thorkizilla:

I HAVE BEEN FLAILING AT LENGTH ABOUT LOKI’S CHARACTER ARC IN THIS MOVIE AND POOR @5ummit HAS HAD TO LISTEN TO ME GO ON AND NOW IT’S EVERYONE ELSE’S TURN.

“You’re late.”
“You’re missing an eye.”

I am just so delighted by how the introduction of Hela into the family shook things out of their rut and how it made everything that happened before feel necessary.  Like, I think TDW was necessary because Loki needed that time to work through being the worst villain the family, the black sheep, to wallow in it to realize that it actually wasn’t satisfying at all.  He had his time being WOE IS ME, he had his time being king of Asgard, and none of it really satisfied him.  So, when shit goes sideways as it always does, when he went back to trying to betray Thor, it felt hollow, because Thor had accepted that that was a choice he might make, that Thor wasn’t bothered by it.

And then there’s Hela.  Who takes the place of the worst Odinkid and Loki cannot really define himself by that role anymore, he’ll never be THE WORST after this.  Instead, he’s somewhere in the middle.  And I love that the movie seemed really aware of the gamut of this family, that Hela was on the far end of just deliciously, wonderfully violent and cruel, Thor was on the other end of how he had come through the fire and stayed good.  And that these two children were each half of Odin, that he was a conqueror, but he was also a father who loved, that they’re the two sides of him.  And Loki is that middle ground as well, he doesn’t have to be the best at being good, he doesn’t have to be the best at being evil, his siblings have that covered.

He can be something else, something more.

That’s why I loved that line so very much.  It’s frustrating to want it to be more serious (but, then, wasn’t TDW serious enough for all of us?) but I think it kind of worked for me, in that Thor felt like he had really made peace with everything.  It felt like Thor had MOVED ON and that’s what REALLY got to Loki.

Tom even says it in an interview:

So the idea that Thor might be indifferent to Loki is troubling for him, because that’s a defining feature of who his character is. I don’t belong in the family; my brother doesn’t love me; I hate my brother. The idea that his brother’s like, “Yeah, whatever,” it’s an interesting development.  But the two of them, that’s what I kind of loved about Ragnarok when I first read it. The two of them are placed in such an extraordinary situation where everything is unfamiliar; that their familiarity, literally as family members, becomes important.

Loki, for all that he pushes people away and betrays them and stabs them in the back, desperately does not ACTUALLY want to be given up on.  Thor making real peace with the idea that they’re going to go their separate ways?  Thor’s indifference to Loki trying to scheme and plot?

That’s what Loki absolutely cannot stand.

And that’s what the past movies are about–Thor trying to reach him, Loki pushing him away (to see if Thor will keep coming back) but when Thor MOVES ON, when Thor is done mourning and finds his equilibrium again, when Thor says, all right, well, this is what you want, then let’s do it and he means it?

It leaves Loki with the choice to make himself.  He can’t pin this choice on Thor or even on Odin.  He tries briefly, “Funny how [Odin]’s death should split us apart.” and Thor’s just like, I loved you, but we parted ways a long time ago.  You do what you want to do, Loki.  Stay in your predictability or be something more, whatever you choose, you choose.

And when it’s on LOKI to make that choice, suddenly he can’t bear to be left behind.  Suddenly he can’t bear for Thor to not care about him.  Suddenly he can’t bear not to be something more than what he was, because there’s nothing to rebel against and instead it’s up to no one but Loki to make that choice.

So he chooses something more.  (In the most Extra and dramatic fashion possible a;skjlakjslajks “YOOOOOUR SAVIOOOOR IS HERE!” oh my god.)