Through figures such as Doctor Strange and Loki, the MCU has established its rules for magic. However, WandaVision makes Wanda crush everyone.
WARNING: The following contains spoilers for WandaVision Episode 8, “Before”, which is now airing on Disney +.
The Marvel Cinematic Universe hesitantly walked around its mystical side in its early stages, leaving Thor and the rest of Asgard in a mixture of magic and advanced science. It was only in 2016 Doctor Strange that the magical aspect of Marvel has finally earned its merits. Now WandaVision dug deeper into the hidden rules that define magic in this superhero world, giving Agatha time to show off while torturing Wanda. But Agatha’s stylish illustration of how magic works also creates a backdrop to show how Wanda’s powers break all the rules.
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It is not worth anything, because only the magic of the earth has so far had fairly clear rules. Asgard has since accepted her magical nature in things like Frigga’s witchcraft, although it is not yet certain how her study compares to the earth’s witches. And Loki’s illusions are appropriately subtle, sometimes marked with a hand gesture, sometimes not. A thousand years or more of study leaves these extraterrestrial wizards in a category of their own, along with Krugarr, the Ravager wizard, seen in Guardians of the Galaxy 2.
Doctor Strange took his wounded neurosurgeon to the hidden halls of Kamar-Taj, a place of great magical study. The Masters of the Mystic Arts display a monastic, highly ritualistic form of magic. Many of their skills are linked to the ancient artifacts they use, and even teleportation magic is linked to the magic rings worn by each wizard. The golden spells that Strange flaunts have geometric patterns, indicating a regimental order behind the operation of these spells. But some of Strange’s magical powers are more practical, and especially noteworthy is the portal in which he creates Thor: Ragnarok, his magical intention is driven by a strand of Thor’s hair.
Agatha Harkness gets a flashback in this week’s episode of WandaVision, to place her in the heart of Salem. But her trial is not in the hands of scared villagers. Instead, she turns against the women of her own covenant, including her powerful mother. The scene is a great foretaste of the wild magic of the witches. Like Wanda, they use their hands to create a powerful flow from the magic they use, although gelatinized proverbs provide a complementary structure to the naturalistic movements. The language choice refers to the Latin and sometimes Greek roots of Marvel’s comics, details that often date from hidden Atlantic roots.
Agatha’s anger over the mysteries of Wanda’s power leads her to sarcastic seminars. She uses Wanda’s imprisonment to illustrate rune magic and how it protects witches in their powers, frustrated because Wanda does not know this basic skill. She shows illusions and metaphors, and even discusses necessity. The magical methods of Kamar-Taj are also strong, as Agatha creates a portal from a strand of Wanda’s hair, an enchantment similar to Strange’s portal in Ragnarok. This enchantment was rather imbued with Agatha’s darker powers. This is all underlined by the centuries-long effort Agatha has made to hone her skills. Wanda violates all of these rules, everything that Agatha and Strange – and to a lesser extent Loki – have established over years from the MCU.
The revelation that Wanda’s innate power comes from an infinite stone does not dominate Agatha in itself. She has already seen potential in a frightened Wanda trapped by the bomb of Stark Industries, a budding witch in a world that did not offer much room for magic. Agatha suspects Wanda would never have achieved her magical awakening without encountering the stone. But the sadness and emptiness that the poor woman had hollowed out, coupled with the Infinity Stone and the promise she saw in it, unlocked something that had been waiting all along.
It is not clear if Agatha saw the silhouette that Wanda saw in her Hydra experimental flashback. But at the end of the episode, it’s a very important point. Agatha admits that Wanda is a game changer in a world of magic chained by orderly rules. The power of Wanda is pure chaos, deliberate form, a unique magical entity like no other. It’s a subtle build – up to the series, setting the rules to reveal exactly how Wanda crushes everyone. The Scarlet Witch, an avatar of pure chaos magic that can rewrite the whole reality with just one word, is incarnated within the MCU.
But with Wanda still under Agatha’s thumb, her twin children, the prisoners of the evil witch, it remains to be seen what the final limits of Wanda’s new power really are. The most frightening possibility of all is that there is no limits – and with Doctor Strange due to the return to the big screen, the consequences on the Multiverse may be incomprehensible.
WandaVision was written by Jac Schaeffer and directed by Matt Shakman, and Elizabeth Olsen as Wanda Maximoff / Scarlet Witch, Paul Bettany as Vision, Randall Park as Agent Jimmy Woo, Kat Dennings as Darcy Lewis, Teyonah Parris as Monica Rambeau and Kathryn Hahn as Agnes . New episodes air on Friday + Disney.
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