What Is The Witches' Road In Marvel's Agatha All Along?

This post contains spoilers for "Agatha All Along" and some titles from Marvel Comics.

Agatha Harkness (Kathryn Hahn) seems to be in a bit of a bind. A climactic battle against Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen) towards the end of "WandaVision" stripped Agatha of her powers, trapping her in a chaos-magic-riddled Westview anomaly forever. 

As the now-oblivious Agatha (who goes by Agnes) immerses herself in the make-believe world of Westview, she adopts the role of a blunt, sardonic detective in the new Marvel Studios series "Agatha All Along," and ends up bursting into a crime scene that rattles the idea of who she truly is. Over time, the victim's murder starts to evoke uncomfortable sentiments, patches of "reality" mutate and shift right before her eyes, and the arrival of a mysterious teen (played by Joe Locke) further complicates matters. Thanks to a push from an age-old rival (played by Aubrey Plaza), Agatha is able to crawl through the layers of chaos anomalies and embrace her core self — but she is still powerless and must face the wrath of a deadly group known as the Salem Seven.

Desperate to break out of Westview's magical hold, Agatha agrees to evoke The Witches' Road, an idea proposed by Locke's character (we'll refer to him as The Teen like Agatha does), and spends most of episode 2 recruiting members for her coven. To tread the most dangerous paths in witchcraft, the consolidated power of a coven often proves more potent than that of a solitary witch, leaving Agatha no choice but to plead with anyone who has a kernel of potential to practice the craft. 

An unlikely alliance is formed between Agatha and divination witch Lilia Calderu (Patti LuPone), potions expert Jennifer Kale (Sasheer Zamata), and protector witch Alice Wu-Gulliver (Ali Ahn). The spot for the fourth earth witch remains unfulfilled until Agatha hastily drags a clueless Mrs. Hart/Sharon Davis (Debra Jo Rupp) into the summoning circle before chanting "The Ballad to The Witches' Road." 

However, what exactly is the Witches' Road, and how do the comics introduce and treat this mysterious plane of existence for witches and sorcerers? Let us take a deep dive into this fantastical realm.

In simple terms, the Witches' Road is a parallel dimension that can only be accessed by practitioners of magic, and embarking upon this journey is considered a perilous endeavor. If a practitioner is successfully able to pass the trials and complete the journey, they're blessed with whatever their soul is missing at the end, although the cost of such a boon remains hidden. In episode 2, The Teen tells Agatha that The Witches' Road is the only way for her to regain her abilities, and although she is skeptical at first, she reveals that she has walked the path before and emerged victorious (and presumably, unscathed). However, every other witch expresses wariness when the topic is broached: while Jennifer and Lilia deem it extremely dangerous, Alice (whose mother never returned from The Witches' Road) calls it a myth that has now evolved into an urban legend.

James Robinson's "Scarlet Witch" comic book series (released between 2015 and 2017) establishes and references The Witches' Road several times, with Wanda Maximoff playing a central role in accessing the realm for various reasons. Perhaps the most prominent explanation of the realm is featured in Robinson's "Scarlet Witch Vol. 1: Witches' Road," where Wanda/Scarlet Witch journeys across the globe to figure out why witchcraft is broken. To combat such a root-level problem, she teams up with Agatha Harkness, whom she travels with to the Witches' Road, facing dangerous trials and soul-shattering revelations about their respective pasts in the process.

Many of Robinson's series entries expand upon this concept, and it is briefly mentioned in Jeff Lemire's "Extraordinary X-Men Vol 19." Based on these comic book depictions, the Witches' Road is rife with mystical entities and magical nexuses, with time passing at a much slower rate as compared to Earth. The brief glimpse we get at the end of episode 2 makes it look like a dark forest, whose solitary, winding road is bound to split or lead to dead ends as the coven ventures deeper within.

To continue our comic book-based deep dive into the realm, it is known that the Witches' Road consists of mini-realms like the Witches' Elysium and the Witches' Underworld, which are roughly equivalent to heaven and hell along with traditional concepts of the afterlife. There is a distinction between white and dark magic, as those who practice the latter are condemned (and must pay a price) both in reality and beyond, key examples being Agatha's disastrous trial at Salem and Wanda's predicament in "Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness." The trials inside the realm are designed to test a practitioner's fears, desires, and shortcomings, leaving Agatha's coven vulnerable to their own minds and turgid pasts.

Although different realms are ruled by various entities, the Witches' Underworld is currently ruled by Lore, an evil Scarlet Witch variant and the nexus being of Reality 955. It is unclear whether this paves the path for Wanda's return in some form, but it's an interesting facet to keep in mind while speculating what paths the show might be taking soon and what these developments could mean for Agatha, who has buried most of her painful past deep inside her soul. Irrespective of whether Wanda returns, Agatha and her coven have a tough time carved out inside this realm, which can be both benevolent and treacherous, depending on the person undergoing the trials.

Prominent questions include the identity of The Teen (whose name has been withheld from Agatha, and us, for some reason), his motivations inside the realm, and the role the Green Witch (Plaza) will end up playing in Agatha's journey. Although it is unclear how the non-magical Mrs. Hart is able to enter this fantastical realm, it is likely there is more than meets the eye, and that some sort of trouble is brewing in the cauldron of chaos.

The first two episodes of "Agatha All Along" are currently streaming on Disney+, and new episodes will arrive on Wednesday evenings.