So, Wandavision?

[doctorbadwolf]

Why not? With incidents like the Snap and the Hex bringing the extraordinary into everyday life in the MCU, and with the Sokovia accords having already made superheroes effectively intergovernmental agents, the world is having to recognise the existence of these extraordinary beings and powers - and part of that acceptance is finding ways to police them.

Once superpowered - or magically empowered - beings start being arrested and placed on trial, the court system will need people who can provide expert testimony. And who better to do so than someone who is still a respected and qualified medical professional while also being an expert in magic?

It's very hard to imagine Strange agreeing to do that work. He is an arrogant douche who genuinely has more important things to do with his time.

 

[Tonguez]

Okay.

The Ross support was from tonguez, I can't imagine how I got you two confused.

You mean Lieutenant General of the United States Army later US Secretary of State Ross?

You do realise that in those roles he was representing the legitimate authority of the US State and via the Sokovia Accords was representing the MCU’s ‘UN’?

Thaddeus Ross may be a douche but he is Legitimate Authority & the strong arm of the Law

 

[MarkB]

It's very hard to imagine Strange agreeing to do that work. He is an arrogant douche who genuinely has more important things to do with his time.

Oh, I'm sure he'd only ever agree to do the very most prestigious cases, of the very most notorious/powerful defendants - but for those cases, he'd absolutely love the attention.

 

[Rabulias]

That's possible, but it doesn't match the dialogue. What Wanda's Vision said he was doing was removing the blocks preventing iVision from accessing his own stored memories. There was no transfer of data from one Vision to the other.

Exactly. Note the scenes that play out include Wanda destroying the Mind Stone and Thanos ripping it out of Vision's head, both scenes from Avengers: Infinity War, neither of which Westview Vision would have, even after Darcy told him the history. White Vision is the physical form that experienced those events 5 years ago and would have stored those memories somewhere.

 

[Umbran]

One's personal grief does not make one immune from reasonable consequences for one's horrific actions.

I don't argue that she should be immune. I argue that they are ineffective and pointless in such cases.

I'm going to keep this to the realm of psychology. I have no desire to get into the politics of punishment. In addition, we are talking about comic books, so I am not going to cite support for assertions like I would in a public policy piece. You're free to disagree. I'm not going to argue over their truth. I will merely present them.

"Consequences" as we normally talk about them, have pretty limited utility. We should establish a few things:

1) Consequences need to have a positive end result to be useful. If the basic reason for consequences is "They hurt me, so they deserve to be hurt," that is vengeance, and vengeance is not justice.

2) Outside of financial considerations, consequences do not generally help the victims. If one has been abused or assaulted, we generally want the perpetrator punished. However, this does not generally lead to better outcomes for the victim. There may be specific situations where it is relevant, but broadly, the idea of "closure"¹ in this sense is fundamentally flawed, as it does not help the victim process or resolve the issues they are left with. To put it colloquially, seeing the perpetrator go to jail does not typically lessen the time it takes to stop having the nightmares.

Consequences can sometimes be a teaching tool, but they are a poor one, at best. Humans don't respond to negative stimuli significantly differently from other mammals - swatting your dog after they pee in the house is an unreliable form of training a dog, and it isn't really all that more effective on humans. But, in cases of major psychological or emotional distress, the person can know the act was wrong, but do it anyway.

Consequences can sometimes act as a deterrent, but... we see how well that works. We have been levelling consequences on people for bad behavior for ages, but we still have crime. At best, consequences act in the cost-benefit analysis of an action. That doesn't apply when the person is not driven by cost/benefit analysis, like in cases great acute anger, psychological disturbance or trauma. When the behavior isn't rational, assessment of cost goes out the window.

There is a last form of consequence - removing the person from society as a protection for the rest of us. This is what happens to Agatha - locked away where she cannot hurt anyone.

But, Wanda seems to have removed herself from society. For another, it is not clear that any mortal force can imprison her. Killing her may be equally difficult. So, I'm not sure what consequences you think should be levelled at her that would make the situation better.

Here's news: Everyone is grieving something,

Our culture at large has a great many misunderstandings about grief. We may say that everyone has suffered something that has caused grief, but for purposes of this discussion, the issue isn't grief itself, so much as grief and loss that were not successfully processed that causes issues. Again, "consequences" would not help her process her grief.

that includes gangbangers, terrorists, and anyone else we normally like to see face consequences for what they have done.

That we like to see it does not mean it will actually help us. See (2) above.

Yeah, she should have gotten therapy...so...why didn't she? Same thing with Stark. Their respective support systems should be constantly encouraging it, but ultimately, it's on them to look for help. It just is.

Sure. But consequences (aka "punishment") won't make it better, either.

Which makes Monica's line at the end absolute trash. "They'll never know what you sacrificed for them."

If you hadn't realized, Monica has her own unresolved issues around a death and recent events. She also remarks that she'd have done the same, if she'd had the power. This is to let the audience know that Wanda's failing is a very basic human one. Any human can have it. Many do have it. Wanda's not a villain for why she did what she did, but only because she had the power to do it. Or, alternatively, everyone is potentially a villain, so maybe we should be careful in our judgements.

The telling line, however, is the one that follows, from Wanda, "That wouldn't change what they think of me," tells us Wanda realizes something about it all. To the people of the town, Wanda's issues are not the point, and she recognizes that, and doesn't think ill of them for it. And that there's really nothing Wanda can do to make it better at this point.

Am I supposed to believe Wanda is heroic for no longer mind-raping a bunch of innocent people so that she can play pretend with her constructed-out-of-nothing family?

I, at least, was not trying to tell you what to believe. Much like we don't tell you why you should care.

If you don't like it, that's fine. Continuing to gripe to folks who do like it does not seem to serve a useful purpose, though, so maybe you want to consider how you want to engage with this thread, if at all.




1. "Closure" does sometimes have an impact when the primary issue is about not knowing something - if a person has disappeared, learning finally that they are conclusively dead can help a mourner finally process the result.

 

[Tonguez]

Another comment I have on the current discussion: Wanda "freed" the people of Westview (at the cost of her own family) almost as soon as she realized that it was her doing it. Before the confrontation scene in the final episode, we have reason to believe that she didn't have any idea that she was causing them pain.

Except she didnt free them as soon as she realized that it was her doing - when the the townsfolk confront her, Wanda retaliates by trying to choke them into silence and its Agathas words that cause her to relent and actually open the Hex up again.

And really what did Wanda lose other than her own traumatic delusions? Hex-Vision and the twins were constructs of her mind which she imposed on the world, she gives up nothing but her own vanity.

 

[MarkB]

Except she didnt free them as soon as she realized that it was her doing - when the the townsfolk confront her, Wanda retaliates by trying to choke them into silence and its Agathas words that cause her to relent and actually open the Hex up again.

The choking wasn't deliberate and she undid it as soon as she realised it was happening.

And really what did Wanda lose other than her own traumatic delusions? Hex-Vision and the twins were constructs of her mind which she imposed on the world, she gives up nothing but her own vanity.

Vision and the kids were created by Wanda, but they were clearly fully-sentient independent beings once she'd created them. They were people, people she cared deeply about, and she had to choose to let the die - effectively, kill them - in order to free the townsfolk.

 

[Umbran]

What a surprise. One should be judged by the company one keeps.

Mod Note:
Don't make this personal. Really. Don't.

 

[Umbran]

The choking wasn't deliberate and she undid it as soon as she realised it was happening.

I read that as her powers seem to be strongly linked to her emotions and subconscious. She had a momentary reaction of anger and rejection, like most anyone would, and that manifested before she could consciously control it.

 

[MarkB]

I read that as her powers seem to be strongly linked to her emotions and subconscious. She had a momentary reaction of anger and rejection, like most anyone would, and that manifested before she could consciously control it.

Pretty much, yeah. The fact that her powers were manifesting in ways she wasn't aware of or in control of is why she ultimately chose to seclude herself and study the Darkhold, along with whatever other sources of information she can find. She's not trying to increase her power, she's trying to understand it, so that ultimately she can control it.

Not that such a pursuit isn't fraught with the possibility of going very badly - as the saying goes, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.