What Wanda’s Fate Means For The MCU
Wanda Maximoff has been something of a wildcard since her introduction to the MCU. Since appearing in 2015’s Avengers: Age of Ultron she has been unstable at best, and a liability at worst. She and her brother Pietro initially antagonised the Avengers, and were won over by Ultron’s vision before seeing the error of their ways.
She has since been a powerful ally, but a polarizing figure in Captain America: Civil War, where she was at the centre in a loss-of-life incident. Her fractured psyche is the melancholy heart of her solo Disney+ series Wandavision, which comes to a dreadful climax with her actions in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.
Wanda has lost her brother, been forced to kill her partner, and lost her make-believe children in her own series, which shows the gradual breakdown of her mental health. She is incredibly overpowered: able to travel into and create entire realities, utilize powerful telekinesis, and even make things happen just by saying so: her most famous example being the phrase “no more mutants” in the comics: effectively wiping the mutant gene from the face of the earth.
Her powers make her a formidable ally or the most atomic villain depending on her mood, as was shown in Doctor Strange ITMOM. In Civil War her accidental explosion resulted in the loss of civilian life. She felt remorse at this incident but after losing her brother, being forced to kill Vision, and then losing her children has apparently left her devoid of a conscience.
She murders indiscriminately in MOM, showing that faced with the possibility of being reunited with her lost loved ones she's not to be crossed. You could argue that she was corrupted by the Darkhold book, but she frequently says on occasions things like “this is the real me”.
This duplicity shows that she tends to be either help or a hindrance to Earth's Mightiest Heroes. Loss affects us all but is no excuse for her behaviour in MOM. In fact, loss is usually a galvanising factor that creates heroes and their selfless motives in the first place. Look at Spider-Man or Batman.
In the end, Wanda realizes the error of her ways and tears down the Darkhold temple around her, seemingly killing herself. The MCU being what it is, death is never quite the end for a lot of characters, especially offscreen. There have been numerous fake-outs that nullify certain actions. However, I think it's important that this particular Wanda stay dead. Assuming that she's still alive or ‘White Vision’ from Wandavision swooped down and saved her as an ex-machina, she can’t be permitted to be an Avenger, or even a hero, ever again.
It's not enough to say that she was corrupted and not in her right mind: she still consciously took the lives of countless Kamer-Taj students and Illuminati members. The Winter Soldier had a similar dilemma in his redemption, but he's nowhere near as powerful as Wanda, who can kill with just a thought from her broken mind. Bucky Barnes was truly brainwashed and retained no free will, although it was technically his hands that pulled the trigger, even on Tony Stark’s parents.
That's not to say that Elizabeth Olsen shouldn't return as Wanda Maximoff however. The MCU is officially slowly but surely bringing the X-Men into the fold, of which she is also a member. She's the daughter of Magneto; and Charles Xavier, Magneto's nemesis has already been shown. The X-Men version of her brother Pietro has also been shown and featured prominently in Wandavision.
The MCU is embracing the Multiverse as a buzzword for a ‘do-over’ to gloss over all the inconsistencies that don’t connect the wider Marvel movie properties under the Disney banner. This retcon has served to make an incredible Spider-Man movie with the other incarnations that we know as other universe versions of the same character.
The Multiverse has countless realities wherein we could see an alternate Wanda with all her powers intact that never committed any crimes. Hopefully, one where a young beautiful woman doesn’t think her only shot of love was with a pink and green robot. Or believes that real human children could have been begotten with said robot.
It's already been done with the Guardian of the Galaxy’s Gamora. She died in Infinity War but a former timeline version of her exists which keeps actress Zoe Saldana's version alive and well, while still keeping her sacrifice intact.
More importantly, from what we’ve seen of Wanda's power eclipses the need for another hero assembly movie. She can eliminate pretty much every threat, which will make the audience wonder in any other movie 'why didn't they just get Wanda to do it?' Her death levels the playing field, making enemies an even match again: which is needed to show the risks the other heroes face.
The other heroes wouldn’t accept her for her crimes either: it's just not ethical. It ruins the image that they fought for with the dispute over the Sokovia Accords. So if she's too 'OP' we don't need to gather all these different heroes, and who doesn’t want another Avengers movie?