"The WandaVision Cul De Sac"

[oracne]

A very thinky thinkpiece that I really appreciated.

The WandaVision Cul-De-Sac by Aaron Bady.

Comments

[chase_acow]

Wow, that writer is not pulling his punches, is he? I'm sad about the lack of investment in Wanda's character previously, because that makes it harder for me to give her the benefit of the doubt now. The little we knew about Sam and Bucky as people before their show was so much more than I could have told you about Wanda. I'm really glad her fans enjoyed the series, but it wasn't something for me. Sitcoms . . . *shudder* no thank you.

WandaVision is a show about a villain — a super-powered slave master who tortures thousands of people to preserve a way of life she’s never had, but which the universe nevertheless owes her — that can’t stop insisting that she is really the hero, that she doesn’t really understand what she’s done.

That interpretation is why I probably won't watch it again, though I do want good things for Monica.

I never actually gave much thought to the Kübler-Ross’s five stages of grief, but the bit of info here about how it has been misapplied is interesting.

[galadhir]

A fascinating read. Thank you!

[jeliza]

I am a little weirded out by the assertion in this essay and elsewhere that Wanda is presented as a hero in the end, rather than someone doing horrible things even if without evil intentions. Is she unequivocally branded a villain? No, but that isn't a binary choice (see also: Tony, Natasha, Clint and Bucky, questions about consent and sanity)

Unlike those 4, the "is she a really a hero considering what she's done" question is central to most of her plot-relevant major MCU appearances - SHEILDRA/Ultron/Lagos, as is her drastic emotional response to death (her parents, country, Pietro, and Vision.)

Westview seems like House of M in miniature. She is absolutely desperate and delusional (witness her shock that the townspeople had her nightmares instead of sleeping peacefully and initial acceptance of Agnes' Pietro substitute.)

At the end she acknowledges she will be reasonably hated by the townfolk for the misuse, even if not conscious, of her power in the hooded walk of shame she does through the town center. If she was just going to bug out without showing any remorse, she would have gotten into her car and driven away, or walked through tall in her new costume. She admits she can't control her power and leaves civilization so she can learn.

I felt like the end acknowledged that, and to me the whole Darkhold thing seemed like it could be setting her up as a Stark-Creating-Ultron kind of problem in the next Dr. Strange rather than an unambiguous hero narrative.

The lines they have Monica say to her at the end did kind of suck. Should have shortened/changed that and left in the rant at SWORD about Vision and Natasha's deaths being ignored that was initially storyboarded.

[lynnenne]

Thanks for linking to that. I love this: “If “the fifties” made America the hero, the center of the universe, incapable of being anything but good, it’s in large part because America was the villain.”