“What is grief, if not love persevering?” Hardest in way I meant most emotional or heaviest to describe loss of a loved one. What is a meme, if not a joke persevering?
In last week’s episode of WandaVision, Vision’s speech about grief instantly struck a cord with viewers. With ‘Previously On…’ taking us on a walk through all of Wanda’s life traumas, it’s really not all that surprising that we were all left in some serious pain. Forced to visit the sites of her biggest points of hurt by Agatha, Wanda had to relive the pain of losing her parents, being unable to bury her lover, and losing her brother, Pietro. But near the end of her horrific trauma tour, Vision offered Wanda some relief with what’s likely the most beautiful line ever uttered in the Marvel Cinematic Universe: “But what is grief, if not love persevering?”
The beautiful line came from Vision seeing Wanda absolutely numb with grief after Pietro’s death, set somewhere between Age Of Ultron and Captain America: Civil War. When he joins Wanda, who is sitting alone in her bedroom binge-watching Malcolm In The Middle, Vision offers the line as some relief for Wanda as she deals with the weight of immeasurable grief. “Well, it can’t all be sorrow, can it?” he says. “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 have never had a loved one to lose. But what is grief, if not love persevering?” And just like that, the internet fell in love with the beauty of those eight words. While some were truly perplexed over how a few words could make so many feel this emotional, it wasn’t that surprising considering everyone experiences grief, at different levels, at least once in their lives. Look at the pandemic alone, for example, which has brought about different levels of loss — like loss of life, loss of normalcy, loss of employment and security, and loss of experiences — for people around the world over the last year.
But as with all things sweet and sincere, Vision’s speech has surpassed the stage of admiration, and has now been given the meme treatment. While the line was a beautiful encapsulation of what grief is, people couldn’t help but notice how perfect the screenshot was for meme-ing, just as the I Am Going To Create An Environment That Is So Toxic meme was.
But beyond photoshopping the original WandaVision “grief”screenshot, people have even begun to use the line “what is grief, if not love persevering” to share the other things that persevere. Look, the whole thing is very dumb, but also very funny, so here are all the best “what is, if not” memes:
Anyway, here’s hoping WandaVision gives us a good few more memes during tonight’s finale.
The WandaVision finale airs tonight at 7pm on Disney+.
What Is Grief If Not Love Persevering is a line from episode 8 of WandaVision, titled "Previously On." The line became a point of controversy among social media users, as some fans of the series lavished it with praise (inspiring the A Reverent 'Fuck' meme) while others thought it was overhyped. As the conversation about the line continued well after the episode aired, it was parodied as a snowclone with the template "What is X if not Y persevering?"
On February 26th, 2021, during the 8th episode of WandaVision, Vision says the line, "What is grief, if not love persevering?" (shown below). The line was celebrated by fans of the show, and particularly by user @MadHat31, who tweeted, "Do you hear that sound? It’s every screenwriter in the world whispering a reverent “FUCK” under their breath." This inspired parodies of the tweet, launching the "A Reverent 'Fuck'" meme. Amidst parodies of the high praise given to the line by Marvel fans, Twitter users began parodying the line itself as a snowclone. One of the earliest popular examples was tweeted by user @DanSpenser, who gained over 8,500 retweets and 92,000 likes with his February 28th parody of the line (shown below). 
Over the following several days, people parodied the line by either replacing words in the screenshot (a la I Am Going To Create An Environment That Is So Toxic) and posting their own tweets using the line as a snowclone. Of the former category, popular tweets include a March 1st, 2021 post by @Steph_I_Will that gained over 30,000 retweets and 179,000 likes (shown below, left) and a tweet by @jonnysun that gained over 77,000 likes (shown below, right).
Popular tweets that used the line as a snowclone template include a March 2nd tweet by @dvdpeters that gained over 23,000 retweets and 183,000 likes (shown below, left) and a March 1st tweet by @zachsilberberg that gained over 11,000 retweets and 172,000 likes (shown below, right). The jokes were covered by Junkee.
A single line from last week’s WandaVision is striking a chord with fans, but it’s not the kind of snappy Marvel reference you might expect. In a scene set shortly after Avengers: Age of Ultron, we see Vision comforting Wanda Maximoff in the wake of her brother’s death. “What is grief, if not love persevering?” Vision says gently. This might have sounded overly flowery and sentimental from another character, but it’s perfect for Vision’s sensitive personality and Paul Bettany’s acting skills. This line encapsulates a central theme of the show: Wanda struggling to deal with her trauma by surrounding herself with a happy, domestic illusion. Her grief is overwhelming because she loved Pietro and Vision so strongly. But like so many popular things on Twitter—especially in a Marvel project—this line also inspired an astounding amount of discourse. The jumping-off point was a viral tweet where someone suggested that other screenwriters must be jealous of whoever wrote this episode. (That would be writer Laura Donney, collaborating with the rest of the WandaVision writers’ room.) In turn, that viral tweet spawned its own parodies: Originally a straightforward and sincere compliment toward a single line of dialogue, this opinion became bizarrely controversial. Well, not that bizarrely, if you’re familiar with a certain kind of Marvel backlash. Thanks to the ubiquity of Marvel fandom, some people get annoyed by the constant deluge of Marvel stan posts complimenting every element of the franchise. It’s the new version of people angrily replying “Read another book!” to any viral post that uses Harry Potter as a political reference. You can see where the complaints are coming from. Disney has turned the MCU into an inescapable cultural presence, but the franchise generally isn’t very interesting from an artistic perspective. When a fan goes viral for praising the cinematography of a movie like Avengers: Endgame, film buffs see it as a depressing example of Disney shoving high-quality indie cinema out of the public consciousness. This also explains the somewhat fabricated “rivalry” between Martin Scorsese and superhero films.
The opposing argument is that these Marvel critics are just snobs, and the MCU is popular because it engages with universal themes. Unfortunately, this circular debate shows no sign of slowing down because because both sides are set in their opinions. Also, a lot of people are currently trapped indoors under stressful circumstances, exorcising their personal demons through pointless Twitter arguments. The fact is that while some viewers found the “love persevering” line to be trite and unoriginal, others clearly found it very moving. And art is subjective.
Marvel fans have spent a long time with these characters, and WandaVision is a story about mourning the death of a loved one. We’re meant to engage with Wanda in this moment, as she’s forced to relive a terrible loss. When Vision asked, “What is grief, if not love persevering?” it resonated with many people’s own experiences, drawing together disparate strands of WandaVision‘s depiction of trauma. So while this line isn’t a brand new concept, it doesn’t need to be. It articulated an intense, recognizable experience that a lot of people couldn’t put into words themselves. The divisive response also demonstrates how Twitter pits people against each other. Under other circumstances, some viewers would love this episode, some wouldn’t, and that would be that. But Twitter is designed, algorithmically and culturally, to make people post strong reactions to trending topics. Since WandaVision is a popular show with a lot of Very Online fans and haters, this one line of dialogue sparked a factionalized argument that played into people’s pre-existing beliefs about Marvel media in general. And that’s how we ended up with people mocking some sincere, heartfelt reactions to a story about grief. More essential culture reads
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