In the little town she allowed her grief to utterly consume her. She put the town in a hex so that it couldn't be accessed by the rest of the world, without great cost, and used everyone as her personal playthings. Wanda even made a replica of Vision who has independence unlike the rest of the town's citizens.
Over the course of the show Wanda came to accept that Vision is dead and what she was doing is wrong. So she frees the citizens of Westview and flies off to a remote area. That was a good end to her character arc and put her back on the path of a hero.
Then came Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness that seemed to undo Wanda's character arc just so she could be the villain of the movie.
After everyone has been brought back into existence, Wanda Maximoff decides to get Vision's body back so she can bury him. Though a robot, Vision was more than human and capable of love. So it had been more than painful for her to not only destroy the Mind Stone which killed him in an effort to stop Thanos, but then to make her love's sacrifice mean nothing in the end.
All Wanda wanted was to afford the love of her life something anyone should be able to have: a proper burial.
But even though Vision was an Avenger that willingly sacrificed himself for all humanity, he was still a robot. A fact that Tyler Hayward used to further his own ends. The acting director of S.W.O.R.D. wanted to use Vision's corpse to make a weapon and didn't respect the deceased Avenger. Nor did he respect Wanda and even lied about her stealing Vision's corpse to hide his own blame.
Wanda decides not to attack the facility like she could have easily done, but to go to Westview. Why Westview? Wanda and Vision were going to move in together. A small out of the way town probably felt like paradise for the pair after everything they had been through.
Upon arriving in Westview, Wanda is overtaken by grief. As she can control the fabric of reality itself, things get out of hand really fast. She creates a version of Vision so that she can live in a fantasy where he never died. This Vision actually has more independence than the other people in the town. Yeah, she takes control of everyone.
She creates a bubble around Westview so that no one else can interfere. In this bubble she changes everything about the town to fit whatever sitcom she wants to play out. So the color at one point is just black and white. The people's personalities and clothing are also changed to fit Wanda's sitcom's aesthetic. Though sometimes people are able to break free for brief moments of time.
Now I'm not going to go over everything that happened in WandaVision as that would take up too much of this post. The very short version is that S.W.O.R.D. led by Hayward lied and said that Wanda had Vision in Westview. He is thus able to lead people into the area under false pretenses.
Inside the bubble Wanda encounters a bad witch called Agatha Harkness who pretended to be another mind controlled person called Agnes. Her end goal was to take all of Wanda's powers as the grieving woman is one of the most powerful beings in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU).
Over the course of dealing with both threats, Wanda realizes that what she had done was wrong. It was beyond wrong and messed up. So she freed the citizens of Westview and flew away to somewhere secluded. At the end of WandaVision Wanda had come to terms with her grief.
I know a few of you will be crying out at me for not watching the post-credits scene of the show. But guess what? I did.
So what happens after the end of the show?
Wanda goes to a beautiful place in the mountains with no one else around. There she begins studying the Darkhold which is a book that corrupts everyone that uses it.
The trailers for Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness did an excellent job in hiding the fact that Wanda Maximoff is the villain. I avoided the leaked spoilers, for the most part, which might have revealed Wanda's evil streak early on. As I was on my own, I didn't think our Wanda would be the villain.
I guess my shock over the reveal was because Wanda completed her character arc in WandaVision. By the show's conclusion she understood what she had done was wrong and so was back on her path as a hero.
Now I can hear people loudly screaming that I must not have watched the post-credits scene of WandaVision. I can even see your self-righteous grins as you think you've got an argument that will stop me in my tracks.
I saw the post-credits scene where Wanda was using the Darkhold. This infamous tome corrupts everyone it touches. It changes saints into sinners who go down the darkest paths. It doesn't matter what your initial intentions are for using the cursed book, you will eventually become a villain.
So at least the movie does have an explanation for why Wanda is the villain of the latest Doctor Strange movie.
But at the same time the explanation doesn't make Wanda's turn to villainy feel any less rushed. A nice little fix would have been for Wanda to have a sorcerer come to reprimand her about what happened in Westview. With her mind already becoming unhinged because of the Darkhold, that simple interaction could have been enough to make her turn to villainy feel earned.
In Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness it's heavily implied that some events are fated to happen. That your whole life is headed towards you making certain choices. Choices that you aren't actually in control of. Strange tells this to America Chavez to help her fight Wanda at the end. But his words also indirectly talk about Wanda.
Through drawings of the Scarlet With in the Darkhold and Wundagore Mountain, it's heavily implied that Wanda had no choice but to become evil. There was nothing she could have done that would have changed that fate.
I always thought that the Scarlet Witch was Wanda Maximoff's superhero name. Instead they are two different people. I can tell this as whenever they want to talk about Wanda before she went evil they use her name. But when they talk about Wanda after she's gone evil they refer to her as the Scarlet Witch.
While I am not a big comic book reader, I am aware of some of the tropes and cliches. Such as retcons so that a good character never really turned evil. This could be done by having a character possessed by something or someone else. Or having the good character turned evil being a clone. The sky is really the limit for comic book retcons.
So I wasn't really that surprised when Wanda Maximoff and the Scarlett Witch were referred to as two separate people. I was disappointed, though.
Now having Wanda being in full control of her fate wouldn't erase all the problems with her character arc, but it would be a tiny fix. It would make it so that her turn to evil was something she consciously decided to do. That even though it was the wrong choice, it felt like the right one to her at the time.
As a big horror fan I am well aware of the rule that you need to see a person die before you know they're dead. If the camera doesn't clearly show someone dying then that leaves the possibility open that the character will reappear at a later date. And people not aware of that horror rule will be utterly shocked at the plot twist.
Though even if a character is clearly shown to be dead there is still doubt.
Because of that horror rule, I don't think that Wanda Maximoff dies at the end of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.
Now I know people are going to be screaming at me that I should know that Elizabeth Olsen's contract hasn't run out. They'll be yelling at me that that proof is all they need to know Wanda didn't die at the end of the latest Doctor Strange movie. But what those people are so clearly forgetting is that the multiverse is here to stay and Olsen is therefore free to play other variants of Wanda. Heck, she played another variant of Wanda in the latest Doctor Strange movie!
Thus it's entirely possible that our Wanda died at the end of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.
I think our Wanda dying at the end of the latest Doctor Strange movie would be extremely disrespectful to the character. She was tortured by Hydra and ended up losing those closest to her: Pietro and Vision. She started off as an antagonist for righteous reasons and doesn't deserve to go back to square one right before she dies.
A better ending for Wanda would be her finally getting over her grief just enough to become a hero once again. Wanda deserves to be healed from her past trauma. What she doesn't deserve is to have a rushed character arc as an excuse for her to be a villain.
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