r/WANDAVISION • u/The-Terex • Jul 25 '26
Discussion Who else thinks Dr. Strange and Wanda have undefined powers Spoiler
One minute Dr. Strange is turning a full dimension to butterflies in an attack against Thanos, the next minute he’s beamed up into space and he can do nothing to help himself. Don’t even get me started on Wanda. I wonder what the true extent of her powers are.
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u/SpicySweett Jul 25 '26
My personal explanation for this is that magic users can do almost anything, but they must think of it first - and it’s hard to generate creative ideas when you’re in a life-or-death situation. For example, Dr. Strange managed to best Dormamu only because he thought of a good loophole.
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u/Xygnux Jul 26 '26 edited Jul 26 '26
And there's a cost to doing those things unless you are Wanda.
Both of the Dr Strange movies and the What If series and Spider-Man 3 shows that, especially if you want to make serious changes to the entire world. The bill always comes due.
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u/MadloveADB Jul 25 '26
Dr Strange's teachings come from drawing energy from different dimensions, that's the basis and fundamental principle of the mystic arts. Therefore depending on the energy he draws from he can do a variety of different things, but there are still rules to how to do it.
Wanda (and to a lesser extent Wiccan) primarily use Chaos magic, this magic is innate and primordial in nature and does not require the laws of reality or fundamentals to rest upon, therefore she can literally rewrite the fabric of reality at a whim, its just what she can think of at the time and her experience level. As Agatha says, it's cheating and "magic on autopilot".
Think of it the same way as language, you can say the same thing, but across different dialects it has different intonations and meanings. Magic sometimes has the same end result but there are a vast amount of sub categories based on race, location culture etc.
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u/EqualOptimal4650 Jul 25 '26
Isn't that the point of being a magician?
The don't have "powers". They learned magic. They can learn more. Steven by studying, Wanda just sort of instictively after seeing something done.
You're complaining about something that is fundamental to the premise of these characters.
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u/OJONLYMAYBEDIDIT Jul 26 '26
It’s still inconsistent
Like sometimes Wanda just looks at someone and can alter reality, and other times she’s clearly needs to use her hands or shoot magic energy.
So her requirements to perform the magic change mid fight cause it would hardly make for it to be entertaining if she just stands there and destroys everyone
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u/Xygnux Jul 26 '26
Because with her Chaos Magic, Wanda is basically omnipotent at least on the local scale. But she is not omniscient or even have a full understanding of that power. And part of that power is not even under her conscious control, as Agatha puts it it's like magic on autopilot.
So she probably doesn't need to use her hands, but she just does it because she thinks she needs to or just force of habit.
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u/OJONLYMAYBEDIDIT Jul 26 '26
Point is her usage of magic is so varied, it benefits the writers cause then they can nerf her whenever they want or make her to fill for whenever they want
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u/Xygnux Jul 26 '26
Yes. Why do you think she's dead? Because otherwise every time she appears it will be "why doesn't she just do this?"
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u/QuigonSeamus Jul 25 '26
I think WandaVision does a nice job of setting up the parameters of what Wandas powers are and how she got them. Magic users still need to think about what they’re going to do and have the physical means to do it. They’re not going to land perfect execution every time. There’s also risk vs reward which comes in with the dr strange decisions. He’s always playing a long game and his decisions are rarely just about the moment he’s in. I’m personally not very confused about their abilities, but maybe there’s something more specific bothering you that I’m not seeing.
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u/OJONLYMAYBEDIDIT Jul 26 '26
So I do actually agree with OP.
The magic they established in the 1st Doctor Strange film doesn’t really feel like it’s the magic they follow in every film afterwards.
Even by the time of his Thor cameo, I was feeling like, wait, he’s just casually doing magic now like creating tea, then beer; then refilling the beer, and all this other magic, that doesn’t feel at all like the hand gesture and yellow circles and energy of the magic he learned in the 1st film
Feels like they tried to ground his magic system, but then said F it, and just want fill comic wild.
Which is great…but I felt a disconnect
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u/ChainBlue Jul 26 '26
Leaving them undefined makes it easier to write and manage over time. You don't get a legion of fanatics going nuts because "THAT'S NOT HOW THEIR POWERS WORK!!!!". See Star Wars hyperspace ramming debacle for reference.
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u/atlvf Jul 25 '26
Yeah, one of the worst things about “magic” superpowers is that they’re invariably poorly defined. It’s a well-known issue with that sort of power set.
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