Why is my retargeting so weird?

I do not retarget from the Auto Retageter. I only use it for chain mapping, bone alignment, setting up retarget poses, and exporting the retarget assets (not the animations themselves). Doing this will auto-generate three assets for you - an IK rig for the source, an IK rig for the target, and a, IK retargeter. Once I’ve done that, I always use the IK retargeter instead of the automatic system, which can yield strange results. There are many things you can do in the IK Retargeter that you can’t do with auto-retargeting.