Warning: The following contains spoilers forDoctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness.Over the course of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s films, only a handful of main characters have lost their lives so far. Of those main characters, most have sacrificed themselves in fights against major villains to save the world or protect other heroes. That’s not exactly the case for Wanda Maximoff inDoctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness.
Wanda has been thoroughly corrupted by the influence of the Darkhold between the events ofWandaVisionandMultiverse of Madness. So much so that she becomes the antagonist of the movie in her quest to get to a universe where she can be with the children she lost in her home universe. Her grief and loss of control is very much a retread of what the audience saw inWandaVision, but here, Wanda doesn’t just make the choice to stop her violent actions, but also to “close the Darkhold” on herself. The audience might be wondering if this is the last they’ll see of the character.
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Wanda Chooses To Close The Darkhold
ThoughWanda repeatedly makes bloody and morally reprehensible movesthroughout the movie, she also repeatedly makes the remark that she’s, “not a monster, [she’s] a mother.” The idea that a mother would do anything for her children is one that other action movies have explored in a similar way, and it’s not until she realizes the children she so desperately wants see her as a monster that Wanda understands just how far she’s gone.
She tells Stephen Strange that she has to “close the Darkhold.” Because a copy of the Darkhold in their universe is already destroyed, that involves bringing down Wundagore Mountain’s Darque Hold on herself so that no one else can be tempted by the magic of the spells carved on the walls. Wanda is seemingly buried in the rubble, potentially dying off-screen. While it can be seen as a noble sacrifice for the character to atone for what she’s done, it seems like the cyclical nature of Wanda’s character.
She joins Hydra and helps Ultron take over Sokovia, then tries to save the citizens. She accidentally causes chaos in Laos, and then tries to better understand her power to make up for it. She takes over Westview in her grief, then stops Agatha Harkness from doing the same. She opens the Darkholdand causes chaos in the multiverse, and then decides to stop herself. While it’s noble of her to bring the carnage to an end, is her ending really a fair one?
Wanda Maximoff’s Ending Is Horribly Poetic
If the felling of Mount Wundagore is truly the end of this universe’s Wanda Maximoff, it’s a horrible one for the character, but a poetic one for her narrative.
Though Wanda doesn’t discover what it means to be the Scarlet Witch until her confrontation with Agatha inWandaVision,flashbacks reveal the “birth” of the Scarlet Witchwas much earlier in her life. It came when she and her brother Pietro experienced firsthand the violence of war in Sokovia. The duo’s home was bombed, their parents killed, and they were trapped for days in the rubble of the fallen house. According to Agatha, it’s only Wanda’s latent magic that kept the bomb that was in the house with them from exploding and killing them too.
The birth of the Scarlet Witch being in the rubble of her family home, and the “death” of the Scarlet Witch being in the rubble of her prophesied throne has a nice symmetry, but it also seems incredibly unfair to the character. Given how much trauma is associated with that moment in her childhood - it’s even what’s used to bury the consciousness of the Wanda from Earth-838 when the Scarlet Witch dreamwalks in her - it’s a horrible decision for her to make.
As any seasoned movie and television fan will tell a novice in the audience, however, if there’s no body shown on screen, there’s no death.
Will The Scarlet Witch Live Again
As powerful as Wanda Maximoff is, it’s impossible to think that her collapsing the mountain means she’s gone for good. Wanda has already survived an experience like it before, and she wasn’t even trying to then. With her consciously destroying not just the Darque Hold that had the original spells of Chthon, but also every copy of the Darkhold across the multiverse, Wanda prevents herself and anyone else from ever being tempted by it again, and leaves the door open for her to emerge with a new storylineinstead of the same one bogged down in her grief.
There’s also the reality that the multiverse exists. In the multiverse, there are potentially hundreds of thousands of Wanda Maximoffs that the audience hasn’t met yet. Even if the Wanda of Earth-616 is gone, her narrative doesn’t have to be over. The Wanda of Earth-838, after all, experienced the Scarlet Witch in her head, has the same powers as the mainstream Wanda, and has her twin boys. It’s entirely possible that the audience will see more of that version of Wanda, or any other.
Rumors persisted that Elizabeth Olsen signed a lengthy contract to appear in more MCU projects, butas Olsen revealed toCollider, she has extended her contract with every movie she’s done in the MCU, and she would be willing to come back for more Wanda stories - like taking on her journey with the X-Men, since the character is associated with the group in the comics.
The audience will just have to wait and see what’sin store for the Scarlet Witch in the future of the MCU.
