OK but the thing about this is that I would actually say Loki was at a lower point in the second image than in the first. In the first scene he’s just been physically defeated, but as we see in his response to the Avengers when they apprehend him (“If it’s all the same to you, I’ll have that drink now”), he’s still mentally composed. In the second scene, he’s psychologically defeated, driven by isolation, despair, and self-loathing to escape into illusions of… being someone else, basically.

God damn, that scene still makes me so fucking sad.