One of the coolest things about Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is that the movie retroactively explained some of the mysteries left in the wake of Disney+’s WandaVision. Universe 838 offers a glimpse not only into an alternate reality with characters that are still to make their mainline series debut, but it also explains why Wanda was so obsessed with her kids in WandaVision – or, rather, these specific versions of her kids from all over the Multiverse.
The events of WandaVision on their own made it seem like Wanda seemingly created Billy and Tommy completely out of thin air, but thanks to Multiverse of Madness, we now know that she had a “reference” of sorts when she decided how her children should look like.
Dreams now seem to be more important than ever in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Doctor Strange 2 confirmed that dreams show an alternate reality somewhere in the Multiverse, connecting variant versions of the same character and their experiences. This is how Doctor Strange first “feels” the death of Defender Strange, and ‘Dreamwalking’ is an ability of the Darkhold that would play an integral part in the film’s plot.
Knowing this, we can conclude that Wanda, prior to what happened in Westview and WandaVision, had a dream that included her kids from Earth-838. She became fixated with the idea of becoming a mother – and more importantly, she wanted the kids she saw in her dreams.
However, there’s one glaring omission that’s hardly explained in the movie: who fathered Wanda’s children in Earth-838? Our knowledge of Earth-616 would make us believe that the answer would be Vision – or some alternate version of him – but it’s still strange that Wanda’s husband isn’t brought into the picture at some point, not even by Scarlet Witch. Let’s not forget that WandaVision was essentially Wanda’s coping process after seeing Vision being killed by Thanos, so, at the very least, she’d be glad to see an alternate version of her beloved alive and well.
There are some theories that all seem to conclude that Vision might not be with Wanda in Earth-838 – and even if he is, he would be a dramatically different version than the one we know and love. For instance, we can briefly see that the Illuminati of Earth-838 use Ultron bots, which means that, in that reality, the whole war with Ultron never happened, which in turn would mean that Vision was never created.
Another question that seems to be at least vaguely answered in the film is why is there just one Scarlet Witch in the Multiverse. Wanda mentions that, at least as far as she can see, she’s the only version of Wanda Maximoff that doesn’t have real children. This means that every other version of Wanda didn’t go through the events of WandaVision, ergo, they never came into contact with the Darkhold and its corrupting powers.
It seems like Wanda’s kids are the key to the whole mess that the Multiverse is in right now. Even if she destroyed the Darkhold at the end of the film, there’s a worrying cloud of Chaos Magic that appears just as the Scarlet Witch temple is crumbling which might indicate that Wanda is still alive.
Marvel fans will still have to play the waiting game for a bit more, as we’re sure that more mysteries about the Darkhold, and perhaps the conclusion to Wanda and Vision’s plot might be coming in 2024, when Agatha: House of Harkness comes to Disney+.
