First things first: this article contains spoilers about several MCU movies such as Civil War and the Avengers saga as well as WandaVision. If these are things you are planning to watch, I recommend you stop reading this article for now.
Now that we got the spoiler warning out of the way, let’s get right to it. As you can see from the title, this article is about the Marvel character Wanda Maximoff aka the Scarlet Witch. I would like to clarify that, in this article, I am speaking of the MCU character, not the comic book one. Wanda made her first appearance in the post-credit scene of Captain America: The Winter Soldier but we only get to know more about her in Avengers: Age of Ultron. In this movie, Wanda and her twin brother Pietro begin as the bad guys who defend HYDRA against the Avengers. When Ultron, the main villain of the movie, is created, they team up with him but later on realize that they want no part in his plan to destroy humanity, and join the Avengers instead.
We find out a bit about Wanda and Pietro’s backstory in Age of Ultron. They were born in Sokovia and lived there with their parents until the age of 10 when their parents were killed in a bombing. Wanda and Pietro were trapped in their home for two days with an unexploded bombshell right next to them. There were two words written in the bombshell: “Stark Industries”. This prompted the twins to take part in HYDRA’s experiments to gain power to take down Tony Stark and the Avengers.
The first great tragedy of Wanda’s life was losing her parents. Luckily, she still has her brother Pietro to support her… until he dies in the big fight against Ultron at the end of Age of Ultron. Pietro was all Wanda had left at that point, so you can imagine how upset and lonely she must have felt after his death. In an attempt to move on with her life, however, she joins the Avengers for real and dedicates her life to fighting crime and injustice. Another person… or android who joins the Avengers at the same time is Vision who Wanda quickly becomes friends with.
We see Wanda and Vision’s relationship develop over the course of Captain America: Civil War, and by the beginning of Avengers: Infinity War, their friendship has turned into a romantic relationship. Things seem to be getting better for Wanda who once again has someone to love and who loves her. That is, until they realize that the evil titan Thanos is after the mind stone that is the source of Vision’s life. Vision wants the stone destroyed, and himself with it, but the intellects of MCU believe it might be possible to separate them without harming him. Unfortunately, Thanos attacks before they have time to completely separate the two, and there is no choice but to destroy the stone and Vision along with it. This time, Wanda does not only watch the person she loves the most die, but she also has to be the one to kill him because she alone has the power to destroy the stone.
So, to recap: Wanda lost both her parents at 10, got mutilated by HYDRA (though voluntarily since she was desperate to avenge her parents), lost her brother, the only family member she had left, and fell in love with Vision only to be forced to kill him herself. That’s rough. Sure, all MCU characters have experienced loss and grief but I would argue that none as much as Wanda. And that’s not all.
As a fan of Wanda, I was extremely excited when WandaVision was announced. As I’m writing this, five of the nine episodes of the series have been released, so I don’t yet have any idea how it’s all going to end. It seems to be quite clear, though, that Wanda has created a reality of her own where she can be alone and in peace with Vision. Unfortunately, she kind of kidnapped an entire town of people in the process and is now controlling their minds, which has caused S.W.O.R.D. to view her as a threat. There are still many, many unanswered questions left in the series, such as whether Vision is really alive or not, what on earth is going on with Pietro who just suddenly appeared on Wanda’s doorstep, and is she really behind everything that’s going on in the series.
Honestly, I’m really scared to finish the series. I’m scared for the people of S.W.O.R.D. because it’s getting more and more clear that Wanda is actually incredibly powerful and you probably don’t want to mess with her. But even more than that I’m scared for Wanda. She has lost everything and is clearly not doing too well at the moment and just seems to want a normal life with somebody to love more than anything. I’m scared that at the end of the series she will lose Vision and Pietro again and maybe even her twin boys. She has had to go through way too many horrible tragedies in her life for that to happen.
I know the series is already completed and there’s no changing it anymore, but I would just like to say to MCU: Give Wanda a break. She’s been through way too much and deserves some peace and quiet or even just to have someone to love who does not die and leave her all alone… again. Somehow, I feel like that might be exactly the case by the time WandaVision ends but, hey, you never know.