These people insisting that when Loki let go at the end of “Thor 1,” he knew he would survive – that it wasn’t a suicide attempt, just a bid to get out of hot water – have they been around since 2011-12, or is this a post-“Ragnarok” phenomenon?
When I see people express that belief, I always think of how Thor and Odin know just as much
(if not more-so.. Loki only just learned his genetics)
as Loki does about what he and his body are capable of surviving. And if they both genuinely believed he was dead after that (which I gotta remind people was not JUST falling into ‘a void’ it was into a really fucked up wormhole warped into existence by the destruction of the Bifrost and all the debris from that powerful technology…), then chances were not high that it was survivable even for someone with his skills, and Loki would’ve guessed that too.
Loki didn’t care about the consequences. He cared about Odin’s approval. With Odin’s final words of disapproval, it was enough for Loki to give up entirely. Loki was denied the one thing that he really wanted so he let go. It was very much a suicide attempt.
Loki may concoct elaborate plans, but there’s little evidence that he planned on surviving his fall. It just so happened by chance that he did, and Loki being Loki he played along with it as if he planned it and as if he’s been in control all along. From then on he just uses this trauma to try to manipulate people.
e.g. Loki trying to manipulate Thor by saying Thor tossed him into the abyss or using his story to win the favor of new allies.
…but make no mistake, folks, Loki intended on ending it all in that moment.
From then on he just uses this trauma to try to manipulate people.
e.g. Loki trying to manipulate Thor by saying Thor tossed him into the abyss or using his story to win the favor of new allies.
I don’t think I’m on board with that interpretation. I don’t think “I remember you tossing me into an abyss” was Loki lying to manipulate Thor into feeling guilty, because if he remembered what actually happened, he would know that the distortion of the facts was too obvious for that to work—and sure enough, Thor comes back at him about “imagined slights.” I think Loki’s memories got screwed with in some way, possibly involving Thanos using the Mind Stone to amplify his resentment toward his former family, or possibly just involving a lot of shame and repression. But he seems to have had enough time to recover since then that he straightened out his own account of what happened.
I’m still wrestling with the “using his story to win the favor of new allies” thing. The fact that he was telling it for laughs still makes me a little uncomfortable, but yes, I’ve been getting a lot of people saying that they joke about their trauma to regain power over it, and I do that too, so OK. I’d hesitate to call it “using his trauma to manipulate people,” though. He found a way to turn it into a good story, which probably includes changing a lot of facts about the lead-up and pretending it wasn’t traumatic, and he’s using it to impress people on Sakaar.
Loki has a tendency to use his version of events to prove loyalty to new allies and/or to get people to sympathize with him. So, he might tell the same story in different ways to different people. Whether he’s impressing someone or trying to prove his loyalty, it’s a form of manipulation that he relies on.
Loki does this to get Laufey on his side. He does this to trick Malekith. He does this to woo the people of Sakaar. He presumably does this with Thanos. It is possible that the mind stone amplified his resentment and strengthened his resolve, which sees Loki telling Thor that he tossed him into the abyss.
I don’t disagree that it’s possible. He fell for some time, which would be enough to cause some memory mix-ups in and of itself let alone being in the presence of Thanos and the Chitauri. Perhaps, this will become clearer in Infinity War when Thanos reunites with Loki.
…but Loki also has a tendency to tell a lie over and over and over again until he genuinely believes it. In the process of manipulating others, he has a tendency to trick himself. Instead of admitting he made choices that lead him to where he was in that moment, it’s easier to cast blame on Thor.
So, I could personally believe Loki using this event to be manipulative no matter how weak an attempt it may be. He might not be fully conscious or aware of the fact that his retelling of the event isn’t entirely accurate in the context with Thor, but in other contexts he’s more lucid.
By using his trauma to manipulate people, I do mean that he’s using it to win him the favor of Sakaar. Manipulation isn’t always done for nefarious purposes, and I don’t think calling it manipulation is inaccurate in that context for that reason. It’s not a villainistic act, but he is trying to to get people to be sympathetic to him.
It’s something that he continually does in the comics too. A traumatic thing can happen to him, but he’ll find some way to use that to his advantage in the future. In doing so, people tend to forget how traumatic it was or the seriousness of the situation. This also enables Loki some level of control over his narrative.
That’s why I interpret it as such.
…but Loki also has a tendency to tell a lie over and over and over again until he genuinely believes it.
I see this a lot in fandom characterization of Loki, and I tend to attribute it to him, too, but it occurs to me that I’m not sure when we actually see it. Some people will cite the thing about growing up in Thor’s shadow, or Odin’s favoritism, or Loki’s feeling that people in Asgard didn’t accept and appreciate him, but the sense I got from the first Thor movie was that all that was actually true. And Loki probably didn’t actually know the extent to which his defense before Odin and Frigga in TDW, that he wasn’t doing anything worse than Odin or Bor did, was true, but he seemed to have some inkling. So I don’t think any of those are cases of Loki telling a lie until he believes it himself. Then again, I’m not all that familiar with the comics—I haven’t even made it up to his reincarnation as Kid Loki (I keep getting bogged down in boring stuff early in the 2007 run)—so I may be missing some of the source of that characterization of MCU Loki.
Depending on the nature of the self-deception—and it does seem that he was eventually able to recover the truth, based on the “and then I let go” snippet in Ragnarok—Loki may or may not have been attempting to manipulate Thor with it. If he was, on some level, aware that that was not what happened, I grant that it was probably a somewhat misguided attempt to be manipulative. If, at the moment, he really, fully believed that Thor had tossed him into the abyss, I would consider it a recrimination rather than manipulation, and he would be entirely justified in confronting Thor with it. In any case, the reason I suspect the Mind Stone was involved in distorting his memories or motivating him to lie to himself in such a way is that we see it fostering discord among the Avengers, and we see Wanda use powers derived from it to taunt and unnerve them with their worst memories, regrets, and fears. (I also suspect that Loki got the power to pull out Valkyrie’s worst memory from his contact with the Mind Stone, but that’s getting pretty far out into speculative territory.)
Telling the same story in different ways to different audiences to convince them of his loyalty and/or get them on his side—that he definitely does. So yes, retelling the story of his fall in a way that will win him favor can be seen as falling into the same category as his presentations to Laufey and Malekith.
Loki is the Philosopher King 