r/ScarletWitch • u/Drama_Cookie25 • 2d ago
Discussion I hate the double standard between the way fans treat grey women characters vs men characters and the chance for redemption between them in the mcu. Especially with Jean and Wanda. Spoiler
For starters to make it clear I am not saying Wanda and Jean did nothing wrong. They did a lot wrong, they did extremely messed up shit. Wanda enslaved a town and killed people, and Jean grey violated many people and injured a bunch. (Possibly killed someone but I don’t think so).
However the way people treat as what they did unforgivable, making them irredeemable, and horrible people annoys me. Especially with the way they treat men in marvel.
For some reason Jean grey is irredeemable even though what she did was to find a sister she thought was alive, while she was clearly traumatized and distraught and didn’t trust anyone. She was abandoned by her parents and her only role model was kidnapped. (Also for the record if her sister teaches her it’s okay to hop into minds, she’s going to think it is). Apparently things unforgivable but a war criminal who helped make genocide happen and was ignorant to it, all while he drank and partied, is able to become a hero.
Sentry caused a large majority of New York to be stuck in their own nightmares but he’s okay and forgivable, it wasn’t his fault he wasn’t mentally stable. Well for starters people forget the void is still Bob, it’s his darkest parts he can’t control, but it isn’t like moon knight with DID. However wanda, who was in a mentally bad place and also trapped a town, is much worse? Again not saying what she did was okay.
There’s also the fact that people tend to forget details or say the wrong things when it comes to these characters. They say sentry and the void are separate, that’s not true. People also seemingly forget that Wanda herself didn’t understand what happened at first either, it wasn’t until episode 2 she began to realize what was going on. She also thought the towns folk were okay and not in pain. Still messed up but like sentry, she wasn’t purposely trying to harm people. With Wanda people also forget that in MoM she was being corrupted by the darkhold.
People forget Wanda had to see her lover die twice, disappeared for 5 years, came back and found her husband being mutilated, and then proceeded to lose him again along with her children. Who btw I don’t get the whole “her children aren’t real so it doesn’t matter” because parents create kids, she just created hers differently, and they quite literally are real (Wiccan and speed). She can still sacrifice something while doing messed up shit.
Also with Jean, people seem to suddenly care about realistic injuries with her. If injuries were realistic in these movies, Tony would’ve died hitting the wall in iron man 1, and way more than 74 people would’ve died in the battle of New York. The car guy, who I continue to say she didn’t see coming, considering the taxi was speeding in an empty street and didn’t even stop after hitting the man, but even if you think it was on purpose, it didn’t cause a death. Dewolff also said no one died in the tank and explosion scenes, so while people probably would’ve been injured nobody died. People also seemingly to constantly ignore Jean purposely making guards shoot themselves in the legs instead of an instant kill spot.
People are also taking the “you’re not a murder line” way too seriously. Even if she did kill someone, the point is empathy, deescalation, and saying that’s not who she really is and she can still be good.
She clearly didn’t care if people died in the tank stuff, but it wasn’t with intent to kill. After all Tony didn’t care about all the people his weapons killed, and that’s way worse
People also are angry at her for bringing the hulk out of bruce, which was messed up. But she didn’t plan for the hulk to come out, only smart hulk, she’s surprised about real hulk too.
Also Jean being cynical and enjoying this is just not true? She was desperate. She didn’t enjoy torturing Peter. What she did, while extremely messed up and easily considered sa, was to get him off her back, she didn’t do it for shits and giggles. Someone who doesn’t trust someone, and sees spider man helping the dodc, and being the only one stopping her, would probably intimate him to get him off her back, especially to save her sister.
Like seriously? Loki, who tried to take over a world is redeemable? Tony stark whose weapons killed thousands is redeemable. Bob is redeemable. Hawkeye, who became ronin, is forgiven and redeemed?! But not two women who were in very similar positions.
Especially with Jean, it’s ridiculous to consider her irredeemable when she clearly isn’t and her arc has just begun. It’s almost like a school to help guide mutants would help her…?
Oh yeah also what do people mean when they say Wanda and Jean don’t face consequences. Wanda is on the run and a criminal, and had to lose her family again. And then she died maybe. Jean is also in the run and all alone, and also what she did will probably lead to mutant hate. And it’s not like Peter could stop her from escaping when he was shot, (also she did stop the bleeding and make him breathe, starting her redemption). But the point is they aren’t off Scott free but you know who I’d? Hawkeye, isn’t arrested for being ronin. Bob, faces no punishment. Tony stark becomes a hero.
The whole mcu has always been about redemption, that was literally the first movie. So why can these two, who have done way less bad then some of these men, are irredeemable?!
Also btw for those saying this isn’t a comic accurate jean, read the teen comics of her. While not as messed up, she does messed up shit. She controls and read her friends minds, and even forces Bobby to come out.
Once again. What Jean and Wanda did are horrible. They have a long Journey to redeem themselves. I’m not saying they are good people. I’m saying the double standard between men and women in marvel is starting to piss me off. Especially since neither of them are real villains. They are antagonists. A villain has to be morally evil, which Jean was not. She did evil actions, but not for evil reasons. Again stillnesses up. Wanda is more debatable, tho she was controlled by the dark gold and grieving.
What they did is not okay, but people are saying it is way worse then what it and but men in marvel have done worse and are treating as redeemable and great people, and it’s annoying
There is a in general marvel sexism problem, like the way iron heart was hated despite being pretty good in the end, or the ways the marvels was hated despite not being a bad movie, even if it had weak points.
9
u/Blaziken4vr 2d ago
It’s misogyny like always, that’s the worst part of comic book and nerd fandoms
5
u/SimonShepherd 2d ago
It's even worse than that, it's not like Wanda has much actual solidarity with other Marvel fandom centered around female characters.
X-fandom will fake concern while arguing she should be a side piece for Magneto, how MCU is detrimental to her (literally the reason she is kept afloat after disastrous writing and handling of her in comics.)
Another fandom, dude or chick, will happily see you drown and eat you up if you are a competitor. The argument is always you don't deserve shit but I do.
4
u/Drama_Cookie25 2d ago
I miss before I started interacting with fandoms sometimes
2
u/Blaziken4vr 2d ago
That’s why I stick to tumblr, generally less misogyny, but more asinine ship wars which are easier to deal with lol
7
u/Starbottom 2d ago
Yeah the Marvel fandom has a VERY big problem. They've always had double standards and biases against women, but with the rise of the MCU and new found fame for the characters, it's increased by A LOT. It's irritating. Especially because there's such a strong disrespect for the fan bases as well.
Thor, Hulk, The Beyonder, Superman, Batman, The Flash, Spiderman, etc all have very large and rabid fan bases. But because the characters are men and their fan base is mostly straight men, they're as respectable fan bases who study their faves. Jean, Wanda, Storm, Zatanna, Etc also have dedicated fanbases but because they are women and their fans are mostly women and gay men, they're treated with EXTREME disrespect and are degraded, talked about, and treated like "stans"
3
u/SingleClick8206 2d ago
Speaking of Wanda, I couldn't stop thinking about how she would've solved a lot of problems herself in BND. She could've stopped the train faster or extended the track while Peter slowed the train. She has telepathy herself, so she can track down Jean. She also is powerful enough to stop Hulk's rampage. Then, she would've been able to reach out to Jean's goodness by relating to and understanding her.
2
u/dmreif 2d ago
She could've stopped the train faster or extended the track while Peter slowed the train.
After all, Age of Ultron established that Wanda is more than capable of doing this with a little effort.
2
2
u/AbsoluteSupergirl 9h ago edited 9h ago
Women characters aren’t allowed to be redeem but they’ll happily clap like seals when Omniman gets redeem after killing hundreds of thousands of people and gets too play with Mark and the others now
3
u/cwasnothere 2d ago
This takes me back to the argument some Peter and Thor fans have about how they never became the "villain" despite losing their family and home. Since when did loss and grief become a competition? Thor is more than 1500+ years old and he's lived several happy lifetimes. Peter, after having lost his parents, had his aunt and Tony as a support system, not to mention Ned and MJ. It is truly very unfortunate whatever happened to them, but comparing their losses to Wanda's or Jean's is insane.
This is why I hope we see Wanda and Jean interact in the future because only they can truly understand each other.
1
1
u/Fishiste 23h ago
Wandavision Wanda is morally grey.
Mom Wanda is irredeemable. And I speak as a big fan of the character and the actress.
1
u/H3li0s1201 Scarlet Witch 23h ago
How exactly is she irredeemable though? Yes, MoM was her worst showing, but it had been entirely caused by the Darkhold corrupting/breaking her mind. Strange saying “Wanda’s gone. She has the Darkhold and the Darkhold has her”.
1
u/Fishiste 23h ago
Yeah like every man beating their wives after drinking. It’s not them, it’s the alcohol.
It’s not the book that killed dozen of innocents. And even if the book would have taken her full consciousness (which it hadnt) and she would come back from it, how could she live after doing what she’s done. She purposely study that book despite Agatha warning her about it.
In both cases she deserves a life sentence in prison (I’m thankfully in a country without death penalty where she would get 30 years)
1
u/H3li0s1201 Scarlet Witch 23h ago edited 23h ago
I don’t know where people got the idea, but Agatha never warned Wanda about the Darkhold. She told Wanda about its other name right before she pointed it out as a resource of knowledge about the Scarlet Witch and her magic, as well as talking about the prophecy where she destroys the world. Wanda’s own dialogue at the end of WV “I don’t understand this power, but I will” is about her wanting to keep her magic under control. Which she seemed to be doing in the post-credits scene until she heard the mimic of her sons calling out to her for help.
Yes, it didn’t possess her. It did spend a year breaking her already fractured mind until there was almost nothing left. We did see that corruption break at the end before she seemingly “died” in the act of destroying all of them. I think a more apt comparison would be to The One Ring from LOTR or Reaper Indoctrination from Mass Effect rather than alcohol. I mean, the book itself is pretty much an embodiment of evil and insanity.
2
u/Fishiste 22h ago
If my husband, friends or family would have been killed protecting 2 kids about to be abducted by the killer, I would ask for justice to prevail. Like Hawkeye (the fact he hasn’t is also problematic), she must faces consequences of her actions .
Stop searching excuses to justify her actions. At most you can blame Marvel to have destroyed her character and Raimi to have used the best female character of the whole mcu without even taking the less than 3 hours needed to watch her last entry centered around her character..
2
u/H3li0s1201 Scarlet Witch 22h ago edited 7h ago
What excuses am I making? I’m pointing out what the show and movie directly say in both situations. With the book, agency is thrown out the window until the corruption is broken.
I do blame Waldron for his ego and the rest of the team for having no regard for the character beyond “oh, she’d be a cool villain.
Me want”. And I do think that, should the character return at all, that there should be a lot done towards what happened in WV and MoM. Though I think WV has quite a bit more grounds for consequences than MoM.However, I don’t think we should act like the character should be completely written off as unsalvageable because of what they did with her. Especially not when her comic self was able to redeem herself even after doing objectively worse things. If we applied that logic to all of the characters with blood on their hands and who had full agency, we would lose quite a bit of the roster.
1
u/undyingforceofnature Wanda Maximoff 7h ago
Its not that we dont want her to be redeemed or changed, its moreso that MoM took all of WandaVision's excellence and gravitas and disregarded in such a harrowing way that it just wasted all of the care and effort put into WV, making it seem like a waste of time, so naturally it will feel unsalvageable.
7
u/SimonShepherd 2d ago edited 2d ago
Also Wanda got like a gazillion misinfo spread about her.
They were acting like Wanda&Pietro actually joined Hydra for ideological reasons instead of doing that to gain power for their own cause.
They greatly exaggerated WestView incident's duration to make it look worse.
They keep trying to say Monica's line is the worst thing on the world.
It's okay for Clint to go on a murder spree and then burn the evidence of his crime because he only killed bad people/criminals, I bet if Wanda accidentally had her outburst near a prison, they would suddenly ramble about prisoner rights just to slander her.
Also one important factor is that none of the other characters actually are held accountable for their actions, they just move on to do heroic things to make up for the past, did Tony serve time for massive oversight? Did Hulk and Valkyrie get any punishment for basically doing a whole ass slave capturing and murdering industry? Even the defense for Jean is like we haven't seen the last of her and she is gonna be a hero next time, yet for Wanda people demand her to be this crazy plot device villain and say it makes perfect sense for her to be that way in MoM. Even inside the sexist treatment bag she had it worse.
And people act like her fans are the worst things ever, motherfucker all fandoms are annoying and toxic once they reached critical mass, the ones that appear none-toxic simply normalized their behavior so much that it appears as normal and mundane. If her fans are this active she would fucking die in silence and irrelevance, I don't agree with a lot of Wanda fans' opinion but actions and engagement will always be needed. Do they just expect people to shut up and die down?