illwynd:

illwynd:

foundlingmother:

I read a pro-Ragnarok meta (in particular, it’s pro-Thor and Loki’s “reconciliation”). I don’t want to annoy the person, but I want to talk through some of the things it made me think about, so here’s some word vomit under the cut.

Keep reading

Thiiiiiis. I read that same meta, and you’ve laid out exactly why that interpretation will never work for me. That was maybe a reconciliation for a completely different Thor and Loki, though I personally don’t find it a very compelling one. But it definitely makes no sense for the characters we knew before. 

Also I want to pull this out, the idea that it is being interpreted that way due to a belief

that Loki’s betrayal of Thor is a pattern intrinsic to Loki’s personality, and not a deviation from a thousand year norm of loyalty stemming from Loki’s various traumas

because that is a fuckin good observation.

It is at the very least a lot more complicated than “loki betrays, as a matter of course, because ¯_(ツ)_/¯” and it is in fact not in the nature of trickster figures in general or Loki in particular to betray their (very few) loved ones reflexively, for no reason, just for shits and giggles. Even at his most flippant and devil-may-care (e.g., some of the early comics), he has comprehensible (if uncomfortable) motivations: he may turn cars into ice cream because it’s amusing, but he wouldn’t be coming up with hilarious ways to be a shit-stirrer in that context if it weren’t for his resentments, his jealousies, his broken relationship with his brother. And you don’t fix that by having Thor throw up his hands and say “well, you do you, catch ya on the flipside”

it is in fact not in the nature of trickster figures in general or Loki in particular to betray their (very few) loved ones reflexively, for no reason, just for shits and giggles.

Thank you for saying that – and I know that you’ve done more thorough research and contemplation of the cross-mythology trickster archetype than I have (or probably anyone else in this godsforsaken fandom). I’m so tired of hearing people insist that Ragnarok was a welcome return to Loki’s “canonical” (in comics? myths? what is “canon” here?) characterization as “a trickster” rather than a Shakespearean tragic villain. It’s a pretty simplistic, cartoonish version of a trickster… and that might be insulting to cartoons.