Welcome to Fix It, our ongoing series examining projects we love — save for one tiny change we wish we could make.
A fresh new take on the Marvel Cinematic Universe, WandaVision won over critics and fans alike with its unconventional premise, intriguing mystery, and delightfully kitsch sitcom tropes. Though suburban life isn’t what most people picture when they hear “Marvel superhero television show,” Wanda (Elizabeth Olsen) and Vision’s (Paul Bettany) attempts at living quietly as civilians were every bit as engaging as their battles against genocidal warlords — sometimes even more so.
However, the nine-episode Disney+ series wasn’t without its issues. The most immediately prominent was WandaVision‘s Quicksilver casting bait-and-switch, which not only failed to deliver what it teased but didn’t even pay off in an alternate satisfactory manner. Yet there was an even bigger missed opportunity, one which could have significantly improved the show and enriched the MCU.
I am referring, of course, to the characterisation of insidious, perfidious Agatha (Kathryn Hahn).
Originally introduced as nosy neighbour Agnes, episode 7 reveals that she is actually a powerful witch named Agatha, and has been influencing Wanda’s wonderful world of trauma from the outset.
In the comics, Agatha Harkness is Wanda’s mentor and occasionally a supporting superhero in her own right. In contrast, WandaVision‘s Agatha is a straight up villain who attacks and manipulates Wanda in an attempt to steal her power. Though the series initially conceived Agatha as similar to her comic counterpart, helping and teaching Wanda how to manage her magic, WandaVision changed her into more of an antagonist .
Yet it would have been easy to make Agatha an antagonist while still keeping her as Wanda’s mentor. Doing so would have also given Agatha a strong motivation, turned her into a more sympathetic and engaging character, and strengthened the series all in one fell swoop. All Marvel had to do was turn Agatha’s lies into the truth.
When we flash back to Agatha’s past in WandaVision‘s penultimate episode, we learn that she was accused of practicing dark magic and attacked by her own coven during the Salem witch trials. While Agatha initially pleads her innocence, claiming she simply can’t control her magic and needs help, this is quickly revealed as a lie when she deliberately murders her entire coven with no remorse.
But if Agatha had been telling the truth and really couldn’t control her power, the entire narrative changes. Rather than a ruthless villain, Agatha becomes an inexperienced young witch who doesn’t understand her own magic and inadvertently causes harm because of it — just like Wanda.
This change would have given Agatha a logical motivation for confronting Wanda other than simply craving power for power’s sake. If Agatha herself had accidentally killed people due to her lack of control, then spent centuries living with the pain of it and learning how to handle such strong magic, it would make sense that she’d intervene to stop another powerful but untrained witch from repeating history.
A desire to save both Wanda and the citizens of Westview would be a justifiable incentive for Agatha to try confiscating Wanda’s power — and would provide WandaVision with the it aimed for.
The real hero was Agatha all along.
Making the deaths of Agatha’s coven an accident would have also turned WandaVision into a deeper, more nuanced exploration of grief.
“We were very clear that the big bad is grief,” head writer and executive producer Jac Schaeffer told Mashable. “And then the external bad is Agatha.”
But WandaVision only provides one perspective of grief: Wanda’s. It could have easily made both Wanda and Agatha each other’s external bad while simultaneously examining the impact of grief over time, and the way different people manage it.
While Wanda was grappling with her relatively fresh loss, mourning both Vision and the life they could have had, Agatha would have already lived multiple lifetimes with the grief of losing her own family — as well as the guilt and regret of causing their deaths. She would have had time to process it, and it would have changed who she was by the time she met Wanda.
To Agatha, Wanda would be a painful reminder of her past mistakes. To Wanda, Agatha would be a foreboding glimpse at her potential future.
A lonely, guilt-wracked Agatha might have even entertained the idea that she could use Wanda’s power to revive her coven, further strengthening her resolve to take Wanda’s magic. After all, even Monica said that she’d bring her mother back if she had Wanda’s power.
Thus, instead of being a shallow villain, Agatha could have been another complicated example of love persevering.
Who’s been messing up everything? Wanda. It was Wanda.
Both Agatha and Wanda would have had more depth if they were each allowed to be an anti-hero and anti-villain respectively.
The MCU may generally position Wanda as a sympathetic hero, but she straight up tortures Westview’s residents throughout WandaVision. Trapping people inside their own minds and forcing them to act out roles for her isn’t very heroic, to put it mildly.
Even if you argue Wanda’s actions had initially been unintentional, she definitely knew what she was doing when she trapped Agatha during the series finale. Regardless of the fact that Agatha was her enemy, removing a person’s free will is one of the cruellest things you can do, and Wanda did it with a smirk.
Meanwhile, “big bad” Agatha attempted to stop Wanda, and showed her what her grief was actually doing to everyone around her. Wanda was not a hero in WandaVision, and Agatha shouldn’t have been a villain.
Making the audience realise they’ve been cheering for the objectively bad guy would have made perfect sense, as well as been a fresh twist in the MCU. WandaVision was still an enjoyable, innovative show that gave us a closer look at some of Marvel’s beloved superheroes. It’s just a shame it didn’t push itself a tiny bit further.
WandaVision is streaming on Disney+.
