Mid-story rampant WandaVision speculation

[annathepiper]

So we just watched the latest episode of WandaVision here at the Murkworks, and I have GOT to sound off about this. Since I can’t do this safely on social media for fear of dropping spoilers, I’m going to do it here!

(Seriously, this post will be CHOCK FULL OF SPOILERS so if you haven’t seen WandaVision yet, for the love of all that’s holy, come back to this post later. If you clicked over to this post from one of my social media accounts, please leave comments on this post, and not on Facebook or Twitter. If you’re reading this post on either annathepiper.org or Dreamwidth, please be mindful that there will, repeat, will be spoilers in the comments.)

SPOILERS BEHIND THE HEX WALL!

Let me start this off by saying I’ve had absolutely no background with Scarlet Witch’s history in the comics, so all I know about that is what I’ve read on her Wikipedia page. That by itself, however, was enough to clue me in that the character has had a history of losing her shit a couple of times. Which is super problematic when you possess powers capable of warping reality.

So this right there has been informing my rampant speculation of whether what we’re seeing in this storyline is entirely caused by Wanda, whether there’s an external force at work, or maybe a little of both.

At this point, five episodes in, I’m inclined to believe it’s probably just Wanda whipping up the entire anomaly on her own. The MCU movies up till now have established–and tonight’s episode underscores this–that she is ridiculously, stupidly powerful. To the tune of, she was possibly the only power on Earth that could in fact have taken out Thanos.

Given this, she is entirely capable of whipping up this entire anomaly all on her own, on the strength of her own sheer raw power.

I also feel like having this not be all on Wanda kind of diminishes her a little? This is her story, I don’t want this to be a question of “oh, she only flipped the fuck out and turned the entire city of Westview into her personal sitcom playground because Some Bad Guy Over Here” (whoever that Bad Guy might be) “made her do it”.

And we’ve seen Monica herself pick up on the grief powering the entire situation. She’s clued in that this is all on Wanda, and what’s powering it is Wanda’s grief.

This whole episode, too, underscores that idea. Particularly when the dog dies, and she has to try to explain to Billy and Tommy that you can’t just age up out of dealing with a problem. I also note with interest that the kids absolutely knew she could bring living things back from the dead and she ducked that question real hard. Possibly because of Agnes right behind her going “… you can do that?”

But more because it is now explicitly clear that Wanda has set up this entire scenario because she resurrected Vision. (This, all by itself, is a huge meaty idea for the story to revolve around, and I feel like it would reduce the weight of that narrative if they tried to shoehorn in some kind of external motivator at this point. We have only four episodes left. Do not dilute your narrative, Marvel!)

And Vision’s starting to clue in. We’ve seen him acting on his own a few times now, without Wanda present. We’ve seen him using his own powers without her prompting. And now we also know he doesn’t remember anything about his prior existence. To wit: YIKES.

So how much of this is, some quantity of Vision still being dormant in his body? Was there enough of him physically left in his systems to have his core personality and powers intact? Or is he partially recreated from Wanda’s own memories of him?

While we’re on the topic of Wanda resurrecting people, YEP HI THERE QUICKSILVER.

I only know this because of reading Tor.com’s episode recap post tonight, but that Quicksilver? He’s the Quicksilver from the X-Men movies.

Which means hello Marvel Multiverse.

We now have a real interesting question before us of whether Wanda has manifested herself a brother out of whole cloth–or whether she punched a hole through the universes and yanked herself a brother out of the X-Men universe. And whether we now have an entry point for having the X-Men finally show up in the MCU.

Also of interest to me: Quicksilver in the X-Men movies is named Peter. Not Pietro. So we’ll need to be on the lookout for whether that’s going to show up in the final episodes here.

BUT WAIT I’M ALSO NOT DONE SPECULATING!

This is of course Wanda’s story predominantly–but we’ve also got Monica Rambeau actively in play here and I have a hefty pile of speculation about her, too.

I’m real interested to see whether we’re going to have her manifesting powers in this storyline. It seems like we may already be laying the groundwork for that, what with her funky X-rays dropping a big stone hint. Monica’s Wikipedia page says she gets super powers after being bombarded by extradimensional energy.

And, welp, she just got hit with a full bore cannon blast of Wanda’s power. Wanda, comma, the ridiculously, stupidly powerful. It would not surprise me in the slightest if that’s going to cause some changes.

We know she’s supposed to show up in the next Captain Marvel flick. So it’s going to be a real interesting question as to whether she’s going to have powers by then. Particularly now that we know from this episode that Carol Danvers is now something of a sore point with her!

Next, lol, anybody wanna place a bet as to whether the Asshole Director of SWORD is actually going to make it to the end of this plot alive? We were certainly expecting Wanda to cause his death when she made all the other armed agents turn their weapons on him…

But I think it’s worth calling out here that they didn’t actually shoot him.

Which, I feel, says something about Wanda’s influence here. She could have killed him on the spot. She didn’t. So far she hasn’t tipped over into full-on supervillain, and I am intrigued as all hell about how well this plotline so far is playing her. I’m really hoping that she remains “anti-hero” rather than going straight into “supervillain”.

Next thing I want to speculate about, a real interesting question the Tor.com article brings up: yeah, where the hell are the children of Westview? Has Wanda shunted them off somewhere?

Or has someone else shunted them off somewhere? Do we have a potential entry point here for Doctor Strange to show up? Because:

1. Rumor keeps having it Wanda’s supposed to play a role in the next Doctor Strange flick;
2. SWORD now knows that Wanda knows they’re there;
3. SWORD also now knows that as many of them as there are on site, they are, every last one of them, currently way outclassed by the one single Avenger they just faced down;
4. It would be a logical next move for them to review REAL FAST what other options they have and if there is anyone else they can call in for help;
5. If there’s anybody on the planet who might have a chance at helping them make Wanda stand down, it’d be the Sorcerer Supreme;
6. And even before they call him, it would also make absolute sense for Strange to already be very aware of what Wanda’s doing. Magical, metaphysical shit is his wheelhouse. So it would also not surprise me in the slightest if he’s already tried to intervene and is doing so by rescuing the children of Westview to get them out of the line of fire first.

But that said… I also kinda don’t want Strange to show up? Again for purposes of not wanting Wanda to be overshadowed in her own narrative, but also because the way this story is going, it really feels to me like the ultimate thing that’s going to pull her back from the brink of all this is Vision.

The scenes he’s had so far on his own, seeing things being clearly not right, and that last confrontation he has with Wanda about it (while she tries to roll the credits, lol), are laying a very clear trail to a final crisis point between them. What I’m seeing in this narrative is that he clearly has to ultimately call her out on what she’s doing. He’s already trying to, but hasn’t managed to break through to her yet.

And if anything, seeing this other “Pietro” show up, particularly if she has in fact punched a hole between universes and pulled him over, is saying to me that:

1. Wanda’s starting to lose her grip on her fantasy; the kids are clearly out of her immediate control, and now she’s had her “brother” appear, too;
2. There may be a very real possibility that if this is in fact the Quicksilver from the X-Men universe, a Quicksilver who does not share her history, is he going to stay under her control? Or is he going to show signs of “what the fuck is this you aren’t my sister what am I doing here?”, and contribute to her already fraying control?
3. And if Vision sees this, is he going to have to drive home to her that this shit is not right and you have to stop it, put him back where you found him, Wanda honey?

Last but not least, and oh the feels at the very thought, here’s the question my household has also discussed tonight:

Is Vision actually going to survive this plot?

Or is he going to make Wanda put him back the way she found him?

AUUUUUUUGH!

I need the next episode NOW NOW NOW NOW NOW.

EDITING TO ADD: Oh oh oh and I’ll put this in as an addendum, because this was also an interesting side discussion in my household tonight. Namely: Wanda’s running out of decades of sitcoms to play in, so how much farther can she actually go?

We’ve only got four episodes left in the story, which suggests she won’t have time to run out of decades. But if she did, it’d be an interesting question indeed as to what she’d do. Would she cycle back around to the 50s and start over?

Dara pointed out that American sitcoms do have a history of being a thing in Eastern European nations. Which Sokovia is. And it would be totally plausible that Wanda watched a boatload of American sitcoms as a child. They may in fact represent “what happiness should be like” to a critical part of her subconscious, if she got all that imagery into her brain during her formative years. Particularly before things went to hell and she and her brother wound up in the hands of Hydra.

Crossposted from annathepiper.org. Original post: http://www.annathepiper.org/2021/02/05/mid-story-rampant-wandavision-speculation/