So I found out what the Darkhold actually is and I'm going to share my knowledge with you.

So, at the end of WandaVision, we saw a couple of cut scenes. The most significant of the cut scenes reveals that the Scarlet Witch (Wanda Maximoff) has kind of split herself into two beings. The first one is in a cabin drinking coffee or tea and relaxing with a wilderness view of a lake, and the other is in the bedroom levitating and absorbing the knowledge of a book called The Darkhold. I knew nothing about The Darkhold. However, my friend James (who is more into comic books than me) sent me a video link on Facebook that told me a little about what The Darkhold is, and in many respects, listening to it is a clue as to what may be coming in the Marvel cinematic universe (the MCU).

So, what is The Darkhold? Well, it's a book written on flesh (of course it's a book written on human flesh) that is all about an Elder God called Chthon. Chthon was spawned from this concept called the Demiurge, which was the creator of the Earth in the Marvel universe. Most of the elder gods went evil, but there were a couple that didn't. Gaia was one and she asked the Demiurge to allow her to give birth to a child who was literally "the god eater." Well this child took care of most of the bothersome evil elder gods, but Chthon escaped the god eater by hiding in another dimension.

Being exiled from earth didn't mean that Chthon was comfortable in his new home, and so he's always wanted to find a way back from his dimension. This Chthon left behind a book that contained all his knowledge of how to manipulate chaos magic to do all kinds of dark and powerful things (a spellbook), and it was called The Darkhold. It is an artifact of great power that teaches magic users how to do incredibly powerful things, but it's one purpose is to take over the person reading the book and use their power to either further the aims of Chthon, or to outright free him of his imprisonment.

Many years later, Morgan Le Fay and a coven of witches tried to summon and control Chthon, but the entity ended up being too powerful. So Morgan Le Fay imprisoned Chthon under Wundagore Mountain, where it's been ever since. So, at the end of WandaVision, it's not a stretch to think that the Scarlet Witch has gone to a cabin on Wundagore Mountain. In the comic books too, she and her brother Quicksilver were born on Wundagore Mountain (their father was Magneto), although I guess that's been retconned in some other story. I'm not sure what the canon explanation of that happens to be.

Anyway, The Darkhold seems to be a prop that is closely and intimately associated with this powerful and evil elder god named Chthon. The maker of the video indicates that if we thought Thanos was bad, then Chthon is way worse. However, I'm not so sure they can top what Thanos was (as a villain) in the MCU. I mean...they spent twenty some odd movies slow-burning Thanos and when he finally got his moment to shine, he killed off half the universe and destroyed the Avengers. We literally had to wait a year for another satisfying resolution to the events of Avengers: Infinity War. So, having experienced all of that, I'm not sure I can buy into the fact that Chthon is worse than Thanos, except (maybe) that Chthon is universe ending as opposed to half the universe ending as a threat level. It all becomes kind of silly when framed that way, but in fictional narratives and comic books, there is always going to be a need to "outdo" what has come before, right? I just don't know if Thanos can be outdone. But, maybe I just don't possess the imagination to see it, which is why I don't work for Disney.

I do, however, appreciate that the comic books have at least tried to detail what exactly The Darkhold is rather than just saying, "It's a book of spells." Books need to contain things, and it can be too easy to just create a bunch of mysterious covers and then expect people to make up what is supposedly behind those covers. This is kind of how I feel about The Necronomicon. We don't really know what that book is or why it exists other than it contains the rambling mumbo jumbo of a mad Arab and is somehow related to the Cthulhu mythos. Are its pages filled with spells? Does it have cooking recipes? What do those spells do? The Darkhold by contrast seems to have more answers within the comic book lore. For one, we know it exists because it was created specifically by a powerful elder god to bring him back to earth. And two, it has spells in it that manipulate chaos magic to produce dark and evil effects that (assumedly) people are oblivious that they can do with their chaos magic. It also has a full chapter dedicated to the myth of "The Scarlet Witch," which is very useful because there's a character running around with that title. Finally, its chapters on dark matter (a thing that is name-dropped a lot in the physics world) lend a psuedo-sciency lore to everything so that they can create a plausible suspension of disbelief among those of us who know nothing of real-world physics but like to pretend we are not stupid (many of us including myself are in fact stupid in actual physics). 

I am looking forward to more development of The Darkhold and the Scarlet Witch's character in the MCU. Being a book, inevitably Doctor Strange is going to weigh in on it with his expertise, and it's probably a nice teaser for the next Doctor Strange movie and in what direction it may go.

So it turns out Wanda Maximoff in the MCU was just using magic all along.

It turns out that the red glowy thing was just a magical spell all along. It also can
be turned off by just painting some runes on a wall. That's so disappointing.

There are spoilers ahead for WandaVision.

I just finished watching the short made for television series called WandaVision. I'd written about it in a previous post, and I said that it was difficult to watch because I empathized with Wanda's incredible pain and grief. Here was a character who was suffering who needed professional help. She needed therapy. My opinion on that has not changed a bit with the end of the series. But there were a few things I learned from this version of Wanda Maximoff that I wasn't aware of (and I'm strictly talking MCU Maximoff).

The most important of these realizations is that Wanda is a magic user. She was always the Scarlet Witch in the comic books. However, the MCU portrayed her powers in a way that made me think that they weren't going with straight spellbooks, sorcery, and Harry Potter-esque props. I'm talking old school wizard here. Wanda is just a student that never made it to Hogwarts, and I think I find that disappointing.

I mean, the MCU went a long ways with the Asgardians to portray their technologies as just super advanced versions of science, and the powers that Thor wielded kind of reminded me of how Jedi use "The Force" in Star Wars. They can just do things because of whom they are. Being children of Odin, Thor, Loki, and Hela just had a natural bent for tapping into the Odin Force, and they could just alter and manipulate versions of reality using that power.

I thought Wanda had been set up similarly. In other words, I wasn't expecting them to explain the mechanics of her powers. Nor did I think that this was necessary. She was just fine with the red swirly thing around her fingers and being able to do whatever the plot dictated with it. One character way back in Avengers: Age of Ultron defined Wanda's powers as being "weird." I liked that...the idea of "weird chaos powers" was kind of cool.

But by the end of WandaVision, it became clear that Wanda is in fact a witch. She's the Scarlet Witch, and she wields the magic of an entire coven all to herself. She was also prophesied to do so, and there are runes that can keep one from tapping into this magic (I thought that kinda sucked to be honest once I realized that Wanda's powers could be turned off by just writing some runes on a wall). Look...I get it...the need to establish limits to a power. I just didn't anticipate that they were going to be so...purely magical. I mean, essentially this entire time, Wanda has just been casting spells like a Dungeons & Dragons wizard. Oy! Yes...the rune thing really did bother me even if she did turn them against Agnes in the end by putting runes in the sky. This (apparently) is all it takes to get rid of a magic-user.

Magic does seem to fit well within the framework of the MCU. However, I wasn't quite ready to accept that what Wanda was wielding was actual "abracadabra" magic. So, I was a little disappointed. Overall, though...I really liked how this series is sparking conversations about mental illness. And it's inevitable now that Wanda meet Doctor Strange (and work with him), because they both use magic. And who better than the Sorcerer Supreme to help Wanda to cast bigger and better spells with the chaos magic that she wields? I wonder if she will create a patronus in the future. That might be kind of neat.

I feel so much empathy for what Wanda Maximoff is going through and it is painful to watch.

I've been watching WandaVision like many of the rest of you out there. For me, it hasn't been all that enjoyable. As a caveat, I'm not saying that it isn't good. It is, but it's the kind of painful entertainment that Marvel seems to be embracing to tell its stories that I may not be the biggest fan of. Spoiler's ahead as I continue to discuss what I'm talking about.

So, it's this idea of trauma. In Avengers: Endgame it was "fat Thor," which I found to be an extremely painful character. It was played off as funny, which I didn't appreciate. It's one reason why I have not rewatched Endgame, and one huge reason I didn't like the movie. Thor was in incredible pain. He had suffered tremendous trauma, and none of his friends bothered to check-in on him in five years. Thor had essentially been abandoned to become an alcoholic, as he sought out drug abuse as a means to deal with the horrible things he had experienced. I absolutely loathed and hated what they did to Thor in this show.

Well, Wanda Maximoff is next on the list it seems. I always felt that Wanda should be incredibly damaged by the trauma of both losing her brother and then watching Vision die and then herself being "dusted." What WandaVision is doing is examining what happens when a goddess (a person with god-like powers) goes through extreme trauma, sadness, and grief. When I watch this show, it is painful. All the laugh tracks, her mind-controlling everyone, and her anger... it's all incredibly sad. This character is in unfathomable emotional pain, has the power of a god, and none of her friends care. They are all gone; there is no one from the Avengers trying to console her at all. In fact, it seems to have taken everyone by surprise, because no one expected her to go off the rails like this.

It's an incredibly good story, but it's also incredibly uncomfortable too. Elizabeth Olsen is doing a tremendous job in playing this character. I see the pain in her eyes every time she is confronted with a thing that breaks with her "suspension of disbelief." At this point in the season, these "fourth wall breaks" are manifesting multiple times in an episode. At some level, you know that she is aware that she has become unhinged. But it's what she wants. She tells people to leave her alone, because she is finally happy. However, that isn't an option because she's hurting people. Wanda has become the villain.

It reminds me of the same arc that Daenerys Targaryen took in the Game of Thrones series. Here was an incredibly capable and intelligent character who just had so much trauma that by the end, she became the mad queen. I wonder why this kind of madness seems to only hit female characters. Why trauma just seems to build and build on these kinds of characters, and (because they are female) they snap and the whole world has to pay for it.

Most of these kinds of stories all have a character eventually learning to deal with their trauma, and then moving through it to get to the other side. I don't know what Wanda's "other side" looks like at this point. But I don't think there is a cure for madness when it happens to a god. Most of these kinds of stories end very badly, and I wonder if this is just another way to "put down" a character after they have gone crazy. I am invested in the series, and I want to see it through its conclusion. But yeah...it's a painful watch for anyone with empathy who actually can see what's going on.