Dr. Strange and the Multiverse of Madness is a movie about female trauma

Warning; spoilers for the new Dr. Strange Movie! Like all the spoilers - of every marvel movie/show too. You have been warned!

This whole movie was about Wanda, or as she wanted to be called here, The Scarlett Witch, one of the most powerful beings in all of Marvel. Witchcraft is a historically female accused endeavor, playing into the broader context of historic violence against women. Specifically the film was about her trauma of wishing her dream of Westview, where she had envisioned two young sons who loved her, to be real. All she wanted was to be with these boys. She would do anything to get them within her life. Like the greatest mother in the world, she would fight - for them - to be real for them.

There is a metaphor of impotency here. She loved Vision, but he wasn't human. She could never have real children with the man she loved. She would never be a mother. In the multiverse, that is, the imagination towards possibilities, her boys existed. At first I thought the Darkhold was only showing her what she truly desired to have a hold on her, but it was actually showing something real, another reality. How odd that the darkest power in their universe could get someone what they really wanted.

Why was the Darkhold causing multiuniversal incursions through these powerful Beings while the The Book Of Vishanti (Lighthold, lol) was kept untouched in the 'space between realities' that resembled hyperbolic DMT geometry? Is there an ultra religious metaphor I'm missing there? Light vs Dark, beyond time vs through time? Anyway.

America Chavez. Her gay mothers where cast out by multiuniversal powers pretty much immediately symbolizing systemic homophobia from fear. America wore a rainbow flag pin to honor them and their struggle. Being a women of great power, America always though she couldn't control herself, a metaphor of sexist oppression, until she was face to face with a she-devil, mother nature incarnate, that made her realize exactly what she didn't want to be. It showed her how powerful and in control she really was if she opposed such an oppressive force.

The Illuminate consisted of heroic black females who protected all realities and gave their lives defending it against evil. Selfless. Willing to die for their cause - like Scarlett Witch. The Illuminates rules where still overruled by an old white man, which may speak to constant executive male excuses those forever in power give in times of deemed crisis.

The villains in this film where cast as genocidal, willing to kill to fulfil their aims. When Dr. Strange said 'that type of reasoning is what our enemies use' I got real WW1/2 vibes; western powers type deal. That doesn't play into the female trauma thesis I just wanted to share.

When watching the film I cried every time Wanda cried. Her tears were real. She dreamt of her boys and woke up feeling dizzy in a lonesome bed. Her heart would break again and again as she was ripped from the memories and reality of her being with them. She became addicted to the idea of love she once had, tormented by her own feelings. She would cry like any mother whos been stripped of her children would. She lost her life partner Vision too, let's not forget.

When she went to what was initially said to be a tomb, it turned out to be a throne. It wasn't a tomb for her boys or dead family - it was a prophesized shrine of them carved in stone - a temple - validation that she deserved what she wanted, what she felt. If no one was going to help her - as Dr. Strange said he wouldn't - she took it upon herself. What good mother wouldn't?

I felt for her, her pain, her loss, her struggle. Forget all the graphic blood and deaths of random soldiers that occurred in the film, what was scarier was how real the trauma of a mother can be. What is post partum depression? What is impotency? What is abortion, and bearing a child, and losing a child like? I don't know, but Wanda felt everything involved in that. In every other scene she was covered in her own blood, crying from her heartbreak, forever struggling to save Tommy and Billy.

She was defeated by being given what she wanted, being sent to a universe where her kids are real, by having another Wanda tell her what she always wanted to hear - that her boys will be loved - so she as a mother can rest easy, knowing her children are safe. That's all she wanted. In response she destroyed the temple, no longer allowing such twisted emotions to overtake her or anyone else, forever just wanting to protect others. Her destroying the temple destroyed the Darkhold across universes, showing how transcendent a mothers love can be.

I loved the movie. Great Marvel Film. Definite 7.5-8.5/10.

Other lose ends not tied up; Charles Xavier never pulled the real Wanda out from the mental whiteroom rubble, and there was no reason to show Wedding Christine being all jealous that Strange was saving the city from the initial eye ball monster.