anyone else a slut for that shippy trope where someone does Homage to their sovereign or lord by publicly kneeling and kissing their ring at court in a way that has lots of Sexual Subtext™
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.
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”
I think there’s a level of mischief Loki’s always going to possess. Turning cars into ice cream is something I can see Loki doing for a laugh before their falling out/after their reconciliation, though you’re correct that in that context in the comics he’s being a shit-stirrer due to resentment and jealousy. I find myself more frustrated when people attribute Loki dropping Thor out of the sky in Avengers or backhanding Thor in Thor or, if Ragnarok’s to be taken seriously, attempting to kill Thor many times throughout their childhood (Valkyrie: He did try to kill me. Thor:
Yes, me too. On many, many
occasions. There was one time when
we were children…) to “lol mischief!” That’s not mischief. That’s trying to kill someone that you love. Less extreme, more common, and still very annoying to me, is attributing Loki not telling Thor he survived in TDW or his plot in the beginning of Thor to Loki’s mischievous nature (though I think there’s an element of it in Thor because Loki’s chaotic, but it’s not even close to the main purpose–I don’t believe that Loki commits treason, gets a person killed, and does something that he knows will hurt Thor solely for shits and giggles, mainly because the movie makes it pretty explicit that wasn’t really the point).
The number of people—both Thor stans and Loki stans—who responded to that one post of mine to argue that no, really, Thor and Loki should never interact again because of what we saw in TR… is proof of what a corruption of their relationship that movie is.
Listen. Listen. It’s a weird crack AU that ignores all previous canon. Which is great, I guess, if you found it funny and refreshing. And somewhere between disappointing and depressing if you didn’t. But either way, you just can’t project that characterization backwards onto the previous movies and try to construct a narrative where it all fits into one arc, because it wasn’t meant to fit with them. TW even said he was purposely going against existing canon. Those aren’t the same characters, even if they have the same faces. And Thor and Loki’s relationship in that movie has jack to do with any other version of canon.
(This is partially me yelling at myself, since I know this, logically, but my brain keeps torturing me trying to make it fit somehow, like a wrong puzzle piece, because it’s the third part of a trilogy and it should fit aaaaaaaah. But alas. It does not.)
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.
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.
Loki is the Philosopher King 