Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness was meant to be a “sequel” to many things, not the least of which was the original film, as well as WandaVision, the first Disney+ series that showed the aftermath of Avengers Endgame as Wanda Maximoff tried to “reclaim what she lost” in the worst of ways.
And then, in Multiverse of Madness (spoiler alert!!!) she went full-tilt villain even more and went to great lengths to try and “get her boys back”, even though it cost many their lives, and her the very soul she seemed to reclaim at the end of the TV series.
And that got many people mad, and so the writer of the movie had to speak out about it:
“I guess I would say to the WandaVision fans, like, I get it,” screenwriter Michael Waldron noted about the backlash from fans upset over the villainous Scarlet Witch. “Watching a character you love do bad things sucks. That elicits a strong feeling, which is what we’re trying to do in the movies. We never would have done it if it didn’t feel like the next step in her character journey.”
He went on:
“To me, my interpretation of the story of WandaVision was, that Wanda is confronting her grief in that show, but I don’t think she’s necessarily conquering it,” Waldron explained. “It’s a show about her living in denial to some extent and she’s conquering her denial, but I don’t think that she’s properly reckoning with her anger over what she’s endured, and that anger is what she carries with her as she walks away with the knowledge that she is the Scarlet Witch and with the Darkhold, this evil book.
And I think it’s that anger that the Darkhold preys upon and pushes her on what is — to me and I think to Wanda — a very justifiable, noble journey. She just wants her kids.”
That may be true for him, but not for fans in many cases. Especially considering that the end of her show, yes, Wanda was using the Darkhold, but she hadn’t gone “full villain” yet. In fact, in her Scarlet Witch form was how she beat Agatha Harkness.
The next thing we know, she’s summoning demonic monsters and killing Wong’s disciples in Multiverse of Madness and isn’t afraid to rip lives apart just to get her boys back…even though it was made very clear to her multiple times that it wouldn’t work out the way she wanted…and that’s how her arc ended. With her FINALLY realizing that it wasn’t going to be enough.
It felt very cold, and even with the Darkhold corruption, many fans felt it was too much of a jump, especially if you hadn’t watched WandaVision, which many didn’t (just a fact, not an insult).
Plus, one of the key lines of the show was, “What is grief but love persevering?”, a line that clearly resonated with Wanda…and then that line is thrown away in the worst way.
In the end, it’s up to you to decide who was right and who was wrong here.
Source: The Playlist