There are many reasons to be vigilant Agatha since alwaysMaybe you're here to see Kathryn Hahn Hahn, or to watch Aubrey Plaza get goth, or because you'd follow Patti Lupone to hell and back. Maybe it's the season for witchy fall vibes!
And if you're like me, you're also probably wondering if this will be the Marvel Cinematic Universe installment that actually explains what the heck magic is in this scenario.
Agatha since always She seems perfectly suited to answer questions like: What is a witch? Where does her power come from? Do they get it naturally? Do they have to learn how to do it? What does it allow them to do? Given that a character called “The Scarlet Witch” has been in five MCU films and had her own TV show, with two Doctor Strange movies and Spider-Man: No Way Home On the other hand, one would think that at least some of these questions would have been answered by now.
But the Marvel Cinematic Universe has suffered from this strange twist, where it started out by drawing a line around the supernatural and firmly labeling it as advanced alien science. Thor understood particle physics, and SHIELD scientists could study the Tesseract. Even Scarlet Witch's powers were activated by the Infinity Stones, not magical study.
And since the franchise eventually dove into the mystical side of Marvel Comics, it skipped the part where it would have to explain why the Tesseract is advanced alien technology, giving Captain Marvel her scientific energy powers and opening scientific wormholes to let in an alien army, but the Time Stone is a magical artifact that allows Doctor Strange to magically travel through time. Are Thor and Loki gods, not aliens? Are the Celestials aliens or magical? Black Panther’s heart-shaped herb allows him to communicate with his deceased ancestors. that Magic? How, if anything, does all this differ from the witchcraft of Agatha and her coven?
It's magic! Why is it necessary to explain it?
Image: Marvel Studios/Disney
Well, I mean, it doesn't. need To explain. Magic, by definition, doesn’t have to make sense. And writers can do whatever they want. But there are real story advantages to telling your audience the rules, limits, and restrictions of the magic they’re seeing. This is the superhero genre, after all, home of the Secret Weakness.
Superhero magic (the magic of Avengers vs. Baddie of the Week stories) needs rules, the same way Superman needs kryptonite, Magneto needs a helmet that makes him immune to Professor X’s psychic control, and vampires need to be averse to holy symbols. The Genie can’t magically make Jasmine want to marry Aladdin, because then the story would be over. When Jafar falls into the trap of wishing to become a genie, it’s satisfying because we’ve already been told that genies are trapped.
In adventure fiction, the rules of magic give audiences a sense of narrative tension, even when characters have the power to do literally anything. Marvel’s Nico Minoru can cast any magic spell she wants, but she can never use the same command phrase twice. DC’s Billy Batson can transform into a superhero, but only if he’s able to say the word “Shazam” out loud. Even comic book magic users like John Constantine or Doctor Strange, whose powers aren’t specifically listed, still have rules that give them the tone and tension characteristic of a John Constantine or Doctor Strange story: all magic comes at a cost.
So what does Agatha All Along think a witch is?
Just because Agate Just because he didn't say what witches are doesn't mean he won't show us. AgateAs we’ve seen, witches tell fortunes, work the land, and sell dubious remedies. They create illusions and have familiars. They have creepy stuff in their basements and wear creepy clothes — unless they don’t wear clothes at all in front of their neighbors, which doesn’t make them feel bad. They do, you know, witchy stuff. (But they don’t hang out with demons. This is Disney Plus, after all.)
And yet, Agatha since always He hasn't said a single specific thing about what witches are. arein an environment where fifteen miraculous things happen every month. Where shapeshifters can be aliens and talking animals can be science experiments. Teen seems to think that getting better at witchcraft allows one to expel energy from their hands, conjure shields, and levitate, but come on, Teen, you just described Iron Man. He did it in a cave with a box of remains.
So, until further notice, I'll be keeping an eye on the series in the hopes that the big MCU series with a witchy feel to it will tell me something about what witches are supposed to be. And, to be fair, also because I'd be following Patti Lupone to hell and back.