The Truth In Wonder Woman 1984

The truth takes shape as more than just a golden lasso in Wonder Woman 1984. ((Jenkins, Patty, director. Wonder Woman 1984. Warner Bros. Pictures, 2020. )) In fact, during many of the movie’s key scenes, the truth is less of a shining beacon of hope and more of a reality to be reconciled.

Diana herself comes to terms with the truth in a variety of ways, from her childhood lessons on Themyscira to her eventual acceptance of Steve Trevor’s death. But, in this long-awaited sequel, it’s not just Diana learning lessons about integrity — it’s the whole world. By the time the final credits roll, the old phrase “truth will out” proves itself in relationships, in self-awareness, and even in loss.

An Early Lesson

During the movie’s opening sequence, a flashback to Diana’s youth on Themyscira, the young Amazon nearly wins a brutal, Olympic-style obstacle competition — but she cheats when she thinks no one is looking. Her aunt Antiope, a role reprised by Robin Wright, pulls her back before she can secure the final victory. When Diana protests, Antiope is firm. “That is the only truth,” she tells her distraught niece. “And truth is all there is.” ((Jenkins, Patty, director. Wonder Woman 1984. Warner Bros. Pictures, 2020. )). This early lesson frustrates the pre-adolescent Diana, and it seems that frustration follows her to adulthood. In fact, by the time the movie pushes forward to the mid-1980s, she still hasn’t fully accepted that even with all of her powers, she can’t breach the boundaries of reality.

Although over fifty years had passed since her first love Steve Trevor’s death, the Diana audiences encounter is still grieving and, more tellingly, still refusing to accept a world without Steve. In 1984, Diana worked as a scientist at the Smithsonian Institute. She lives a quiet, lonely life. Although her coworkers respect her — one, in particular, more on that later — she is not the curious, friendly, bubbling version of herself portrayed in the original. (( Jenkins, Patty, director. Woman Woman. Warner Bros. Pictures, 2017. ))

Dreams Come True

One day, Diana encounters an artifact called the Dreamstone — an ancient relic that, according to legend, grants whoever holds it one wish. Just like that, Steve Trevor is back. Not in his original body, not in his natural era, but back nonetheless, just as Diana wished. At first, of course, Diana is thrilled. The truth of her love for him was never in doubt, and the couple basks in its renewal for a few peaceful hours.

However, soon Diana is once again given a harsh reminder that even the most beautiful lies cannot overpower the truth. The longer Steve stays, the weaker Diana gets. She loses her powers. Her ability to stop evil from growing fades. It doesn’t take her golden lasso for Diana to realize that her wish to pull Trevor from history and into the present undermines the essential human struggle with time, with life, and with the inevitability of death.

What You Wish For

Meanwhile, as Diana struggles with all things Steve, the others who encountered the Dreamstone are left to deal with its ramifications. Barbara Ann Minerva, Diana’s most ardently supportive coworker, and friend wishes to become like her idol: Diana. As Barbara erases herself to turn into someone else, she loses the truest things about her — kindness and empathy.

Before the Dreamstone, Barbara might have been largely ignored by her peers, but she was kind to them anyway. She cultivated a friendship with a homeless man, and they exchanged food and banter on her way home from work. But in her struggle for power, Barbara sacrificed her awareness of others’ struggles. She re-defined strength as a brute force instead of patient vulnerability. Barbara’s eventual descent into one of Wonder Woman’s archnemeses, Cheetah, is made all the more poignant by the fact that she didn’t need magic to embody the nobleness and confidence she so envied in Diana. She only needed to stay true to herself.

Simultaneously, the film’s villain, a wannabe oil tycoon called Max Lord, uses his turn with the Dreamstone to become it. His newfound power grants him all the money and success he dreamed of, but it also turns him into the embodiment of a lie. Every promise he makes is empty. Every wish he grants comes with a terrible price. After a lot of action sequences, explosions, and global crises, Max manages to bring the world to its knees at his feet. But society, economy, and culture are in ruins. Their truth is gone, and without it, they are just shells of themselves, tokens commemorating something that used to be of value.

For Max, the truest part of himself was, ironically, the only thing he genuinely created: his son. A foil to Diana, who had to give up love to find truth, Max needed to embrace it. No amount of money, power, or fame could force him to appreciate what he already had all along — his son’s admiration and love. In fact, in his attempt to find what he already had, he nearly lost it altogether. Whether Max Lord is a redeemable character remains up for debate, but what he finally recognized, in the end, was that not even the most powerful wish would be enough for someone who couldn’t recognize what they already had.

All There Is

Diana’s eventual decision to let Steve go isn’t because of her weakening muscles or her loss of powers. Those are symptoms, side-effects of denying the truth she wants so badly to change — Steve was already gone. Even with all of her strength, Diana could never overpower the truth. She could either fight it forever, losing her own integrity along the way, or she could accept it and cultivate the hope that comes with clarity. In the end, the truth is as simple as it was when Diana was a little girl trying to claim a victory that was never hers.

Barbara allows her lust for power to consume her, quite literally twisting her humanity into nothing more than basic animal instinct. In the movie’s climactic golden lasso moment, Max finally comes face to face with the fact that the truth will always triumph over lies. And Diana, at last, says an ultimate goodbye to Steve. She takes back her wish. She accepts his death. When Diana finally lets Steve go, the loss is painful, but it is honest pain. It is, as her aunt told her, the only truth. The truth is all there is. And the truth, as Diana moves forward into the future, has finally set her free.