WandaVision is the newest hit from the MCU, giving viewers a fresh, funny and incredibly sinister story full of twists and turns, particularly of the witchy variety. Wanda Maximoff is referred to as ‘Scarlet Witch’ for the very first time in the cinematic adaptations, by another powerful witch, Agatha Harkness. In the latter episodes of the series, we see these two women, each with their own brand of dangerous magic, facing off against each other to achieve their respective goals. Even in the superpowered world of the MCU, Agatha and Wanda stand apart. Agatha is an ancient witch whose powers are strong enough to temporarily de-power Wanda; Wanda herself can remake reality so efficiently that she can carry a small town through a living sitcom, and bring back her dead love. Both women are feared and sometimes ostracised by their peers; even in a world where Norse gods rub shoulders with super soldiers and radioactive balls of muscle and anger, a woman with dangerous magic is seen as a higher-level threat. The dangerous magical women of WandaVision struck a chord with me, reminding me of several other books I’ve read recently. The trope of a woman or girl with magic or power that frightens even the other magical, powerful people around her is a more common one than you might think. So, too, is the fact that these characters are nearly always good people, determined to use their powers to help others, but living in the shadow of a predecessor who used a similar power for evil. It’s perhaps not surprising that the ‘dangerous magical girl or woman’ trope is such a compelling one – in a society constructed on patriarchal prejudices, a powerful woman can be a frightening figure to authority figures, especially when that woman has other marginalisations within a society structured to depower her on several axes. I love that there are so many fascinating stories that look at these powerful women and girls, centre them in the story, and resist the urge to make them wholly good or wholly evil, but instead show them for who they are – complex and human. To brush up on your WandaVision background knowledge, check out our article on Agatha Harkness: Everything You Need to Know. If you can’t get enough of literary witches, you’ll find plenty of inspiration for your TBR pile on our list of 20 Witchy Books from 2019.
