Many thanks, friend! Glad it feels right! haha Dreamwalking definitely feels more situational than I'd like. I'd like to extend it to the Mystical keyword, but that feels too expansive.

You raise a fantastic point about Wanda, and I bet its why a lot of people differ on her depiction in this. If you only saw the last thing she was in -ENDGAME- you could see why she'd be pissed about losing Vision (who oddly isn't mentioned in this), but not why she'd be villainous. The movie's explanation that she keeps dreaming of kids she doesn't have and that she was corrupted by the Darkhold wouldn't feel to be enough, perhaps.

If you saw Wandavision, you could see why she'd want the kids back, but you might be split on whether or not she was expressly villainous or punished enough for her actions.

I'll admit, I was surprised how quickly STRANGE 2 revealed that Wanda was the villain, especially when that's usually the kind of thing one would save for a midpoint or third act twist -she'd be Strange's ally until she sees the power of the multiverse to get what she thinks she deserves. I can fully respect that her off-screen corruption by the Darkhold might not feel satisfying to some. I mean, I was frustrated by INFINITY WAR and ENDGAME's off-screen implied stuff like the destruction of Xandar, the devastation of Thor's ship, and Captain Marvel meeting the Avangers.

I feel like I personally was ok with Wanda's villainous turn because in WANDAVISION she acted like the months-long mindrape of a small town was no big deal and that she was somehow the victim of it -exclusionary White feminism at its finest. Her corruption in STRANGE 2 felt like the long-delayed consequences of that show. So on a meta, screenwriting level, it worked for me, but I can fully understand on a characterdevelopment level how it wouldn't be satisfying.

You almost HAVE to go with the Darkhold corruption, which wouldn't feel satisfying or adequate. One could probably argue that Wanda might've eventually turned evil without the Darkhold, given WANDAVISION's events, and that the book just sped it up, but even that feels a bit cheap.Many thanks, friend! It touches my heart to read those words. I always hope for my threads to be a safe and inclusive space and for us to be honest about real issues. It horrifies me how many states have introduced anti-LGBTQ+ and specifically anti-trans legislation and how the UK seems to be following JK Rowling's transphobic lead. Really hoping cooler heads prevail sooner rather than later. And that's without getting into how s***y the U.S. has been to Latinx people, especially over the last several years.

That's a really good point about Chavez's ethnicity! That's one that flew right over my head -this is my first real experience with the character, and between what you and Hawk1113 are saying, it sounds like she wasn't ideally depicted. That's a real bummer. Hopefully the next time we see her on screen (Young Avengers? Secret Invasion? Strange 3?) she has a more substantial role and more accurate characterization.
::facepalm:: With the 2021 rules, I completely forgot that you need Super Strength to pick up Heavy Objects! haha I also made that mistake at a recent tournament. Whoops! I've updated the dial and sent you some rep! Big thanks!

EDIT:
Thanks for refreshing my memory, friend! Yep, I totally agree with this. Yeah, I definitely feel like one could connect the threads of Wanda being a villain from these actions.

I think you made the right call. If you want to make it more useful, maybe place a target on the opponents team like this:

An innocent woman: At the beginning of the game, you may generate a Wanda Maximoff Variant bystander anywhere on the map. That bystander is friendly to your opponents force this game.

Wanda Maximoff Variant
Range: 5
Points: 0

7 9 15 2

Under a spell: Adjacent friendly characters can use Mastermind, but only to choose Wanda Maximoff Variant.

I added TK and PC, because they feel like MCU Wanda's powers, and to make her tempting for the opponent to keep around. I added Reverse-Mastermind, in case the oppoent doesn't want to keep her around (since pushing isn't an option anymore).
Thus, this becomes a bit of a gamble for the opponent. The Wanda Variant is useful to keep around, but it's also an anchor point for The Scarlet Witch. This kinda puts the opponent in the same shoes as Strange and the Illuminati in this film.

If you like this idea, feel free to change any aspect of it.

Edit: Oops, tried to use Mastermind the wrong way around. Need a special for that.

Any of the times people have complained that MoM ignores her development from WandaVision, I just find myself wondering if they watched a different show. Because I saw a Wanda who was getting progressively more and more villainous, ending at a point where she had basically gotten away with her actions because she was the 800 pound gorilla in the old joke.

In the finale of WandaVision, there’s a scene where Agatha frees the town’s minds, and they confront Wanda about what she’s doing to them.

Here, Wanda seems genuinely shocked that they’re not happy about their current situation. She was deep in denial, and seemed to really believe that what she was doing was also good for the town.

After the confrontation, she immediately tries to open the hex, so they can escape, but she stops when she sees her family is getting torn apart. Then the fight happens, and she undoes the hex properly.

I won’t deny that she got away with no proper consequences, and I would say that her denial is downright negligent, but still, I didn’t see WandaVision as a clear path towards callous villainy.

I agree that it pretty much ended with her as a villain, but not as someone capable of mass murder. That’s the leap.

Haha that's incredible! I'll happily use it! I've updated the dial, gave you some credit, and sent you rep! My thanks!If I had to guess, the people making the "ignores her development from Wandavision" argument are saying that just because she drops her hold over Westview that she's grown and has become more heroic and powerful. I agree with you that I don't think the first two are true. It's like what happens when stock brokers go to jail. "What was your mistake?" / "That I got caught."

I also think that WANDAVISION marked the first time we saw a truly grey protagonist in an MCU show and one that introduced the idea of morally becoming villainous. Like, Winter Soldier is only briefly against Captain America, but once he gets his mind back, he's just a soldier in a superhero costume. Wanda was consistently given rah-rah fist-pumping moments and whose power was likened to girlbossery. For her to dip into moral complexity in WANDAVISION and get an ambiguous ending allowed many to assume she'd "learned her lesson," especially if they hadn't seen the post-credits. And seeing one of your favorite MCU characters turn evil? Maybe that didn't feel so good or easy to reconcile.

I also loved how Kamar-Taj felt a little more built up from last time. We see throngs of new students, we see representatives from other sanctums, and we see classic Doctor Strange characters Topaz and Rintrah. The world feels full and realized, but disappointingly, we never get to see it. I think I’d have preferred if there’d been two or three previous Doctor Strange stand-alone films in his universe where we could see more of it and really build it out. I mean, it’s metal as hell that Kamar-Taj gets freakin’ leveled, but it’d be nice to have cared that much more about it.

But it’s cool seeing Rintrah. Even if it’s random.



#116 Kamar-Taj Acolyte
Team: No Affiliation
Range: 4
Points: 25
Keywords: Kamar-Taj, Mystical, Martial Artist

6 10 17 2

6 10 17 2

6 9 16 1

KO KO KO KO

KO KO KO KO

KO KO KO KO

KO KO KO KO

KO KO KO KO

KO KO KO KO

KO KO KO KO

KO KO KO KO

KO KO KO KO

(+5 Points) Sara Wolfe (Unique): When this character would be KOed, once per game, you may instead KO an Object held or equipped by an adjacent opposing character.
Making Kamar-Taj a Fortress: Barrier, and when Kamar-Taj Acolyte uses it, they add 1 Blocking Terrain Square to it for each adjacent friendly Kamar-Taj Acolyte.

UPDATED 05/23/22 - Thanks, Pokolo!

I’m glad you liked it

See, I don’t even think the leap to murder was such a huge one. She had one serious attempt and one, I would argue, success.

The attempt was Monica. The only reason Monica survived getting thrown out of the Hex was that her superpowers were beginning to develop. Otherwise, she would have splattered the moment she collided with the wall in Wanda’s house.

But the success. Ah, yes, the success. We tend to overlook it because she “saved” him. Or allowed Vision to “save” him.

Mr. Hart. The moment he got a little too pushy with his questioning, he started choking. Wanda stared dispassionately while his wife pleaded with her to “stop it”. Sure, it seemed like she was chanting at him, but it was clearly aimed at Wanda. Then after he is saved and hey go home like nothing happened at all (though he was clearly still out of it)…

We NEVER see him again. He’s the only denizen of Westview who is just… gone. We see his wife again, but never him. Almost like Wanda decided it would be better to kill him offscreen.

Wanda didn't try to splatter Monica against a wall, she tried to kick her out of Westview, and that's exactly what she did.

Monica stated that she got out because Wanda let her out. That she survived because Wanda wanted her to. This is the only explanation the show offers for that scene. It's not definitive, but to go from that uncertainty to attempted murder is unreasonable.


As for Mr. Hart, his early near-death episode was quite callous, and Wanda seemed strangely lucid in that scene, so you've got a point there. But still, to just suggest he was killed off-screen is completely unfounded.

The show mentions that people who don't play a role in Wanda's Westview are simple kept in locked rooms, like that one lady's daughter. Why assume off-screen murder, when we could just apply that same tactic, which we know she used elsewhere?

Mostly because every other adult came together at the end to confront Wanda except him. To me, that suggests he met a rather unfortunate end, as she certainly TRIED to kill him. That was no accident.

And Monica assumed Wanda let her survive, but how would she know? Monica proved again and again that she was going to give Wanda the benefit of the doubt no matter what. It doesn’t necessarily prove that Wanda let her live, just that Monica believed she did.

I’m a strong adherent to the No-Prize mentality. Way back in the day, if fans wrote in about apparent contradictions and gave good explanations as for how they made sense, they got a No-Prize. So that’s how I approach these things. I take what happened, and make the connections necessary to logic it out.

So it seems to be a bit of a jump for Wanda to go from not killing the people who got in her way in WandaVision to mercilessly destroying anybody who inconvenienced her in MoM. So let’s earn that No-Prize and make the connections. Those are the connections that make the most sense to me.

I'm mixed on these readings, TBH.

1. Mr. Hart choking is for sure a dark scene, and if he doesn't appear again, that leaves it up to the viewer's interpretation. I seem to recall Vision saving him, right? I don't recall the ending of the scene. I think because that happened so early in the season during the pilot's peak mystery box, it's possible many audience members categorized that as "something the bad guy is doing" without necessarily attributing it to Wanda, who was, indeed, the "bad guy." I take that as, at worst, involuntary manslaughter, as Wanda didn't seem to understand what was happening and interpreteted the events as her DVD collection "going wrong" for a moment.

2. Wanda ejecting Monica seems like it was intended to be nonlethal [in her delirium], but an act that would've been lethal in its execution. A human being can't survive being blasted through that many walls, unless they're stage walls. Monica didn't gain her powers until later in the season. Was Wanda lucid in this moment, or was she entrenched in the delusion? Was the ejection intended to be lethal, or just an ejection? I'd argue that's subject to interpretation.

3. I DO think Wanda's conduct at the end of the season is most pertinent, as we're seeng how she reconciles what she did with whom she's becoming. We know she gave Agatha a cruel and unusual punishment; we know she barely accepted responsibility for what she inflicted upon the citizens of Westview; we know that the show, acting through Monica, bent over backwards to attempt to absolve her; we know that Wanda began studying the cursed Darkhold; and we know (from STRANGE 2) that Wanda began targeting America Chavez with the intent of murdering her to steal her powers. We don't know for how long she's been doing this. Possibly starting as far back as WANDAVISION'S post-credits.

To me, that feels like a progression toward a self-serving moral evil.

That's fair.
Wanda definitely got off easy in Westview, and while she set them free, it certainly didn't make up for her wrongdoings. I suppose we can see that as her starting to become more used to justifying her own actions and letting her morality slip, which set her down the path that allowed the Darkhold to corrupt her. That more or less works for me.

But I still don't see any evidence that she tried to murder anyone in Westview, other than arguably Mr. Hart at the very beginning (and he left that event very much alive) and probably Agatha during their big fight (she did throw a car at her and shoot her with magic blasts).

I think Sara at least warrants her own dial given the sacrifice she made. She could have a trait or stop click that allows her to destroy an equipment equipped to an opposing character then immediately KO her. Could be an attack that deals no damage or even a free. I think Rintrah too could get one even if he didn’t do anything significant other than look cool. But at least hes a named character and would make for a unique enough sculpt next to the other acolytes

Wow, I hadn't realized that was Sara. I didn't catch her name during my viewing and spent the film assuming she was Topaz. Sure, that's enough justification to give her a nod on the dials. I updated the Kamar-Taj Acolyte with an optional trait for her, gave you credit, and sent you rep! Many thanks!

I'm kicking myself for not remembering her from the comics. It's been awhile since I read those particular issues.

Now that I'm aware it's her, I kinda wish the film had done better by both her and Rintrah. Sara could've stuck around to be a recurring character with more development and Rintrah could've been more than a namecheck. I get FoX-Men vibes from them now : /

I kinda got the feeling that they planned to do more with Rintrah, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see a lot of him on the cutting room floor. Oddly enough, he’s the build-a-figure in the Marvel Legends line centered around this movie (which honestly doesn’t represent the movie well at all with Strange, Astral Strange, Wong, Mordo, America, and Sleepwalker and D’Spayre from the comics), so I really think he was intended to be a bit more crucial, but I suppose he’s also very toyetic, so it could just be that.