Why WandaVision Is Bad At Mysteries
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- Опубликовано: 30 июн 2024
- WandaVision was Marvel's attempt at a paranormal mystery. But how do mysteries work and is it fair for a show about magic and robots to be held to the same standard as Agatha Christie?
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0:00 Intro
4:45 The School of Hard Knox
9:51 From the Inside Out
15:53 What's Wrong With David?
21:44 From the Outside In
26:22 The Library
30:26 Agatha All Along
36:47 The Summation
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#wandavision #marvel 
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My jaw dropped when they revealed that Scarlet Witch was The Scarlet Witch. I didn’t see that coming.
Ik I'm 2 months late but it wasnt meant to be a plot twist for fans
Nobody ever called wanda the scarlet witch in the movies before
"No way!"
reiterating what foxy said yet two months later, it was also a moment of character development for wanda. She didn't even know she was the scarlet witch or what that meant for her.
Also when they show us that Vision is Vision, but _not_ Vision... But it's totally Vision. But in true it was Wanda all along.
I'm three years late but that still made me snort 😂
It’s a great show, but a horrible mystery. The core audience (die-hard Marvel fans) clocked both Wanda being behind it all and Agnes being Agatha Harkness long before the show even premiered.
well i didn't know that agatha character
the second one was only clocked by comics fans. And as stated in this video, comics knowledge is not something the whole audience has (especially not the general/mainstream audience)
As someone who has seen zero MCU content except wandavision (I was bored and the old tv shows are what I watched growing up without cable). I had no clue what was going on at the end lol which def ruined it a bit for me personally but obviously that’s more a me issue I guess? I mean it would be nice if the show could be a self contained story that doesn’t require a lot of lore to watch but. Whatever. I didn’t clock any of the mysteries but I had no hope of doing so. I did dislike how they moved off the Wanda perspective to the agents perspectives because I found them confusing and boring. I wanted it to be just Wanda’s side. Not the outsides side. Or at least a more clueless outside like how I would feel in that position. Instead it was an agency that knows the main characters already so that did spoil a few small things here and there that I wouldn’t know going in.
So yeah. Not a good standalone show but also it wasn’t made for me.
@@Zelda00Gamer thank you, i can indeed just skip this one. Im happy ppl had fun!
I really didn't like the Agatha reveal because the only reason people see it coming is because she's a character from the comics who uses magic and is associated with Wanda. I never read the comics, but I was aware of the theories, so I was actively looking for signs of foreshadowing. But not only was the reveal not built up at all, the story actually tries to throw you off by having "Agnes" do things just to make herself look innocent to the audience that don't have any internal logic to them. It's like in Frozen when Hans smiles dreamily at Anna when she's not even looking at him so it doesn't make sense as part of his manipulation of her, it's just to fool the audience.
Kang in Loki was a similar deal. Guy completely comes out of nowhere, relying on your knowledge of comics to get the satisfaction of an "I knew it!" rather than putting any foreshadowing into the show itself. If the show were a self-contained original property and you didn't have outside knowledge and expectations coming into it, and it was purely about Loki's character arc and not a vehicle for introducing new characters and concepts to perpetuate the MCU with, the most logical thematically appropriate reveal would've been that it was another Loki variant who was in charge of the TVA, not some rando introduced at the last minute who Loki has no connection to.
"There's an idea in classic mystery fiction called 'Not A Fucking Boomerang!'"
elaborate
@@jknifgijdfui It's an hbomber guy reference
, so it isnt actually an idea in classic fiction
@@videogamee6037 what does it mean regardless
@@jknifgijdfui its a reference to a bs sherlock holmes mystery where the murder was found to be done with a boomerang the audience had no way of knowing about. It refers to a mystery purposefully hiding information to make solving it impossible.
@@jknifgijdfuiIn Hbomberguy's video on "Sherlock" he talks about an episode/scene where, from nothing the audience could have known, Sherlock and Irene Adler conclude that a man was killed by a boomerang.
Having now watched WandaVision, I wonder why they didn't simply go all the way with Agatha mind controlling Wanda into creating all of this, creating events to stress her out to trigger her evolution into The Scarlet Witch to then steal her power or something like that. You can still explore the grief aspect, as people are very often more vulnerable to be taken advantage of in their grief, and you can still stage the entire thing like it was Wanda All Along - because it was, just someone else would be pulling her trigger. Maybe Wanda even accepted a deal from Agatha like she presents in the finale, so Wanda can still have all that guilt. It would have cleared up Agatha a bit too, whose actions seemed....really bizarre. Like is this a therapy session or are you trying to steal this witch's powers? What's the point of helping Wanda confront her demons and sort through her trauma and...make her more powerful because shes healing? I know Agatha was all "omg when did you take the steroids and where do I get some" but the way she spoke to Wanda, backhanded or no, really reminded me of a therapy session LOL I could handle the fucketry of the timeline if that'd been smoothed out a bit.
damn dude thats a really good idea. Been racking my brains as to how they could have tweaked the story so that it would actually work and couldn't come up with anything myself until I read this.
I agree with your changes to the plot. It was definitely rushed to hell and back so they could pump it out fast (especially during the pandemic, which I feel really fucked with a lot of work needed for these shows and movies to be the cinematic masterpieces they were intended to be)
agetha didnt control hershe manipulated her with the idea
i think agatha is so incredibly poorly written, and it’s such a shame they wasted katherine hahn’s talents for such a mediocre character. anyways, can’t wait to watch agatha all along and her fifty thousand wardrobes or whatever the fuck they wanna call it now
The thing is, I don't think WandaVision ever could have been a fair mystery. A good portion of the audience are comic book readers, and thus, everything that's ever been in them can be seen as introduced before. Casting the Other Pietro was unfair, because it got people to expect something it never intended to pay off on, and used its metanarrative element to throw people off track. It didn't play fair, but it never could win.
Plus, how many times have we heard stories of the audience figuring out the mystery ahead of time and discussing it online, only for the writers to specifically go, "Aw man, they guessed it! We have to change the answer now!" Detective novels never had this problem, because the mystery was all in one book, and people couldn't discuss it with one another between chapters. Even if they did, it generally wasn't going to change. With the internet, though, fair mysteries seem to have disappeared.
I actually don't think fairness need be affected by what the audience actually knows, though I concede many writers nowadays seem to think it does. Of course you want to surprise your audience and it's a shame if that's ruined by sources outside than the show. But above all the most important thing is that your story should work as a story. It needs to build to a satisfying conclusion regardless of whether or not your audience already know what that will be. It can still be satisfying to watch a spoiled story--otherwise nobody would rewatch anything--but not it the story isn't well constructed. And there's always going to be some portion of your audience who don't go on the forums or are watching years from now and haven't been spoiled.
Can I put my two cents in? Was Wanda vision released on a streaming service?
So wasn’t it released all at the same time? Like a book.
However you are right about how people will figure out the mystery and the writers will intentionally rewrite it to be “shocking”.
You think they’d learned after all this is what the game of thrones writers did.
Now one of my favorite things to do is watch a mystery and pat myself on the back for solving it. Not because it was shocking. And if i didn’t see the twist coming go back and look at the episode and go “wow what a clever detail I can’t believe I didn’t pick it up. I’m glad the writer or writers included this.”
But the problem wandavision had is- I watched this show with my grandparents whom never seen or any of the marvel movies but grew up with the tv shows they were referencing.
And me who has almost seen all of the Marvel movies.
We both ended up explaining the other shows to each other. But what I picked up is the show doesn’t hold up on its own unless you watched marvel portion of the movies.
I felt like they put themselves in a box.
A want to have my cake and eat it too situation.
On one hand they have people who watched the movies and read the comics so if the people who are aware of that will know what coming but on the other hand it might be a reward to those who read or watched the movies.
But on the other hand people who never seen these shows could get invested but also might be confused with the movie Reference and the comic.
Their literally stuck in a rut.
I hope this makes sense.
@@kayleejazz1669 wandavision and afaik every MCU Disney+ show was released on a weekly basis, not all at the same time as with netflix
@@kayleejazz1669 The show was released on a weekly roll-out, 1 new episode each week.
Mystery books used to be released chapter by chapter in magazines. People did used to discuss them in their parlor rooms.
Thank god I wasn't the only one confused by the "Agatha All Along" twist I thought I was missing something...but it turns out the show was
Agatha could have been good. What I first thought she was, and which would have fitted, is for Agatha to have been made a fake outside villain by Wanda. She was at a point of the illusion getting cracks and needing a scapegoat to ease her guilt and Agatha turns up at the perfect time. Wanda creating herself a villain that is behind the bad things would have fitted so well. It's a pity Agatha was real.
That’s what I thought had a civilian play the villian to either get her off the hook, or accidentally do it as in her subconscious trying to snap her out of it.
i really enjoyed this analysis and felt similarly about the show! The last show that made me feel this way was the BBC Sherlock series, similarly in how they created a "mystery" that the audience could never solve, only to create an unsatisfying plot that mocked the audience along the way
I never made that connection but it's brilliant actually. Sherlock never intended to reveal Reichenbach definitively. Both seemed so mean-spirited to their audience. Joke on people for caring I guess.
Agreed. I love both shows but the fun of a mystery is being able to follow along as an audience member. The “I knew it!” Is a great feeling, so is “wow! I never would’ve expected that!” when looking back and recalling all the clues you didn’t notice. “What? How was I supposed to know that?” Is just frustrating.
they way wanda fell under her own spell instantly upon seeing vision if front of her gets me in the heart everytime
I actually found that moving the sword twist reveal episode to after the Halloween special fixes almost all problems. I watched through by skipping all sword scenes then went back and skipped all sitcom scenes. It worked very very well. Cause then the sword stuff works to contextualize events we've already seen.
i wonder if theres a fan re-edit out there
"Silence in the Library" is one of my all-time favorite Doctor Who episodes!!!
Mine too such a great who done it episode
Imo you're right that the mystery plot would have been better served with monica as the detective from the beginning, and they could have still done the different sitcom styles while she was investigating. The who comparison was good at illustrating that point. Agatha maybe should have been left as something like a post-credits scene to set up the next installment. Idk.
6:10 oh my god the way I felt that in my soul. Thank god Knives Out saved my love for detective dramas because that whole season of BBC Sherlock made it shrivel up and DIE inside of me for YEARS.
I can't help but think that the Mephisto theorizing was basically in reaction to WandaVision's poor quality of mystery. If the fans only had what the show offered to work with then it was bound to be a negative experience for a lot of people but the theorycrafting carried the show because the audiences were looking for a mystery within the mystery, things that weren't easy to guess since the majority of the fan base already knew the plot of the show before the third episode.
8:13 case in point, that example would have been an acceptable solution in a mystery taking place in the world of Who Framed Roger Rabbit.
Like... the rules of that world is that toons can only break physics for comedic effect, "only when it's funny", so imagine the perp escaped through a door drawn on the wall then deliberately had an accomplice also try to run through it but slamming into the wall, there you have the joke. Then the accomplice either erases the door as best as they can or hides it behind a shelf or something.
I love that you brought the amazing "Silence in the Library" episode into the mix. You're so right that this should be the standard Marvel should try to achieve. Thank you for this brilliantly made analysis/video essay. I thoroughly enjoyed it. A German Whovian
You make a lot of fair points, though I still enjoyed WandaVison, there was some room for improvement and telling a better mystery.
I think Marvel focused more on the emotional backbone and the setup for future releases and didn't focus enough on the art of a well told mystery. Maybe that was intentional or maybe they are revealing a story telling weakness of theirs... Time will tell I guess.
Well produced video btw, edits and animations were very enjoyable.
Episode four should have been an X-Files parody of trying to find Monica and uncovering the conspiracy to hide what happened to the town as the government didn't want to scare a population already afraid after Thanos and the end of the world. Then had the reveal that it was reality but left it ambiguous that the effect of the town was bleeding through into the real world.
thank you for not spoiling legion btw, I had never heard of it before, but now I really want to watch it, so I was a bit nervous you would reveal the mystery
In the first draft I did, but then I realised I didn’t need to. And I’d much rather intrigue people to seek out such a great show!
@@JamesWoodall much appreciated
Same!
This! What you have shown has gotten me wanting to watch it now! :)
@@JamesWoodall just when I needed some new shows to watch :)
I low key really hate when a RUclips channel spoils a secondary show or movie when reviewing or critiquing the primary material.
A lot of content creators don’t give a damn.
This perfectly described the issue I felt I had with the show but couldn't put into words! I was never surprised by anything other than the existence of Agatha, but I've never read the comics and didn't know I was meant to be looking out for a 3rd party. After her reveal, I was so hoping she was somehow a fake "bad guy" made by Wanda's subconscious to justify Wanda's actions (because it wasn't Wanda, it was Agatha, who is actually Wanda, yadda yadda), because then it would've been a mystery for no one to figure out but the audience.
Love the videos you have so far and can't wait for the next one! ♥
Honestly. the premise and the hook is so well done, so interesting, the set up is great..and then the ball drops soooo hard.
You said you were having fun with the edit... you were not lying! 😅
A really fun whodunit is tony winning The Mystery of Edwin Drood, based off of the unfinished novel of Charles Dickens. An engaging story, where the audience decides the murderer each night, and they have a song recanting their motives, some of them being tounge and cheek saying "It makes no sense, but you voted for me.".
wouldn't it have worked better if it *wasn't* "agatha all along", but that was wanda's doing, as in, wanda put the blame on agatha for causing all of this instead of having go confront her guilt about it? but no, wanda's the hero, they can't make their hero do bad things in her own show, we can make her evil later in dr strange tho, i think i never actually saw that movie
The thing is she still did do bad things. Even if she didn't mean to, she mind controlled an entire town. Then she didn't even apologize and she didn't get arrested. She just walks away with no consequences.
@@bobafettjr85 no that’s what I’m saying
@@rowandunning6877 Oh sorry. I misunderstood what you were saying.
11:50 I mean theres also the clue that Wanda says "no" and it rewinds immediately after. That is a clue that she has some form of control. For the sake of argument.
The Agatha thing is wild because comic fans clocked Agnes as Agatha almost immediately because of some stupid broach she wore in one episode.
In the same breath comic fans we’re getting annoyed with the set up of the show and LOVED episode 4 for explaining what was going on, so if the goal was to satisfy MCU fans then they arguably did. But like everything in the MCU it’s not really for casual viewers even if it’s more welcoming then other MCU shows.
I personally think Mephisto was going to be the villain but Disney wanted to swerve the audience because they assumed all MCU fans are obsessed with RUclipsrs and their theories when most aren't
That's an extremely small niche audience and to try trolling them messed up what they were gonna pay off
And they already had a villain that could of not only paid this off it could of gone right into the Multiverse of Madness
Mordo Baron, he's connected to both Dr Strange and Wanda in the comics and we already know he hated anyone messing with time magically, so he could of been revealed to manipulate Wanda into causing this hex to prove the world needs less socrcers
Hell, even have him and Agatha have an alliance which again works in the MCU and comics fans would love it because they had many alliances in many comic arcs and it fits in the MCU because Mordo expressed many times he thinks messing with reality and time is bad and has serious consequences
Wouldn't he be even more livid that Wanda and Stephen are just using magic for personal gains on the levels they've gone when he was upset at Stephen just using the time gem to manipulate an apple?!?!?
One of my biggest pet peeves with Disney is how they have yet to pay him off or even hint to him coming back
And killing him off in MOM (In a deleted scene) was a big fu to all the fans who were invested in his arc built up in the first Dr Strange movie
I did enjoy he was an illuminati member however
You’ve precisely explained why I didn’t like WandaVision as much as I wished I could have. I wasn’t familiar with Wanda or Vision ahead of time, so I wasn’t having to bridge that gap. But even as a stand-alone, so much seemed to be over explained, or completely unexplained, so by the end - when the “gotcha” was happening, it just seemed like a throwaway.
I'm SO happy you did Legion. I love that show beyond any other, it really feels like it's too forgotten because it was a Fox thing and not released by Disney. If Disney actually did release it, it would have made more waves
To me, the real subversion would be to twist the source material. If the writers were bold enough to not make it out as Wanda herself crafting the Hex-field but truly instead be her under some form of manipulation, and have Agatha be behind all that, it would’ve been much more appealing. The source material is a widely known reference to the show, and having the show actually built on it and built on subverting it the same time would probably have been more interesting.
before you said the solution in the doctor who story I paused the video and watched it myself, it was worth it
Mon ami! Hercule Poirot himself in the thumbnail. Have a cookie! :3
I personally find it annoying how Marvel seems to cater to the comic fans at the expense of movie only fans. Like, someone who already knows who Agatha is can still enjoy the mystery if it's written well; knowing the twist doesn't ruin the story, if that were the case we'd never rewatch anything. But writing poorly just to throw people off who already know everything ruins it for everyone!
When this video started I screamed "there better be some poirot in this!" and i was not disappointed ♥ such a good video and such good points! I enjoyed WandaVision a lot but I have to agree with what you're saying. You have articulated a lot of things that felt off about the series. Great job!
Poirot? 🤔🤣
i feel that once people became unsatisfied with wanda vision's ending, that it was a sign that the MCU was starting to dwindle in popularity.
When there was the whole thing about Agatha, even though I haven't read the comics I was like "mmm...okay?" And then she was defeated like the next episode so what was the point and when Agatha was like "The Scarlett Witch!😦😳" I was like...yeah? Obviously, don't we already know all of this? Why is this supposed to be shocking?
Ok, but when are you writing the Murder Mystery about the Cyborg Cat from the Future?
I wasnt near my phone, just listening via bluetooth, and suddenly I hear my favorite doctor saying "The library!" a line from one of my favorite episodes, out of nowhere. Well done in making this whovian stop everything she's doing and smile 😊😊😎
I was SO surprised to see Legion mentioned here - an absolutely great example to use for comparison that I don't often seen brought up in discussion about superhero media in general. I think it also is important within this discussion about mysteries because it refutes the idea that a comic book series can't keep mysteries from hardcore fans - the way in which the series weaved and interpreted storylines (Especially in season 1) kept it fresh for non-comic readers and X-men fans alike.
Edit: Also noticed you defended s2/s3 , really cool seeing that - I agree Legion sometimes gets too over its head for its own good (especially in season 3) but I honestly think the philosophical concepts structure of season 2 and the way that affects the story going forward is brilliant and deserves more credit.
As soon as I saw "The Library" I was like "ahh, Doctor. Too bad thats not it. I've never heard of The Library show.." and then I hear David Tennant's dulcet tones!
6:43 I was taught that this was meant as, If a foreigner with customs that a reader is unlikely to be familiar with appears in the story, either, said customs aren't important (then why make it a foreigner), or said customs are important (then you're basing an important part of your story on something that the reader is unfamiliar with and will take a great deal of time to explain, and if you take a great deal of time to explain, there's an expectancy that that person must be quite important to the story)
This harkens back to hit 4th point
It's unfair for the detective to say something like, "Oh, the word 'thing' is actually supposed to be a word in another language that means 'girl', so this sign was actually the victim telling us that the girl was the killer" in the big reveal, for instance.
Though I was also taught that these rules... are more like suggestions
You put so much work into these videos, I hope more people start subscribing and supporting you!
Shoutout Arrival. One of those rare sci-fi blockbusters that doesn’t have planet lasers or alien armies, we just get people cracking codes.
john im so glad youtube put your devil wears prada video in my recommended! loving the channel, can't wait to see more.
also i'd love to see what other TV shows you're into! how to get away with murder is one of my favorites and i feel like it did mystery and suspense very well, but i'd love to know your take.
Oh wow, I discover your channel only yesterday, and here's a whole new video! ^.^
This is also why I hated the villain reveal in Frozen so much. They intentionally added misleading evidence of Hans's innocence, not to mention that his motivations for his behavior only made sense if he was a good guy.
The Hans reveal may not be the most sophisticated twist in cinema history, but I don't think it's unfair, in the Knox sense. I'd say it's actually quite predictable.
Narratively, we're primed to think of Hans as the "wrong guy". The trolls sing a whole song about it, and both Elsa and Kristoff remark on how unwise it is to marry somebody you just met, because does Anna really know Hans? So when Anna goes to Hans for an act of true love, we've already been setup to expect she's wrong.
I don't know what evidence you consider misleading, but red herrings and misdirection don't necessarily make a mystery unfair. Pre-reveal Hans is characterised in way that makes him appear noble and honourable, but can be read a different way once we know his true motivations. 'Love is an open door' is about how in-sync Hans and Anna are, but the truth is he's just agreeing with whatever she says so he can convince her to marry him. Hans handing out cloaks and caring for the citizens of Arendelle makes him appear charitable, but he's just currying the favour of the public he hopes will accept him as King (and also so they won't suspect him of murder). And he repeatedly states his intention to go out to find Anna and Elsa, repeating how dangerous it is for them, which makes him seem gallant but actually he just wants to get them alone so he can stage an accident that will be believed.
The truth is there if you're looking for it. We know Hans has 12 brothers, so can infer that marriage into another kingdom is his best shot at power. And he never actually says he loves Anna, he only talks about loving Arendelle. "I've been searching my whole life to find my own place." He doesn't want her, he wants a place he can own.
Unfairness is about omitting crucial details, making the truth impossible to see. Disguising the truth as something else is fair game.
@@JamesWoodall
There's various small instances where they attempt to paint him as an extremely sweet guy when no one is around to watch him (which they really didn't need to do). Even if he just changed from having a warm smile to a blank/stoic expression once everyone left, that would have been good enough of a "clue" to his true nature. Or at least don't show him while he's alone at all if they refuse to do that.
But the biggest instance of him not behaving in way that made sense was during his attempt to "arrest" Elsa.
First of all, we learn later that he was always planning to kill Elsa, even before she ran away. He wanted to marry her at first, but since she was unreceptive, the plan switched to marrying Anna and then staging an "accident" for Elsa.
Once Elsa ran away, his plan was shifting a bit. Anna ran off after Elsa and had already put Hans in charge, so now all he has to do is try to find some way to make the marriage between him and Anna binding (so for now he needs her alive, until later when he doesn't), and besides that, he only needs to keep feigning innocence while secretly attempting to get Elsa killed without it being tied back to him.
So, naturally, when he goes on the trip to "arrest" Elsa, he would not be opposed to Elsa being killed during the struggle, as long as he was not seen as the direct culprit.
Sure enough, a chance for her to die is presented: a man is pointing a crossbow at her, and she's so busy dealing with other captors that she doesn't notice him. Hans is the only one who notices the bowman.
Instead of doing the natural thing for his motivation and letting the guy try and kill her, he runs over and intervenes. Even if the script demands that she doesn't die, they could have written Elsa noticing the bowman at the last moment, or some other distraction causing the guy to miss. The script did not require Hans to step in, and yet that's what he does.
His intervention causes the chandelier to fall instead. Some people attempt to make this itself purposeful on Hans's part, but it makes no sense. An arrow to the heart is not any less likely to be deadly than a falling chandelier. Elsa does end up surviving it, after all. So there's no need for him to see that as a better murder method, especially as such a death would be more directly tied to him due to it being caused by his actions. It was sheer luck that she didn't die, so his hands were "clean."
And as far as we know, no one would know he didn't step in to save Elsa from the bowman. And even if someone was watching him, Hans could have simply pretended to try and stop the bowman but ended up being "too late". And he could pretend to be all guilt ridden that he "failed her" and garnered even more sympathy and support that way.
In any case, that is probably the most glaring problem, but not the only one. And there doesn't seem to be any purpose behind it accept to mislead the audience.
@@Lady_de_Lis I don't recall many scenes where Hans is on his own, you may have to jog my memory. But you're right that stopping the crossbowman from killing Elsa is an odd choice. As is attempting to talk Elsa down as she's about to murder the Duke's henchmen. If he'd just let that happen, it'd turn the people against her further without him having to do anything that might implicate himself. So you're right his behaviour seems a little unconvincing here.
However, in the next scene between Hans and Elsa in the prison cell, Hans urges Elsa to end the winter. Perhaps the idea is that Hans wants to fix Arendelle before killing Elsa--there's no guarantee killing Elsa will unfreeze his desired kingdom after all--so his intention may genuinely be to arrest her at that point, thinking he could decide the best course of action once Elsa was safely in a cell. (I think severing the chandelier was not his intention either, a genuine accident).
Even so, you're right this is a little clunky. Hans is clearly a cautious plotter, but it's not established that he doubts killing Elsa will solve the winter. And I'm sure they could have gotten that across by having the Duke and the townsfolk leap to that conclusion and having Hans oppose it in a way which seems like he's defending Elsa.
As for making his marriage with Anna binding, I think that was his original intention, but, as you say, his goal shifted. Elsa refuses to give her blessing to the marriage, so that plan is by no means guaranteed. And Anna leaving him in charge makes him the best thing the kingdom has to an heir. We can even see the moment he realises this. He tells the dignitaries he wants to go out to find Anna because "If anything happens to her..." the unspoken part being he's worried he might lose his connection to the throne. But a dignitary says, "If anything happens to the princess, you are all Arendelle has left." Suddenly, it's clear they've forsaken Elsa and are already considering him as next in line. It's only then he knows for certain killing both of them will guarantee his rise to power.
Again, it's not the most sophisticated and you're right, it's clunky. I do agree that Hans as a character often feels restricted by the narrative, unable to behave in the way most natural to him because it would spoil the reveal. But because the clues are there and because it is possible to make an interpretation of his actions that kinda make sense, it is not unfair in the way Wandavision is.
@@JamesWoodall
Just to clarify, I don't claim it's as unfair as Wandavision. Just that I think it was unfair.
Wandavision is certainly worse. But that could partly be because Wandavision has more time to make more problems than a film does.
Regardless, Frozen sticks out to me because it just so happens to be the first film I saw which was unfair in it's reveal. There have been more since, but it holds a special place for me for that reason. (And I don't even dislike Frozen. I actually really like the movie. Just hate how the villain was handled.)
James, I discovered your channel some weeks ago and watched your Devil wears Prada video (and it's amazing!). I clicked this video thinking "HEY but I liked Wandavision so much even though I'm not a Marvel Fan", but I loved this video. Like you said, it's a change on Marvel narrative but still, could be improved. Great analysis! I learn a lot with your videos :)
I love all of your video essays, this one is finishing off my binging of them! I hope you continue, these are all great!
(If I may posit one criticism; during the grainy film-reel sequences in this, there's a subtle but present and steady high-pitched tone that's a big trigger for tinnitus/auditory issues!)
As a comic reader but not an excessive MCU fan, I had assumed popular heroes would be rebooted in different mediums post End Game. At the beginning of WandaVision I truly thought it was an outside of MCU reboot & I was down for a silly period-based sitcom. By the end of the first ep I figured it would tell a cohesive story instead of being episodic.
Until ep 4 I didn’t think it’d tie directly in to the MCU current timeline.
The mystery worked for me 🙂
Having watched further, I agree that the mystery wasn’t fair play
I didn’t expect to be able to solve it, so it didn’t impede my enjoyment at all - but I can see that I misunderstood the critique (:
It took me this long to find the time to watch the video and OMFG, it was great! I don't do the MCU (though I love 90s X-Men and the FOX movies - well, the good ones), but this video having media criticism, Poirot, Doctor Who AND a 'do better' attitude... *I think I'm in love* :D
My favorite new channel! Easily.
so just watched all your videos, so excited to see what comes next, we need more creators with an objective brain, thank you for doing this work
very very well made, and finally an explanation that covered my feelings
same here! i enjoyed watching the show sure but i didn’t get any satisfaction and this video explained why i felt like the show dragged for a bit
I haven’t watched the video yet, so there’s a good chance you will bring this up. I feel that they played their hand way too soon. In episode 3 or 4 when the woman wakes up after getting expelled from Wanda’s world they explain nearly everything and pivot into an action show. I feel the mystery would have worked better if the reveal happend two episodes later and if some of the cameos happened sooner, like the woman from the thor movie. These changes would have added more to speculate and scratch our head over, but also make the mystery feel like it was actually important and not ham fisted to have a sitcom romp for 3 episodes
How on earth do you only have 42.8 K subscribers? Your content is amazing!! Keep it up
Thoughtful and well made. Thanks James! :)
excited for this!
Just discovered your channel and wanted to say that I really enjoy your content! I've never watched WV but the video was so intriguing and well written/spoken that I continued watching to the end.
Love your work!
As much as I agree that WandaVision did not do a very good job with its mystery, I disagree that its premise was flawed and unworkable from the start. I think that both viewpoints, both from the inside out and the outside in working in parallel could've yielded and incredibly interesting mystery.
Rather than have Sword show up three episodes in and have to play catch-up with things we already know, they could have cut back and forth between both perspectives. Each team would work on two different aspects of the mystery, alternating which one gets the clues, slowly getting closer and closer until they meet in the middle and find the solution. When they first introduced Sword, I actually thought they were going to continue the show in this manner with Sword on the outside trying to get in and Vision on the inside trying to get out. I think that it could've built up some incredible tension for when the two teams finally meet, and made for an ultimate "ah-ha" moment.
I truly think that if the first Sword episode was interspersed throughout the first few, then it would've been a much more interesting and entertaining mystery.
I love Legion. Glad you brought it up!
Oh, such a nice vid, I'm very happy to find your channel!
Love and support from Russia
king! i just watched all your videos the other day :)
I wish they didn't flash to outside the hex so much and let slowly reveal that it wasn't real within the show
Great video. Very enjoyable to watch.
My main question; What happened to the bee man after the rewrite?!
I have the same question! He’s never mentioned again!
A wizard did it!
15:15 This greatly bothered me on my initial viewing of WandaVision. I was new in the mcu, had just watched all the movies and shows. My brain was running on all the logic of all those previous shows, with no comic book knowledge. So when the Agatha reveal happened... I was super confused. (The scene with Agatha being strapped to the pole). I was wondering if Wanda had suddenly changed the genre of the show, if this was a new trick. Massive confusion all around. I felt like I was watching a different show or maybe I had missed an episode.
*Then* I realised the show was serious, witchcraft is a thing in this world. Magic that was different from Dr. Strange exists. And Agatha is a witch, an antagonist.
It was so out of left field, it knocked all my immersion away and I had trouble getting back into it during the whole finale.
Brilliant video. Really great detail and very fair with it to. Very refreshing in the world of mass media criticism.
It would've been really cool if Agatha was sort of a twisted hero of sorts, someone who knew all of what Wanda was capable of but instead of stealing her power wanted to contain it. So, she followed her, befriended her, and pushed her grief past the breaking point so she would create this fantasy sitcom to keep her busy and make Wanda keep her own powers dormant in the pursuit of a domestic life. That would explain why she was always trying to keep the truth away from Wanda and Vision and make her a much better antagonist.
This is Absolutely Lovely, thanks
As far as mysteries go, in my opinion Westworld season 1 and 2 is absolutely legendary. Not to spoil anything too much but these guys were showing us two different time periods/timelines and we didn’t even realize it until the end. Many others will agree but it’s honestly so unique and creative that even those same writers and producers couldn’t duplicate it (season 3 and 4 are…unfortunate?) I’d love to see the notes written down while they were figuring it all out, lol that must be like reading a schizophrenics journal
Thank you!!! I've been looking for a video like this, I HATED wandavision but had no idea how to explain why
Me, knowing full well I'm stupider than Watson: ....Uh oh.
Also those Poirot sketches were hilarious. The entire video was very well formulated and put together, and your logic was well formed and presented. I remember thinking while you explained the mystery rubric that clearly the BBC Sherlock showrunners could have used a good dose of that, instead of throwing it out the window like they were, seemingly, too smart for it. Thank you! Good stuff.
This was a masterful examination. Earned a new sub with this.
And the 1st season of Legion WAS amazing. Too bad the remaining seasons never reached that level.
I can agree the first season is the strongest, but seasons two and three are by no means weak. Season two is a bit obtuse, and I didn’t feel I’d fully appreciated it until my second watch, but it builds to a stunning conclusion. And while season three is perhaps a bit too goofy, it’s playing with some fantastic ideas. The time eaters are terrifying!
I liked your film analysis
Spoilers for anyone below- who hasn’t seen Wanda vision or watched this video.
When Agatha was revealed to be the big bad. I kept getting hocus pocus and Halloweentown vibes.
I mean burning at the stake the evil book had to be a reference from hocus pocus and there seemed to be a lot of Halloween town references.
Agatha outfit looks similar to Calabar from Halloweentown, the chanting in Latin, the being the friendly next door neighbor (he was the mayor but he also the grandmas next door neighbor and the mothers ex boyfriend in the movie I think)
Even her standing on a billboard confronting Wanda is similar to him confronting the kids at the ending of Halloween town.
Not only that but Wanda kids have visions similar to the youngest daughter in Halloween town which is how they were able to defeat him in the first place.
And Calabar was also aging people in the movie theater similar to what Agatha was doing and in the sequel Calabar was turning them into black in white and “normal”.
Not only that but in the movie the kids find out their “witches” very similar to what Wanda was told. She’s a witch. The scarlet witch.
At the end of the movie the oldest daughter Marine is allowed to come to or stay in Halloween town and continue her training.
And something very similar happens to one of the characters on wandavision- Rambeau in the movie theater is told by someone at the end that she will be able to go into space and by her mothers authority no less or because of her mother. (I even think she’s still in Wanda “hex” when she’s told this) (and earlier was told she couldn’t fly into space because of her mother’s orders)
Now we see Wanda keeps transitioning people and herself into different tv shows of the decade and in later American television (I think) I remember there being a resurgence of “witchcraft” shows but with more or less storyline involved.
Both for adults and kids shows. (Charmed and W.I.T.C.H.)
So I thought Agatha wasn’t going to be a witch but a person casted by Wanda subconscious to play the antagonist of her tv show.
So I thought Agatha wasn’t going to be a villain but Wanda own subconscious was ironically playing into her own television show.
OH MY GODDD I absolutely LOVE Legion, I screamed when you showed it!!!!
I can only explain this with the hindsight of having seen knives out, but at the time I was watching, wandavision stopped being a mystery and started being about following the thriller of how will Vision escape, or How Sword will save the people. The mystery elements became extra flair on top of the other genre of fiction I was watching. There are still criticisms to be made in how this genre flip, it's not a perfect show by any stretch, but it worked well enough when I was watching
Thank you for this comment! I think it's odd that people would assume this show was just failing at being a mystery... like Y'ALL. The point of the show wasn't the mystery, but the exploration of what grief can do to people and how Wanda has gone through so much loss and how it's finally broken her but also led her to her power.
I’m very shocked he didn’t mention Harry Potter, mysteries with magical rules
I definitely considered it, but these days mentioning Harry Potter comes with some baggage.
@@JamesWoodall haha true good point ☺️
It's not that good anyways. The bad guy of the first book was some rando teacher nobody cares about. JK Rowling is a mediocre writer who got lucky.
@@UltraVioletKnight ....clearly you’ve never read the books lol but I won’t stop your bandwagon, she’s an awful person that deserves everything being thrown at her today 🤮
@@UltraVioletKnight i mean it didn't get so incredibly famous for no reason - jk is probably ideologically beyond saving at this point, but the books are fun and engaging even if they're not outstanding
I know the video is old and this commentary probsbly will be forgotten, but I really want to say that this video is really good, it helped me understand lots of things from back when the show was airing and why I couldn't make those around me fully interested...
And also gives me the perfect change to recomend that, if anyone wants a good supernatural mystery that also plays fair (extremely fair, you'll understand if you watched it) and has the time for it, Umineko: When They Cry, is one of the best examples I could ever think of that, specifically in it's novel version for PC, not the TV adaptation
Eyyy I was just thinking about bringing up the when they cry series as a good example of a supernatural mystery as I was scrolling through the comments, glad to see someone else thought of that too
My whole beef was that WandaVision led us into thinking Mephisto or someone (Dr. Strange?) commanded by Mephisto was setting everything up for Wanda with Aggie playing the quirky Drop-In Character because Mephisto's watching Wanda play around in the world and using/puppeteering her power the longer she's in it, only for Monica to catch on and try to rescue her but Wanda is too consumed by grief to want to leave/so sucked into the "sitcom" that she tries to stop her, thinking that it's her "time to have fun."
Instead, nope. The sitcom was *all her fault.* The commercials weren't Dr. Strange at all, *nope.*
Also, your mystery is bad if by the 4th episode where SWORD pops in it immediately hijacks the rest of the show to the point where you forget it originally began as a sitcom pastiche.
I think you make a good points for traditional linear ONE mystery rules breaking but that was sort of the point, IMO. To do something different with the genre in various ways. They had three mysteries going on introduced once they solved the one before. 1) They let us enjoy the role of detectives in the first three episodes and 2) They changed the mystery from who to why and how and was she evil now or now and how to fix the anomaly and give Monica the role of detective which I think why a lot of us enjoyed the ride. 3) How are we going to fix this specially since we discovered that Vision can't exist outside the Hex and we already were attached to him . We were given new things to ponder and dropping things that were not important anymore just like in real life if you lose a penny and looking for the penny you lose your cell phone suddenly the penny not longer counts as much. And the lack of reaction of exploration of the other characters makes sense because this was about Wanda not the other characters. Asides from Ralph Boner I feel the show hit all the things they wanted to hit perfectly.
It’s a crime you only have four videos up. I’d love to see you deconstruct Cruella, Mulholland Dr, Robert Altman, 2046, Spike Lee, and what the hell happened to Ang Lee’s career.
Why is the production quality so high on this video? Like wtf? Good points too!
I wish Marvel treated their media more like adaptations and stopped trying to full the comic-reading audience. Just like book readers already know the ending, they aren't going to the movie to be shocked or surprised, they (we) just want to the story come to life. The fact that WandaVision was already based on a comic story should have warned them that comic-readers would know. A mystery is still satisfying if you already know the answer because you get to more clearly see the pieces on the way. In fact, I would argue that a good mystery is even more satisfying the second or even third time around. I love rereading Miss Marple's Thirteen Problems not because of the characters or plot, because there isn't much of either, but because I discover new details that point to the solutions or red herrings all along the way.
This was brilliant
As someone who did not exactly watch the Marvel movies, I genuinely enjoyed the mystery, because I didn’t know anything about Wanda and Vision. So I suppose this series is for someone like me, who is yet not very familiar with the Marvel universe. I believe that’s why they actually explain what happened in the movies through the series.
When you said "this style of supernatural mystery has worked before" I honestly thought you were talk about the Madoka Magica movie
This video is fantastic and deserves sooo many views. Come on algorithm!!
Thanks again.
i feel like you could maybe do inside out and outside in both in one story, but you'd have to do it simultaneously. you could even do interesting things with each perspective giving different sets of information, some of which may conflict, forcing the audience to come to their own conclusions about which information is more likely to be accurate
Wandavision was a mystery?
This show gave Truman Show vibes bc we know the answer to the mystery (for the most part) but we still like seeing how the characters interact with the world around them
you should do a similar video comparing this mystery to the mystery in Loki but idk if that has enough focus on mystery to make a video on it
Would love to see an essay like this on LOST
I see a lot of your points, and I agree that the show would probably have been stronger if it was more of a mystery. I didn't go into it expecting much of a mystery personally, but I can see how making it one would have been compelling.
There is just one point I'll contest you on. When you mention Agatha playing her role too well, specifically in the scene where Vision "wakes her up". When I watched that scene, personally, it immediately told me that the fan theories were true and that Agnes was lying about who she was. Because compare her waking up to Norm. Norm gasps and looks around, asks Vision what day it is and where he is, panics, talks about needing to get in touch with his sister about his sick father. Agnes? She immediately starts talking in this really hammy awe-struck tone that just sounds so fake to me, which I feel was most likely on purpose for this exact reason.
I mean think about her reaction. The first thing she does is realize that she's talking to The Vision and ask if he's there to save them, then does the overly dramatic "You're dead!" shout over and over again before laughing and saying all is lost. It's so corny, I immediately bought into the idea that it was Agatha putting on a show, partly for the fun of it and partly to see if she could get any more hints of information from Vision.
Sorry to ramble on about that, I just love that detail of that scene, and sometimes it feels like I'm the only one who sees it since I've seen no one else bring it up, everyone seems to take that scene at face value.
this was great! i just listened to a great murder mystery on Horrorbabble and this just explains so well why I was so hooked! and the answer was there all along! it was definitely the 'oh yes' moment described!
I agree bro.
On first viewing, I really liked wandavision, and I think there was enough there to make a compelling show.
But I’m second viewing, the cracks are much more visible.
It sucks because it had so much potential, but like you said, it spoils itself at times and has reveals that really didn’t have anything leading up to them.
It was never supposed to be a mystery. It's horror with a superhero veneer and some dark comedy. The monster was chased away, but wasn't properly dealt with in the end, a standard horror trope. The only mystery is how people thought there was a mystery to solve.
Liked this allot. I, too, didn't care for the show, and while I have some of my own thoughts on the matter, I was glad to see a 'Wandavision's not good" video that wasn't an angry, reactionary cry for help.
I haven't watched WandaVision but it's been almost universally praised in the internet circles I hang out in - it's interesting to see it covered from a different perspective, and as a Christie fan you've definitely got some solid points here.
I KNEW it was the cyborg cat from the future. It was obvious
If this was marketed as a mystery, I missed it. I went in knowing all the twists, and viewing it as a character study. And for that, I got a lot of satisfaction. Maybe the ending could have been less action-heavy, but hey, Marvel's gotta Marvel.
This is a great video and also nicely articulates the issue I had with Sherlock. None of the mysteries in that are remotely fair which is why it was always so infuriating.