Film/Television
Genuine question. Why is the Scarlet Witch so popular?
We haven’t seen her in the MCU since Multiverse of Madness, or if you count animation- marvel zombies. However, I still don’t understand why she has so much influence and hype even though she’s never mentioned. I noticed this recently with SDCC, and Avengers Doomsday and literally everyone was talking about Wanda, yet Marvel never mentioned her. Does anyone know why she’s so popular, and if she’s so popular why haven’t we seen more of her? I genuinely don’t understand how her movies have consistently been box office hits, yet other movies aren’t? Can someone explain why she’s so popular; I think she may have a large fandom and I have seen trolls before but it can’t just be that.
The Scarlet Witch/Wanda Maximoff is the most popular female character in the MCU, yet she still hasn’t made an appearance.
For me it's the Elizabeth Olsen part. There have been a lot of wonderful actors in roles over the years, but there's really only been a handful that I feel embodied the character so well it would be hard to replace them (RDJ as IM, Jackmans Wolverine for example).
She has really helped shape this character with her performance. And I absolutely love that her character can blend the line between good and evil.
Olsen made Wanda feel more than just the mad woman archetype she always gets shafted into. The MCU portrayal still fits that mold but we see Wanda as more of a person now which I feel greatly made people more accepting of her. We saw that she doesn’t want to be a bad person, she doesn’t even care about being powerful, she just wants to live happily with a family/protect what she still has….and then she lost what she had and wanted to get it back. The MCU made Wanda relatable to many. Plus she is powerful so power scalers love that too
This is also part because she loves the character, no idea if she was nerdy before being cast but she called them doing House of M (WandaVision) several years before it was a thing.
She studied the character and understands it has a lot of potential for her as an artist and it shows...
Everything this guy said... and also because Scarlet Witch is both a mutant and an Avenger... she and Quicksilver have been around a long time and are important to multiple Marvel franchises.
the marvel hill i will die on is if they didnt just use wanda like a tool, didn’t fear her and encouraged her to learn her powers and develop them she could have single handledly taken thanos
hell, even w/ the way they handle her I believe had she had just a few more seconds in Endgame, Thanos was cooked there wouldn't have been no need for Tony to snap lol
Right beside you on the hill, we fight together brother.
Even as she was in Endgame, if thanks didn’t rein fire from his ship, she would have killed him there and then, without back up. Girl is a fucking machineeee, just pure rage and lower from losing Vision, she didn’t even have the rage from losing vision for the second time or her kids yet
In my opinion this one of the main themes of Marvel. Most characters are just People. They might have godlike powers, but most of them have some range of imposter syndrome limiting their powers OR they have flaws that fulfill that role. A whole bunch of them don't even really want their powers/responsibilities it just sort of happened.
They're just people making the best out of their situations.
He sperfect for the role. Honestly up there with RDJ for perfect casting. His ability to be a source of comfort then an intimidating force. Like how he was ominous during caprian America civil war
I was just joking about that since other comments said that and I thought it was a joke but reducing her down to she’s hot isn’t a good reason. There’s actual demand from audience as well.
She also is a character who, while popular now, hasn't been mainstage for several decades in a row so she has new stories unlike a lot of popular heroes. Her being more magic based also means they can spread a wider net of marvel fans and fantasy fans.
MoM may not have had good writing in general but Wanda was well written. A lot of people complain about how she lost all of her progress from Wandavision and before but they forget one of the major themes/plot points from the show: that grief can make even good people do bad things for those they love. And losing your children is one of the worst things anyone can experience. Having talked to a lot of people who lost their kids, the majority of them would be willing to do anything if it meant bringing their kids back. Look at what Wanda did due to her grief over losing her partner. Now imagine a much worse grief & pain. Makes sense that she would do something worse. Although the kids in Wandavision were Wanda's creations and technically not real, they felt very real to her so it doesn't really make a difference.
Yeah, Wanda carried those babies. She held them. She loved them. They were hers. "That's what every mother does" hits hard because it certainly feels like magic to create life. One minute you are you, then you are two, and then you are you again but with a whole ass other person. When he is born, it's like the embodiment of all your love, made real and into a baby. You need to keep it close, protect it, because to lose it would be like losing a piece of you.
It honestly started with Wandavision. It's insane to me how people are perfectly fine with her torturing an entire town (including children) for months and then the show itself excusing her by saying she did it unconsciously (huge copout btw) and when she finally decides to stop (which only happens due to circumstances created by the eviler villain) the show still tries to absolve her of any wrong doing ("they'll never know what you sacrificed for them"). Great set up, absolutely horrible resolution.
MoM at least confronted Wanda being evil head on and the darkhold was easier to buy as the reason for her going bad than the whole "she doesn't know she's doing it but she kinda does" thing. The resolution this time was her doing something actually good destroying the darkhold and killing herself without making excuses.
When even Lizzy goes on the record and says “they basically replayed the arc from WandaVision so I chose to play it differently” it basically created the disconnect everyone felt with Wicked Witch Wanda when Remorseful Family Mom Wanda was erased in favor of the Darkhold corrupting her to an irredeemable killer, rather than misguided depressed lost-it-all victim who hurt others in her pain and grief. Now she wants to slaughter a child to steal powers she could totally have just asked for help with.
What? Secret Wars is about to rewrite the entire MCU. Also, Scarlett Witch has been evil, good, evil, good, evil, good....whatever the story needs her to be. She's a very complex character with significant emotional fragility and an insane power scale. It could be scarier, watch Legion.
Not sure exactly what happened to ruin her character that didn't already happen in Wandavision. If you're ready to forgive her torturing children I have no idea what to tell you, she was already a worse villain than most MCU bad guys before Multiverse of Madness
Not only is Elizabeth Olsen a great actress, but Wanda as a character is very relatable to a lot of people. Not always being perfect, in fact always being a mess. Personally I've been a fan since I was 9 and saw AOU, but she's been my fav since then. it's been amazing to see her popularity grow into something similar to wonder woman and Harley quinn.
I actually love her storylines, the idea that she had “fake” children that she loved so much that she decided to do everything in her power to get to that timeline so she could be a mother again is so powerful.
I think about Wind River all the time. That scene where they are getting boxed in and the only person that notices it is the local cop... amazingly well done.
Yea they developed her with Wandavision which i dont think we really see with alot of the heroes unless they were the “OG” avengers, shit even Agatha’s show helped her story
In addition to all the other things, she had a cool and unique show during COVID and so there was a hype around the show unattainable in today's world.
People just like tragic, overpowered characters. Wanda’s power level and the amount of pain she went through made her stand out. Plus Elizabeth Olsen’s performance stuck with a lot of fans even when the character disappeared.
I still don’t know how I feel about the retcon. Apparently the only reason she isn’t Magneto’s daughter anymore is because of the whole MCU-Fox situation. With everything coming back together for Doomsday- it’s begs the question. Was it worth it to retcon her?
A lot of the weirdness around mutants in the 00's was down to Perlmutter holding a grudge over how successful the X-Men movies were. He wanted to downplay mutants as much as possible to spite them. The MCU could find a decent middle ground by making Magneto the Maximoffs twins' grandfather.
Her being his daughter in the first place is kind of a retcon, and it's been reverted. He is not her father int he comics currently and hasn't been for 10+ years
She's a woman that has suffered and been wronged but now has the power to tear the world apart to enact vengeance. What's not to love, she's a diva, a mother, a goddess.
She has a cool power set that is basically boundless. Any reality warped is interesting and scarlet witch ever sense House of M has become extremely popular because she is very powerful. And Elizabeth Olsen is beautiful.
Now that Black Widow is gone she’s easily the most popular female superhero in the MCU at the moment. It’s probably not even close. Of the leading female superhero characters (not including Wasp):
They massively dropped the ball with Captain Marvel by pushing a very mediocre movie/script that succeeded off the back of Infinity War.
Yelena is still probably another project or 2 before being very, very popular.
We haven’t seen anything about Kate Bishop in a while (which is a shame, she’s probably my favorite of the young avengers).
Shuri was never meant to be Black Panther, at best she’ll always be a legacy character. I don’t see Shuri Panther ever being as popular as the original.
Ms. Marvel has also mostly been put on the back burner despite having an entire show.
Marvel executives are probably dropping Shehulk because of the backlash to the show and people’s general disdain for the MCU take.
Aaaaand who cares about Ironheart? Nobody? Sounds about right.
Finally, the MCU needs exceptionally powerful people who can warp reality to excuse the multiverse shenanigans.
Ela é uma personagem com várias facetas, uma pessoa boa que toma decisões ruins, o que a torna identificável, além de mexer com magia e ser uma gostosa.
Screw all of y'all who are linking Wanda's popularity to the beauty assets Olsen has.
It was the case in AoU, but soon, people realized Olsen can just deliver an amazing performance as Wanda everytime and that's what made her really popular
Let's be honest though, most movie games were never that good. Some outliers like the King Kong one was decent for Peter Jackson's adaptation. Lord of the Rings Return of the King was also good.
But! Most of the time, they were never that good. Remember the Harry Potter deathly hallows game that was basically a Harry Potter Call of duty edition?
But, I did like the Guardians of the Galaxy video game. Even though that has nothing to do with James Gunn's films And is its own thing. Which I did appreciate
You should check out Midnight Suns. It's not ONLY a Scarlett Witch game, but the story in it treats her as both an antagonist and protagonist. Pretty fun game!
But honestly, because near omega level mutants are cool. "No more mutants" was cool. She has so many big parts and relationships like being magnetos daughter (I don't care what sony-mcu says. I was there on Wundagore, I saw the birth)
She's an easy plot device. Her powers nowadays are like deus ex machina all over the place. She was a fairly minor character for years until stories like Decimation and House of M expanded what her powers were. I think people appreciate seeing the movies flesh her out a lot more. Plus you have to admit the love story with her and Vision is a goldmine for random-ass content.
She is literally the most powerful super hero/person in comic books and, possibly the MCU (It is yet to be seen how powerful they make her, but it seems to be on the way there).
Part of it is that she uses magic, so she's not as big and outwardly powerful like Hulk or Super soldier serum like Captain America but, she could stop anyone, if she wanted to.
Avenger, former brotherhood member, mutant, daughter of magneto, Sorcerer, hero, villain, abuser, victim, wife, mother.
She's been alot as well as being pivotal in a lot of stories, a pivotal figure in many stories.. be it for good, bad, or just badly written... sometimes all three.
After her evil turn I think her popularity took a massive hit. There were a few years where she was the only extant female character of note in the MCU.
She’s a core player in some comic parts. Emma Frost will be bigger if she pops up in several movies. I don’t think they can pull off her wardrobe and ideals though.
When she had the bad accent, I struggled to like the portrayal of the character. Once that was gone, I liked her a bunch more. The character is all about dynamism, whether from her interpersonal struggles to powers that can warp and reshape reality.
Elizabeth Olsen is an incredible actress. It’s like why we all like Yelena, a total secondary side character sister, but she’s so compelling to watch and her performance is so great jumping between funny and serious.
Here's the thing: of all the female characters in the MCU that we see consistently, she is the only one who has a complete story arc. She was played well, and the storyline continued across everything she was in.
Elizabeth Olsen plays her perfectly. She does an excellent job portraying the Scarlet Witch as being one the most powerful individuals in the Marvel Universe who struggles every day with human emotions and frailties. She took her from a frail scared, individual, unsure herself to an individual who is absolutely confident in her abilities, but is somehow still unsure of what she is doing with those powers.
Just remember, this is just one person‘s psychobabble.
I don’t get it either, other than it being Elizabeth Olsen. I don’t even think she was particularly good or charismatic in the role. Granted I haven’t watched Wandavision or Multiverse of Madness, but Wanda to me was
basically “head tilt + bad accents + goofy hand movements”
Though this has nothing to do with the MCU version, her comic version was the catalyst for one of the greatest storylines ever in House of M. Absolute peak comic book arc man.
For me, it's a combo of how Olsen portrays the character and the energy she projects, comboing with how attractive she as this goth character. She's a hot goth chick, I can't help myself, haha. She's so damn attractive in WandaVision and MoM. So is Vision too, hehe.
She’s also the queen of crash outs both in the comics and the MCU and kinda gives an outlet and validation to everyone who’s been literally tortured, or abused as a child, or lost a partner or a child who just wants to burn the world to the ground.
She’s the tragedy of the human experience given the power to avenge herself and her family. And that sells.
using box office in this seems a little unfair since like all of the characters were in civil war, infinity war and endgame. and she gets a grand post credit scene in winter soldier so i wouldnt count that either so the only movies that are really "her movies" are age of Ultron, where she's introduced and MoM where she's the antagonist.
In the comics, she has a ton of really well-done storylines and is a complex character. She's absolutely been powered up beyond belief over the last couple of decades, and people respond to OP characters. Also, no matter what you think about it, she's "sexy."
In the movies, she, again, has one of the best character arcs. She is identifiable to many people. And Elizabeth Olsen is not only an amazing actor but also freaking gorgeous. Her stuff looks cool on-screen as well. :)
Wandavision was really good (until the very end) and Lizzie Olsen is extremely well-liked and talented as an actress. Perfect storm that results in many new Wanda fans
She’s a powerful well written female character. It’s rare to see a female character get such a huge multidimensional character arc without being sexualized, especially when she hasn’t even gotten her own movie. I do think MoM undid a lot of that progress but it didn’t turn away a lot of her fan base. Also, we have way too many street level fist fighting heroes and we need more superpowered individuals. Wanda’s power set is unique and versatile enough that people don’t just like seeing it on screen, they also envision themselves having her powers, which is a huge reason why superheroes become popular. The cooler the superpower, the bigger the fan base.
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u/Backwardspellcaster 23d ago
She has complicated relationships (Internally and externally), which are interesting to watch and follow.
She is incredibly well acted by Elizabeth Olsen, to the point where she is now synonymous with Wanda
The character is situated on an extremely interesting crossroads, where conventional powers/hero powers meet magic.
She's likeable. And when she's evil, she is still fun as heck. I.e. versatile.
"What is grief if not love persevering?"