(Credits: Netflix / Sam Taylor)

Teenage rage is messy. It can look like slammed lockers, cutting words, skipped classes, or just a silent storm under the skin. It is rarely just about what is happening in the moment; it is about everything that came before, about every time you were ignored, underestimated, or left behind. Netflix has given us some loud, brilliant, chaotic portrayals of this kind of anger, but two girls stand out. These two are none other than Netflix’s favourite Wednesday Addams and Maeve Wiley.

One wears pigtails and plans your funeral with a blank stare. The other writes essays for cash and shuts people out before they can leave her first.

Wednesday Addams and Maeve Wiley are both smart, stubborn, and furious at a world that keeps disappointing them. They do not cry in front of people; they plot, snap and punch. But underneath all that is something softer, something real.

So let us ask the question no one is brave enough to say out loud: Who handles teenage rage better?

Wednesday vs Maeve: Who handles teenage rage better?

Anger with a mission

Wednesday does not throw tantrums; her rage is calculated and cold. She does not scream, she solves, whether it be a murder, a lie, or a prophecy. Her fury comes with logic, and each of her actions has a goal. She is not angry for the sake of it but because people lie, because power corrupts, and because she sees the world’s darkness and refuses to flinch.

Maeve’s rage burns differently. She fights back because life keeps taking. A missing mom, a trailer park home, a judgmental school, and a thousand disappointments have led her anger to be a loud call. Snappy but never hollow, she calls out injustices and protects those who cannot fight. Her rage is messy but real.

Both girls use it to survive, but while Wednesday weilds it like a tool, Maeve carries it like a scar.

Softness beneath the storm

Wednesday would never admit she cares, but she does, deeply. We can see this when Enid cracks her walls, Thing earns her loyalty, and even Xavier gets glimpses of her softness. It is evident in the ways she risks herself and opens up without saying much. She hides it, but the softness is there.

Maeve, though, wears her heart on a chain and dares you to break it. You can see it in her love for her brother, her friendship with Aimee, and her trepidation around Otis. She pretends to be untouchable but falls apart when it matters.

The difference? Wednesday protects her softness like a secret. Maeve lets hers bleed through every fight, every tear.

A world that failed them first

Neither Wednesday nor Maeve became angry on their own. The world made them this way when institutions failed them, families disappointed them, and systems ignored them.

Wednesday is the girl who is constantly told she is too dark, too intense, too much. She is punished for being different, for noticing too much and daring to want to do something about everyone’s failings, for not fitting in. And so, she turns her anger outward, into action.

Maeve is the girl no one thought would make it. Abandoned too early, judged too quickly, she’s never had the luxury of softness. So she built walls, raised herself and her voice, and pushed before she could be pushed.

Their rage is not random. It is inherited and shaped by pain, which makes it all the more powerful.

The rage evolution

Wednesday starts out believing she needs no one and that feeling emotions is weakness. But over time, she chooses connection. She lets Enid hug her, and she trusts her allies. She still walks alone, but now she glances back for those at her side.

Maeve’s growth is raw; it takes her longer because she is always such a flight risk. But she comes back, she forgives, she shows up, she accepts, and she learns to be vulnerable without losing her spark.

Both change over the course of time, learning more about themselves as well as others around them. It’s quiet but powerful.

So, who handles it better?

Maeve does.

Wednesday may have the edge when it comes to control and mystery, but Maeve’s rage is harder to live with. It is less cinematic and more human. She does not hide behind logic or detachment. She feels everything, and still chooses to grow.

Maeve is not protected by legacy or clever plot twists. Her battles are messier and lonelier. And still, she shows up. She forgives. She lets people in, even when it hurts.

That takes a different kind of strength. Not the performative kind, but the silent, daily kind. The kind that does not make headlines but changes lives. Maeve Wiley took all her anger and heartbreaks and somehow built love out of it.

That is not just handling rage. That is transforming it.