I just need to come right out and say it: Multiverse of Madness should have been set before No Way Home. It would go such a long way to explain why Doctor Strange seems so weird in that movie.
Why is he willing to listen to go against protocol to try and do something nice for Peter? Well he just went on this whole adventure with another plucky teenager and he learned to loosen up a little and not be such a control freak. This would also explain why he got so angry at Peter and blamed him so much for messing up the spell even though the spell was his idea; he tried to go against his instincts and now he transferring his anger to someone else.
Why is Doctor Strange so casual about the multiverse in NWH but in this movie he doesn't even mention that he shattered the multiverse like a month ago? Well in this version the order is in reverse, and Stephen's arrogance about thinking he can handle the multiverse so easily could make for an interesting "oh shit" moment. Can't fix this mistake by puppeteering a dead version of yourself in this one, huh Stephen?
Why is he not willing to give the Spidey villains a chance to change their ways? Because every time he tried to be reasonable with Wanda in MoM, she escalated the threat and killed people.
Why does Peter's final sacrifice hit so hard for him? Because one of the themes of Multiverse of Madness is about the pursuit of happiness and how, while making the tough calls and pushing everyone away doesn't make you a happy person, sometimes its necessary and you have to move on and try to find satisfaction in other ways.
And here's the big one: why is Doctor Strange so blase about mind wiping the entire world when Peter initially only came to him to try and get his friends into MIT. There are so many other ways Strange could have gone about doing this, and even if he settled on mind wiping, why did he have to do the entire planet? Well...he's being corrupted by the Darkhold. Imagine seeing the final shot of MoM where Stephen grows the evil third eye if this took place before No Way Home, and realizing that he had that THE ENTIRE TIME HE WAS WITH PETER.
Doing this could also fix one of my issues I had with the post credits scene. It seems like ten minutes after Strange learns this lesson about letting go, and five minutes after realizing his tryst with the Darkhold might have lasting consequences on him, the MCU just puts all that into a box and chucks it into the garbage. He gets to meet Clea, his in-comic wife for several years, and he's whisked off to fix the incursion that he apparently caused (because Strange's incursions can be fixed but Wanda's can't I GUESS, unless this is a trap set by Dormamu or something).
Doing this definitely wouldn't fix all the issues I have with this movie, but it would keep all the stuff I like, and it would smooth out Strange's character arc. IW and Endgame had him be the guy willing to make any kind of sacrifice necessary, so this could have been the point where he starts trying to work his way around that (I realize that means he would learn that he can bend the rules despite all evidence pointing to him turning evil when he tries to do that, but the actual MoM movie said he can do pretty much whatever he wants anyway so oh well).
And yes, I do know that this movie WAS originally supposed to come out first but COVID wrecked the release timeline. I'm just saying that the movies as released would play better if they had set MoM before No Way Home still, despite release order.
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