One of the lines in “Thor: The Dark World” that gets overlooked, I think (possibly because Marvel cut it from the final edit) was when Thor is talking to Frigga about Loki, and she says to him that he and Odin always shone so brightly, it was hard for Loki to find any sun for himself, or something to that effect.
Anyway, this is such a massively important line, because it basically tells us EVERYTHING about Loki’s childhood, and how he felt. And here again is yet another example of how absolutely WRONG Taika Waitit’s view of these characters was, given what I heard about him wanting to include a flashback in Ragnarok showing Thor as a sensitive and bullied child, and Loki as dark and mean. That would have been in DIRECT conflict with everything we know about these characters, just like everything else in Ragnarok is.
From what Frigga says to Thor, it’s plain as day that Loki as a child was always struggling just to catch up to Thor, to try and be equal to him, not just in Odin’s and Frigga’s eyes, but in the eyes of probably the entire kingdom. It tells us that Thor, as a boy, was as popular and well liked, as charming and charismatic and as easy to make friends as he is as an adult, and that Loki was very much the introvert, quiet, awkward and isolated. And from Loki’s desperation to win Odin’s approval in the first Thor film, I think it becomes apparent that that desperation grew directly from his feeling inadequate and lesser to the standard of both his father and his big brother growing up. And it’s just so unbelievably sad, to envision that. To envision Loki constantly struggling, trying to match Thor, trying to make himself seem as good as Thor for Odin, trying to make himself seem like a “true and worthy son”, as he says in the first film. How anyone could miss this about his character is beyond me, unless they’re being willfully obtuse.
And we see from this one line, that Loki’s entire motivation is based on a feeling of lack on his own part. He feels like he’s less. He feels like he isn’t as good as Thor, and that Odin must not love him because he’s not as good as Thor, and until he discovers he’s a Jotun, he doesn’t know why, and he can’t figure it out, and he keeps trying and trying to do the right thing to somehow make him, in his father’s eyes, Thor’s equal. Think of the kind of psychological effect that would have on a person, especially a young man growing up in the kind of culture Loki did. Think of the burden of constantly feeling like there’s something WRONG with you, because you’re constantly measuring yourself against the perfection of an older sibling who everyone loves, while everyone treats you like you’re strange, and even are at times outwardly hostile and cruel to you. Think of the weight of trying to figure out how to change yourself so that others will treat you like they treat your perfect older sibling, but not being able to, because you don’t really know what it is about you that makes everyone dislike or hate you in the first place. And then think of what it must have been like, to discover you’re from a race of beings who the people you’ve grown up around consider to be monsters, who are those people’s mortal enemies, and coming to the swift and awful realization that that must have been it all along. That THAT’S what was wrong with you. That that’s why you’ve always been an outcast.
I just think that one moment from The Dark World was so important for understanding Loki’s character.
And yet, once again, Marvel proves it’s own stupidity by cutting it out. Just like they cut out so many scenes from the first Thor film which showed Loki in a more sympathetic light. Gee, it’s almost like they didn’t want people feeling for him. Too bad they ended up doing so anyway.
Yeah, Taika is clearly biased against Loki, for whatever reason. Logic suggests that an anti-imperialist poc would identify with Loki’s character and his storyline, but Taika seems to have rejected him in favor of Thor. I can’t understand it at all. Can anyone think of a plausible explanation.
Well definitely Taika favors Thor, and what I think it really comes down to is, he favors Chris Hemsworth over Tom Hiddleston. Tom is a total professional actor and he takes his craft seriously. I don’t get that impression with Chris. Chris seems to have more or less given up trying to be a serious actor, taking on one comedic role after another, probably because all his attempts at serious drama got panned by the critics. And Chris has a goofy kind of personality with a goofy sense of humor, and for whatever reason, that appealed to Takia Waititi and they hit it off. You get the definite impression that wasn’t the case with Tom. Every interview with Tom done during Ragnarok’s promotion, he talks about how well Takia and Chris got along, and you just get the sense from it that Tom was very much the outsider to their little party. Takia is also one of those directors that HAS to put himself in his own films, which smacks of a massive ego problem. He isn’t satisfied with being behind the scenes. He wants to be the star too. Which tells me he doesn’t appreciate actors or understand what it takes to BE an actor. He’s one of these people, it seems to me, that thinks anyone can do it. But no, it takes a LOT of talent to be a good actor. It’s an actual art. I just don’t think Tom was able to relate at all to what seemed like the idiotic atmosphere on the set of Ragnarok, and I also get the sense that Taika Waititi aggressively shut Tom out of any collaboration regarding Loki’s character, for example Tom’s saying how he was trying to give Matt Daemon (Chris Hemsworth’s friend, by the way) lines that Loki would say, and Taika Waititi just kept telling him no, and giving his own lines, as if he knew better what Loki would say than Tom. He basically steam rolled him. Tom’s a sophisticated, very intelligent and high class man, and I wouldn’t be surprised if that irritated and intimidated a low class shill like Waititi.
Tom’s a sophisticated, very intelligent and high class man, and I wouldn’t be surprised if that irritated and intimidated a low class shill like Waititi.
I think you’re right. I also think it could be his background, He’s English and went to Eton (known as school of Kings for a reason).
A lot of people hate that. And I get why. A perfect example, there’s a show on BBC at the moment about Jeremy Thorpe trying to murder his gay lover, and he basically got away with it because the judge was an old Etonian, like Thorpe, and was incredibly biased in his favour, pretty much instructing the jury to find Thorpe not guilty. “The establishment” has historically protected its own, even from murder charges.
Some people can’t see past that privilege to the individual.
Never mind that Tom’s grandfather was a dockworker, oh no, if he went to Eton he’s got to be an evil establishment coloniser intent on keeping the working man down.
Reblogging for the latest comments, which I’m onboard with. I think there’s another aspect at play in all this as well. I’ve always seen the relationship between Thor/Loki as classic sibling rivalry…..anyone else remember the Smothers’ Brothers schtick of “Mom always loved you best?” Thor’s the favored child in the THOR films but LOKI is the favored character by the fans and critics. If you go back and watch all of the Chris/Tom interviews for Thor there isn’t a single one where Tom doesn’t deflect a question to sing the praises of Chris. Never, that I’ve seen, has Tom put himself out there as the star, better actor or slighted Chris in any way. I feel certain that CH, in the real world, feels that Tom has, so to speak, stolen his thunder. Personally I put the tearing down of Loki in Ragnarok on the shoulders of both Taika & Chris. Ragnarok was clearly The Assassination of Loki.
This last comment is exactly right. I suspect that Taika and maybe also Chris assume that Tom thinks he’s better than them because he’s educated, cultured, and classically trained. He *is* better than them: he’s kinder, more empathetic, a better actor with a better understanding of human psychology and dramatic narrative, and 100% less narcissistic. But he doesn’t know that and he would never act like he thinks he’s better than anyone.
I want to emphasize that the important sense in which Waititi and Hemsworth are “low class” has nothing to do with money or genealogy. It’s entirely about mindset. They lack “class” in the normative sense. They are low class in the same way as the Trumps (though to a lesser extent, of course). You can be in the highest echelons of society and still regard everything as a competition with you (and maybe your buddies) against the world that you must win at all costs.
Loki is the Philosopher King 