it isn't Wednesday any more...

[vaznetti]

...so I can talk about megafandoms.

I seem to have neglected to mention that we got Disney+ as my birthday present this year. So far we've watched both seasons of The Mandalorean (which was great, although kind of weird to encounter characters like Asoka and Bo Katan whom I otherwise know only through fanfic). And the whole thing was basically like accidental baby acquisition, which is a fanfic genre I am fond of anyway.

I have become much more relaxed about SW now that I've decided that the sequel trilogy just isn't canon to me. There's some stuff there I liked, and some interesting characters, but I can't really square it plotwise with literally everything else in the universe. One thing I did rather like was the worldbuilding, the sense of everyone living on in the wreckage of a universe which had seen better days, and The Mandalorean carried that on. Much of the SW universe post-Clone Wars seems really underpopulated and underdeveloped, which is presumably what happens when the government spends all its money building death stars and doesn't have anything left over for other parts of the economy.

Now we have seen WandaVision and are going to be caught up with Falcon & Winter Soldier by the time the next episode airs. I guess my comments about these are more spoilery so under the cut they go.

Wanda has never been my favorite character in the MCU because on the one hand she is really really OP but somehow the "with great power comes great responsibility" message seems not to apply in her case. So I was torn on her ending here, because on the one hand she suffers this terrible loss but on the other she's basically been torturing the population of an entire town for weeks (maybe less?) and somehow they're in the wrong for not appreciating her. I don't know. I feel like she has a responsibility to those people and that place to at least try to repair some of the damage she did. At the very least they needed a proper apology.

On the other hand I do like that both this and FatWS are playing around with what happens when half the earth's population disappears for 5 years and then suddenly reappears with no idea of what they missed. I assume that I'm meant to find the Flag Smashers at least somewhat sympathetic, since I'm obviously also meant to find the new Captain America more than a little pathetic. Also, was Zemo a baron in the movies? I don't remember but it probably wasn't relevant. We're up toepisode 3 now and I am delighted to see that the Dora Milaje have turned up to take Zemo back to prison, just maybe one of theirs instead.

I very much like the old-married-couple stuff with Sam and Bucky. They actually went to couples therapy! It was adorable even though it really didn't have anything to justify it: pure fanservice of a very old-fashioned kind. Not that I think the MCU would ever really allow Bucky and Sam to date, since their idea of sufficient inclusivity is apparently to have some random character who appears for only a single scene mention his husband.

So episode 4 tonight, and then episode 5 with everyone else!

Comments

[maidenjedi]

The more I think about WandaVision's ending, the more I think we're not supposed to really sympathize with her because they are setting her up as either a Big Bad or doing something that requires other Avengers to really step in and fix it. I really didn't like her getting away with what she did in Westview - it wasn't like what happened in Laos, or really even what happens when the Avengers show up anywhere. Possibly the only correlation is Sokovia, and the Avengers (Tony) paid for that with the Sokovia Accords. If we've seen anything happen with the MCU, it's that the smallest things can have consequences years down the line - no way does Westview remain an "anomaly."

[vaznetti]

I would definitely like to think that we will revisit the Westview situation in the future, but I have a hard time believing that the MCU is going to turn Wanda into an upcoming Big Bad. I think this because of her last exchange with Monica (who is very much the hero of the piece), where the townspeople were glaring at Wanda and Monica said something like, "if only they knoew what you did for them," which implies to me that Wanda ended the show on the better side. And of course that's the effect of bringing in Agatha as a secondary villain; I enjoyed the Agatha reveal but I felt like her presence in the story shifted the whole story from Wanda battling herself & her grief to Wanda battling an external enemy.

But yes, maybe we will see consequences later on, that is very possible.

[maidenjedi]

Thinking of that final scene, so much like Thanos at the beginning of Endgame, my guess is Wanda's attempts to find her children is what will set her up as an antagonist if not an all-out Big Bad. She's in the cast for the next Doctor Strange movie, and that seemingly throwaway line of Agatha's about Wanda being more powerful than the Sorcerer Supreme....

Sorry, this is a rabbit trail the padawan and I discuss endlessly. :-)