Editor’s Note: The following contains Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness spoilers.
At its core, Marvel’s newest blockbusterDoctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madnessis a multi-dimensional look at what it means to be a good parent. Between Wanda Maximoff’s (Elizabeth Olsen) relentless fight to reunite with her children, to Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) becoming an unlikely mentor to America Chavez (Xochitl Gomez) at this pivotal moment in her coming-of-age journey, this movie offers all sorts of different takes on what being a good parent looks like. In the end, it all boils down to making the right kinds of sacrifices.
Delving into deeper themes related to parenthood is definitely not new terrain for Marvel. From Peter Quill (Chris Pratt) wrestling with his daddy issues inGuardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, to Prince and then King T’Challa (Chadwick Boseman) dealing with the legacy of his father King T’Chaka’s (John Kani) mistakes inBlack Panther, to Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) consistently coming up against his own fatherly hang-ups during a wide variety of different moments throughout the MCU—most-notably inIron Man 2,Avengers: Endgame,andCivil Warwhere not only does Tony confront his relationship to his own father Howard Stark (John Slattery) but he also launches into his new dynamic with Peter Parker a.k.a. Spider-Man (Tom Holland) which is rife with its own paternal undertones. All this to say, themes of parenthood are very well-trod territory in the MCU.
InDoctor Strange 2, Stephen, while absolutely not America’s father, becomes a father figure of sorts to her, mentoring America through this intense time of crisis, fear, and un-confronted grief. When we first meet Stephen Strange inDoctor Strange 2,he’s wrestling with a loss—mourning the shot he didn’t take with Christine (Rachel McAdams). Stephen’s core issue, which Christine points out thereby nailing the coffin closed on their romantic chances, is the fact that Stephen always has to be the one holding the knife. He always needs to be calling the shots. He always needs to be in control. This controlling nature often empowers Stephen to go it alone, to never rely on people in a helpful-enough way, and typically leads him to relentlessly chase the tail of his own diagnoses at any cost. Here, though, Stephen’s impressive diagnostic skills become exactly the medicine America needs in her moment of crisis. All along, while America’s thought she’s not been in control of her powers, Stephen can clearly see that while she may not be in total control, she’s also always sent them to places that turned out to be exactly where they’ve needed to go.
Stephen diagnoses America’s potential, but, his growth shows when, as her mentor, he doesn’t tell her exactly what to do. Before this moment, he’s spent the movie trying to protect America instead of teaching America how to protect herself. And all along, that method of protecting America fails. Then finally, in the moment when Stephen reveals this truth he’s diagnosed about America, he stops controlling the situation. He stops pursuing the exact spell or instruction set she’ll need to know to understand exactly how to control her powers. He releases control, sacrifices his ego, and chooses instead to trust that instilling confidence in her by pointing out this one positive habit of hers is all she truly needs to lean on in order to save the day. With their eventual success comes the validation that sometimes, the best parenting moments come not from telling someone exactly how to do something — in this case how to control her powers with the exact spell gleaned from the Book of Vishanti—but instead, in pointing out and reinforcing the good habits she has. Stephen sheds his ego and trusts that instilling confidence here will catapult America to new heights when faced with future challenges—you know, like outsmarting the witch intent on slaughtering her for her powers.
But the most interesting commentary on parenthood comes from the juxtaposition between how America deals with what she’s done to her own parents mirrored against how Wanda responds to what she’s had to do, sacrificing her twins duringWandaVision.Eventually, during the course ofDoctor Strange 2, we learn that the source of America’s fears around using her powers comes from the first moment said powers manifested. In a single moment of pure fear as a child, America accidentally opened her first portal and sucked her parents into some other universe within the multiverse. America has no idea if her parents survived their trip and has not seen them since, despite having traveled to 73 different universes thus far. In America’s mind, in that moment, she killed her parents. Wanda is similarly struggling with the reality that she has had to sacrifice her children, Tommy (Jett Klyne) and Billy (Julian Hillard), whom she manifested out of intolerable grief during her time in Westview. She ultimately gives Tommy, Billy, and Vision up for the greater good, to free all the innocent people she held captive within her reality-augmenting spell. Now, tempted by the Darkhold, she’s been searching for another way back into Tommy and Billy’s lives.
Not only do America’s multiversal-hopping powers represent a way Wanda can achieve her goal, but America herself is a child who grew up without parents, much like Wanda. And even more so like Wanda, a girl with powers. It’s such an interesting juxtaposition to see Wanda pursuing a child with such a similar backstory to her own, in an effort to eviscerate and use America for her own selfish gain. It speaks to just how powerful the Darkhold’s grasp on Wanda is, how deeply it warps and manipulates her love for her children into the motivation for pure evil. Wanda’s now willing to kill an innocent child so similar to herself, and an innocent variant of herself, all in the name of reuniting some vestige of her family.
While Stephen Strange sacrifices his ego to finally make room for America to participate in saving the day, teaching America to trust her own instincts, Wanda sacrifices something else entirely in pursuit of her goal. To help her children, Wanda sacrifices her autonomy over her own impulses and morality, aligning herself with the Darkhold to reach her children. This is the wrong kind of parental sacrifice, and ultimately ends with exponentially more destruction than necessary. As this story’s antagonist, we see Wanda’s desperation clawing at anything that will keep her from having to deal with the pain she feels. We see a parent refusing to accept reality, and instead, using love for her children as a guise for what she’s really after—relief from her grief.
The Darkhold twists parenting Tommy and Billy into a selfish, empty goal. A prize Wanda wants so desperately, she’ll kill anyone who crosses her path. When she sees the trauma her actions are causing in her boys, that’s enough to break the Darkhold’s spell over her. Up to this point, nothing else has worked. The Darkhold’s grip has not wavered. In this moment of Wanda recognizing the pain she’s caused on her boys' faces, the real power of motherhood shines through. We see Wanda as a woman coming to her senses and recognizing that sacrifices must be made for the wellbeing of her children. When forced to choose between living the life she always dreamed she would live with her boys and the reality that living that life means inevitably causing them and others horrible pain, she chooses to sacrifice her own concocted dream to serve what’s truly in everyone’s best interest. Wanda learns that sometimes what we want for our children, even if in her case it’s to be in their life herself, is not worth the harm projecting our desires onto them will cause. No Darkhold is any match for what a mother will choose when faced with her child in pain.
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