The WandaVision Theory That Says This Forgotten Villain Is The Big Bad

WandaVision, Marvel's peculiar sitcom-parodying limited series on Disney+, has not yet revealed who its real villain is. Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen) herself is doing some questionable stuff — like keeping an entire New Jersey town in a mind-prison of her own creation — though, she's still not a villain. A lot of fans are speculating that Wanda made a deal with the devilish Marvel villain, Mephisto, as the show has seemingly been dropping hints that his arrival is imminent.

There's also S.W.O.R.D. director Tyler Hayward (Josh Stamberg), who is excessively focused on killing Wanda and recovering Vision's (Paul Bettany) body for some reason. Hayward is a bad guy, but he definitely isn't the final boss, nor has he yet achieved his final form. Some theories suggest that he could be anything from a secret Skrull to Ultron in disguise, an undercover HYDRA agent, or perhaps nothing at all, because the real enemy is a half-forgotten Marvel villain making his return to the MCU after a few years away.

A new WandaVision fan theory that popped up on Reddit speculates that the show's true villain is Mordo, the nemesis of Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) played by Chiwetel Ejiofor. Posters on r/WANDAVISION laid out a straightforward and compelling case for why the return of the magic-hating magician is probable.

Karl Mordo first appeared in Doctor Strange, as he trained Stephen Strange in the ways of the mystic arts. The two fought against Kaecilius (Mads Mikkelsen) together, but Mordo became disillusioned with the Ancient One (Tilda Swinton) and Strange's willingness to break the laws of nature to achieve their goals. He began to believe that sorcerers who keep "perverting nature" are responsible for all the imbalance in the world. He left the Masters of the Mystic Arts in order to rid the world of rogue witches and wizards by draining them of their magic, which we saw him do in the film's post-credits scene.

Reddit user BlockWhisperer described the theory as "1+1=2 level math." Since Wanda is a sorcerer who is abusing her powers, Mordo might want to destroy sorcerers like her. Therefore, Mordo will try to stop her. Furthermore, it's not even a theory that WandaVision will lead into Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, in which Mordo is slated to appear. Elizabeth Olsen has confirmed that she'll be in the film. Perhaps Wanda's conflict with Mordo will start at the end of WandaVision and continue into DS2.

That's the simplest version of the theory. The slightly more complicated version adds that Mordo is working with an even more powerful being that will be the big bad of the Doctor Strange sequel.

"Could be that he's working with a 'higher being' like Nightmare (or Dream Queen or Dormammu or whoever) where he needs so much power to bring Nightmare into our realm," writes cinemaslap1.

That part of the theory feels a bit ahead of itself, but Mordo wanting to stop Wanda makes a lot of sense. We'll just have to wait and see what happens as WandaVision continues.