Did WWII Break Wonder Woman?
A Fan Theory
With the recent news that the sequel to Warner Bros.’s financially successful Wonder Woman will probably be set during the Cold War in the overly synthesized eighties, speculation has been ramping up about what this could entail for everyone’s favorite heroine. (Hopefully it pulls off this decade better than the recent X-Men: Apocalypse.)
While this particular news about the sequel is all well and good — and somewhat expected given the current political climate between the US and Russia —I believe jumping forward straight to the eighties will be doing Wonder Woman’s story an injustice to some degree. The filmmakers will be able to do some exciting stuff during the Cold War period, but this giant time leap will pass over the one era that Wonder Woman truly deserves to make an appearance in.
World War II.
I recently wrote a post about the similarities between Captain America: The First Avenger and Wonder Woman which you can read here, and I assume that the similarities between these two films is one reason why Warner Bros. decided to forego WWII altogether and jump straight ahead to the eighties.
But after pondering over the climax of Wonder Woman, a little fan theory began to develop in my mind that essentially makes a case for why WWII deserves to have a place in Wonder Woman’s story.
To get there, let’s take a look at the two appearances of Wonder Woman so far in the DC Extended Universe.
While she fit nicely into the DCEU with her introduction in Batman v Superman, there were a few obvious plot points that didn’t quite match up with the Diana Prince we got in Wonder Woman.
The director of Wonder Woman herself, Patty Jenkins, was asked about these disparities and had this to say:
One thing I had a question about was that in Batman V Superman, Wonder Woman says that she is kind of like turned her back on mankind for centuries. There obviously is a gap there, but why is that?
Patty Jenkins: Well, I think that I can only tell the origin story of who she is. I think that there is potentially a misunderstanding between what it means to turn her back on mankind. I think that actually, you know, there could be a difference between having people save themselves and knowing that people must save themselves and even still being optimistic and loving about them, but I think that there were sort of more sunk up, but we were aware that her snippet there versus the story that unfolded, you know, there is a journey of time between.
As Jenkins pointed out, there is an obvious “journey of time” between Wonder Woman and BvS.
A pretty big one.
Almost a century in fact.
A lot can happen to an eternal warrior princess during such an extended period of time.
But the question is, what happened to Diana between the events of Wonder Woman and BvS to make her decide to turn her back on humanity in the form of not intervening in their problems?
I think that World War II could help explain that character journey.
WWII creates a perfect backdrop to help explain why Wonder Woman became more angsty and more hands off in her approach to mankind.
***Spoiler warning. Ye be warned!***
Wonder Woman’s plot focused on Diana’s mission to hunt down and destroy the Greek god of war, Ares, who she believed to be the instigator of mankind’s “war to end all wars:” the First World War. This laser focused determination leads Diana straight to Ares at the German frontline, but she is surprised to learn that Ares isn’t as much an instigator as a manipulator.
Ares clearly states that he wasn’t the originator of the war since mankind doesn’t need the push for battle since conflict is built into our genes. He merely feeds off the energy of destruction and helps push things along on their natural, inevitable path.
After the climactic battle between Wonder Woman and Ares, Diana emerges as the sole victor for the soul of mankind. With the death of the god of war, a seemingly mystical cloud of despair and mental fog lifts from the German soldiers as Diana basks in the light of the distant sunrise.
For all intents and purposes, the war is over, and without Ares’s influence, such an incredible conflict of mass proportions will never strike mankind again.
Wrong!
Spy Steve Trevor was the one who first uttered the phrase to Diana, “The war to end all wars,” which was a phrase coined by English writer, H.G. Wells. In Diana’s mind, this description of the war must have made perfect sense. If Ares was the instigator of the war, then it is perfectly reasonable that it is only because of his influence that the war was so great and terrible.
When she struck down Ares, she must have expected such a great war to never return.
But unfortunately mankind let her down.
Mankind is not and has never been neutral. Humanity is always in flux, always progressing. But as mankind moves forward, Diana must as well. She has to have an opportunity to see mankind for what it truly is.
Despite her best efforts, a war of epic proportions once again rose from the grave and showed Diana mankind’s true colors. But in doing so, it would give her a chance to see mankind for what they truly are, not what they are not.
Diana has to go through a phase to truly learn about mankind firsthand, not something she read about once in a book. World War I allowed her to see one aspect of humanity, but World War II could give her a chance to see mankind clashing without the influence of an otherwordly presence like Ares.
But witnessing the return of a world war would be heartbreaking to Diana, and such a thing — I would hypothesize — would have the potential to break her heart, and more importantly her spirit. The inevitable wars and conflicts that arose after WWII would only serve to push her farther away from the ideals of what she thought humanity stood for.
But let us not forget that in Wonder Woman, Diana is naive about the world and doesn’t seem to understand the concept of war in the first place. She knows how to fight, but she doesn’t understand what a war fully entails.
Unfortunately war is never cut and dry. Wars are terrible and harmful, but they are conversely noble and triumphant as well. They display the worst and best of humanity. A lack of wars would mean a lack of human ingenuity and will. A war at its basic level is a clash of ideas, and ideas are what makes mankind unique among the inhabitants of nature.
That is why her inevitable character arc in Batman v Superman is so terrific, because it shows that she finally understands that war will never cease. You can’t stop war. You can shrink away from your duty or stand and fight for what is right and good.
You can win wars, but you can’t win against war.
Even if humanity gets to the point where conventional wars cease, there will always be a perpetual battle in the arena of ideas.
Bruce Wayne’s efforts in BvS serve to help Diana come to grips with these opposing set of ideas: peace and war. She had to see both world wars firsthand to bring her to the brink of despair, only to be pulled out again as the superhero we all know and love.
She has to accept that there will never be a “war to end all wars.”
I believe that is why showcasing WWII would be an effective storytelling tool for the sequel, even if it’s unlikely that such a thing will occur. That’s not to say that the filmmakers won’t bring up or showcase WWII in Wonder Woman 2 at all, because anything could happen at this point. If they do decide to go ahead with the Cold War setting, then the most logical option would be to start the movie during WWII and then jump ahead to the eighties after showing her mental state after having witnessed another devastating world war.
This would bring a true character arc to Wonder Woman and would help explain why she turned her back on humanity before the events of Batman v Superman.
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