselves to save or protect their children: Lorna dedicated her life to protecting Alice, America's mothers helped her escape their dying world, and even Maria can be seen as having sacrificed herself since she built up SWORD while dying thus enabling Monica's career path. On the other, we also have mothers forced to sacrifice their children: Wanda must release the twins as she lets down the hex, and Agatha eventually loses Nicky. This divide evenly splits the mothers who are seen as heroes and the mothers who are deemed villains.

And finally we have rejection. For some characters, this means rejection of their self; for others, it's a rejection of their mothers. For Billy, these are almost the same thing: he denies Wanda as his mother while also questioning his identity. This might be because Wanda has hurt many people and Billy didn't want to identify with that.

Alice initially rejects her mother's career and belief in The Road, believing that the obsession drove her mad. Upon learning the truth, she accepts everything, which empowers her to break her family's curse.

On the alternate Earth in Doctor Strange 2, Wanda's rampage is only stopped by her fear of rejection from her children.

And of course, Evanora rejected Agatha centuries ago, claiming that Agatha was born evil. This is most likely why Agatha acts like a villain: she was told from the beginning that that's all she is. We can see in her repeated pleas to her mother that she "can be good" that Agatha longed for her mother's acceptance, or at least to be spared her wrath, but she never got it. Interestingly, Agatha's parenting of Nicky is exactly the opposite. She cherishes her son, dotes on him, even refuses to get upset and comforts him when Nicky disobeys her.

In a nutshell, the MCU places motherhood along the continuum of heroism and villainy that is defined by what a character must sacrifice and how they handle their grief. While the depth of emotions surrounding this trope is a shortcut for creating accessibly deep characters, this still feels like a narrow view of femininity. This of course harkens back to Natasha Romanov's abominable character moment in which she claims to be a monster because she can't have children. If the definition of womanhood is the ability to have babies, and then the definition of motherhood is to die or lose, then the MCU is basically arguing that its women are disposable props. Based on how compelling the femme characters since WandaVision have been, this doesn't seem intentional, and in fairness non maternal femme characters (e.g. Rio, Lilia Calderu, Jen) are still given emotional depth and range and interesting arcs. So hopefully Marvel will continue to show motherhood as an aspect of life that can add depth to a character, and not an inevitability fraught with death for all women.