It's been almost a week since the final episode of Marvel Studios' WandaVision premiered on Disney+, and fans are still deep into discussions about everything that went down in and out of Westview, NJ. The ninth and longest episode of the MCU's debut Disney+ entry seemed to bring new reveals at every turn, with not one minute of the story lacking action and excitement.
During this battle, both Elizabeth Olsen's Wanda Maximoff and Paul Bettany's Vision had to come to terms with their own demons and find a way to move past a great deal of pain and suffering. Wanda did this while battling Kathryn Hahn's Agatha Harkness on her journey to becoming the Scarlet Witch, and Vision found himself equally challenged facing the SWORD-developed White Vision.
While White Vision didn't end up with a great deal of screen time, his inclusion in the plot was certainly something that had the writers and developers on their toes mentally.
HOW WANDAVISION DID WHITE VISION THE RIGHT WAY
In a recent interview with Entertainment Tonight, WandaVision executive producer and head writer Jac Schaeffer went into depth on how she and the production team went about bringing White Vision into the story of the Disney+ series.
In terms of White Vision's individual plotline, the writing team didn't seem to focus as much on where they left White Vision after his battle with Hex Vision. The biggest challenge to tackle was "two Visions fighting each other," which led Schaeffer to focus more on the logical side of the duel rather than having them "fighting each other until the end of time" physically:
"It wasn't about the directive of, where do we leave White Vision? That wasn't the focus. The focus was, how do you resolve the problem of two Visions fighting each other? Where does that end? They'll just be fighting each other until the end of time. It became clear to us that it's got to be a logic battle, right? You've got two Synthezoids with the exact same programming. It's going to come down to logic."
That mental battle led to Vision and White Vision discussing the "Ship of Theseus" concept, which was actually brought to the table by Captain Marvel 2 writer Megan McDonnell. This theory helped the writing team find a way to let Vision win the battle "based on something that was not only incredibly crafty and indicative of his extreme level of intelligence, but also was aligned with his journey" with his own identity.:
"The Vision inside the hex, we call him Soul Vision, we wanted Soul Vision to win based on something that was not only incredibly crafty and indicative of his extreme level of intelligence, but also was aligned with his journey, which is one of identity. So, he's only thought of himself as Vision this whole story. He hasn't been born that long. It's been a couple days. For him to surrender that authentically to his original self, I guess, it just seemed really beautiful and very smart and we loved it. And the idea of the ship of Theseus is actually Megan McDonnell, one of the other writers in the room who's writing Captain Marvel 2, she stumbled upon that thought experiment and had to explain it to us, like, eight times. We were still like, 'Wait, what is the thing?'"
As for White Vision's future in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, after he flew out of the Westview library, his story was meant to have an open ending, which Schaeffer enjoyed including in the journey of WandaVision. Not knowing "where the characters are going to go," Schaeffer merely wanted White Vision's end to be different from that of Hex Vision, with whom Wanda had "a complete goodbye" as the series closed.
When asked if she thinks if "Soul Vision" gave Wanda a heads up about White Vision, Schaeffer responded:
"The way that we approached it is he's not-- He has the data, but that's not her guy. That's not the father of her children. That's not the man that she's been in the sitcom world with. At bare minimum, White Vision? Not funny. I don't know where the characters are going to go, and in the superhero space, I relish that the storylines, like, you're like, 'Well, that can continue.' But that it's going to be something different. The Vision that she said goodbye to, that's a complete goodbye. That's a period on that sentence."
FILL MY EYES WITH THAT DOUBLE VISION
When White Vision came into play at the end of "Episode 8," it seemed inevitable that he would come to blows with Wanda's version of her loving husband in the battle for the Hex. With Paul Bettany brilliantly playing both roles, fans saw the dark side of the MCU's lovable android before the Hex-based Vision swooped in to save Wanda from having her skull crushed.
With both Visions naturally being so intelligent, it only made sense that the two would dive into the world of theology while the physical warfare reigned terror around them. It was also truly special that Vision thought to try to save White Vision, giving him a glimpse of VIsion's memories before the Hex and helping White Vision see the side of the world that SWORD had kept from his memory banks.
As for where White Vision is, it's quite interesting that WandaVision didn't give any specifics on what he becomes after surrendering the battle inside the library. It's clear that he is in no way the original Vision, but he will certainly be a loose thread to pay attention to as Wanda Maximoff's story continues through the MCU. At the very least, should he return, it's almost a guarantee that Bettany will return to the role once again.
All nine episodes of WandaVision are available to stream on Disney+.
