Spider-Man: No Way Home Made Scarlet Witch’s MCU Fate Way Worse

Scarlet Witch’s fate in the Marvel Cinematic Universe is made far worse by Spider-Man: No Way Home, which precedes her final appearance. After a briefly villainous and later heroic debut in Avengers: Age of Ultron, Wanda Maximoff became part of the new wave of Avengers superheroes, continuing to protect the world in her following MCU appearances. After losing her lover, Vision, Maximoff gradually becomes a genuine villain, as shown in WandaVision.

Despite eventually releasing her grip on Westview, New Jersey, Wanda Maximoff completed her turn to villainy in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. Embracing her title of Scarlet Witch, Wanda murdered numerous Masters of the Mystic Arts and Avengers members from other realities in her quest to bring back her sons. Wanda did not have a chance to truly redeem herself in the current MCU timeline, however, because she dies at the end of the film, in a turn of events that was not only controversial but also made worse by No Way Home’s theme of redemption.

No Way Home’s Villain Redemptions Were An Insult To Scarlet Witch

No Way Home brings back five supervillains from the Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield Spider-Man franchises, with most of the villains having died in their respective movies. Tom Holland’s MCU Spider-Man opts to prevent their deaths, however, and develops “cures” for their powers and violent tendencies. The plan works, with every villain, even the murderous and multiverse-threatening Green Goblin, losing their respective powers and gaining genuine redemptions before being sent back to their respective universes to form new branching timelines.

While the villain redemptions of No Way Home’s cast were one of the movie’s most endearing aspects, they also make Scarlet Witch’s lack of a similar redemption far less satisfying. Wanda was built up to be a villain with a sympathetic motivation, making her a comparable antagonist to the Spider-Man villains of No Way Home. Unfortunately, her death comes just as she begins to redeem herself, preventing her from receiving the same uplifting ending as No Way Home’s antagonists, and the fact that Multiverse of Madness comes right after No Way Home only makes this more conspicuous.

Why Scarlet Witch Deserved The Redemption The MCU Ignored

Wanda Maximoff is one of the more complex MCU heroes, but the fact remains that she has been a heroic character for most of her history in the franchise. Like the villains of No Way Home, Maximoff fell under the influence of a corrupting force – in her case, the Darkhold. Although Wanda undoubtedly crossed the line into villainy in Multiverse of Madness, there was room for redemption, as she freed herself from the MCU Darkhold and prevented anyone else from falling victim to it, making her lack of a genuine redemption like Spider-Man’s foes in Spider-Man: No Way Home an unfortunate decision.