How I'd Change Scarlet Witch in Multiverse of Madness | READUS 101 

I don't know, guys; I don't think I made it clear enough that I REALLY care about magic in superhero comics/movies...🤔

They sent Wanda to the Daenerys Targaryen school of uncharacteristic heel-turns.

If people hadn't even seen Wanda Vision, imagine how sudden the heel-turn for her character was (and boys, WHAT BOYS??). While I like your use of Cthon in preparing and manipulating Wanda as his vessel, it does play too much into the trope of, "it was all mind-control in the end," which would rob the character of her autonomy and willingness to explore the darker aspects of her powers. Still, I would prefer mind-control over toxic motherhood tropes any day of the week. WhatIf explored Strange abusing his powers and breaking the universe in his quest for love (Christine) and Wanda abused an entire town in order to build a life with Vision before realizing her mistake. Now Strange suddenly gets multiple buddy team ups with younger children (Spiderman and his crew & America), while Wanda gets stuck with a 'randomly going evil for her children' plot? Ugh.

Wanda’s turn in MoM feels so out of left field not only character wise, but just like in the larger sense of the franchise. Wandavision clearly establishes her as a flawed person beginning to heal, but oh no she read the bad book and now she’s EEEEEEVILLLLLL. Idk, just feel like they did her soooooo dirty (even if her fight scenes were badass).

I also want to repeat something Princess Weekes said in her review, why isn't Wanda looking for Vision? She knows White Vision is out there. Vis gets two brief name drops and that's it.

For me, the movie's writing had two *major* issues: 1. This was set up and marketed as The Big Phase 4 Multiverse Film™️, and yet basically every universe shown (except for like 1-second clips in a single montage) were just "basically the same as Earth 616, but if Strange did something different one time". Multiverse stories offer so many opportunities to explore the edges of reality, and they just... didn't. 2. Wanda was written *so poorly.* She is an intelligent and, frankly, all-powerful person, and her time in Westview taught her the importance of empathy when you're a god. So while she certainly wanted to get Billy and Tommy back, her plan of "I'll just possess another version of me and kidnap some other kids" was... short-sighted at best, really fucking dumb at worst. And she's not dumb. In fact, there's even a scene in the movie, in Kamar-Taj, when Stephen *says this to her,* urging her to consider what she would do once the kids inevitably realize she's not their mother; she starts to think about it, but before she can actually reconsider her dumb-ass plan, Strange attacks her -- at a moment when she had *stopped attacking him* anyway -- and pisses her off, continuing the fight and distracting her from, you know, rational thought. Wanda deserved so much better than she was given in the movie, and honestly I'm kind of frustrated that with the MCU's budget and world-renowned staff, *this* is the best story for her they could have come up with. As for how I would personally fix that, I think the answer is obvious: don't make Wanda an explicit villain, make her an accidental threat to the multiverse instead. Rather than possessing a woman to steal her kids, maybe Wanda is physically traveling through the multiverse to spy on her kids in different realities, to spend time with them from afar while seeing all the ways they could grow up. But Strange realizes that, unbeknownst to Wanda, her travels across the universes are weakening the borders between them, leading to elements of each universe "bleeding through" to the others, including into Earth 616. Strange tries to convince Wanda to stop, but between her grief-driven need to watch her kids grow up, and her belief that she's strong enough to "hold back" the oncoming flood of universes, she keeps verse-jumping, until she's not strong enough to keep it at bay, and the veil between universes completely collapses, unleashing chaos and entropy across the multiverse. Act 3 has Wanda joining forces with Strange to try and "put the multiversal genie back in the bottle" and reseal the barriers between universes before more people die, while she finally processes her grief enough to give up on seeing her kids again. Perhaps we get some closure when, as they're putting the final bits of multiverse spillage back into place before the final seal, Wanda meets a version of Tommy and Billy, a bit older, who recount all the ways their Wanda raised them, reminding our Wanda that even if she's not there, her kids will be okay because *some version* of her always will be. End credits. ...that's just off the top of my head. I'm not saying it's perfect, but I think it would have been miles better than the mediocrity we got for her in Multiverse of Madness.

I really liked the movie (Wanda stuff aside obviously) because the colors, action, and pacing were amazing, thanks Raimi. I like your idea to fix it, but if you wanted to avoid Chthon it would have been so easy to have the “evil” Wanda be a Wanda from another universe. Maybe she is suffering the same traumas as our Wanda but Westview never happened in her universe or she didn’t learn the lesson from it. She could be dream walking into our Wanda and 838 Wanda. Maybe our Wanda is even teaming up with the team to protect 838 Tommy and Billy, maybe that’s why she was trying to get to 838 in particular, maybe theirs are the voices she heard. You could have everything that happened in the movie stay the same but without destroying the growth our Wanda had in WandaVision.

In Universe, the Avengers seem like terrible friends. Like did no one reach out or check in on each other after all of the stuff involving Thanos? Like why did Hawkeye or Anthony Mackie reach out to someone who is supposed to be their friend and teammate. I know it's because of contracts and all that, but there are a lot of little things in Phase 4 that just big me and they are starting to pile up. It's almost like no one working on these movies communicates with each other to make sure things are consistent and transition smoothly from one project to the next.

Sam Raimi has already admitted in a Rolling Stone interview that he's never seen all of Wandavision, just a few clips from the show.

Watching Multiverse of Madness for the first time was a real “there are two wolves inside you” situation for me. I love WandaVision and have quite a few issues with the way Wanda was written in this movie. On the other hand when she said “ruuuuuunnnn” my bi ass was like 🥵🥵😍😍😍🌈🌈🌈 and 2:09 was literally my reaction to “What mouth?” 😂 After a few more viewings I’ve come to a place where I can just enjoy MOM for what it is.

I came into MoM with the idea that we were going to get a complex nuanced villain in Wanda: a morally grey, very broken character, who had been on her last leg for a while (or perhaps she never was on good standing to begin with ). i thought we were going to actually witness her descent into villinany and descent into madness. What we ended up getting was this very generic " the book was contoirlling her all along". The end of WandaVison, where Wanda felt remorse and regret for what she did to the people of Westview and that aspect of her character was abesent for the entire runtime of MoM and that is the big issue . Wanda deserves a solo movie or even an avengers film. MoM should have been team up movie that was dedicated to exploring magic and the multiverse in the mcu.

I honestly just find Marvel’s portrayal of c-ptsd to be very harmful in this case. I really connected with Wanda in WandaVision. This pain leading to desperation to the point that you give into your own delusions reminded me a lot of how my own trauma has manifested. I appreciate how the series acknowledged the pain she may have caused the people around her while also acknowledging that her actions were influenced by aspects out of things out of her control. That her pain, her trauma and her emotions don’t make her a monster. But it felt like this film almost implied that this is just innately just who she is. Forever living in this pain and never having the ability to learn or grow from any of it. That her trauma is what motivates her to act like a monster. The idea of this being her destiny strips away any autonomy and growth of a character that Wanda ever had. And that really broke my heart to see.

Wanda's character in this movie felt a bit... misogynistic? It felt like they waved away her character reversal with a hysteria excuse, which while believable in the movie on its own, feels really sudden given the rest of her appearances. I think this would have side stepped that issue, even though it's still uncomfortably in line with evil women tropes. It also needed more down time, because holy shit did this movie not let up; looked amazing, the script fell short.

Why did Strange not care about Westview? Why did Strange not ask any questions about Captain Marvel? He knows Carol.

the thing is, there should be a movie between ds2 MoM and WandaVision for the script to work that way. People know about the post credit scene but never showed the full sinister nature of the Darkhold or Wanda crippling into the Scarlet Witch they portrayed in MoM. I love your alterations and insertion of Chthon and the separation with forced astral projection, it's very creative and would've been amazing to watch and would show that while the Scarlet Witch overpowers the sorcerer supreme, Strange still has more tricks up his sleeve. Wanda's astral soul leaving her body and seeing her body still move and even transform into the creature that killed Professor X in their mind fight would have been EVERYTHING. Instead of Dr. Strange alone using the eye alone to seal Chthon though, I would've loved if Wanda absorbs Chthon like the Darkhold Omega comic and sealing him inside her (like raven does with trigon on her forehead lol) then in House of Harkness they end up learning the location of the true Darkhold and Wanda using it to permanently absorb Chthon's dominion over Chaos Magic. I still have hope though, with her definitely still in the picture I can see a proper redemption arc and with Clea and Agatha in the picture with the incursions, a magic illuminati justice league dark type of team would be THEE team. I just imagine an alliance with Dr Strange, Wanda, Clea and Agatha post secret wars fighting a magic Galactus with the Dormammu herald like that one Dr Strange comic.

I get that doing the manipulation route would have been too similar to Shang-Chi, but it worked so well for Shang-Chi that I wouldn't have minded it. It would have made her WandaVision end credits scene make more sense too of she was being manipulated to believe that the kids were in real danger and needed her specifically for at least a fraction of the movie.

Yes!!!!!! This is exactly how I felt about this! Like the disservice being done to wands and strange is crazy, there were some positive steps happening, but at the same time focusing on a relationship that had no chemistry especially when it came between the America/Strange stuff! And the magic in this is like a bad b movie when it’s so clearly capable(from the visuals alone) at being cool as hell! When I first watched this my thought was how Wanda is just evil, with nothing but an after credits stinger for showcasing it. I felt that having Wanda help strange and America until getting to Earth-816 and seeing her kids and the two magicians realising that dream walking is different realities that she would then be tempted by passages she was still trying to parse out. Especially considering how innate her magic is, her being able to just read and understand the dark hood is kind of weird. Like her context for magic is that she does it and things happen. So her still being early in it and having some working knowledge would go well, then at least her as a villain of her own will makes sense. The monsters hunting America could just be dreams she’s having and no one realises that it’s her subconsciously hunting America till the turn. We could still have her kill the entire illuminati once she realises what’s going on, maybe even have her trying to reason with strange as they run to the new book. Explaining why she isn’t going full violence at them. That being said your version is superior because it addresses more than the bad characterisation of Wanda but of magic in the MCU

Maybe they should've put a second season if how she became a villain in WandaVision. Where Wanda reads the darkhold and slowly becomes a villian and more evil each episode. A journey from anti-hero to villian.

I have 10 voice recordings laying out my rewrite for this movie, and your review pretty much lines up with it - And you know damn well that if they went with a Darkhold possessed Wanda, Raimi would have loved to give us a demonic looking wanda vs zombie strange and we all would have loved him more for it

"What mouth b!tch?" I busted out laughing right with you!!!! But for real, I do love "Multiverse of Madness" for every reason but the flimsy story lol. It's so well acted, well directed and visually compelling. But the plot? Needed to be workshopped a bit. Call it style over substance if you must. I love your suggestions especially the Wanda x Chthon point. I honestly think Wanda needed a bigger arc, I really wanted to see how the Darkhold corrupted her. We go from seeing her browsing it at the end of WandaVision to being a full blown villain in MoM; it was all just too sudden.

Petition for Marvel to hire this man as a writer

"Stop watering down magic, y'all!!!" Made me LOLOLOL. I'm a huge fan of Wanda & Strange, but Multiverse of Madness made me DOUBT the infallible interconnectedness of the MCU. And I HATED the Raimi horror lite BS. Shove REAL TERROR down our throats if you really wanted to, Disney. And you're right, the writer Waldron ruined it. He may have crafted a good Loki script (I didn't even enjoy Loki, I know I'm of the minority here) but he certainly doesn't seem to understand Strange or the Scarlet Witch. Also, all the "magic" they did was very rooted in the PHYSICAL -- conjuring up beastly hands to grab a lamp post to poke an eye out, Wong basically crafting energy weapons & shields (that's ALL a Sorcerer Supreme can come up with?!?!), musical notes used as physical weapons (they're really just written down on paper to denote musical notes; they have NOTHING to do with the actual music/ vibrations), damed souls woven into a cape (cool visuals, I'll give them that) -- but might as well pull a rabbit out of a top hat & throw it at Wanda, or energize playing cards like Gambit. Utterly uncreative in terms of using "magick".... Strange's short fight with Thanos in Endgame captured magick so wonderfully -- illusion casting, morphing energy into butterflies. Now that was wondrous. & I couldn't' believe Chthon was never mentioned, let alone show up. We had that demon bat-squid whisper in Wenwu's mind, I guess they couldn't do that again with Chthon & Wanda. Meh. Can't wait to watch Thor Love & Thunder tomorrow & wipe MoM out of my memory. I have full faith in Taika & the cast.

The thing is they'll probably use the dark hold as a scapegoat for what Wanda has done to absolve her of all wrongdoing since when we saw Xavier in Wanda's mind it confirmed that her good side was trapped.

Honestly, I agree with your plan to rectify it. Chthon's influence is exactly what is needed to tie everything together. It would explain not only the massive shift in her character between WV and MoM but it would also explain her more brutal and powerful showing. It would be explained as Chthon amplifying and twisting her desires. It would also remove the "why didn't she just convince America to send her" argument in favor of Chthon wanting the power to be able to travel the multiverse and conquer on his own whims. It makes Wanda's sacrifice in the end more meaningful and also puts a greater impact on the fact that Steven (and possibly Agatha since I'd assume Wanda's death"?" would remove the spell on her) are the only ones left in the main uni with the knowledge of the Darkhold

I love your take on this! Especially that in your version Wanda isn't completely possessed but simply being manipulated. That Chthon only feeds into her dark sides and brings them to a climax. That still grants her an interesting complexity and is way more in line with what we've seen so far from her.

Though not as steeped Marvel magic lore as you, La'Ron. I am really tired of shields and portals being the end all be all in magic. Especially when Spider-Boy's best friend could do portals without needing to travel to Asia and sit at the feet of a master to learn it. Sorcerer Supreme is a meaningless joke title given to Gob Bluth so he could finally get into that Poof. And then there's Wanda. The John Byrne factor in full effect, meaning to revitalise a series, he comes in focuses on a woman on the team shows us how powerful she really is (and the Gays take her in as an icon), then makes her unstable and barely stoppable. Besides Wanda, we got Dark Phoenix, and as he was changing the Invisible Girl into the Invisible Woman. she got into S&M drag and went a little crazy. Later after Byrne left, the same thing happened with Storm. Powers, drinks, maps, their emotions and their autonomy, women just can't handle these things. I wonder if Clea will be as powerful as her comics version, or has power corrupted her too. Great lesson as always!

I feel like your update would have been far better than what we got. Wanda's turn felt weird, and while I enjoyed watching it, and I'll likely go back again Wanda's arc is disconcerting. After this vid though, I'm looking forward to your thoughts on Ms. Marvel next week. I am really enjoying it so far.

I really wished they explained the darkhold more better instead of making it seem like Wanda was doing all of this willingly

Couldn’t agree with you more. It’s insane how they keep oversimplifying both Magic and gods I’m the MCU. Chaos gods like Suma Gorath are reduced to minions. And magic just has energy roads and portals as there biggest tools, not including the real eye candy scene they spent a good chunk of the budget on. Titles like the “Sorcerer Supream,” have as much weight as a fancy pin that anyone can get. And they can’t seem to decide if gods are actual deities, or just more advanced aliens. Love you’re Cathon rewrite BTW. As it actually gives big name characters from the comics there just due instead of being glorified Easter eggs with no real significance in the story. Though I wonder if Cathon’s rolls could have also been played by ether Mafisto, or the real Shuma Gorath?

I vibe with the use of Cthon here. Yeah, it robs Wanda of her agency for much of the story, but on the other hand - the movie kind of does that to an even worse degree already, insofar as MoM Wanda *barely* resembles Wandavision Wanda *at all* and thus her heel-turn feels rather artificial, a robbing of her agency by means of Multiple Writers' Disease, instead of allowing her to feel like an organic character. So in lieu of completely rewriting the movie from the ground up, I think 'it was mind control, but only kinda' is the best option.

I personally like the idea that wanda was just born with magic. It's a subtle way to introduce mutants by saying witches are a subset of mutants.

Before this movie, had Wanda and Strange had, like any type of conversation? Cause I don't buy them being chummy when they first meet up here.

As much as i loved powerful evil Wanda, Wandavision put in SO much work into making Wanda complex and then MoM just completely undid it for the sake of needing a villain for the heroes to fight. I like your version of events much better. Also imo if Dr.Stange had simply tried to find other versions of Wanda to warn them that an evil version of her wanted to take her children away, then those other versions would team up and fight her. And then you could have your epic fight scene and also have a more heartfelt scene where she talks herself out of her evil streak.

I want, no, NEED, a redemption arc for Wanda. She just needs a good nap without dreams about Tommy and Billy, and a hug. That red flash before the building collapsed gives me a lot of hope 👀

query: given that wanda needs to communicate with someone [to actually heal properly], could we get a reversal of characters in House of Harkness? which is to say - could Wanda appear on Agnes' street and life [while keeping her true form hidden] just as Agatha did? just to have someone to talk to. granted, "Agnes" would have no true memories but i feel like, if anyone can be Wanda's counsellor, it would be her. [apologies if it sounds convoluted]

I liked the movie yes Dr. strange and Wanda have always been 2 of my favorite characters so i went in positive, but i think my major thing i was expecting was for Wanda being more of a moral grey character then just full blown bloodlust crazy. Also i couldnt agree more with the magic part. Magic is so fun to play with on a literary level and i feel like the movies keep dodging anything that could help with the depth and structure of the magic system

I had no complaints about the movie as I went in COMPLETELY blind. Considering my knowledge of them stems almost exclusively from the MCU, I know very little about Doctor Strange as a whole, and even less about the Scarlett Witch. I also went out of my way to avoid the trailers, which led me to believe that Wanda would not be the villain of the film, so that was a shock to me. That all being said, I have noticed two things. First, Wanda is ASSUMED dead, and secondly, while they made it a point to say that ALL the Darkholds were destroyed, the same cannot be said for the other book, so technically, there's nothing stopping them from utilizing your idea in a later film depending on how this Multiversal Secret War things goes (@19:11 and @23:34). Also Wanda just started getting SUPER interesting as of late, and we also literally just got Vision back (kinda), so I'm still hanging onto the hope that we're not done with Wanda yet.

I hope Agatha House of Harkness delves deeper into Marvel Mystic. I wanna see the entire mythology surrounding magic in the MCU, since she has been a witch presumably since the salem witch trials

I think you really hit the nail on the head here. The only thing I would add/change that you didn’t touch on was the fact that I think it would have been much more poignant of a moment if Wanda had that final moment not with 838 Wanda, but 838 Pietro. Or perhaps not even 838. With the way the twins were handled in AoU and their closeness being highlighted, I think her seeing the one person who had been with her since the beginning would have added a layer that was definitely missing. It would have also allowed Quicksilver to be reintroduced to the MCU, possibly even brought into the main universe if America sent Wanda to a universe where it wasn’t Pietro who died in Sokovia but her. I think family is such a key motif with Wanda right now that that would have really solidified her redemption arc.

My biggest problem with Dr strange 2 is that Wandas arc is a rehash of what happened it Wanda Vision but worse. Its like Raimi didn't watch wanda vision or maybe he just didnt care about completely sh*tting on her character growth.

So what your saying is that they Game of Thrones'ed Wanda, and magic is important.

Yep, the main problem for me was that it felt like they were just setting up Secret Wars and they didn't really cared about Strange or Wanda's character....im currently working on writing versions of the movie that doesn't focus on the Multiverse and focus on the actual characters just for the fun of it.

I adore wanda…. I would write the way she became a villain is by starting her actually trying to help , with her not wanting to as she dosnt wanna use her magic to keep The SW a ”at bay” (or something like that) with America Chaves saying at one point how dreams are just visions into other reality’s , which makes wanda realise her children are alive and with her (maybe with vision too , but I think they’ll bring him back later) so that’s when she attacks , sending Strange and Chaves into the multiverse (then plus your Possession theme would work well in my opinion)

Absolutely love this take because it actually feels like something that the beginning of the film (including an understanding of Wandavision) was setting up in the background.

For me, I would've made Nightmare the main villain and have him manipulate Wanda in the second film act until she decides to not follow through with his demands in the third act. I'd also have the Illuminati live and serve as the backup Strange needs against Nightmare and Mordo-199999, along with Croctor Strange and Scarlet Poodle to give the film a bit of equal campiness comedy.

i legit went to see this movie: Wanda and the Multiverse. Strange nothing. though admittedly, i did enjoy it but i really was there for the wanda show.

Wandavision is my favorite production by Marvel. Needless to say, I was quite annoyed by what they did with Wanda. Yeah, Raime is great here. Edit: Waldron's comment are simply ridiculous

Yass! A new videooooooooo! Yass! The horror infused narrative was incredibly refreshing. This came so close to making it Marvel horror. The "what mouth" joke hit LOOOL

it would've been nice if the post-credit scene of wandavision had a continuation in doctor strange 2. remember we heard billy and tommy's pleas? maybe wanda exploring it could've been her seeing her kids suffer and not understanding why they were disintegrating when she removed the hex. then she would've felt like owning up to her kids' deaths.

This is such a great way to fix Wanda’s place in this film. I felt such tonal whiplash watching her just kill all the sorcerers in this movie, especially with all of the subconious, she didn’t mean for Westview to really happen.

The magic battle at Kamar Taj should have been WAY better. How the hell do you have all these sorcerers and all they are doing is conjuring tiny shields and shooting cannons? Like this would have been a great time to showcase some epic magic and spells and creative ways to defeat someone and show how powerful Wanda is by being able to survive and attack back. Strange vs Thanos was a great battle. He duplicated himself, conjured stuff, transfigured stuff…and we see NONE of that. Even Wong does nothing but conjure swords. Like come on!

There needed to be a movie inbetween Wandavision and this one, or they couldve focused on Wanda's character development to a psycho bitch all throughout the movie but they did not. They had to do too much with Strange and America to properly give her the descent to madness, it is very abrupt even with the book's magic in the mix. Anything interesting about the book's powers/ its effect on Wanda wasn't talked much about, I was expecting more cosmic mind fuckery rather than just flashy trippy effects. The movie feels...settingless? Empty? I am a Wanda fan, and was really happy to see her become a villain but it was very one note. I compare it to Everything Everywhere All at Once, another movie that came out in the same few months that did multiverse superheroes and powers very well. That movie feels full with it's multiversal setting and not empty, it also deals with universe destroying villains with mental breaks and managed to make the villain's complete loss of humanity more interesting and vulnerable than what Wanda got. Have no idea what the scarlet witch movie will be now, tbh. They really put the cart before the horse with her character like they did with Natasha as well.

I would have made evil Wanda a different universe Wanda, so our Wanda could see what she would become if she continues down her path. Maybe she incursions into our Wanda or somehow incapacitated her. In the end, Wanda has to kill herself. The middle of the movie could go the same way it went… except maybe not make Mr. Fantastic so dumb

You made good points about the weakening of magic in Marvel's cinematic Universe, intrusion of cosmic emergency arcs into solo superheroes' movies, and the ableist and misogynist Face-Heel Turn, Hysterical Woman, Mama Bear, Woobie Destroyer of Worlds, and Wicked Witch cliches of Scarlet Witch's portrayal and Black Widow's Heroic Sacrifice. Your Cthon/Darkhold possession solution strengthens Marvel magic but denies Wanda her agency and discriminates against her since Dr. Strange uses the Darkhold and gets possessed with impunity. I propose making Cthon or some other Darkhold-using mage the villain and having Wanda and Stephen team up against it or him. Making Cthon an Eldritch Abomination and the Evil Sorcerer a Humanoid Abomination, seeking to human sacrifice America Fererra for Multiversal Conqueror ambitions preserves the horror angle while keeping Wanda and Strange equally heroic. Have a sympathetic Strange and Illuminati help reunite Wanda with her family by time or dimensional travel, instead! It's more heroic! As for WandaVision, the Scarlet Witch need not enslave and brainwash a small town to have a happy sitcom family life! She could simply teleport and resurrect Quicksilver and Vision or locate White Vision with a crystal ball and reality warp their children while leaving her neighbors alone. Let Agatha Harkness do all the supervillain stuff! I think plot twists and character arcs should have logical reasons for them, rather than shake up a plot or surprise the audience.

what you're saying actually makes sense and is very comic accurate because in Darkhold: Pages from the Book of Sins #6 the profecy of the Scarlet Witch went like "A child born of no man and a woman marked by sin; daughter becomes mother; then will the great return begin." basically the profecy means Wanda is the woman marked by sin, Wanda was once a Daughter and has now become a mother, "Child born of no man" signifies to wanda having children with Vision who isn't a man feeds into the original profecy of Cthon returning and that's all from WandaVision. With the Darkhold already being fully put together would only make more sense of Wanda being influenced by Chthon. Her arrival to Wundagore (also its weird how Wundagore kinda sounds like it's where Wanda got her name from) would only feed into Cthons control since that's his place of power in the human world.

Man produced another banger. Still this script change doesn't account for why Wanda would go from killing random people to taking her time to not kill Strange and why she had to take America back to the mountain top a lot of the choices were still odd even with an external influence.

The shift in Wanda from Wandavision to Multiverse of Madness feels like there was a movie in between there that we should have gotten to make it less of a jarring change in characterization. Also, maybe this was just me, but even with her more overtly villainous scenes being in the trailers, I still really didn't expect her to be *the* big bad of the film and I was pretty disappointed upon realizing she was.

Given Nighmare was originally supposed to be in MoM, I'm pretty sure that he can be included in the next Dr. Strange with his infkuence being explained in MoM. That way, some stuff could be retconned rather than them having to rewrite or remake the whole movie.

Ya, in WandaVision, when Agatha starts talking about chaos magic and Wanda being THE Scarlet Witch, I had no idea what that was supposed to mean. I’d actually assumed it didn’t mean anything. But it figures it has more meaning for comic fans. Also, MoM was trying to do waaay too much, and still didn’t do enough 😖.

You should make a video about "Everything Everywhere All at Once". A lot of people say it is better (multiverse) movie than this one and I do agree. It also covers some of the themes you're invested into.

I completely agree with you....the puzzle piece that's missing here is, these movies are not made for us. The studios believe they would lose money catering to fans. We can't even think of the characters as who they're supposed to be; they share names and likenesses, but the similarities end there.

I’ve been waiting for your take on this ever since I saw it!!!

I throw these words upon the altar of the mighty algorithm. You do amazing work La'Ron!!!

The worst things for me were: 1. Wong should not be defeated by Gargantos so easily. With what we witnessed, If the only person more qualified for Sorcerer Supreme than him was Strange, oh boy, the world is in danger. I was kinda pissed. The runes could be the gag of why Wong would stop casting spells and be captured or something. Or even the only alluded difference between sorcery and witchcraft itself could be the reason. His defeat should be circumstancial and Strange's upper hand on the fight should barely/pratically be as well. 2. The poorly executed Iluminatti fanservice - they contributed with 0 things to the plot. Not even Xavier trusting Strange was really necessary since he had to fight Mordo anyway. Also Captain Marvel dying smashed by a giant statue? This would only be possible if she was knockouted and she was wide awake. And of their murders meant nothing, really. We had already understood that Wanda was willing to murder and could easily do so. 3. The same Wanda (body of 838 Wanda) killed all of the most powerful superhumans of that reality was ridiculously limping in a cringy horror wanna-be scene. Bitch, she flies!! Really? I mean, just one line would at least clarify that Wanda was not the Scarlet Witch, so she was weakier and, still, more badass than the Ilumiwhattis. 4. "I can't control my powers, Strange!" "Yes, you can, America!" "Oh, yeah, I can XD". I'm not against Discourse no Jutsu, but only if made right. 5. Just like you said, Vishanti and their book? Useless - which is a shame. Oh, and before the Book is destroyed, we can see a star on it, maybe alluding to the resolution being America's herself like it did happen. So, yeah, if the things happened the way you said, it would be even cooler. 6. Like you said too, the darkhold influence on Wanda should have been more clear to make more sense with Wandavision, something that would make the public wonder more of how much of herself is really imputable. Could have been your suggestion or some even uncertain. For instance, a scene where she briefly comes to senses on that "and what about their mother?" exchange with Strange inside Kamar Taj. In the trailers, it showed that she was supposed to be crying on that scene, it could be the perfect opportunity since she's vulnerable/she's HERSELF. And her tear was perfectly timed, I don't understand why they choose to cut it out of the film. Maybe to solidify her more as a unscrupulous villian? Well, it DOESN'T. MAKE. SENSE. I think just a few more minutes would benefit this film A LOT. And, for me, some Nexus Being vs Nexus Event explaination would already be very much appreciated.

Thank you for this! I knew there was a way of fixing this film but didn’t know what it was

Thank you I enjoyed this discussion!!

Thank you, this is my head cannon now. I needed better motivation and a better arc for Wanda and your pitch gives that without completely changing the movie (which I wouldn't have minded after seeing the movie), and in a way that still wouldn't have made it a 3 hour movie (shade at the batman, even though I really enjoyed it. The run time just makes it difficult to rewatch). Great job!

Yo, that shot at Nerdist was petty... and it had me rollin'! Hahaha And Brendan Lee Mulligan is always a win!

Thank you for sharing because I’m really intrigued by this. Your enthusiasm is contagious. I’m glad King F.D Signifier recommend this channel.😷

First of all, let me just say thank you for the (as always) insightful commentary. As for my homework, I thought the film was trying to do a little too much in the wrong directions, if that makes sense, and ended up being a little murky in terms of characterisation and pacing as a result. As for what I would change, I think I would even further embrace the rules surrounding the Darkhold set up by the excellent Marvel's Agents of Shield, which deals with exactly this aspect of corruption in an altogether different setting, one that blends the (somewhat) grounded science of Shield with references to more mystical elements such as demons and the Devil. Speaking of Agents of Shield, I'll use this as an opportunity to ask if you could turn your excellent mind towards this massively underappreciated show, as I would love to see a breakdown of one or more of the many, many different plot arcs from a writer such as yourself.

Hello Mr La'Ron! Pleased to meet you, and... YES!! YESSSSSSSS YES 100 TIMES YES!!! You absolutely nailed it! Everything that was wrong with the writing, and how it could have worked so much better with just a few tweaks. I definitely enjoyed the film when sat in the cinema, but haven't been able to watch it since. They did Wanda dirty... and America Chavez too (who was little more than a living Maguffin for most of the film). The cameos were fun, but it was little more than an extended episode of What If...? that we'd already seen. Thank you for this video!! This is the first of your work I've seen, and I look forward to discovering the rest of your back catalogue! Thanks!!

Wanda s my favorite new Avenger. I loved her in Civil War and Infinity War. She had so much potential. However, they ruined her by making her a villian. I don't like that they made her hold an innocent town hostage in her own show (instead of having her act like a hero) and I don't like that they made her a killer in Multiverse of Madnesses. I know she isn't unstable in the comics and has done villainous things, but I still think they did her dirty. I would have preferred her as hero or antihero.

I like Wanda as a character after watching WandaVision, seeing how the movie did her in the end didn't leave me completely satisfied with her arc.

"HELP ME, IM FUCKING STARVING" Absolutely preach. Magic in fiction at its best can heighten any storys themes and stakes, but at its worst is a lazy way for the author to hide their hand. So cool to see someone else as passionate as me about this aspect of fiction writing

This is a rare instance when I actually waited to watch the movie before watching a video of yours on it. You are spot on! We need more actual magic in these movies.

I love this video cause you really highlighted a lot of things that were wrong with this movie, like the directing was phenomenal but a good director can only carry a script so far. Contemplating making a video on this but another thing that I would've liked to see was maybe a variant Wanda who is bad or rather has used the darkhold, like Lore for example, having Lore be the bad guy would be great and serve as a sort of mirror for Wanda, if she continues down the path of using the darkhold she might end up as bad as Lore, then at the end show Wanda still going along and reading said darkhold and have her as a villian in another movie.

Excellent fix-it fic, they should hire you as a writer. I don't even follow the comics, but this makes SO MUCH MORE SENSE.

I had not seen Dr.Strange and the Multiverse of Madness, and part of that was having the identity of the villain spoiled for me. For me, the MCU really didn't have a major screw up until Endgame, which is to say that, while there were bits I liked less than others, there wasn't much I actively disliked enough that I had trouble getting past it. The treatment of the Black Widow in Endgame angered me profoundly. I dreaded the idea of Wanda being the villain in Wandavision and was overjoyed when it didn't happen ('Woman + Power = Evil/Madness' is one of my least favourite tropes in fiction and one that comics seemingly loves to throw at me, with the only thing worse being the "We have to shove her in this fridge to save her" variant). I like heroines. And the fact that the MCU seems to think that pulling this nonsense on 2/3 of their prominent female superheroines is not only appropriate, but desirable has made me start thinking that maybe the MCU just isn't interested in telling the sorts of stories I care to see.

Well...I can't say I care about the subject with much passion, but I did really enjoy the delivery...that editing was quite amusing...

The point of Chthon being integral to Wanda's character arc and her history is to show that even when you're unknowingly "blessed" a.k.a. cursed by an abominable elder god to be a physical avatar to wreck havoc upon the physical realm, you can still resist that evil influence and even defeat that toxic patronization. That's why when Wanda finally absorbed Chthon in her most recent comic appearance, it felt so satisfying. After a lot of decades spent being a mere puppet for not only Chthon but also many other beings and entities, Wanda could finally overpower them by surviving and learning more and more about who she believes she can be in the midst of all superpowered, cosmic and magical beings in the universe. A hero. An Avenger. A mother. But most importantly...a human. Magical, yes, but still a human. Apparently, the MCU missed this point and keep treating her as yet another Jean Grey wannabe with the "Scarlet Witch" title being her pseudo-Dark Phoenix. Dumbass writer called Michael Waldron is responsible for this and Kevin Feige...you too are on sight.

Yes I want to see magic in the MCU. I too also FUCKING!! love magic. That's why I love Dr.Strange

Damn I knew as soon as I clicked I wouldn't be able to let go of this amazing rewrite.

THIS IS THE MOVIE I NEEDED😭

Seriously. Great suggestion. When you were describing I was "seeing" it. And with Raime's direction even! Well done! It even subdued a bit my frustation with this movie, :)

My experience with this movie was better than most because I read spoilers in October and was prepared for what was to come when it finally released in January.

yeah these are really good changes cool video

It not wanda wasn't already a horrible person. It's the fact at the end of Wandavision she still had some humanity.

Just a reminder that scarlet witch mind tortured the adults of her sims village to the point of asking for death. Imagine all the kids in that town that probably Yoda death screamed because of her and the mental scarring she did to them. That and putting a woman knowingly into that hell because she tried to do something that literally would have saved everyone who died by Wanda’s hand in this film.

I wish that they explored how Wanda lost the Avengers a bit more (not that they did at all.) She had a very close relationship with Clint and Natasha and was on good terms with Steve. I think seeing her mourn not only her biological family but also the family she found in the Avengers before it all fell apart would've been a really interesting route to take. Anyway, she isn't dead and she's gone to Westview (without making a hex this time) and her and Agatha are having the time of their lives together.

i know this is not the assignment but that looked like an exu calamity discussion clip please please god please i wish you could do content on that im completely devastated and obsessed just

We can dream of a better multiverse of madness 🥺

This was incredibly interesting to watch, I really like your rendition of what you would do with Wanda and her arc throughout the movie, I have no knowledge of the comics so learning about Chthon's comic book counterpart was interesting and would've been awesome to see on the big screen! The thought of an actual god being responsible for Wanda's decent into madness and this angry-grief ridden state would've been more terrifying and interesting to see rather than, "the evil book made me do it." Whilst I love the idea of the Darkhold being this grimoire of dark magic spells who can twist it's readers' morale and mind, it's seems a bit weak to just place the blame for Wanda's villainy onto it's ability to corrupt others, so having this evil demonic god possess Wanda to take her as a vessel/host for his own plans be the reason instead sounds much more threatening than an evil book. I'm sorry if that doesn't make sense, I'm not really the best at writing my thoughts. As for what I would change about the movie? ....My main issue is with Wanda's sudden character change. WandaVision's whole takeaway was grief and being able to process it, of course Wanda's way of processing her grief wasn't the most healthiest of ways but it was still a way of coping nonetheless. And whilst I am not condoning Wanda's actions of enslaving an entire town just to live out her dream life whilst repressing her grief, because good god that is not okay nor is it healthy, she still learnt the process of grief and learnt to accept her losses. And of course she is absolutely not going to just get over it, there is still a lot of healing to do even after coming to terms with her losses, I think MoM instead of doing a 180 turn around and undoing her entire journey in WV should've instead carried on her journey of healing whilst also settling into her role as The Scarlet Witch, because whilst Wanda is certainly powerful in MoM you don't really know what power is The Scarlet Witch and what is simply the Darkhold's influence and what we got is probably just a sliver of what her full power looks like. So if I could redo Wanda in MoM I would want this: 1. Throughout the movie we see her healing. Coming to terms with loss is one thing, and whilst it is a step forward it doesn't mean that the healing process is over, so throughout the movie I would want to see her carrying on her journey of healing after Westview. 2. Her getting rid of the Darkhold in some way. As we know, at the end of WV we see that Wanda has the Darkhold, and whilst we (unfortunately) don't see her development with using it and seeing the Darkhold's corruption on her, we can connect the dots on what happened between the time from the end of WV up until the events of MoM. So instead of her using the Darkhold I'd actually want to see her getting rid of it somehow, perhaps she could sense the beginnings of the corruption and therefore locked it away somewhere on her property, in the movie she did say that she was expecting Strange to show up sooner or later, so maybe she locked the Darkhold away in her home or on her grounds somewhere until Strange inevitably showed up so she could return it to him. Which brings me to my next "rewrite." 3. Wanda and Strange team-up. I personally would have loved to have seen these two team up rather than be at odds, so this is what I would do. When Strange does show up to seek Wanda for help about the threat of America being hunted and killed, after Strange tells Wanda about what is happening Wanda tells Strange about her journey with grieving the loss of her family and coming to terms with it, maybe we see some sort of flashback or Wanda shows us with her magic (like she does in the movie with Billy and Tommy) those events, she mentions how she has come to terms with even though she, herself, will possibly never see her family again she knows that they are out there somewhere, and that another version of her is taking care of them and that they are happy and well, and that that is enough for her. She also tells Strange that she started using the Darkhold since it was her only source of research at the time, but as time went on she started to sense that something wasn't right (perhaps the Darkhold whilst corrupting it's readers has some sort of process or has stages before the corruption is complete) and that she started to feel the corruption take hold on her so she locked the book away, far enough away from her so she doesn't feel tempted to read it but close enough to her so she knows exactly where it is until she can give it to the right person/people (that being Stephen). Her ending statement is that she is tired of being alone and that she wants to help Stephen, and America, where she can. I would also write in that Strange becomes some sort of mentor for Wanda, teaching her about magic and how to use it and possibly how to strengthen her own, maybe Wanda even writes her own grimoire to help her. I would also absolutely write in that Wanda becomes some sort of mother figure for America. Loss is something that they can both relate to, (being that Wanda has lost her family, brother, husband and children, as well as the life she could have had, and America having sending her moms to another universe whilst also not knowing if her moms are alive or not) and with Wanda not having her children, and America not having her moms, it seems fitting that they would form some sort of a parental and child relationship/bond, and perhaps they can both help each other more in that healing process. Now if you still wanted Wanda to be the main antagonist, my solution is this: The Multiverse is a thing, and so far we haven't seen much of it. So perhaps there is a universe that is very closely parallel to 616 with a few minor differences, one of those being that perhaps Wanda never learnt what she did at the end of WV or perhaps she never had Westview at all? Maybe she did come into contact with the Darkhold after the events of Endgame and started using it much earlier rather than at the end of WV (since in this universe WV never actually happened.) Maybe she learns that she's a Nexus being through the Darkhold and finds out she has some sort of influence on the timeline, maybe she learns there are other ways of multiversal travel apart from Dreamwalking and with the powers of America, I don't know if that's a thing or not (like I said earlier I have no knowledge of the comics so I am sorry if get something wrong 😅) I'm mainly spitballing here. All I'm saying is that we've set up the Multiverse and we've barely scratched the surface of it, so another Wanda who didn't go through what (my rewrite version of) 616 Wanda went through isn't out there, it's a possibility out of many others. And if you didn't want Wanda to be the main antagonist you can always have another character who ties into both Doctor Strange and Wanda be the big bad, or you could have different variants of Wanda and Strange be the big bad (because again...the multiverse, you can't set this up and not do anything with it Marvel come on now XD especially with a movie with Doctor Strange- and especially when the Multiverse is in the title 😂😭) I honestly loved this rendition of Chthon possessing Wanda to be his vessel and taking advantage of her grief and anger to further strengthen her powers to fulfil his own desires. But yes, if I could rewrite Wanda, that is how I would do it, personally anyways. I very much enjoyed this video and I'm glad I could finally share my own idea for Wanda in MoM. Any who, I know I've rambled a lot and most of this probably doesn't make much sense (as I've said I'm not great at conveying my thoughts through text) but I was happy to share my idea anyways, and thank you to whoever took their time to read this ^w^ Take care and have a good day! 😊

It was a beautifully crafted movie- the visuals, the acting (zombified Elizabeth Olsen was awesome) but the story did require some mind-numbing to enjoy and was very inconsistent considering the setup after WandaVision. Your ideas make it make sense better

The perfect video to watch while I eat breakfast

This Is Perfect!!!

Whats weird is the end credits scene of wandavision had her kids screaming for her help so most people thought she was going to try to rescue her kids and maybe it was chithon or mephisto all along just manipulating wanda to do something catastrophic. Wanda would still be in control of her actions but she's doing it for what she believes is saving her kids.

I'm just mad we're probably never getting our "no more mutants" moment...

only about 18 minutes in, but goddamn, this is so much better than what we got.

i love this!!!!

If we are going to explore themes on the lines of grief and vulnerability with Wanda which makes sense since her motivations in AOU were grief/vengeance driven, her loos of her brother by then end, the grappling of her failure in Civil war, finding happiness with vision, being forced to kill him with her own hands only for it to mean absolutely nothing and then fail to save him and watch as he is murdered brutally. yes that would break me too. i think in WandaVision, Hex-Vision should have been the good part in Wanda, everything she loved about him and the very way he made her feel aswell as the good he brought out in her sucked out of her and manifest as Vision, her kids being the future she wanted so desperately and Westview being the life she dreamed of. all created by accident. we see the cracks in the show. use her like a host in Westworld and then have the reveal that she caused i be a reveal not just for us, but for her aswell. however we see that Wanda's mind is fragmented. the empty shell that is filled with the instinct to protect her new reality is all that remains in Wanda. we see how she changes around Vision because he literally makes her whole when he's around. Vision begins to figure out how to destroy the Hex, showing that deep down Wanda doesn't wat this no matter how much she wishes it was real and knows she is hurting people. The show ends basically the same however her scene with Monica is a little different. Wanda traps Agatha in Westview, not having the stomach to hurt anyone else. she tries to hold onto her boys, desperately trying to keep them in reality, but they just tell them they are scared, and they want her to hold them. she tells them she will always love them. they fade away in her arms. she stands up nearly broken. she sees the Darkhold on the ground. rage glows in her eyes and she raises her hands to destroy the book, but as if by purpose wind blows and the pages flick until it lands on a picture of the scarlet Witch on one page... and two smaller figures on the next page. Wanda "You've given up everything for these people Wanda..." she says. "i took everything from them... I gave it up but... that does not change what i did". Wanda replies "you should go... the FBI will be here and you're their most Wanted... you hurt people Wanda but you made things right. i think you're worth a second chance" Monica pleads. Wanda is conflicted, feeling like she should be punished but she looks Monica in the eyes and nods. "i dont understand this power... but i will". she says before flying off. end credit scene with Wanda is the same but we get a close up and see a demonic, razor teeth filled maw whispering black magic into her ears. hinting that nothing good is going to follow. MOM can go similarly but the scene where 616 Wanda dream walks into 838 Wanda near the start will be changed and reversed so that 8383 Wanda sees 616 Wanda and notices the Demon Cthon almost latched onto her. NOW multiverse of madness is about someone who is vulnerable, but good hearted being taken advantage of and manipulated by an abusive power hungry force. Wanda doesn't, at first kill the illuminati. she, makes Mr Fantastic go limp, unable to make himself normal so he cant stop her, takes away Black bolts voice, makes Peggy, frail like Steve was before the serum, and sends Captain marvel out to destroy a ship that is an illusion. she also traps Xavier in a mental prison he has to find a way out of but when Cthon takes over he does kill them all, shredding Mr Fantastic, decapitating Peggy, Draining Captain Marvel (since crushing her was so dumb like we see her survive the centre of planets but a statue is too much c'mon) her tears Xavier's head off in the mental prison and lastly uses black bolts own words to kill him. now Wanda is ore redeemable as she made and effort to no harm people directly, she is still going along with a plot she believes will give her, her kids back. Stevens journey can remain unchanged and he fights a Cthon influenced Wanda at the end with Americas help. She does what she does in the film but Cthon tries to destroy the kids as they are in the way. to which Wanda rebels and tears him out of her body. she then beings to rip him to pieces for trying to hurt her kids, for making her do unspeakable thing s ad using her like a tool. she then collapses to the ground and 838 Wanda comforts her telling her that they'll be well taken care of. Wanda(616) then destroys Mount Wondigor, supposedly banishing Cthon, permanently from that universe while also supposedly dying herself in the process. BANG thats all she wrote. film ends exactly the same Wanda is not a psychopath but an actual victim like marvel wants us to believe she is.