I hate that during this scene the warriors 3 are basically trying to bully Loki, the current King of Asgard, into doing what they want him to do as always. They had clearly been nothing but disrespectful to him his entire life and I honestly wonder why Loki put up with it so long. Like, fuck them. And Loki baby, I am so glad you treated them in the most King-like fashion, never lowering to their level, and maintaining that poise and elegance that trademarks you as royalty and superior. Yet, I am proud of you for putting them in their place💚
“We’re done.” 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼
Nothing but respect for my King 👑
<3<3<3<3<3
So something I’ve been wondering about ever since I saw the deleted scene where Loki is legitimately made king, is what did Sif and the Warriors Three think? Did they think, like the audience was meant to think, that Loki had seen his chance and just taken power and locked his mother away with Odin? Or do you think they believed what he said? If they thought he had stolen power unjustly and had hurt Odin and Frigga then their behaviour is more understandable. But if not then they were just being spoilt children.
I firmly believe that they thought Loki was a usurper. That Loki saw his chance and seized it. It looks to an outsider that all of the events of this movie were a carefully planned coup to get rid of Thor, when all it was was a bad prank gone awry and Loki adapting to it in a way that protected him. (I’m not defending his bad choices, don’t get me wrong.) Loki had no idea Odin would go into his Odinsleep. Loki didn’t know Odin would banish Thor for attacking Jotunheim. Thor was constantly reminding Loki of his “place” – Loki felt as though he had extremely limited influence on any situation that involved his brother and would do anything for Thor’s approval, so he went along. Frigga knew who and what Loki was, and still gave him Gungnir and the throne. Loki was king by his own right, and not a usurper.
…bullying him???
*facepalm*
Well, maybe not “bullying”. But disrespect him as new king, like it was all a joke. Sif was about to slap him if I’m not mistaken. And that laugh from Volstagg when he says the word “king” is mockery. Maybe that’s a better word…
it’s a vastly different thing, and something tells me they would have taken the mickey out of Thor too if it had been him. Those looks at Thor’s coronation are the kind that promise the King of Asgard is going to be put in his place by his mates after the coronation, lest he should forget he’s still just Thor.
As for Loki, finding HIM on the throne comes to them as a total shock, but when they realize it’s serious, they do the kneeling and “my kinging” thing as due, if unsettled by the new turn of affairs. No disrespect at all once they are convinced is not a joke. Then of course they are further unsettled when they request Loki to allow Thor to return and Loki gives an answer that disturbs them and furthers their notion that something is very wrong here, which it absolutely is.
As for Volstagg specifically, the man laughs at everything, and he also says the “silver tongue turned to lead” quip, but he was the first to jump to Loki’s defense when Hogunn suggested he might be the one behind the frost giants in the throne room. No, wait, I think Fandral is the first.
Sif doesn’t like Loki and he doesn’t trust him, and the roots for that animosity can be argued to come directly from myth, but personally from sir Ken’s editing choices I think there’s a huge element of jealousy there i wonder why , and Hogun I have no idea but in any case his suggestion that Loki might be behind the frost giant thing is 100% right, so you can argue this is a case of prejudice against Loki, that Hogunn is always ready to think the worst about him (but we don’t have ANY other indication about that in the MCU, not a lot of interactions between Hogun and anyone to be able to tell), but you could just as well argue this is… intelligence, insight, the ability to read a person beyond the screens he hides behind.
I insist the whole notion that Loki is bullied by Asgard, Sif and the Warriors 3 is not a fair assessment of the situation as described.
I think Loki does feel like nobody likes him and that he doesn’t fit, and he’ll find confirmation of that wherever he likes, because that’s what his type of mentality breeds. But that’s on Loki and his mental problems.
what I see in that throne room is the very disturbing notion of all that power suddenly bestowed on a highly perturbed man who’s just discovered a terrible truth about himself, and hasn’t told anyone about it, on the back of a serious upheaval in his family. I see a tyrant in the making, uptight as fuck, on the defensive from the first moment bc he’s ready to be confronted (rightly so, his hold on power is extremely weak, and he must be feeling guilty af about what happened to his father, not to mention the Jotun thing), and he acts in a way that is making everybody very fucking nervous. That scene is meant to describe precisely that. The Villain is in Power, the Good Guys are in Danger. The Warriors 3 and Sif are very fucking right in feeling suspicious and concerned about Thor’s fate, and their own. There’s something fishy there, and Loki is not to be trusted, but feared, with power already gone to his head. Not ideal in a new king.
ABSOLUTELY 100% FUCKING RIGHT.
no bullying anywhere.
I think the interpretation of the scene varies if there are different headcanons involved. I like that about the MCU – the films are made in a way that is ambiguous and open to interpretation. If you include the myth or not, if you have some simliar experiences yourself or not, defines what you see and the scene is open enough for all those perspectives. This is the source of all those glorious fanfiction 🙂
What I’m trying to say is, that it is totaly valid to see Loki as harrased, bullied or else here if you depicture the relationship between him and the warrior’s three/sif until now as a Thor-centric where Loki has always been the loser who is just allowed because he happened to be Thors brother. But your points are totaly valid and interesting too 🙂
you’re right. the way I put it, it sounds as if I think there’s no room for interpretation, and of course there is. Having said that, there is a place for headcanon and interpretation, but canon is also there. You can’t claim black was white and say that white is canon. You have to substantiate your interpretation on something that other people can see too, or you’re just making things up, and we’re playing a different game. In other words, you’re free to make up a verse in which Loki was a perfectly wholesome and adjusted boy who was bullied and mistreated so much by Thor and the Warriors 3 that he ended up suffering a complete breakdown and so became a genocidal maniac, but that’s not canonverse as we are shown it.
And I certainly cannot share the view that what we are shown in that scene amounts to any form of bullying. Not the way I understand the word, anyway. As for disrespecting the king, I disagree entirely too. The jokes end very quickly, the moment they realize that Loki somehow is truly officially king, and that it’s not a prank. They request respectfully in respectful words and tone that he let Thor return. Whether or not that respect is heartfelt is another thing.
Personally, I think it is. Among other things, because respect is something you earn, and Loki doesn’t start on the right foot, making suspicious things more suspicious with his decision to keep his brother away (a cruel punishment according to all of them, Loki included) which is indeed very very suspicious if Loki loves his brother as much as he claims, and if Loki’s place on the throne is as clear and strong as he makes it to be, in which case he should have nothing to fear from Thor’s return (and indeed when Loki goes to see Thor on Earth, Thor humbly accepts his removal from the throne and Loki’s rule and just asks to come home). Their friends know them both. If things were all right, if Loki was not up to something, he could easily let Thor return, no problems. Any of the warriors 3 or Sif in Loki’s place would do it, and the reason Loki gives for not doing would always sit wrong with them, first because it’s a big fat lie, and second because among their group, politics shouldn’t go above friendship. For some reason, Loki’s keeping his brother away, and they won’t stand for that. Which is what heroes do, even if you love Loki very very much and feel for him a lot. Fair is fair.
…and maybe I should leave this here? I ramble.
FWIW, I think we are intended to read Loki’s treatment by Thor, the W3, and other Asgardians as (not entirely deserved) bullying. It’s most obvious in the deleted scene, when Thor says “Some do battle, others just do tricks” and the servant laughs: even the lowest-status Asgardians look down on Loki’s magic and think he’s not a “real” warrior. Loki’s reaction is petty and might be construed as bullying itself, since he’s in a position of power over the servant, but that’s character-appropriate: Loki is not one to turn the other cheek, and there’s a satisfying irony in seeing the person who laughed at how pathetic his “tricks” are unnerved by those same tricks. No one is behaving well here, but you can see how the constant grating of underestimation and quiet snickering behind his back would fray Loki’s nerves and push him into occasional cruelty. Not to mention that in a hierarchical society like theirs, it’s extremely inappropriate and galling for a servant to mock a prince.
I also think we’re supposed to interpret the “Silver tongue turned to lead?” comment as unkind. I got that impression just from the actors’ performances – there’s something cold in the delivery of the line, and Loki’s (Tom’s) facial expression and body language in response to it is pained – but there’s also evidence in the script: the direction before the line is “Volstagg walks beside the frustrated Loki, needles him.” My sense of the word “to needle” (reinforced by checking some online dictionaries) is that it’s not friendly teasing. Now, in the online script, Volstagg’s remark is followed by a nasty retort from Loki – “Get me off this bridge before it cracks under your girth” – and “Volstagg and Fandral share a laugh.” I’m not sure how to interpret that (Loki can dish it out but can’t take it?), but I think there’s a good reason that response was cut. Well, two good reasons: one is that it’s unnecessary fat-shaming; but I suspect the other reason is that we’re supposed to get the sense that Loki doesn’t quite fit in with Thor’s group of friends, and it would be less clear if we saw him giving as good as he gets.
The overall impression I got is that Thor’s friends, and often Thor himself, think of Loki as Thor’s weird tag-along little brother and kind of tolerate his presence without actually liking him. Part of that might be because they’ve been the targets of the “mischief” we’re told about, but the conclusion I drew from the “some do battle, others just do tricks” bit was that they also don’t entirely respect or trust him because of his use of magic. He’s not the prototypically macho Asgardian warrior; he’s a little effeminate, he’s a nerd where Thor & co. are jocks. And we see that Thor & friends aren’t always nice to him, which includes Volstagg’s comment and the way Thor cuts him off when he’s trying to negotiate with Heimdall and snaps “Know your place, brother” when Loki tries to talk sense into him in Jotunheim. I also inferred from the staging and the body language that this isn’t unusual: the way Loki tends to stand a little apart from Thor’s friends and hold himself slightly stiff; the way he looks down and his mouth tightens when Thor interrupts him on the bridge, keeps standing there looking humiliated as Thor et al. walk past him and Heimdall, looks hurt when Volstagg makes his snide remark and continues to hang back.
So I think everyone is getting something right and missing something about what happens in the throne room. Yes, Sif and the W3 are disrespectful; they don’t seem to believe that Loki inherited legitimately, Sif says “my King” in a defiant and mocking way, Volstagg is laughing half-nervously and half-disbelievingly when he starts making an obsequious plea for Loki to “reconsider.” Their mistrust and disdain aren’t completely unjustified, but I think Loki’s previous behavior doesn’t warrant it to that extent. Loki is also acting suspicious, saying some weird authoritarian bullshit about “continuity,” and enjoying his new power over the people who always looked down on him. Part of the reason Loki is “a tyrant in the making, uptight as fuck, on the defensive from the first moment bc he’s ready to be confronted” is because he’s used to being disrespected; it’s no wonder that, especially given the recent upheaval in his life and family, the power starts going dangerously to his head. No one is completely in the right or completely in the wrong – which is what makes this movie so complex and interesting: its villain is sympathetic and understandable, its heroes are flawed.
I jumped ship from Tumblr and this is where I landed. I'm a philosophy postdoc (INTJ, she/her) with a serious thing for Tom Hiddleston as Loki. Sometimes I even write fanfiction about it. Mostly Loki and Thor/Loki (sometimes NSFW), some miscellaneous Hiddles, MCU (Steve/Tony or "Superhusbands" is my secondary ship), occasional Cherik, Game of Thrones, LOTR, Whedonverse... whatever catches my fancy, really.
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