thorduna:

cookiesforthedarkside:

sb: thor isn’t made of sunshine and rainbows, and is actually a complicated guy who’s done some bad shit, and shouldn’t be treated as an innocent teddy bear

thor stans: is this character hate?

thor stans: thor isn’t perfect but he’s not malicious and sure as shit didn’t try to commit genocide

sb: wow such a flat outlook on character. thor stans just can’t see thor as anything but perfect. sad.

As a fan of both Loki and Thor who finds Loki more interesting as a character but certainly does not deny that he has more moral problems than Thor, I have to point out that that’s a peculiarly bad example. Kid Thor saying “When I’m king, I’ll hunt the monsters down and slay them all” can be dismissed as little-boy careless bravado. Young man Thor, after starting a destructive battle on Jotunheim, shouting “Father! We’ll finish them together!”… harder to dismiss. Maybe he just means “defeat them definitively”; maybe it’s just the rage of battle talking. Or maybe he meant what he said when he was a kid.

Loki certainly has a more effective plan to commit genocide, and probably comes closer to succeeding. It’s indirect and technological rather than direct and warrior-like; that’s part of the difference between their characters. Loki’s attempt also has the complexity of being undertaken after finding out that he’s a member of the group he’s trying to wipe out. Does that make it morally better? Not exactly, but it does add an element of twisted pathos. In both cases, Odin’s miseducation deserves a large share of the blame.