Scarlet Witch (Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness)

Scarlet Witch (AKA Wanda Maximoff) is a major supporting character in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. She is a minor character in Captain America: The Winter Soldier, an antagonist turned ally in Avengers: Age of Ultron, supporting character in Captain America: Civil War and Avengers: Infinity War/Endgame, the main protagonist villain of WandaVision, and the main antagonist of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.

She is a former member of the Avengers, and she is Quicksilver's twin sister, both of whom are children of Magneto. She is portrayed by Elizabeth Olsen.

Unfortunately, while she was good in the previous MCU projects, she has been flanderized badly in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.

Why She Was The Scarlet B***h

 * 1) To write off the first problem of her character in the movie, she was horribly flanderized beyond recognition, as she went from a caring, benevolent, kind-hearted, and selfless superheroine to an antagonistic, egotistical, sadistic, self-righteous, and ferocious villain, who was willing to kill off opponents and even innocent people for her own goals, all because she wanted to be with her imaginary kids. In fact, it’s to the point she makes the 2011 version of Wonder Woman look like a kind-hearted, passive, and non-violent female in comparison.
 * 2) She unnecessarily eliminated the entire Illuminati except 838-Baron Mordo, thus creating potential devastating consequences within the latter's universe. An extremely powerful and invincible being like the Scarlet Witch could have just simply knock a enemy team out and set them aside with only one purpose of getting a single particular target and nothing else, though they did deserved it for acting like smug self-righteousness jerks to Doctor Strange and clearly underestimated her.
 * 3) She also controlled 838-Wanda, her innocent and loving alternate self, without the latter's will or consent, and one point, the Scarlet Witch even attempted to kill 838-Wanda without hesitation or any second thought to get 838-Wanda's kids for herself. To make this worse, she even yells at the children to stop fearing her, which only causes them to become even more frighten of her, which of course finally caused her to stop her rampage, actually crying, realizing that everything she did was for nothing.
 * 4) She is too powerful and OP that she overwhelms and overpowered Doctor Strange, who is a very powerful character, at every battle they face, even during the final battle where Doctor Strange dreamwalked using the rotting corpse of Defender Strange. Doctor Strange basically only ran around the corners of the movie without even combating hand-to-hand against the Scarlet Witch. She only loses when Chavez sends her to Earth-838, right in front of Billy and Tommy, pretty much providing her realization as the children turn against her.
 * 5) While it was understandable that Wanda had suffered a lot while losing her family members and friends over the years, her tragic past does not give her excuses for the Scarlet Witch to endanger the Multiverse for the sake of getting her imaginary kids back. She knew very well that the Darkhold held the main purpose of corrupting people like Agatha Harkness, yet she deliberately took possession of it and let it control her to the point where she would be unreasonable to listen. Her counterarguments with the protagonists had been nothing more than plain and pathetic excuses for numerous attempts to absorb the powers of America Chavez, even knowing well that such action would kill the young girl.
 * 6) She did not show any remorse for her malicious actions until Chavez uses her powers to send Wanda back to Earth-838, where the imaginary/alternate kids rightfully rejected her and made her see the error of her way  at the last minute  . She redeemed herself and uses her powers to bring down Mount Wundagore, simultaneously destroying all copies of the Darkhold throughout the multiverse.
 * 7) This film also tries too hard to make the Scarlet Witch sympathetic similarly to the Flag-Smasher, the main villain of the Disney+ series The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, due to their similar motivations, while in reality, both of them thrive for selfish ends using merciless, terroristic, and destructive approaches despite claiming to fight for noble causes.
 * 8) The film took all her negative traits, cranked them up to 10, and threw her good qualities all out of the window.
 * 9) She all of a sudden doesn't care about Vision or her brother Pietro, people she spent most of her life with, only a pair of imaginary kids. The movie doesn't even acknowledge their existence.
 * 10) Her redemption, while good, was a bit half-baked, and didn't feel earned one bit, given the afore mentioned.

Redeeming Qualities

 * 1) Her character was better outside of this movie and redeemed herself in the end.
 * 2) Elizabeth Olsen still did a great job portraying her.
 * 3) She does care for her kids in the home world and her counterpart could be considered likable in that universe too.
 * 4) Her turning into a villain just to bring back her kids is understandable but was executed horribly.
 * 5) It could be argued that she wasn't entirely in control of her own actions due to being corrupted by the Darkhold.

Trivia

 * During an interview with Vanity Fair on May 2023, Scarlett Witch’s actress Elizabeth Olsen revealed that the reason why Scarlett Witch had a different characterization in Multiverse Of Madness was because the writers of the film were unable to watch Wandavision as that show was still in the production.

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