The season finale of WandaVision has just dropped, and it’s safe to say that everyone has some feelings about it.
Now that the season is over, we finally have some concrete answers about Vision—how he’s alive, whether he’s actually dead, whether the Vision we’ve been seeing all along is the real Vision or Wanda’s creation. Let’s piece together everything we now know.
Vision is alive, but also not quite—depending on which version of him you’re talking about.
1. Wanda and the Mind Stone
In episode 8, when Agatha took Wanda on a journey back into her own memories, we got to witness what we now know was a key event in Wanda’s life.
Years ago, Wanda had signed up as a volunteer for the experiments Hydra was conducting with Loki’s staff, which was powered by the Mind Stone—the same Infinity Stone that would later power Vision’s existence.
Upon touching the Mind Stone during Hydra’s experiment, Wanda’s magical powers were unleashed, accompanied by a bedazzling flash of light. She also saw an apparition of the Scarlet Witch, which, as it turns out, was Wanda’s future self, though of course she did not know this at the time.
Episode 9 further revealed that when this happened, a piece of the Mind Stone was transferred to Wanda herself and lives in her ever since.
This piece of the Mind Stone is presumably what has helped juice up her existing powers to the incredible levels we’ve seen since. It seems to have survived in her independently of the main Stone getting destroyed by Thanos in Avengers: Infinity War and also helped fuel the Vision she created in the show.
2. Did Wanda Steal and Reanimate Vision’s Body?
It is now confirmed that the Vision we saw all season was not the real Vision, or even his reanimated corpse.
Earlier in the season, through CCTV footage, we saw that Wanda had broken into the secret S.W.O.R.D. facility. Hayward, director of S.W.O.R.D., showed Dr. Darcy Lewis and Agent Jimmy Woo this footage when they joined his base. We were led to believe that after breaking into the facility, Wanda must have proceeded to steal Vision’s body and used her magical powers to reanimate it.
However, episode 8 made us realize that this wasn’t quite the way that events actually unfolded. When Agatha took Wanda back into her memories, we saw the events of the day Wanda visited the S.W.O.R.D. facility after Vision’s passing.
While Wanda did indeed visit the facility, she did not actually steal Vision’s corpse. Director Hayward showed it to her as it was being disassembled, and told her they had an ethical responsibility to take him apart as he was ultimately a sentient weapon.
Wanda then asked that he be given to her to bury him, but Hayward refused. He said that he couldn’t give her $3 billion worth of vibranium just for her to put it in the ground.
Following this, a grieving Wanda broke through the glass barrier into the room where Vision’s body was being held. She spoke to his body and simply said she could not feel him there.
So, now, back to the CCTV footage Director Hayward showed Dr. Lewis and Agent Woo. He cleverly only showed them the part where Wanda broke into the room, letting them—and us, the audience—draw their own conclusions. He purposely didn’t show the part where Wanda simply speaks to Vision’s body and leaves.
Hence, Wanda never stole Vision’s body from S.W.O.R.D. in the first place, let alone reanimate it.
3. So, Who’s the Vision We’ve Been Seeing All Season?
We now know that the Vision we saw throughout the season was a creation of Wanda’s magical powers.
Vision said during the finale: “I do not have one single ounce of original material.” This clearly established that physically speaking, Wanda’s Vision had nothing in common with the original Vision who died at Thanos’s hands in Avengers: Infinity War.
This begs the question: was Wanda’s Vision a real, corporeal entity, or did he exist only in Wanda’s imagination?
Kindly enough, the showrunners answered this question for us in the finale.
The new version of Vision we became acquainted with was entirely Wanda’s creation. His existence was inextricably intertwined with that of The Hex, which is why he died when Wanda took it down. However, that doesn’t mean he didn’t truly exist.
“You are the piece of the Mind Stone that lives in me. You are a body of wires and blood and bones that I created. You are my sadness and my hope. But mostly, you’re my love.”
Wanda
So, there we have it. Wanda used a combination of sadness, hope, love, the piece of the Mind Stone that lives in her, and, of course, her transmutation abilities, to create her very own living, breathing version of Vision.
4. Will We See Vision Again?
Now, coming to White Vision, whom we saw trying to kill Wanda, and subsequently battling Wanda’s Vision in the finale. He is most definitely the real deal—at least physically.
White Vision may not have the Mind Stone, but he was created by the S.W.O.R.D. re-assembling the original Vision’s body (which we saw being disassembled in episode 8) and bringing him back online. They blocked him from accessing the original Vision’s memories which were still stored inside him and programmed him to destroy Vision.
White Vision is not a creation of the showrunners—he exists in the comics too. He first appeared in the famed 1980s Avengers West Coast storyline “Vision Quest”. This series saw a government agency kidnap Vision, dismantle his body, and wipe his mind clean of his personality.
Scarlet Witch and the other West Coast Avengers tracked Vision down, only to find a heartless machine that attacks them. Eventually, the Avengers rebuilt him in his white body form, but the personality matrix that made him the “man” Wanda knew and loved was gone. The Vision that the Avengers ended up with was a much less complex, much more robotic being.
In the show, White Vision was forced to examine who the real Vision actually was—or rather, is—upon encountering Wanda’s Vision. Wanda’s Vision recounted the analogy of the Ship of Theseus, helping White Vision reach the conclusion that neither of them is the true Vision, and yet both are.
White Vision lacked the memories of the original Vision, whereas Wanda’s Vision lacked his physical body. Eventually, Wanda’s Vision helped the White Vision gain access to the memories of the original Vision which were stored inside him.
All of this served to make White Vision realize that he himself was the true Vision, following which he abruptly left. We were not shown where he went, which leads me to believe that we may see him reunite with Wanda in the future—especially as we now know that a piece of the Mind Stone exists in her, which could possibly help restore the essence of the original Vision into White Vision.
After all, Wanda and Vision have said goodbye before, so it stands to reason—they’ll say hello again.
5. About WandaVision
WandaVision is a Disney+ MCU miniseries created by Jac Schaeffer featuring the Marvel Comics characters Wanda Maximoff/Scarlet Witch and Vision. Cast members include Elizabeth Olsen, Paul Bettany, Kathryn Hahn, Teyonah Parris, Randall Park, Kat Dennings, Evan Peters, Debra Jo Rupp and Fred Melamed.
The series takes place three weeks after the events of Avengers: Endgame, Wanda Maximoff and Vision are living an idyllic suburban life in the town of Westview, New Jersey, trying to conceal their true natures. As their surroundings begin to move through different decades and they encounter various television tropes, the couple suspects that things are not as they seem.
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