Type: Romantic
Show | Film: WandaVision, Captain America: Civil War, Avengers: Infinity War
Featured Characters: Wanda Maximoff and Vision
Wanda and Vision…I just feel you. It starts off slowly and it starts with a quiet look. One glance, one exchange. It’s opposing teams and it’s mutual pining, but more than anything, it’s two people (souls?) who find themselves connected in a way that is everlasting, healing, and lovely. The fascinating part about Wanda Maximoff and Vision as a couple is seen in the unlikeliness of their acquaintance, and it is entirely what works best. A synthezoid and a witch—one with an indescribable form of experience and one with darkness tied to her growth. And yet, all it took was conversations, listening to each other, and allowing them to feel every ounce of the emotions that burned through them.
Wanda and Vision weren’t particularly one of my favorite couples in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. I liked them, yes. I thought they were precious every time they were on screen, but seldom did they make me cry and that’s often what it takes for me. (What does this say about me as a human?) It’s about the *feels, and while they provided us with plenty, nothing could have prepared me for how much I would care about them in WandaVision the series.
The saddest part about couples in the Marvel Cinematic Universe is that what often happens to them is so far from fair, it is heartbreaking. And with the two of them especially, the films took them through treacherous paths of hiding and running then straight into the hands of death. It was so far from fair that Wanda had to destroy the mind stone and later have Thanos reverse it with the time stone only to kill him for good. Then Wanda had to go in and see his dismantled body—to feel nothing and too much at darkness at the same time.
In our Wanda character deep dive, we discuss the profound weight of grief and the engulfing adoration that inadvertently created Westview and a version of Vision in order to get a chance at happiness. And what it comes down to, is so often the idea that the two of them, in every way just loved so simply and so deeply, it persevered.
“What is grief, if not love persevering?” To have the experience to love each other as they did, however short their time together was, it created something so beautifully special and worthwhile, they have become one of the most memorable couples in this universe. In the short time they knew and love each other, Wanda and Vision challenged each other in all the ways they’d both needed to grow into better versions of themselves.
It’s the detail in Avengers: Infinity War where we saw Vision kiss her palm that tells us of the fact that though her magic and powers have been a source that’s left her engulfed with heartaches, he has loved them. It is a part of her that he cares for, respects, and believes in. It is the showcase of the fact that no matter what anyone says, this is a part of her that Vision sees and adores entirely.
It’s the way they could make each other laugh about the little things in the kitchen. It’s the way that they can find interesting ways to navigate through every day life as non-superheroes that’s so joyous.
It’s as simple as the fact that all Vision ever wanted was for people to see Wanda as he did—all that’s good and powerful and beautiful in her, flaws included. Vision saw the parts of her that weren’t clouded by sorrow, but the parts of her that persevered through darkness. Vision saw the parts of her that preserved into the light. She was the first person Vision ever truly loved, and the kids followed. He came from a place he never knew where, and for a moment—he had a home with her. He had a family. He learned and he grew and he changed her life in the process too.
Their love was real. Their love persevered. In the short time they had together, they belonged together. He’s the piece of the mind stone that lives in her, the best parts of him and the best parts of her interwoven into a short time to define something incandescently joyous. And where there is a goodbye, there will be a hello. There’s hope in the perseverance of what they’ve found.
A thing or a relationship isn’t beautiful because it lasts, it is beautiful when it leaves a lasting impression. Their time together may have been short lived, their memories far too little and not nearly enough, but it was powerful. The gravitas of their adoration isn’t marked by the years, but the depth of all that they felt; it’s the emotions that we as viewers could perhaps never even gather. Because that’s what I just feel you is—it’s their way of encompassing everything that’s changed and moved them.
The little moments and the big ones. The quiet nights watching TV and the disastrous days fighting against evil all made up parts of their journey to protect the other and the universe. A love that isn’t great or big doesn’t consume a woman with such harrowing grief. A love that isn’t great doesn’t persevere as theirs will. I hope we get to see their next hello. I hope we get to see Billy and Tommy. Every version of Wanda and Vision will love the other just as fiercely and there’s always something so beautifully memorable about relationships like this.