Get it? Cause they’re both blue? And bad guys? I’m hysterical, admit it.
In this meta, I will be examining the similarities between the sibling relationship arcs of Thor & Loki and Gamora & Nebula, from their childhood to their reconciliation (or “reconciliation”, as the case may be).
This meta will be split into two parts: Context and Argument.
The purpose of this meta is to explain why I am dissatisfied with the conclusion to Thor & Loki’s relationship arc. If you’re not a fan of Ragnarok criticism/discussion, this meta isn’t for you, and the tag you should blacklist if you’re following me is “ragnarok discourse”. It’s perfectly fine to tailor your dashboard to your preferences. I do it too. If you aren’t a fan of Ragnarok criticism, but would like to rebut my arguments, you’re more than welcome to do so politely.
Some people who might find this interesting/want to add something… @philosopherking1887, @imaginetrilobites, @lucianalight, @princess-ikol, @illwynd, @incredifishface, and @iamanartichoke (I know Ragnarok criticism isn’t always your thing, but when it comes to the Brodinsons’ relationship we seem to agree). I hate tagging people, but this post was too much work not to. I always feel like I’m bothering everyone. Do feel free to disregard if you would like.
Context
Childhood
Gamora and Nebula both lose everything, Thanos kidnaps them, and they’re trained and mutilated, turned into assassins who travel the galaxy and do his bidding. Thanos pits them against one another in a competition where Gamora always comes out on top. Nebula grew to resent Gamora for winning–that they were in this competition at all since she just wanted a sister–even though Thanos was ultimately responsible/the one at fault for this. Through it all, Gamora remained focused on her own problems, and in so doing unintentionally contributed to Nebula’s (ex: Gamora winning results in Nebula being augmented).
Thor and Loki, compared to Gamora and Nebula, have an idyllic childhood. They’re actually Odin and Frigga’s children. Odin and Frigga are bad/abusive parents, but they are parents. Both Odin and Frigga conceal from Loki his heritage. They allow Thor and others to spout racism against Frost Giants, even in Loki’s presence. They permit Thor’s worst impulses until after someone gets hurt. Odin pits them against one another in a competition where Thor always comes out on top. Loki grew to resent Thor for being the favored son–that they were in this competition at all since he just wanted to be equals–even though Odin was ultimately responsible/the one at fault for this. Through it all, Thor remained focused on his own problems, and in so doing unintentionally contributed to Loki’s (ex: Thor’s own insecurities and resulting arrogance lead to him reinforcing Loki’s insecurities with commands like, “Know your place, brother.”).
Conflict
To summarize the entire active conflict between Thor and Loki (two+ fucking films worth!) would be exhausting, so I’m merely going to enumerate the similarities where I see them.
Both pairs of siblings begin at a relatively equal moral position. Gamora and Nebula have both committed grave crimes against the galaxy at the behest of Thanos and Ronan. Thor and Loki both start firmly convinced of the vileness of the Frost Giant race. Gamora and Thor are, perhaps, worse than their siblings. Gamora easily steals an opportunity from Nebula in GotG. It’s not a stretch to infer Thanos and Ronan favored sending her on jobs, meaning she would have committed more crimes. Thor
has genocidal aspirations, where Loki does not (at first), wanting to destroy the Frost Giants in whole or in part (look at me exercising my knowledge of the U.N. definition of genocide like some pedantic asshole) because of the prejudice he’s absorbed from society and, almost certainly, Odin specifically.
Gamora and Thor both come to the realization that they were wrong. Gamora betrays Thanos and finds a new family, while Thor confronts his greatest flaws and adjusts his behavior and values.
Meanwhile, Nebula and Loki hurt innocent people to achieve their (sympathetic) desires. In Nebula’s case, she helps Ronan attempt to annihilate the Nova Empire in exchange for the opportunity to destroy Thanos, the “father” that’s tortured her all her life. In Loki’s case, he first attempts genocide against the Frost Giants in the midst of a mental breakdown/identity crisis in order to win Odin’s approval, and then attacks Midgard to survive Thanos, get away from the torture, and to lash out at the people he feels did him wrong (Thor and Odin).
At various points, Nebula and Loki attempt to kill their siblings. (I’m not going to list them–you know them.)
Gamora and Thor initially attempt to reason with their siblings, to talk them down from the conflict, but they both, inevitably, give up on them. Gamora gives up on Nebula at the end of GotG. At the beginning of GotG Vol. 2, Nebula is a bounty Gamora means to collect. Thor gives up on Loki twice. First, at the end of Avengers. Second, in Ragnarok.
Argument
You know, looking at the similarities between the sibling arcs, I have to wonder about fandom’s treatment of Nebula vs. Loki. I, for one, have never seen anyone claim that Nebula doesn’t deserve Gamora, despite the fact that both Nebula and Loki try to kill their siblings, lead armies that devastate a city, and attempt genocide/to massacre the people of an empire, not primarily out of a desire to kill (though in Loki’s case there’s certainly a bit of that when it comes to the Frost Giants), but for other reasons (family issues/Thanos issues). Granted, Nebula does both at the same time, whilst Loki spreads these things out, but that doesn’t explain the difference in the fandom’s treatment of these characters and their relationships with their siblings.
It’s a very thoughtful description of the two relationships. To summarize, Nebula and Gamora are independent characters with independent goals who reconcile as equals. Loki is narratively a prop for Thor and he skunks back to Thor’s shadow under the pain of abandonment.
A interesting detail is that Nebula is allowed a clean win in the field where their rivalry was centered (physical prowess). Loki is denied a clean win in the two fields where his rivalry with Thor was at its peak: he’s shown as a very lousy king/leader AND the generally unworthy brother throughout the film.
Not only that, but the movie shows him up in areas where he used to have the upper hand on Thor – manipulation and trickery. If you can call Thor’s hamfisted tactics “manipulation” and not bludgeoning. What next, are they going to make Thor an accomplished sorcerer? Oh wait, they already got Strange to overshadow Loki there too.
That’s a pretty standard narrative/mythic trope, the “trickster tricked.” It happens in the Norse myths, as when Loki turns into a salmon to try to escape punishment for causing Balder’s death and then Thor catches him in the fishnet that Loki had been weaving. (A very literal version of the weaver of schemes being caught in his own net.) We saw a little bit of that in TDW, when Thor handcuffed Loki instead of arming him (“I thought you liked tricks”) and pushed him out of the Dark Elf ship onto the skiff (“You lied to me. I’m impressed”). In theory, I don’t have a problem with that.
What @foundlingmother points to as the problem with their “reconciliation” is exactly right. Unlike GotG2 with Nebula, TR doesn’t even acknowledge, let alone validate, Loki’s perspective on the sibling conflict. Of course the in-story reason Loki doesn’t rebut Thor’s assessment is because he’s paralyzed by the obedience disk… but that parallels the structural narrative situation, too. He’s being silenced, physically by Thor* and narratively by the film’s implied perspective (which basically lines up with Thor*’s). By acquiescing to Thor*’s demands, apparently because he’s responded to the ultimatum, Loki appears to confirm Thor*’s and the film’s diagnosis that all of the problems in the relationship were the result of Loki’s selfish, capricious badness – never mind that 3 previous films made a point of showing that this is not the case.
Yes, more power to them. I just wish they wouldn’t imply we’re crazy and stupid (and flat out say we’re wrong) for not seeing it as positive… Like, I’m sorry I don’t see Thor leaving Loki with a device meant to keep slaves in line active on him as this sweet moment of brotherly acceptance. (Sorry, lots of posts getting on my nerves lately. Couldn’t help but vent.)
OK guess i lied about not going into any more detail in a public post.
See, a lot of the complaints I have seen about it, and a lot of the derisive responses to those complaints, have been about whether the device itself was cruel. But to me, that’s… missing the point a bit, at least with the way I see it, because I am completely not complaining about the physical pain Thor inflicted on Loki. They can bash the shit out of each other, that’s fine; I’m sure if you tallied up who had hurt who when, they’d both have a long list. I do think it was… reckless, to say the least… for Thor to leave him there helpless without any certainty of who would find him, but I would be able to overlook that as a lapse in judgment under other circumstances.
What bothers me is why. Telling someone who has known trauma around identity and belonging “who you are is as a person is inadequate and I will disown you unless you change to suit my standards” is…
I mean, I know some folks reading this are not gonna hear what I’m saying but are going to hear what they think I’m saying. So let me clarify. I am not saying how horrible Thor is for saying it. I don’t care whether it’s right or wrong, an acceptable or unacceptable action. That is entirely irrelevant. It could be 100% justified… but it would not have achieved the end that the movie claims. What I’m saying is that regardless of whether Loki got out and followed him back to Asgard, and regardless of whether they hugged and made nice with each other, that conversation did the opposite of what needed to happen to heal their relationship, and it may have effectively destroyed any chance of future healing between them.
The fracture in their relationship was around trust—not just Thor’s trust in Loki but also Loki’s trust in Thor. That was something that TDW got very right, for all its other flaws, because it showed that Loki started to come back from the edge when Thor chose to extend trust to him, treated him like his brother, took him seriously, and generally allowed Loki to believe that their relationship was not permanently stained. What Loki needed was to be able to trust in Thor’s love for him: that it wasn’t just circumstantial. That he, as a person, mattered to Thor, and that Thor would be able to re-accept him after his transgressions and would continue to value him. And Thor showing him so through his actions was working to fix their relationship and give them the space to talk things through
with some kind of honesty
and work their shit out. It was working, to the extent that Loki fully intended to die to save Thor. (The fact that Loki took advantage of circumstances when he woke up alive doesn’t change that and is, to my thinking, wholly in line with his character and his need to not let his feelings be used against him. Just died for your brother in a blatant display of love and loyalty? whoop better go and be a dick to fuck that right up!).
But the above scene from Ragnarok, Thor’s ultimatum, would utterly shatter Loki’s trust in all of those things. And, importantly, it would do absolutely nothing to heal Thor’s trust in his brother, either, because… I mean, it was compliance under threat of abandonment. That really doesn’t prove anything about someone’s trustworthiness or whether they have “changed.” All it proves is that you know where their buttons are located.
And that is exactly where the movie leaves it, with trust thoroughly shattered on both sides. Which is the end of any relationship if serious action isn’t taken to repair that trust. But no such action is shown or even suggested. Loki coming to save the day wouldn’t do it; he’d rushed to Thor’s rescue as recently as the previous movie, so that’s hardly new. Them fighting side by side wouldn’t do it; they’d done that thousands of times before. Hugs likewise. And if the issues were deep and serious enough to cause the breaking of a centuries-long brotherly bond, how could they possibly be resolved off-screen, without so much as a hint of how it happened? They couldn’t. It just doesn’t work, narratively speaking.
So to me, that movie ends with their relationship completely broken. They are inhabiting the same space and they are ostensibly on peaceful terms, but any basis for trust has been destroyed. By any meaningful definition, their relationship is deader than a doornail.
And to me it is fitting, under those circumstances, that Loki would go and get himself killed kinda-sorta on purpose at the first opportunity as well. I mean, last time he was in a similar situation of having been rejected by those he cared about, he threw himself into an abyss. And this time he even got to continue to try to prove himself to Thor while doing it, just like one might feel compelled to do after such an ultimatum.
So yeah that’s why I call it a breakup. Because I don’t see any other way I can interpret it.
Thank you so much for saying this publicly. It was talking to you that led me to realize that Ragnarok destroyed the main characters, especially Thor, so thoroughly that I couldn’t make excuses for it, couldn’t keep liking it for bringing Thor and Loki back together even if I was uncomfortable with the way it belittled Loki’s grievances and turned Thor more self-absorbed than he had been at the beginning of Thor 1. Thank you for adding this to the discussion and redirecting it to something that really is more important than the points it has been getting unproductively stuck on. I’ll admit to getting stuck on the obedience disk, too, because one of the things that made me most deeply uncomfortable, even before you convinced me that Thor* was never giving Loki a genuine choice, was how smug, how self-satisfied and even gleeful Thor looked while seeing Loki in pain. But you’re right that that by itself could be explained as the anger of the moment (and I did try to explain it that way in some post-Ragnarok Thorki fanfiction, while also having Loki try to re-assert some independence and Thor actually listen to Loki’s side of things… as if that wouldn’t be too little, too late).
I think this point is especially important and unusual in the discourse:
I am not saying how horrible Thor is for saying it. I don’t care whether it’s right or wrong, an acceptable or unacceptable action. That is entirely irrelevant. It could be 100% justified… but it would not have achieved the end that the movie claims. What I’m saying is that regardless of whether Loki got out and followed him back to Asgard, and regardless of whether they hugged and made nice with each other, that conversation did the opposite of what needed to happen to heal their relationship, and it may have effectively destroyed any chance of future healing between them.
It seems like a lot of the disagreement between the Loki fans (myself included) and the Thor* stans has been about whether Thor* was justified in doing what he did. The Thor* stans insist that Loki was a terrible brother, constantly stabbing and betraying Thor, so he deserved to be punished and needed to be told that Thor* wasn’t going to put up with his shit anymore; and the Loki fans have probably spent too much time arguing that before Thor 1 Loki hadn’t given Thor any reason to mistrust him, and since then he’s had reasons for all of his betrayals. I think some of us have also added that punishment and ultimatum aren’t the means to real reconciliation, but it’s probably focused too much on whether or not Thor* is being physically, psychologically, and/or emotionally “abusive,” with all the baggage that word carries with it.
You’re emphasizing exactly the right issue that everyone invested in Thor and Loki’s relationship, whether sexual/romantic or just brotherly, should care about, regardless of which character they favor and independent of the moralistic language that people on Tumblr love to weaponize (and I don’t exempt myself here).
Telling someone who has known trauma around identity and belonging “who you are is as a person is inadequate and I will disown you unless you change to suit my standards” is…
The fracture in their relationship was around trust—not just Thor’s trust in Loki but also Loki’s trust in Thor. … What Loki needed was to be able to trust in Thor’s love for him: that it wasn’t just circumstantial. That he, as a person, mattered to Thor, and that Thor would be able to re-accept him after his transgressions and would continue to value him. …
But the above scene from Ragnarok, Thor’s ultimatum, would utterly shatter Loki’s trust in all of those things. And, importantly, it would do absolutely nothing to heal Thor’s trust in his brother, either, because… I mean, it was compliance under threat of abandonment. That really doesn’t prove anything about someone’s trustworthiness or whether they have “changed.” All it proves is that you know where their buttons are located.
OK, now all I’m doing is quoting you, but that’s because I really like the way you put it and it’s really, really important.
You know what I want more of? Variety in aliens. No, I don’t mean more designs for alien species. I mean variety within a species. They always seem to have the same government, the same culture, the same religion, the same language. Come on, humans don’t work that way!
“Say, there’s a Qualar over there. What are they saying?”
“No idea.”
“What?”
“That’s a Kinzian Qualar. I’m a Surolian Qualar. You’d have just as much luck understanding them as I would. You’re lucky I even speak Human.”
“Human isn’t a language.”
“What?”
“Carl, we’ve been speaking Russian. There’s also Arabic, French, English–about a thousand others–”
“HOW DO YOU HAVE SO MANY LANGUAGES YOUR PLANET IS TINY.”
My favorite part about this is that the alien is named “Carl.”
I’m always annoyed at vampire stories where the vampire angsts about “oh, no, i’m a monster.” I mean, yeah, technically you’re a monster, but more importantly you have superpowers. You’ve got, depending on the canon, super-strength, varying degrees of invulnerability, the ability to turn into and/or command certain animals, some mind control. You can be a superhero, easy. Get over yourself, make a costume, and start fighting crime, you whiny Dracula.
This is basically the premise of “Angel.” With some continued angsting.
Loki is the Philosopher King 