Originally posted by FrothByte
That "untapped potential" reasoning is technically a semi-realistic explanation but it's ridiculously lazy writing. It's like when Wanda went from struggling to fight off Proxima Midnight to beating up Thanos in the span of a few days. They never provided an explanation for it other than, "Well she always had that power in her and she just needed to be pissed off enough to tap into it".It's not technically incorrect but it's a ricidulous cop out.
When fighting members of the Black Order, she was also worried about Vision who had a big hole in his chest. There are multiple instances where she knocks Corvus and Proxima down and gains the upper hand but then drops the offensive to help Vision instead. So, she was handicapped for that fight. When she fought Thanos, she'd already lost Vision (and had watched Thanos murder him right in front of her eyes) so had no distractions or reason to hold back any longer.
So, I personally don't really have much issue with that one, especially when you consider how terribly inconsistent the Russos are with power levels in general. They have a habit of making characters as strong/weak or as competent/incompetent as they need depending on what they want to happen in a scene. Cap, Spider-Man, Iron Man, Thor, Captain Marvel etc. have all been subject to this. Hell, in EG, Carol went from being able to fly from the top of the upper atmosphere to near the ground in a few seconds but later can't even cover a couple hundred meters in that same amount of time when trying to get the IG to the van portal before Thanos could destroy it. And those two feats took place within minutes of each other. Never mind days. Or Thanos going from straining to overpower Thor with both arms and better leverage to being able to resist Thor and Cap's combined strength with one arm a few minutes later.