How Powerful Was Scarlet Witch Before The Mind Stone Changed Her?
In WandaVision, the Mind Stone boosted Scarlet Witch's powers. But how strong would Wanda have been without exposure to that Infinity Stone?
WandaVision revealed that Wanda Maximoff, aka the Scarlet Witch, held some level of power her entire life, but the question that remains is just how powerful she was before the Mind Stone changed her? Since Scarlet Witch's debut back in Avengers: Age of Ultron, it's been clear that Wanda is one of the most powerful superheroes in the MCU. But WandaVision altered her origin story by giving fans a taste of Wanda exhibiting powers years before she even knew what an Infinity Stone was.
WandaVision's penultimate episode took the audience on a trip down memory lane for Wanda's traumatic past with Agatha. The pair travels back through Wanda's memories to the day a Stark Industries bomb destroyed her home in Sokovia, killed her parents, and trapped her and her brother Pietro for two days. Wanda had always believed the bomb was defective and a cruel twist of fate was all that kept her and Pietro alive. When looking back at that memory, she saw pain and tragedy. But Agatha saw a young witch budding with raw talent.
As a seasoned sorceress herself, Agatha easily spotted that Wanda stopped the bomb with a probability hex. This is a huge revelation in itself — Wanda could perform magic without even actively trying to do so. That proves that Wanda was always immensely powerful, even before the Mind Stone was part of the equation. She just never had the motivation to release and focus that power until the events of WandaVision.
The prophecy that Agatha shared from the Darkhold implies that it was always Wanda's destiny to rise as the Scarlet Witch. WandaVision's series finale revealed that Agatha incessantly snooped and pried into Wanda's life because she had long suspected Wanda was capable of chaos magic, making her the Scarlet Witch. Agatha studied the chapter on the Scarlet Witch in the Darkhold, and eventually shared with Wanda what was written about her in the book of the damned. The Darkhold stated that the Scarlet Witch is not born, but forged. Unlike other witches, she has no need for a coven or incantations.
The Scarlet Witch was created by circumstance. For Wanda, that came from the moments of emotional and physical trauma in watching her parents die and being exposed to the Mind Stone. As the Darkhold writes that the Scarlet Witch doesn't need to lean on a coven or incantation, this shows that she never had to learn magic because it was always inside of her. Those traumatic moments in Wanda's life forced the magic to flow out of her. The events of WandaVision prove just how powerful that magic became without Wanda even trying. This goes to show that it was always Wanda's fate to become the powerful Scarlet Witch.
WandaVision showed audiences only a small taste of young Wanda's powers, but that one scene in her apartment all those years ago was enough to show just how powerful she was at that age. Every previous demonstration of magic in the MCU showed the magic user making a deliberate effort to cast a spell. With Wanda, it came naturally to her like a reflex. The difference in the way Wanda cast her magic stemmed from the fact that she wields Chaos Magic, which has never been seen in the MCU before. Previous magic users in the MCU, such as Doctor Strange, cast magic through deliberate spells. But Wanda's magic pours out of her during moments of heightened emotion, with the first example of this being saving herself and Pietro from the bomb. This was meant to demonstrate that Wanda's powers are nothing like the MCU has ever seen before.
The MCU confirmed that Wanda was born with powers in an unorthodox way – a book. The Wakanda Files, which are presented as Black Panther's Shuri's collection of notes regarding the world of the Avengers. Within this book, Shuri documented thorough notes about the Infinity Stones, taking a special interest in Wanda and the Mind Stone. Shuri noted that Hydra settled on using the Sokovians for their Mind Stone experiments as they observed a number of genetic anomalies among Sokovians. This eventually led Shuri to the conclusion that Wanda and Pietro's powers are biological in nature, technically making them mutants. As Wanda already had some level of power from a young age, she was always genetically equipped to handle the enhanced powers that the Mind Stone would bring on.
The Mind Stone awoke Wanda's existing dormant powers. WandaVision made it clear that she exhibited powers at an early age, long before exposure to the Mind Stone. That's because those powers came from the magic that lived within her as a witch. Chaos magic is ancient and, according to the comics, Wanda was touched with that magic from birth. Chaos magic is defined as the ability to manipulate and reconstruct reality. She demonstrated that with the raw talent she used to stop the bomb in her childhood apartment. That proves that she was always destined to be powerful. If she had the proper training, she likely would have learned how to wield her chaos magic properly at an earlier age. Wanda was always destined to become the Scarlet Witch, so the Mind Stone wasn't going to change that. It might have altered her powers slightly, but that magic was always there. The Infinity Stone is just what finally brought that magic forward.
But her run-in with the Mind Stone is what set an important element of her destiny in motion — becoming one of Earth's mightiest heroes. The Avengers are tied closely to the Infinity Stones, so Wanda never would have joined their ranks if she didn't take part in those Mind Stone experiments as a teenager. Becoming an Avenger changed her life for better and for worse. She found love with Vision, but also experienced some of the deepest trauma of her life with the loss of him and Pietro. Being an Avenger shaped the person that she would eventually become. WandaVision proved that Wanda was always set to become the Scarlet Witch, she was always destined to become one of the universe's most powerful beings. The journey simply would have looked a little different without the Mind Stone.