SPOILER WARNING: The following article contains massive spoilers for the end of WandaVision. If you have not yet watched the show, continue at your own risk!
Reflecting on the series finale of WandaVision, the antagonistic White Vision makes what could inarguably be described as an abrupt exit. Following his philosophical conversation with his colorful counterpart, his memories are restored, and after his eyes clear and he announces, “I am Vision,” he immediately flies away. There isn’t a follow-up scene that explains where he goes or how his personality has changed, leaving his story open-ended – and according to Head Writer Jac Schaeffer there is a specific reason why that is: the Disney+ series isn’t about him.
With WandaVision having come to an end last Friday with the arrival of the appropriately titled “Series Finale,” I had the great pleasure of speaking with the filmmakers behind the show today during a post-series press day, and it was while speaking with Schaeffer that I asked about the fate of White Vision. Discussing the capacity for shows and movies in the Marvel Cinematic Universe to keep the stories of characters open-ended knowing that there are more stories to come, I asked if there was ever a scene written that hinted at the color-drained synthezoid’s future in the world after leaving the hex, and she explained why that was never the case:
[There's no scene of where White Vision is in the world] because the point is that he's not her guy. That's not the man that she had children with. That's not the one who's been in the sitcom world with him. That's not the one that she said goodbye to on a hill in Wakanda. That's the body and the data. So for the purposes of me and my job on the show, and what I focus on, where he ends up is an afterthought to the story proper.
Described via the metaphysics thought experiment The Ship of Theseus in the final episode of WandaVision, White Vision may consist of the parts that made up the character first introduced in Avengers: Age Of Ultron (minus the reds and the greens), and he now may have the memories of Scarlet Witch’s husband… but that doesn’t really make him the Vision. He is very much a reborn entity in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and while we almost surely haven’t seen the last of him, Jac Schaeffer didn’t feel it was in the purview of the head writer of WandaVision to set up his future because the real focus had to be on the true titular synthezoid.
Having White Vision leave the way he did and have the story continue with Hex Vision was something that Schaeffer was extremely happy with in the making of the Disney+ show, and she defended the choice by saying that it gets at the heart of who the character is. Said the filmmaker,
What I love about how we chose to handle that is it feels to me very true to our characterization of Vision. Vision's whole thing is identity; his whole thing is, ‘I was a voice and then I was a body. And now I'm a memory.’ There's a constant sort of self-analysis of 'What am I?' So to me it doesn't feel like a Marvel cheat of like, 'Now there's another one out there.' It actually feels very, very right. There's a constant reinvention of what is the essence of Vision.
Of course, what makes the mysterious fate of White Vision even more intriguing right now is the fact that fans have no idea when we’ll see him again in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It’s been confirmed that Elisabeth Olsen’s Wanda Maximoff a.k.a. Scarlet Witch is going to have a key supporting role in Sam Raimi’s Doctor Strange In The Multiverse of Madness, and Teyonah Parris’ Monica Rambeau a.k.a. Photon will be in Nia da Costa’s Captain Marvel 2, but Paul Bettany’s next project in the franchise is presently a question mark. There are many big screen possibilities to choose from when it comes to upcoming Marvel movies that have been announced, but for all we know his next part will be on one of the developing TV shows (perhaps Iron Heart or Armor Wars given his history with Iron Man?)
Fans will most certainly be eager to hear where White Vision will go next, but for now his spookiness can be appreciated in the final two episodes of WandaVision, which, like the entire rest of the show, is now streaming on Disney+.
