WandaVision Reminds Us That Wanda Is a Heroine With Red in Her Ledger

The commercials in WandaVision have been fantastic Easter eggs that speak to organizations and people that Wanda is connected to from the Starks, Hydra, etc. In the most recent episode we got a slightly darker Easter egg that hints at Wanda’s mental space.

Spoilers for WandaVision

In the commercial, a busy mom faces the archenemy of every tissue paper commercial: a spill. The red juice is absorbed with ease by the paper towel brand Lagos. And once you look into what it means, that red juice is a lot more ominous.

Let’s go back to 2016 and the release of Captain America: Civil War. The Avengers, which now includes Wanda, are in Lagos, a major city in Nigeria, are attempting to arrest Crossbones (Frank Grillo). During the attempt, the villain attempts to detonate a bomb. Wanda contains the explosion initially, but ends up releasing it near a building filled with people and it results in the death of 26 people.

It is this event that makes the United Nations attempt to force the Avengers, and any known superhumans (not mutant cause copyright), to sign into the Sokovia Accords. Back in my day we just called it a “mutant registration” but whatever. Anyway, this is another layer to the already existing guilt and trauma that Wanda has. It is also an example of how her powers can sometimes be so chaotic she can’t control the outcome.

We do not know how many people are trapped in Westview, but is is another group of people caught up in Wanda’s power. No one had died yet, and while Wanda does not mean any harm on the surface and is dealing with immense trauma, this is dangerous. Her reality warping skills are still new and she’s only been newly returning for … just over a week after the last thing she saw was the man she loved dying and then being blipped.

There has been a lot of discussion about if Wanda is “evil” or not. I think it is possible to believe that someone is totally in the wrong, but also recognize that it is more complicated than “good or evil.”

Superhero stories are at their most interesting when they are telling these emotional, human stories and just ask the question “what if this person had powers?”

Wanda has evolved from the girl Maria Hill once just dismissed as “weird.” She has the power to warp reality to the point that she brought Vision back-ish from the dead. But that did not come from healthy growth, it came from being a weapon to an Avenger to a fugitive to just a person who feels there is nothing left.

When Wanda confronts Thanos she tells him that he “took everything” from her. Vision was her everything and now she isn’t thinking about good or evil, she is trying to find piece. But Wanda is already someone with blood on her hands by accident. Now we can only wait and see if she adds more blood to her ledger. I hope not.

For her own sake.

(image: Disney+)

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