Does anyone want to talk about how ridiculous it is that Valkyrie, of all people, shames Loki for not caring about doing the right thing?
Loki: I don’t mean to impose…
(Valkyrie throws a bottle at him because violence is only bad if The Villain™ does it)
Loki: The Grandmaster has a great many ships. I may even have stolen the access codes to his security system.
Valkyrie: And suddenly you’re overcome with an urge to do the right thing?You know… the same woman who spent half this movie also avoiding Thor’s attempts to gain her aid? The one who only decided to help out about five minutes prior to this scene? The one who arguably never would have wound up helping had Loki not invaded her memories, thus jolting her out of complacency? That Valkyrie?
Yeah, and considering her history in enslaving people for the Grandmaster runs about 1000 or so years? Maybe more, I can’t recall, she doesn’t really have the moral high ground.
In fact, Loki attempting to capture Thor and surrender him to the Grandmaster is more in line with something that Valkyrie would likely pursue (considering her time in Sakaar). Maybe they should have made her more difficult to convince.
Her comment/question is rather out of place also and would have to assume that she’s familiar with Loki to the level that Thor or Hulk (cause of NY) are.
I can only assume she said it in retaliation to what Loki did with her mind, but, in my opinion, she probably would have said something else.
Or they could have validated that she wasn’t necessarily trustworthy too.
It just felt like more of Taika’s lazy story-telling to me, as opposed to Valkyrie getting back at him for the whole ‘invading my mind’ thing. (But hey, don’t invade people’s brains, kids. It’s quite rude). I personally viewed it more as like, “hey, we haven’t reminded people that Loki’s a bad egg in the last 3 minutes or so; better let someone have a dig at his loose morals” sort of BS that is honestly just rampant in Thor: Ragnarok.
Like, I know Ragnarok critics get labelled conspiracy theorists for thinking (or at least speaking as though) Taika just had it out for Loki and wanted to degrade him as much as possible. And I get it, that sounds objectively insane. But just, looking at the narrative of the film itself, it’s… hard not to get that impression? And there’s really no other indicator in that movie–unless I’m forgetting something–that anyone on Sakaar (not including Thor and Bruce, obviously) has a clue who Loki really is. I guess it’s possible that they do, but there’s no evidence that that’s the case. More show & tell problems in this film.
I actually do want to address the ‘betraying Thor for money’ thing, though. Because I see a lot of people complaining that it’s completely out of character for Loki to do so for the money, and I actually have a different take on it. We all know Loki is rarely able to just be honest about what’s going on in his head. That’s essentially what the entire conflict between him and Thor has been fueled by for all this time, really. So I kind of headcanon that Loki might have told Thor that it was for the money, but I personally believe that in reality, it was actually Loki’s last-ditch effort to save his brother. Even as strong as he and Thor both are, individually and together, he did not believe Hela was an enemy that they could defeat (which is technically true)–especially now that she’s all cozy on Asgard, where she’ll be even stronger than when they first met her. Loki already failed once to talk Thor into staying on Sakaar of his own free will; I think betraying him was Loki’s way of trying to keep him safe from Hela by any means necessary.
I also think that deceptiveness can extend to his fight with Valkyrie too. A lot of Loki fans complain about her being able to take him captive so easily, but I choose to believe he lost to her intentionally. Easy ticket to finding his brother. He is the trickster god. Why are we suddenly taking him at face value all the time?
Admittedly, when it comes to Thor: Ragnarok, it’s super hard to decide when Loki is acting out of character because he’s running a scheme and when he’s doing it because of bad writing.
People actually call Loki stans (the true Loki stans) and people who don’t like Ragnarok as idiots just ‘cause we analyzed the movie from start to finish. Most of these people who insult us are new to the fandom and only saw Ragnarok. And even if they saw the other Thor movies they don’t remember it or for some reason they don’t like it. They just here for the jokes and, me, who is someone who’s here for depth of character, good storytelling and just pure emotion cannot deal with people like that.
Valkyrie is a good character but i wish people wouldn’t forget that she has done more wrong than Loki. She’s captured slaves for the Grandmaster for centuries. But of course she’s a hero like Thor and can do no wrong. Also people keep forgetting that the Grandmaster himself is a despot and a tyrant who has no mercy or respect for life. But you know he talks funny and so its all okay.
You know… the same woman who spent half this movie also avoiding Thor’s attempts to gain her aid? The one who only decided to help out about five minutes prior to this scene? The one who arguably never would have wound up helping had Loki not invaded her memories, thus jolting her out of complacency? That Valkyrie?
In fact, Valkyrie’s own words about “
suddenly you’re overcome with an urge to do the right thing?
“ itself applies accurately to what Valkyrie was doing exactly at that time.
And to be honest, Valkyrie is a hypocrite. Considering about her own deeds that sold many non-guilty people into slavery and causing those people’s deaths for thousands years, and the fact that she knows almost nothing about Loki himself, she has absolutely no right to judge Loki and then acts like she has never done anything wrong in her life, ever.
Valkyrie is a good character but i wish people wouldn’t forget that she has done more wrong than Loki. She’s captured slaves for the Grandmaster for centuries. But of course she’s a hero like Thor and can do no wrong. Also people keep forgetting that the Grandmaster himself is a despot and a tyrant who has no mercy or respect for life. But you know he talks funny and so its all 🆗.
People often forget about her actions because the narrative never call it. The narrative of Ragnarok want to condemn Loki only out of other characters and exaggerating his “evilness” into stereotype and caricature-like so people start to regard him as only “a mere background character who is just an useless twink who have no dignity and just nothing but a pest to Thor the Perfect ‘Hero’ with no absolute importance other than being fan-service”. That’s why they’re so many double standards in Ragnarok especially regarding Loki.
Waititi did have it in for Loki, he admitted it. He said Loki’s treatment and humiliation was “payback” for overshadowing the other movies. Everything, from that stupid play, to the deleted port o potty scene, to being chained up and having glass bottles thrown at his head, to Thor’s triumphant obedience disc scene was all a reflection of exactly how Waititi feels about Loki. “Blah, blah, blah, shut up, space orphan” “Loki tries so hard to be this tortured, artistic, space orphan”. Waititi’s not subtle about it. He thinks all the little Loki lovers are idiots. He meant out to “respectfully” disrespect the other movies, and extend a middle finger to those of us whose favorite character wasn’t Thor. It’s funny how, in that scene where Loki is sitting there chained up, nobody there, not Thor, not Bruce or Valkyrie, have any right to stand there and judge Loki. Valkyrie was just as much a “lackey” of the Grandmaster, if not moreso, because she worked for him and enslaved people for him for a long, long, time. She knew about the orgy ship too, and was obviously in high favor with the grandmaster. But yet in that scene, suddenly Thor, Bruce and Valkyrie are the spotless heroes with the right to look down their noses at Loki? No.
That’s part of what makes it so maddening too. Waititi fans love to label Ragnarok critics as “conspiracy theorists”. And it’s like… well, yeah… there was a conspiracy. About which Waititi has been completely transparent. So like… how is this even a controversial or debatable thing? If you want to defend Waititi’s bullshit, fine. But don’t resort to gaslighting to do it.
Every time I hear them bitching about Thor not being the most popular character, though, I can’t help laughing. Like. This is literally the inverse of the premise of the movies. They mock Loki for being insecure about feeling second place to Thor in his own family… but that’s literally what Chris Hemsworth’s big problem with these movies is–coming in second to Loki in his own franchise. Except, you know, Hemsworth doesn’t have the underlying trauma of having been sold a lie his entire life and then tortured by a maniac, etc. So… ¯_(ツ)_/¯
Yes, LOL! So who’s the dramatic little bitch now? And who does Waititi see himself as, Thanos? Coming in and restoring order and balance to the Thor franchise? because people chose their own favorite character, and it wasn’t the title character? A character he doesn’t particularly care for or understand, so the only thing to do was tear him down, mock and ridicule him, and punish him for being loved and us for loving him.
Thank you one & all but especially @nikkoliferous for saying this:
“
They mock Loki for being insecure about feeling second place to Thor in his own family… but that’s literally what Chris Hemsworth’s big problem with these movies is–coming in second to Loki in his own franchise.”
That’s what I’ve been saying all along. In Thor & TDW those were THOR Movies. Hemsworth was the STAR, yet not just fans but CRITICS praised Tom as Loki. At least one critic who reviewed TDW said the BEST SCENES were those with Tom as Loki. Both films revolved around toxic sibling rivalry, primarily due to Daddy obviously loving and valuing one son more than the other. In REAL LIFE the roles were reversed and poor Chris Hemsworth poured out his poor abused, broken heart to his comrade in arms, Taika. Together they worked to destroy Loki and Tom’s fan base who are characterized as silly girls who fell for “the bad boy” instead of the “hero.” What irks me more than anything else is that in nearly every interview Tom gave for the Thor films he praised Chris, first and foremost. He NEVER put himself above or in front of Chris. Betrayal of the worst kind, imho.
When they’re outmatched, most creatures up their game.
The Lesser Talented Hemsworth, however, prefers to “win” by sabotaging its competition.
It’s an effective tactic in the short term but in the longer term, it soon becomes obvious who has the greater talent. As time goes on, the Lesser Talented Hemsworth finds that increasingly, its box office returns for dramatic roles cannot justify the budget, not indeed its paycheque, and eventually they find themselves relegated to B movies, where their toxic effect on box office numbers is mitigated by significantly small budgets.
Reblogging again because there’s a new branch of the discussion and it is also excellent.
Loki is the Philosopher King 