‘WandaVision’: Fans Are Preparing Themselves for Wanda’s Heartbreaking ‘Trauma’
While Disney and Marvel have already released several tie-in series inside the MCU, none have directly connected to the films that WandaVision is set to have.
However, in a strange turn of events, the series also marks a unique addition to the MCU, drawing from 50s and 60s sitcom lore to set a nostalgic stage for Wanda and her seemingly departed husband.
Despite this exterior, however, the series also grapples with some serious topics about Wanda’s trauma.
Wanda and Vision
Wanda and Vision are among the least likely couples in the MCU. In many ways, they are the two most underutilized characters despite their massive sway in the Avengers.
All of this will change with the new series. Wanda is a superhuman whose psychic powers are enough to bring down even her most powerful villains. On the flip side, Vision is an android who spent the first few years of the series as Tony Stark’s JARVIS system before getting the body he has in Age of Ultron.
Starting with Civil War, however, Wanda and Vision began growing closer. While other heroes got solo projects or supporting roles that helped flesh them out, this was the first glimpse we got at the human side of the psychic and her android friend. The friendship grew to love, but just as the pair started to settle down, Thanos tore them apart and seemed to kill Vision forever.
Although Vision is back in the new series, it doesn’t mean it’s all going to be fun and games.
Situation Traumedy?
Although it has not been confirmed, many fans on Reddit will be a look into Wanda’s mind, who is still grappling with her partner’s death at Thanos’s hands. While many of the fallen Avengers were brought back, Vision needed the Mind Stone to run, and with the stones being collected to stop Thanos before he could start, this doesn’t leave much room for resurrection.
Fans took to Reddit to theorize what this could. Fans wonder if the series’s Vision is the true-life character they know and love or a psychic projection by Wanda/Scarlet Witch. User u/Bgy4Life
“[We] don’t know if we’re getting Vision back or if she’s going to lose him again, but she for sure will go through some sort of hardcore trauma that will cause the multiverse to be introduced,” they wrote on Reddit.
This echoed a sentiment laid out by fans. While the show appears to be a comedic look into a strange relationship, the darker tones beneath might look at trauma, grief, and all the depression that comes from those two things. It’s a similar theme that the show’s two stars discussed in an interview with The Guardian.
The stars on Wandavision
When Endgame was over, and Vision was nowhere to be seen, many presumed that his time in the MCU was over. According to The Guardian, this included Vision himself, Paul Bettany, who expected to get his papers when he received a call from Kevin Feige.
“I had just been killed – twice – and my contract was up,” he told The Guardian. “I got a call from the boss saying, ‘Come into the office.’ So I looked at my wife and I was like, ‘I think I’m being written out.’ Being British, I didn’t want anybody to feel uncomfortable, so I said, ‘It’s absolutely fine. It’s been a wonderful run, and thank you so much.’
However, Feige wasn’t firing him. Quite the opposite. Bettany, who has been in the background in even his most prominent Marvel roles, was getting a chance to take center stage alongside Olsen. However, for a character who died on-screen, twice, to come back to the land of the living. Many see this not as a resurrection but a show about grief and trauma.
When asked if the show will focus on Wanda’s mental state, Elizabeth Olsen acknowledged that this subtext runs rampant throughout the show when asked if the show will speak on grief and trauma.
“I think we feel comfortable saying that, yes,” Olsen told the publication. “I think it’s about grief and coming to terms with one’s life and trauma. And processing.”
Wanda has already seen her fair share of grief throughout the series. When audiences first saw her, she was connected at the hip with her brother, Quicksilver. However, Quicksilver passed away during the final battle of Age of Ultron. Since then, she has grappled with the fact that, while powerful beyond imagination, she also has human emotions.
Wanda’s struggles to fit into a society that will always see her as an outsider appears to be the crux of WandaVision. Many answers about her mental state, the grieving process, and how dead Vision is will be answered when the series premieres on Disney Plus. While the series is a sitcom at its heart, however, it looks to have some heart attached.
