What she did was way worse than anything Agatha or Hayward were doing or did. Those people legit asked for the sweet release of death. It was literally torture.
I'm sorry, I'm not with the rest of the fandom on this. What she did to the people of WestView was downright cruel.
And she basically ""got away" at the end there. People have been called villains for way less stuff
It's true.
Hayward was a very generic "government guy", but I honestly didn't even understand why he was arrested at the end.
What did he do? Try to kill a witch that kidnapped and tortured an entire city? Hmmkay.
Agatha didn't do anything wrong, until episode 9. In episode 9 we see she is also evil because she wants Wanda's power at all costs, including torturing Wanda's kids.
But Wanda was the clear villain here. She kidnapped and tortured an entire city. She cannot control her powers and doesn't seem to care. Even when confronted with what she was doing, she didn't seem to really care.
This bothers me also. Monica "perfect" Rambeau was already accepting her actions as in "poor Wanda, she's in pain. Bad government wants to get her", but she shouldn't. Wanda was a real danger at the time and it's perfectly justified to try to bring her down.
Also, Hayward seemed like someone with an agenda from a few episodes back but in the finale, they basically made him a generic, downright cartoonish villain
shareIf I have 1 complaint about the MCU it's the "big government guy" = evil, heroes never wrong trope. It's sooooooooooooooooo played out. Hayward is absolutely justified in trying to bring her down.
F Rambeau. Yo stated it perfectly.
Only thing I don't agree on is Agatha. She ain't a great person. We saw her kill her coven. We don't know if they were evil and even if they were, I think it's safe to say if she killed her own mother, she's killed innocents.
The hex was unconscious at first. She really didn't understand how it started and only knew she had some control. She didn't know the people were suffering until it was pointed out to her. As soon as she found out she started to let them go. She didn't see what Vision saw with the people far away from her glitching out. She only knew that she had seen them as pretty hopeless and miserable people when she first got to town and that now they seemed like bright and happy characters in her life.
I feel like people calling Wanda a villain didn't even watch the same show.
Hayward illegally dissected and tried to reactivate Vision, and then lied that Wanda was doing it after he PUSHED her and PRODDED her trying to get her to do it for him. He had a more active role in the creation of the hex than Wanda did. Wanda's power just exploded in a moment of uncontrolled grief after being emotionally tormented by Hayward and seeing the future that would never be. If he had just let her bury Vision, none of it would have happened.
He repeatedly abused his power and then he tried to shoot children that he was told by Monica were actually completely real.
Agatha just wanted power. For what, who knows?
Wanda had control over the Hex. She might not have remembered how it started but she knew she could take it down IF she wanted to.
She could've let the people out but chose not to. She basically "imprisoned" them. There were no kids until Vision asked. She knowingly increased the hex &'trapped countless other characters
But she gets a pass because she was grieving. If Agatha was the one doing everything, people would be branding her a super villain & asking her to be imprisoned & sh*t
If you believe she willingly and knowingly tortured the people of Westview into a state of agony, you were no paying attention. The bulk of it was unconscious except when she was provoked. She did not fully understand what was going on until the end when Agatha explained it all to her, and she immediately opened the barrier. And even after finally realizing it would take her family, she rejected Agatha's offer to make it permanent and eventually shut it all down.
shareShe created a fantasyland & decided that the people were happier there. She took a look at 'me & decided she knew what was best.
She threw Monica way outta the barrier, not knowing what that'll do. She almost hit her on the ground not knowing she had powers.
Yeah, like I said. Anyone else with Wanda's actions would be a villain right now. No question about that
"If you believe she willingly and knowingly tortured the people of Westview into a state of agony, you were no paying attention."
YOU weren't paying attention.
"Intentionally expanding the borders of the false world we created..."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZAk32wCK18g&t=10s
Watch the confrontation with SWORD scenes. This is all intentional:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-GtS3ZAfkg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KA2emeyOhW0
No surprise. She us the same person who did this too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSG5iHK9Scw
I don't think you understand the word "all". Clearly, if you were paying attention none of it was intentional at the beginning. Wanda didn't understand the hex at all, even though she had some control over it. Not until the end. And there are moments that prove that far more than any you posted. She definitely took advantage of an opportunity that presented itself once she was in it, but she was far from in full control. Never mind that it was directly stated. Just the fact that she was even able to be fooled at all by Agatha demonstrates that she has no understanding or full awareness of how she's in control at all, let alone that she's tormenting everyone inside.
She was a bit deluded, but she had no malicious intent, and nearly every directly conscious act she took was directly provoked by Hayward with SWORD or Agatha. Literally none of it would have happened if Hayward hadn't manipulated her emotions to try and see if she could reactivate Vision somehow. She just wanted a proper goodby and she was poked and prodded and pushed to the breaking point where her powers exploded outward and took over the town.
Oh no! She threatened some SWORD agents who just tried to straight up murder her and her children without actually harming anyone! So villainous!
If you come away from the show thinking she's the villain... >__>
I don't think you understand the word "intentional" means.
"Intentionally expanding the borders of the false world we created..."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZAk32wCK18g&t=10s
"Oh no! She threatened some SWORD agents who just tried to straight up murder her and her children without actually harming anyone! So villainous!"
No, digus, THIS happened before Hayward tried to shoot her imaginary children. They were trying to get through the HEX. You know...save the towns people Wanda was holding hostage and torturing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-GtS3ZAfkg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KA2emeyOhW0
Stop playing dumb, fool.
That part was in direct response to Hayward's DRONE opening fire on her and her kids after he lied to Monica about it being armed. She was directly provoked and she harmed no one..
Again, some of the things she did were intentional. But not ALL. And certainly not what the "Wanda's a villain!" crowd is saying. It's all based on misunderstanding or twisting of what happened. She didn't know people were in torture until the very end. Right before she let them go.
I'd tell you to stop playing dumb, but I don't think you're playing.
MMmmaybe “villain” is too strong, but she definitely knew, early on, that the people of Westview were her prisoners
I noticed little moments on rewatching the series that indicated Wanda was deliberately lying to herself from the first episode (of the WandaVision Disney series, that is — we don’t know how long it was in the actual hex)
True, Wanda apparently didn’t know she was torturing them until the end of the last episode. But to me, that’s just a matter of degree. She was overriding their autonomy regardless, and she knew it.
The clincher for me was Emma Caulfield’s character. She had a daughter who was trapped in her room while her mother was forced to play the “devil woman.” She was okay with her daughter playing a “school bully,” just to let out of her room.
That’s not excusable; completely understandable given Wanda’s horrible life up to that point, yes, but still not excusable. Trapping kids is the act of a villain.
"True, Wanda apparently didn’t know she was torturing them until the end of the last episode."
This much isn't even true. Watch the "Modern Family" episode. Wanda literally says it's intentional:
"Intentionally expanding the borders of the false world we created..."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZAk32wCK18g&t=10s
Watch the confrontation with SWORD scenes. This is all intentional:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-GtS3ZAfkg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KA2emeyOhW0
No I meant the literal torture
It was only in the final confrontation, when Agatha sets them free, that they reveal how they dream of Wanda’s pain at night and ask her to let them die if she won’t let them go.
That’s why I backed off on my “villain” assessment. When Agatha reminds her that heroes don’t torture, Wanda starts to relent.
She wasn’t in total control of her powers, and still isn’t.
But that’s what makes her dangerous. It also makes her more interesting than she’s ever been from a storytelling perspective
Wanda has tortured a rural village - BUT: Agatha killed a dog.
shareIf this were real world, Wanda woukd be guilty of many crimes. Kidnapping. Child endangerment. Assault and battery. Etc. She’d be a fugitive, too.
shareI'm glad more and more people are starting to speak out against Wanda, but we are definitely in the minority. I don't like Wanda at all. She hurts people. She doesn't care about anything but herself. It's all about her and her grief. Her supporters excuse her actions. It's why I don't like Rambeau. 1000s of people are being held hostage and tortured and she's running around rambling, "Poor Wanda, we have to help her!" I'm glad the show at least kept the towns people mad at her, because it was attempting to excuse what she did. But the townsfolk's anger is at least at acknowledgement. It's more than Wanda herself has ever admitted.
I'm actually not overly fond of Vision either, because he doesn't really seem to call her out on what she's doing. Everything is fine because they "love each other", barf.
Agatha appears to be a murderer, so I wouldn't say she's "not a villain", I'd just say Wanda is too.
I don't really like Hayward as a person, but I don't have a problem with him trying to arrest an kill Wanda - she's an awful person. Wanda does more bad than he does.
But it's ok. She was grieving. C'mon man, She had to say goodbye to her imaginary family. Those would never understand what she had to give up.
Same vibes as, it's ok, the villain has a kid. That makes his actions ok. Cause he loves his kid
But seriously though, The residents of WestView are gonna need therapy for like the rest of their lifetime.
"PoOr WaNDA! ShE's SufFerInG!"
derp derp.
The reason you're in the minority is that the people who think she's an all-out villain misunderstand very basic things and twist others out of proportion.
shareYou're looking at this in a black-and-white way, as if humans are robots. We aren't. Vision is, but the rest of the characters are meant to reflect the realities of life. This isn't an either/or good/bad situation.
shareThere's nothing NOT black-and-white about holding people hostage and torturing them. And it's definitely a BAD situation.
shareAnd if a single shred of that part of it was intentional, you might have a single shred of a point.
shareIntentional, you say?
"Intentionally expanding the borders of the false world we created..."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZAk32wCK18g&t=10s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-GtS3ZAfkg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KA2emeyOhW0
You can sit down now.
"that part of it" I said. It's like you can't even read.
Unsurprising if what you get out of the show is that Wanda's a villain intentionally torturing people.
Speaking of not being able to read:
"And if a single shred of that part of it was intentional..."
And? I'll let try to work it out yourself, because having it spelled out to you clearly isn't working.
Here's a hint... At what point did Wanda fully understand the hex? And what did she do after?
When she walked outside of it, threatened SWORD, and EXPANDED it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-GtS3ZAfkg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KA2emeyOhW0
She "broke character" from her sitcom life. She knew that wasn't real. It's confirmed right there in those scenes of the confrontation.
And she later ADMITS it's intentional:
"Intentionally expanding the borders of the false world we created..."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZAk32wCK18g&t=10s
Even there, you are framing it in a way that shows you don't grasp the nuances.
What Wanda did was wrong, and no one is denying that. None of the characters in the show are okay with it, and I've not seen any fans write in defense of her actions.
What most of us see, and you seem to be missing, is that the show is exploring the reasons behind the actions, and how and why good people can do bad things. Fear, grief, desperation, love-- many things can motivate behavior. If a person steals an apple to give to their starving child, did hey do something wrong? They stole something, and stealing is wrong, but you must also take the reason for the action into account when determining whether it was justifiable or not.
Wanda lived a brutal, sad life. She finally found some peace and structure, and love, only to have to murder her lover to save the universe. She then saw him resurrected, and murdered again, in front of her, after which she was murdered. Then she came back to life-- yes, this all sounds crazy, but... comic book-- and saw her lover being dissected in a military lab. The final straw came when she found the deed he'd left her to the house they'd grow old together in, just like the families in the sitcoms she loved, and she snapped. As she happens to have a sentient infinity stone residing in her, her version of snapping is much worse than the average person's, and without even being aware of it, she/the stone conjured up a sitcom town where Westfield once was, and brainwashed its residents into playing along. And, she was brainwashed right along with them.
How much is she to blame for that? Would most other people with her abilities do similar, given similar circumstances? How much blame does she deserve, and how much sympathy? She clearly deserves both, and the interesting discussion concerns the balance between the two.
And if someone was tripped into a table of apples and an apple fell into their bag are they a thief? If they find that apple later on without understanding how it got there and take a bite are they intentionally doing wrong?
Intentions matter. Once Wanda realized the full scope of her actions she stopped it.
My Cousin Vinny comes to mind! :)
share"How much blame does she deserve, and how much sympathy?"
She committed the act, so of course she deserves all the blame. Losing someone you love does not justify a wrong action.
The fact that she may have realized that she was doing something wrong doesn't excuse the fact that she did something wrong.
The film Manhunter summarized this situation rather well. It was a film about a serial killer and the detective tracking him down. The detective sympathized with the abusive childhood that the killer suffered (and presumably led to his adulthood atrocities) but even with having empathy for the child, hating the monster that he had become -- and the actions he had committed -- was justified.
This is very different from Manhunter. Graham can understand the genesis of Dollarhyde's behavior while not excusing his actions in much the same way that we all expect people with evil or criminal urges to stifle them, despite understanding their root cause, but Wanda isn't akin to Dollarhyde. He is fully aware of his actions, and behaves the way he does despite knowing the harm he's causing others. Wanda initially had no idea what was going on, and as she came to realize something was fishy, she was still nearly as much under the Mind Stone's spell as were the townspeople. It wasn't until the very end, when she realized they were not also enjoying an idyllic, sitcom existence that she became completely aware of the consequences of her/the Mind Stone's actions, at which point she set everyone free, killed/deleted/erased Vision and her children, and fled.
shareYou can't rationalize with her defenders. Nothing is ever her fault because they feel bad for her. That's their entire argument. It's all feelings with them, no facts.
shareI grasp them, I just don't give a fuck. The character has a history of selfishness, attacking people, and breaking laws. Fuck her and fuck defending her. I don't fucking care about her sad life. That buys you 1 free get out of jail card, which she used in AoU.
Brainwashed my ass. She's fully cognizant of what she's doing:
When she walked outside of the Hex - she "broke character" - and threatened SWORD, and then EXPANDED it. She's fully aware of what she's doing here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-GtS3ZAfkg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KA2emeyOhW0
And later ADMITS it's:
"Intentionally expanding the borders of the false world we created..."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZAk32wCK18g&t=10s
She eventually came to realize what was going on, and once she was fully aware of what she was doing to the people of the town, she stopped. Until that point, she thought they were also enjoying their lives.
shareOh, she stopped?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5T6umD9Z8HA