The Russo Family Wizard is…

Wizards of Waverly Place has come to an end after four excellent seasons. With the finale came the long anticipated Wizard Competition, and with that an answer to the question that fans have been asking themselves for the past four years, “Who will be the Russo Family Wizard”? As is the case in all Wizard families, only one of the siblings is able to keep their Wizard powers and become a more powerful full Wizard, and this decision is made by way of a Wizard Competition. For the sake of spoilers, I will hold off on the reveal until later in the article.

The details of the Wizard Competition have always been a mystery. We do get an idea of what one might be like in “Wizards of Waverly Place: The Movie” as Alex and Justin faced off against each other in an emergency competition. In that setting, they had to compete in a battle to reach a sphere using only the four elements. In this case, Alex won the Wizard Competition, and could easily have kept her full powers, but instead decided to return things to what they were to avoid having their family be torn apart.

The first round of the Wizard competition was a quiz show. This isn’t completely unexpected, as the show has always insinuated that studying and a knowledge of magic would help the competitors excel. With all three doing decently in the first round, this left them all on roughly equal footing for the remaining two.

The second round was more of a secret, and was not a test between the siblings, but rather a test for the family as a whole. Faced with a secret challenge to rescue their friends, their relationship as a family was tested in scenario where no one would get to keep their powers. When they proved they were able to get past the conflict that the competition would create, they were allowed to finish. This is important because Jerry and Kelbo were estranged from their sister Megan after their Wizard competition tore the last generation Russo family them apart.

Finally the last round was a race through a maze. Each sibling used their own tricks to get through it, and it ended up with a close race to the finish where Justin was the first to arrive. There was a bit of shenanigans here as we are led to believe that Justin was the winner, but he then admits that Alex only lost because she stopped to help him, and he gives up the honour of becoming the Family Wizard to her.

The Russo Family Wizard is … Alex! This seems fitting as she is the main character of the show, and her character more than any other has shown a great amount of growth as the series progressed. In the film when she become a full Wizard she was still not prepared, asking Justin what she should be doing, but two years have passed since then, and Alex has become more powerful and more responsible, using magic less and less for her own selfish reasons, and more to help her friends, family and the world. When Harper discovered that Alex was a Wizard, she explained it to her as being like a Superhero, only they don’t help people. Although a funny joke, this is typically true of the behaviour of Wizards we’ve seen, but from her Alex’s behaviour in the face of situations like the Wizard World being threatened, the Earth being threatened by an Asteroid as well as her constant helping of family and friends as had been done during round two of the competition, she has proven that she will do great things with her full powers.

Justin is not left hanging, as he is also given full Wizard Powers by Professor Crumbs, who is retiring and leaves Justin as headmaster of Wiz-Tech. This seems a fitting fate for Justin, who would likely have used full Wizard powers to do something similar had he won the competition. Always a fan of studying, he should do a great job in his new role.

This leaves Max out to dry, and the audience wondering if some wand waving will grant him powers as well, but he is left with the family business, the Waverly Sub Station, which Max is quite happy with this, and so there are no bad feelings amongst the Russo Family. With constant reminders that no one expected Max to win the competition, it started to like look that might have been where the show was going. One can wonder what kind of Wizard Max would have made, but this is really something we’ve already seen. Uncle Kelbo, who was made family Wizard by Jerry who gave up his powers to marry Theresa, a mortal, has a very similar personality as Max, and uses his powers in the kind of random way that we would expect Max to.

With the show now over the cast is left to pursue their own careers. Best of luck to all of them in whatever they end up doing.

Enjoying a cake and watching the finale: Jennifer Stone. David DeLuise, David Henrie and Maria Canals-Barrera and her daughter