Amanda Waller is regarded as one of the finest minds in the DC Extended Universe, with both The Suicide Squad movies’ plots kickstarting as a result of Waller’s plans. While she got results in the grand scheme of things, Waller had to suffer a lot of negative consequences as well.
She has nobody to blame other than herself, though, as both events in Midway City and Corto Maltese went sideways directly because of Waller’s poor decision-making. It’s interesting to see just how much the story was affected by the choices she made and how different the outcomes would’ve been had she made the right ones.
Focusing On Capturing Weaker Characters Instead Of Powerful Ones
Task Force X started out for national security purposes after Superman’s death. However, its execution is one of the things that don’t make sense about Amanda Waller. After all, she had information about the identities of The Flash, Cyborg, and Aquaman, yet decided to leave them be.
This was a very poor decision on her part mainly because her actual choices were so weak. All of the Task Force X members paled in comparison to the ones she didn’t pursue, with Harley Quinn, Deadshot, Captain Boomerang, and the rest all losing to Justice League members. Waller had leverage over powerful metahumans but chose not to pursue them in favor of weaker options.
Attacking The Joker's Helicopter
After discovering Harley’s location in Midway City, The Joker attacked the squad to take his girlfriend back. Instead of letting the crime boss go, Waller decided to have her team engage him and thought she won after his helicopter crashed.
However, she was sorely mistaken as The Joker stormed Belle Reve by the end of the movie and destroyed the prison’s security. Not only did he break Harley out, but it’s also implied that his assault on Belle Reve may have released Deadshot and Captain Boomerang as well. Had Waller let The Joker go earlier on, he wouldn’t have had any reason to lay siege to Belle Reve.
Threatening Bruce Wayne With Knowledge Of His Identity
In the stinger of Suicide Squad, Waller was shown meeting Bruce Wayne asking for his protection. She then slyly suggested that she knew that he was Batman as a way of threatening him that she could use this information against him. This immediately backfired when Bruce told her straight that he would send the Justice League after her, which shut Waller down.
All things considered, this was an awful decision by her, not just because she had no way of fighting the Justice League, but for the fact that she was under Bruce’s protection. It was foolish of her to attempt to strongarm the man who was keeping her safe, with her threat then turning Bruce against her.
Sending Rick Flag With Task Force X Team A
There was a lot happening in the sequel and among these were things that didn’t make sense in The Suicide Squad. To start off, Waller made the wrong decision to send Rick Flag with Task Force Team A at the Corto Maltese beach, as these characters were meant to be massacred.
Flag was Waller’s most valuable ally who was completely loyal to her and had been since the first movie. Waller sent him with the doomed squad for some reason, resulting in Flag almost dying and luckily getting captured by the resistance. Considering it was Flag who later led Team B to Jotunheim, Waller’s entire plan would have fallen apart had he died.
Adding The Demonic Enchantress To Task Force X
This was a decision that was doomed to fail from the start, being one of the worst plans for the Suicide Squad. After learning that June Moone inhabited the Enchantress, Waller figured she could control the demonic entity and included her in the team.
This worked out as well as it sounds, as Enchantress quickly broke out and betrayed Waller, resulting in the near destruction of Midway City and Waller having to desperately fix her own mistake.
Only Sending One Inside Man To Corto Maltese
Upon learning that the U.S. government was involved in the crimes committed within Jotunheim, Rick Flag sought to release this information. In one of the most shocking moments in The Suicide Squad, Peacemaker revealed he was Amanda Waller’s inside man who was sent to ensure that the plan of erasing the evidence was followed.
Although she deserves credit for thinking ahead, Waller’s decision to have just one man on her side for the mission was very wrong. She could have easily tasked someone like Savant to be another discreet ally in exchange for guaranteeing their freedom, yet contended just with Peacemaker. In the end, he was defeated by Bloodsport, and Waller was left being blackmailed by him.
Making Her Intentions To Detonate Team B's Explosives Known
Team B members couldn’t walk away from Corto Maltese knowing that Starro would be destroying it completely and went back to fight him. Learning about this, Amanda Waller completely lost her cool and screamed at the team to turn back or she would detonate their explosives.
Had she done so without creating a huge scene, she could have easily killed everyone off without any problems. Instead, Waller kept yelling about how she would end the team’s lives and, by the time she got around to it, she was stopped by her aides. Her decision to be loud about her intentions led to Waller eventually getting blackmailed by Bloodsport and with no choice but to release the team.
Openly Threatening The Enchantress
A better way to go about the Enchantress business would have been for Waller to keep her hold on the entity a secret. However, she figured a show of power was the better way to go and Waller made a mockery of Enchantress by publicly asserting her control through the possession of her heart.
It was due to this treatment that Enchantress developed a particular grudge against Waller and even kidnapped her by the movie’s climax out of revenge. Had she made the choice to keep her control of Enchantress silently understood rather than a display of power, Waller wouldn’t have gotten so close to losing her life.
Making Things Personal With Bloodsport
Waller was adamant in wanting Bloodsport to be part of Task Force X and went to very dirty methods to ensure he joined. She made it personal with him by planning on getting his teenage daughter sent to Belle Reve and include her in Task Force X if Bloodsport didn’t join.
While this worked in the short run, it came back to haunt her as Bloodsport held on to his anger and took the first chance he got to betray Waller. He got his moment when he acquired the flash drive containing evidence of Corto Maltese and Waller knew he wouldn’t hesitate to implicate her due to her decision to make things personal between them.
Keeping Inadequate Aides As Part Of Her Team
Everything would have gone as planned had Amanda Waller decided to go with more competent people as part of her team. She didn’t put enough thought into this regard and paid for it when her aides made one blunder after another.
This included not knowing the skill sets and personalities of Task Force X members, leading to things like Weasel drowning and Blackguard betraying them. Waller also took her team’s loyalties lightly as they ended up knocking her out when she tried to kill Bloodsport and the rest.