On Love, Loss, Grief and Androids

I admit it: I’m a nerd. I like sci fi. I like superheroes. I’ve watched every episode of Marvel’s WandaVision on Disney+, and can’t wait for the finale on Friday. It’s pure escapism, and I’m allowed to want to escape the stress and tedium of my life, as everyone should be now and then.

But sometimes, even in what seems to be silly superhero dreck, there are lines that resonate and take on a life of their own in the real world. Like in the first iteration of Spiderman’s origin story when Uncle Ben tells Peter, “With great power comes great responsibility.” Yes, the concept is older, but the screenwriter distilled the thought so perfectly that the line has been used in the Supreme Court.

In WandaVision, we see a series that explores the depth of loss and grief that the powerful Wanda Maximoff has experienced from the loss of her parents in the mythical Sokovian Civil War, to the loss of her brother in The Age of Ultron, to the loss of her synthetic android soul mate, Vision, in Infinity War. There is something deep in this exchange between Wanda and Vision that has resonated with many and has been the source of scorn by others. I’m in the first camp.

“Wanda: It’s just like this wave washing over me again and again. It knocks me down and when I try to stand up, it just comes for me again. And I can’t… It’s gonna drown me.

 Vision: No. No, Wanda.

 Wanda: How do you know?

 Vision: Because it can’t be all sorrow, can it? I’ve always been alone so I don’t feel the lack. It’s all I’ve ever known. I’ve never experienced loss because I’ve never had a loved one to lose. What is grief, if not love persevering?”

 Did you feel that last line? I mean really feel it? I did. Screenwriter Laura Donney distilled what so many have felt in their souls with that line, that, “What is grief, if not love persevering?” It may not have been original with her. Others may have said this very thing. But delivered by a deep red, sentient, super-powered android fans have grown to love, it nearly brought tears to my eyes.

Why must people make fun of things that touch the hearts of others? Why is that cool? The line touches the very core of the human experience. Life is more than mere existence because we love. And love does not magically disappear with loss. Loss is so much greater where there is great love. Those who dispute this have either never experienced great love or an equally great loss.

I hope that this line becomes etched in the human psyche and takes on a life of its own much as Uncle Ben’s advice to Peter Parker. It is comforting to have a new definition of grief that paints it as a positive, and gives us not a stark end point, but a place to begin to celebrate the love that was so full and real that it justifies the depth of that grief. But I would hope that in realizing its true nature, grief would allow us to move forward, to continue to love deeply and well, and fill our moment in the universe with wonders that inspire.