How does Maxwell’s door work?

[goblinball]

Is it just another portal? If so, then why does maxwell grab Wilson with his shadow claws in the original short? (Could maybe just be an inconsistency since wagstaff along with almost all the other lore didn’t exist back then).

Also, why does Wagstaff use it, when he’s made other portals in the past? What’s so special about this one? Why is it in its “deactivated” form at the end of the short (no maxwell face at the top) and yet there is very clearly an active portal there? 
Why’s Wagstaff back at his old house, and why is Maxwell’s door still there? How could it also be in the constant in-game if it never left wilson/wagstaff’s home? Moreover, wagstaff’s in-game quote for the door implies that the first time he’s ever seen it was in the constant, so there’s no way all of this was planned. What happened???

[lowercase skye]

2 hours ago, goblinball said:

Is it just another portal? If so, then why does maxwell grab Wilson with his shadow claws in the original short? (Could maybe just be an inconsistency since wagstaff along with almost all the other lore didn’t exist back then).

I believe it's like that to be consistent with the way Maxwell's Door is entered in-game, which is just 10x easier to animate than the character physically walking into a door like that.

[Duck986]

Wagstaff could've made his hologram without Maxwell's door at first, because we can clearly see that hand that's tuning the radio is the same as Wagstaff's. And we also know that Wagstaff was the one who created the Voxola Radio. So if he have seen the door in the Constant before building it, I'd assume that his own door is just more of a window than a door, and he primarily uses radio for "travelling"

[oCrapaCreeper]

I suppose Wagstaff is just really good with portals. After all, Maxwell copied his designs for the teleportato.

Wilson's portal might have had to do with how Wagstaff escaped the Constant to begin with. We did see him get pulled in during Winona's short, but he wouldn't need to project himself into the constant if he was still trapped.

[Cassielu]

There are two portals with the same design:

Maxwell first designed and built the Maxwell's Door in The Constant, and then he taught Wilson how to build it.
Wagstaff use his projection explore The Constant. Saw Maxwell's Door in The Constant and tried to copy it. Apparently he failed, so he had to use Wilson's portal instead of building his own. (Or just because it's more convenient)

[EthanTheMime]

19 hours ago, goblinball said:

Is it just another portal? If so, then why does maxwell grab Wilson with his shadow claws in the original short? (Could maybe just be an inconsistency since wagstaff along with almost all the other lore didn’t exist back then).

Also, why does Wagstaff use it, when he’s made other portals in the past? What’s so special about this one? Why is it in its “deactivated” form at the end of the short (no maxwell face at the top) and yet there is very clearly an active portal there? 
Why’s Wagstaff back at his old house, and why is Maxwell’s door still there? How could it also be in the constant in-game if it never left wilson/wagstaff’s home? Moreover, wagstaff’s in-game quote for the door implies that the first time he’s ever seen it was in the constant, so there’s no way all of this was planned. What happened???

I think the portal entered a sort of dormant state after its business with Wilson--maybe it relied on Maxwell's intervention from the Constant to function in the way it did. Wagstaff appears to have forcefully reactivated it, and maybe even modified it to fulfill a different purpose (possibly to do with the whole hologram thing) or to keep himself from getting yanked in.

It's also possible that Klei wanted to remove any Maxwell imagery to keep things from getting confusing now that he is no longer the king of the Constant.

I think something people often overlook is that Wilson literally had to complete some kind of blood ritual for the gateway to start up. It could be that the blood and rats serve some kind of wacky scientific purpose, but leave it to this game to blur the line between science and magic.