fuckyeahrichardiii:

philosopherking1887:

shine-of-asgard:

kitty-hulk:

I hate how Ragnarok made Bruce

Yeah, he’s funny and all. And that was the point of the movie. But look at his past movies. He isn’t frantic, he isn’t the cause of all jokes, he isn’t comfortable around his friends most of the time. Bruce was stern, an incredibly intelligent physicist. He didn’t have this cute little worried attitude. And that bothers me. They made him stupid. They made his intelligence a joke in the movie. And maybe it’s good that he’s “happier” but it’s an incredibly polar change considering Ragnarok Bruce is picking up rsactly where Ultron Bruce left, so there’s no time for any character development. See the gifs for comparison. It just doesn’t seem like the same character.

They made everyone stupid. Ragnarok is either stupid or dickish and everyone suffers for it. Thor lying to Hulk and to Bruce about their alter egos, using Bruce without a second glance is such a dick move. Not funny, just… Ew.

@fuckyeahrichardiii also pointed out that this Bruce didn’t seem to care that he had spent 2 years killing people for fun as the Hulk. A major part of Bruce’s character in the two Avengers movies—and presumably also in The Incredible Hulk, though I haven’t seen it—is his guilt over the damage he does when he’s in Hulk form. In AOU, when Thor does his “report on the Hulk” and talks about the gates of Hel being filled with the screams of his enemies (which is how you do Thor humor, btw), Bruce groans and covers his face because he hates the idea of killing people. (And then Thor picks up on his discomfort and starts backtracking, because pre-Ragnarok Thor, while he may be a little obtuse about other people’s feelings, actually cares about them.) In fact, the reason Bruce/Hulk leaves Earth at the end of AOU is because he’s so distraught over the damage he did and the danger he put people in when Wanda messed with him in Johannesburg.

Yep. Bruce is *tortured* at the damage he does pretty consistently in all the MCU except for Ragnarok. In Ragnarok I saw Mark Ruffalo playing a put upon nerd who whined a lot, rather than an intelligent man who struggled with horrific anxiety (that open nerve line in Avengers was perfection) and the unwelcome burden of being the Hulk. TW did the same awful shit with Bruce that he did with Loki: he took several movies’ worth of beautiful, 3D character development and gutted all of that so that the audience could laugh at it.

Absolute fucking garbage. God, the movie makes me more angry the more I think about it.

#this movie was an insulting shit-heap deal with it#but I guess mcu fandom is okay with its bad writing#outright and deliberation alienation of female fans#gross queer-coding and homophobia#and complete ruin of the thor franchise#because the fandom prefers lulz#and a bottom of the barrel surface barely there commentary on imperialism?#it was a shit commentary on imperialism btw#even that was cheapened and thinned by TW’s focus on making everything and everyone (especially the audience) the butt of a cruel joke#i’m a little bit crabby today can you tell

I love you and your crabbiness, @fuckyeahrichardiii.

damnyouhiddles:

Fine.

#this scene actually bugs me more than any other#thor’s oversimplification of loki’s actions#i expected a little#but they could have given loki a line or two in self defense#something#it was the perfect place#not in an elevator when they’ve got 20 seconds of silence to fill#this is a perfect example of how they turned Loki into a two dimensional character#it was disappointing

It’s definitely not the scene that bugs me most, @writernotwaiting, but it definitely bugs me for the same reason. It’s all of a piece, really: the movie consistently pushes the idea that Loki just does things for the lulz, because he’s “the god of mischief” and it’s somehow in his nature to do shitty things for no apparent reason. (Except I guess Thor is capable of guilting and/or electrocuting his nature out of him, at least temporarily?)

shine-of-asgard:

kitty-hulk:

I hate how Ragnarok made Bruce

Yeah, he’s funny and all. And that was the point of the movie. But look at his past movies. He isn’t frantic, he isn’t the cause of all jokes, he isn’t comfortable around his friends most of the time. Bruce was stern, an incredibly intelligent physicist. He didn’t have this cute little worried attitude. And that bothers me. They made him stupid. They made his intelligence a joke in the movie. And maybe it’s good that he’s “happier” but it’s an incredibly polar change considering Ragnarok Bruce is picking up rsactly where Ultron Bruce left, so there’s no time for any character development. See the gifs for comparison. It just doesn’t seem like the same character.

They made everyone stupid. Ragnarok is either stupid or dickish and everyone suffers for it. Thor lying to Hulk and to Bruce about their alter egos, using Bruce without a second glance is such a dick move. Not funny, just… Ew.

@fuckyeahrichardiii also pointed out that this Bruce didn’t seem to care that he had spent 2 years killing people for fun as the Hulk. A major part of Bruce’s character in the two Avengers movies—and presumably also in The Incredible Hulk, though I haven’t seen it—is his guilt over the damage he does when he’s in Hulk form. In AOU, when Thor does his “report on the Hulk” and talks about the gates of Hel being filled with the screams of his enemies (which is how you do Thor humor, btw), Bruce groans and covers his face because he hates the idea of killing people. (And then Thor picks up on his discomfort and starts backtracking, because pre-Ragnarok Thor, while he may be a little obtuse about other people’s feelings, actually cares about them.) In fact, the reason Bruce/Hulk leaves Earth at the end of AOU is because he’s so distraught over the damage he did and the danger he put people in when Wanda messed with him in Johannesburg.

lokiloveforever:

thiddlestonismyknight:

sweetdreamr:

lokiloveforever:

yume-no-fantasy:

whitedaydream:

I came into this and called Joe and Anthony and said, “Look, don’t write me the old Thor, we’ve got a new Thor now.I was really protective of the new Thor I’d created with Taika.

— Chris Hemsworth on “Avengers: Infinity War”


BONUS:

Loki probably in his heart wants to be worthy. The way he achieves his redemption, his salvation is to ultimately sacrifice himself, for Thor, and for Jane. I hope it’s a very cathartic and moving moment, by saving his brother’s life and avenging his mother’s death.

— Tom Hiddleston (“Thor: The Dark World” Blu-ray Extra)


Source of Kevin Feige’s speech:
“Thor: The Dark World” Blu-ray Extra
The Empire Film Podcast

There are so many inconsistencies in Ragnarok it’s utterly ridiculous, not to mention how they’ve changed the Asgardians’ speech patterns entirely. One significant inconsistency: 

Odin in TDW: We are not gods. We’re born, we live, we die, just as humans do.

Odin in TR: Hela, Goddess of Death/Are you the God of Hammers?

Thor in TR: I am the God of Thunder/You’ll always be the God of Mischief

I’ll get to why this is relevant later. First I have to talk about the issues with Thor’s character in TR. 

Across the films Thor has been shown to be sincere and forthright, sometimes to the point of being naive–those were inherent qualities in him that I liked very much. But TR made him manipulative and scheming, towards both Bruce (in the scene shown in this post) and Loki (elevator “heart-to-heart talk” scene), who are his friend and brother respectively. How is this the Thor we know from before???

(At this point I know some people might want to object by saying that Loki was going to betray Thor so it was only fair that he took precautions, but that reason is bullshit in the first place and I will explain why later) 

TDW might have been boring overall, but as I’ve mentioned before I loved Thor in that film. In TDW he had become a mature and sensible prince, no longer the reckless, arrogant, entitled heir to the throne in the first film, and by the end of TDW he had even shown humility and consideration towards Loki’s motivations. This was good character development in my opinion, but then they (TW and CH) simply decided to throw all that out the window and create a whole new Thor instead because they found him boring. Now that I know that, it’s no longer surprising that Thor was so OOC, because they’ve admitted themselves that they had fully intended to reinvent the character and TW even outright said that CH was just playing himself. (Btw, excuse me?? I went to the cinema to watch Thor Odinson, not Chris Odinson?)

Now, my biggest issue with the film was how they had sacrificed Loki’s character and made him OOC as well. Most significantly, they made him the scapegoat for everything that had happened. If you listened to the podcast above, you’d know that Loki did not fake his death and he had essentially already redeemed himself by the end of TDW. Yet in TR this was what Thor said of him:

“You faked your own death”

“Maybe there’s still some good in you”

“Dear brother, you’re becoming predictable. I trust you, you betray me. Round and round in circles we go. See, Loki, life is about… It’s about growth. It’s about change. But you seem to just wanna stay the same. I guess what I’m trying to say is that you’ll always be the God of Mischief, but you could be more.”

“Maybe you’re not so bad after all” 

“Still some good”??? “Not so bad”???? Seriously, New Thor????? Your brother risked his life to protect you and your ex-girlfriend and he doesn’t get any credit??? He was a villain for a while but surely he’s not all that bad??? In the past 1000 years you’ve known him?? 

And I’ve already explained in detail before why that ‘God of Mischief’ speech was complete nonsense but just to summarise, 

1) Loki didn’t fake his death, if that was one of the betrayals that New Thor was referring to. Tom Hiddleston actually played out the scene thinking that Loki was going to die. But thanks to TR making it into a joke now no one’s gonna take Loki’s death scene in TDW seriously anymore. 

2) “But you seem to just wanna stay the same” –Thor should know damn well how much Loki has changed across the films and why 

3) OOC: They made Loki betray Thor for no reason other than he is the “God of Mischief”, even though this was something that Loki had never done before. He always had clear motivations in every case. 

Also, the thing I’ve mentioned at the start: they only started to emphasize the characters as “Gods” in this film. In Loki’s case it’s the “God of Mischief”–no problem with that, except that they took the label literally and oversimplified his character. New Thor told him “you’ll always be the God of Mischief, but you could be more”, but Loki has always been more, so what was he even talking about?

This is a quote from Tom Hiddleston regarding Loki:

‘He’s just evil. He’s just evil from the front.’ Thanks for the sympathy. Just worked three films, kind of like, integrated a psychology, and all I get: ‘He’s just evil’. Correct.

Replace the word ‘evil’ with ‘mischievous’, and that’s exactly how they interpreted Loki’s character in Ragnarok. 

(Oh, another example is the Loki turning into a snake and stabbing Thor thing that everyone seems to love so much. Umm?? Since when has Loki stabbed his brother for the fun of it? In Avengers he had been crying when he stabbed Thor. In TDW it had been an act to trick the Dark Elves. So? Again, retcon.)

TL;DR: Loki was supposed to have redeemed himself by the end of TDW, but Thor: Ragnarok threw all his character development out the window and instead retconned him into an incorrigible troublemaker so that it would justify OOC Thor’s ‘done with your shit’ attitude towards him throughout the film, making him the scapegoat for everything. All his issues were made into jokes and never addressed. 

@whitedaydream thank you for this post!

@lokiloveforever @latent-thoughts @lucianalight @mastreworld @shine-of-asgard

@yume-no-fantasy  @whitedaydream​ Thank you!!  As you might know I hated Ragnarok, and I found it very offensive and hurtful, and the humor I found to have a very mean-spirited feeling to it. But Thor, omg, he is just….disgusting, and disturbing, and I agree with everything you are saying!

Loki already was MORE than just the god of mischief – and Tom Hiddleston made him that way! What he did for Loki shook the Marvel world, and they were not prepared for the response and the following that Loki gained. He had a depth, mystery, intelligence, elegance, class, complexity, layers, humor mixed with heartbreaking sadness,and tangible pain. And TW made him less, stripped all of that away. So that Thor would look like the quarterback hero, and Loki would look like the loser punk.

I think both the elevator speech and the obedience disc speech are so damn abusive, and it’s all about Thor, how HE feels, how HE thinks Loki should be, and how Loki has fallen short of HIS expectations. It’s a major guilt trip: “maybe there’s still good in you, but you are you, and I am me” meaning, “maybe there’s still good in you, but you’ll never be like me, you’ll never live up to MY kind of goodness" and “you see Loki, life is about growing,changing, moving on” – maybe Thor can let everything roll off his abnormally muscled back, but Loki isn’t like that. what happened to Loki hurt him to the core, and Thor and Loki are 2 very different people! When Loki comes to visit Thor in the freaky circle, Thor has already moved on, forgiven Odin of all his lies, and is right back to blaming Loki. There’s no emotional impact whatsoever.

The stupid play was aimed to wipe away the other movies, and the seriousness of Loki’s redeeming sacrifice for Thor. It was made to make Loki seem laughable, simple and underhanded, and “weasley”. Just like him sitting on his ass eating grapes, we know Loki would never rule like that, but they wanted to make him seem simple in his schemes. TW and CH made Loki this way because that’s the Loki that THEY wanted. A laughable loser whose redemption is set up through a “heartfelt” speech that his loving brother gives him.

By the end it’s just…..wrong. They’re not on even ground. Thor takes the throne, Loki is on the far, far right, with Valkyrie between them, and he’s barely in the shot. Everybody says how happy he is, that he’s finally accepted his place. His place. It makes me sad. I feel like Marvel needs to make up for letting this movie be made!

Also, (I don’t know if this is said or not) TR made Loki ruling as a joke. As Thor said, ‘Sitting in your bath robe eating grapes.” And Loki as odin watching theater about himself. They made it a joke. And they think that’s ‘okay’. That it’s ‘fine’ or ‘cool’. No! They made Loki ruling a frickin joke! I understand the gold statue. But sitting back, eating grapes, watching a play about yourself? That’s NOT okay.

I totally agree with what lokilovefrever said about the 2 little speeches Thor gave Loki. I mean, yeah Thor wanted his brother back (the brother he had before Thor 1) the so-called ‘good’ brother. But Loki has changed. He’s changed.

That doesn’t mean Loki is gonna be an outright bad guy. Loki adjusted himself. He adjusted his desires, his feelings, so he could be better brother and so he could redeem himself in Thor’s eyes. But no…TW and CH had to throw away Loki’s redemption of TDW in TR. *sheds an angry tear*

Other things that were wrong with this movie:

When Odin dies Thor says to Loki, “this was your doing.”

The dungeon talk. Thor says “…you stripped Odin of his powers, stranded him on earth, and left him to die…”

I don’t want to get into detail about those. I just wanna put them out there.

I don’t care how many people unfollow me. This whole post is wonderful. It’s the best. It needs to be passed on. 😀 😀 ❤ ❤

@lokiloveforever @whitedaydream @yume-no-fantasy

Thank you @thiddlestonismyknight I’m totally with you <3<3<3<3

@fuckyeahrichardiii, @illwynd, more fuel for our rage…

Chris Hemsworth angry writers reinvented Thor in Avengers Infinity War

dracarys–stormborn:

philosopherking1887:

princess-ikol:

whitedaydream:

‘I came into this and called Joe and Anthony and said, “Look, don’t write me the old Thor, we’ve got a new Thor now,”’ Chris said.

He was referencing the highly acclaimed shift towards a comedic, self-referential tone he and Taika made with Ragnarok.

But instead of observing his request to keep the character’s newfound mojo alive, the Russo brothers reportedly told him they’d ‘reinvented’ the character once again.

Chris recalled his response: ‘I was like “no, no, no” and I was really protective of what I’d created with Taika.’

They explained that the new direction was in line with the higher-stakes of the Avengers film, and to ensure the character worked well in an ensemble cast.

oh thank the fucking norns

Oh no, Chris is going to have to actually act as a character instead of just playing himself.

I hope by “reinvented” they just mean went back to the character as we’d known him for 4 movies before Chris got tired of pretending he can act.

(This article doesn’t even really make sense because the Russos didn’t write the script, they just directed it; Markus & McFeely were the writers.)

It’s an unpopular opinion, but I welcome this change. I hated Ragnarok!Thor. The Russo Brothers know what they’re doing. They did a great job with Cap, and they’ll do great with Thor. By not making him a Space Viking Tony Stark. 

Dude, calling Ragnarok!Thor a “Space Viking Tony Stark” is an insult to Tony Stark. Tony Stark only pretends to be indifferent to other people’s feelings.

I’m not sure I trust the writers, Markus and McFeely; they turned Captain America: Civil War into a soap opera about personal loyalties and vendettas and completely dropped the ball on the larger political and philosophical issues they had the opportunity to explore. They also wrote most of Thor: The Dark World, which is largely a boring, forgettable mess without the Loki scenes they brought Joss Whedon in to add in reshoots. I’m actually kind of intrigued by the strategy they described of making Thanos the central character of IW and the Avengers effectively supporting characters, even though everyone else is appalled by it, but I’m skeptical that they have the skill to carry it off well.

Chris Hemsworth angry writers reinvented Thor in Avengers Infinity War

Chris Hemsworth angry writers reinvented Thor in Avengers Infinity War

princess-ikol:

whitedaydream:

‘I came into this and called Joe and Anthony and said, “Look, don’t write me the old Thor, we’ve got a new Thor now,”’ Chris said.

He was referencing the highly acclaimed shift towards a comedic, self-referential tone he and Taika made with Ragnarok.

But instead of observing his request to keep the character’s newfound mojo alive, the Russo brothers reportedly told him they’d ‘reinvented’ the character once again.

Chris recalled his response: ‘I was like “no, no, no” and I was really protective of what I’d created with Taika.’

They explained that the new direction was in line with the higher-stakes of the Avengers film, and to ensure the character worked well in an ensemble cast.

oh thank the fucking norns

Oh no, Chris is going to have to actually act as a character instead of just playing himself.

I hope by “reinvented” they just mean went back to the character as we’d known him for 4 movies before Chris got tired of pretending he can act.

(This article doesn’t even really make sense because the Russos didn’t write the script, they just directed it; Markus & McFeely were the writers.)

Chris Hemsworth angry writers reinvented Thor in Avengers Infinity War

shine-of-asgard:

juliabohemian:

apocalypticwafflekitten:

lucianalight:

juliabohemian:

lasimo74allmyworld:

mosellegreen:

ameliawilliams:

You think you could make Loki tell us where the Tesseract is?

Shit I hate it when I notice new things about these movies.

We’ve covered how conceited it is of Thor to assume, incorrectly, that this is about him. But what else can we expect from this spoiled brat.

And we’ve covered that this is Fury proposing torture. Asking a man to torture his own brother. Anyone who still thinks Fury is one of the good guys… he’s not.

But Thor says “There’s no pain would prise his need from him.”

Thor knows that pain won’t make Loki knuckle under.

Which means he must have tried it. Before Loki was officially designated a villain. When he was just the younger prince of Asgard, Thor’s loyal brother and comrade in arms.

Thor knows that torture won’t work on Loki from experience.

Shit. Did they think about what they were putting in these fucking movies at all?

The more we analyse the movies, the more we discover that the bad guys are the ones with shining armour and boosted egos.

Really, the painful truth I read above breaks my heart.

I also think it’s interesting that Thor assumes Loki coming to Earth is about him. It had nothing to do with Thor at all, but Thor never finds that out. Here’s hoping Infinity War will bring some shit to light, but I’m not holding my breath.

Also the thought that Thor knows Loki has an incredibly high pain tolerance kind of makes me cringe. 

“Which means he must have tried it. Before Loki was officially designated a villain. When he was just the younger prince of Asgard, Thor’s loyal brother and comrade in arms.

Thor knows that torture won’t work on Loki from experience.”

Before TR I would never believe that Thor would ever torture Loki, or put him through any kind of serious pain. So what I understood from Thor’s line in Avengers was that Thor had seen Loki going through torture and didn’t break. Not that he had done it himself. I mean they are princes, any kind of voilence could have happened by their enemys. But damn TR and that scene with obedience disk makes me question everything now.

@mosellegreen

@lasimo74allmyworld

@juliabohemian

@lucianalight

Alrighty. I know I’m late, but upon coming across this, have things to say. Don’t know if you’re going to like or agree with them, but here we go.

Im not going to get into Thor’s vanity, because that’s a topic for another time, but here we go on Loki and abuse:

I can NEVER belive that Thor would EVER torture Loki. He wouldn’t abuse him, or experiment on him because he loves his brother. I mean, look at the ENTIRE elevator scene in Ragnarok. Thor literally says in a morose, and reminiscent voice: “I thought the world of you. I thought we’re were always going to fight side by side.” (Something along those lines. Sorry if the quote isn’t correct.)Personally, I would never beat anyone if I thought the world of them. I wouldn’t wish to fight by their side if I hated them enough to beat them.

And it goes back to before then even. Look at TDW. The scene where Thor is asking for Loki’s help? He states that he used to belive that there was a glimmer of goodness and redeemability in Loki.

DO YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS?!?!!??!? It means that he wanted to save his brother! If youre abusing someone, why would you wish to save them?

Granted, he does say that that is/was gone, but we never see him abuse or beat Loki after that. And then theres all the other things Loki did for Thor in that move.

  • He agreed to help him in the first
  • Saved/Protected Jane.
  • Twice
  • Didn’t actually betray him at all until he “died”
  • And, my personal favorite
  • LEFT THOR WITH THE THOUGHT THAT HIS FATHER WAS ACTUALLY A GOOD FATHER BY TELLING HIM SOMETHING KIND AND DEEP. SOMETHINGBHE NEEDED TO HEAR SO THE HE DIDNT ABSOLUTELY HATE HIS FATHER; HIS IDOL SINCE HE WAS A SMOL LIGHTNING BOLT WHILE DISGUISED AS ODIN

You don’t do things like that for people you hate.

Then there the first Thor movie. Did you see any of the scenes before it was revealed to Loki what his heritage was? The two were close. Look at the deleted scenes. Loki says something similar to: “I admit that there have been times when I was envious, but never doubt that I love you.” Why would Loki say he loves Thor if his brother abused him? I hear y’all saying “Well it could be a show!” “He’s faking!” “Thor threatened him!” But look at the deleted scene mentioned earlier in this paragraph. The two are completely alone. Loki is smiling, and it’s genuine. There are creases by his eyes from his cheeks lifting. (That’s the physical cue that a smile is genuine) Loki’s body language in that scene doesn’t show any sort of discomfort or fear. He’s comfortable around his brother.

And then there were the scenes in Jotunheim in the first Thor. Loki is insistant that they go home (and that they not go at all, calling it suicide)because he doesn’t want to see his brother or ever his brother’s friends hurt or worse.

Oh, and this little gem: “I love Thor more dearly than any of you.”

If you look at the body language of someone whose been beaten while they’re around the person they are beaten by, you’ll see slouched shoulders, a tense body, constant glances to anywhere but their abusers face, clammy hands, hands in pockets (a cue that the person is trying to hide something) and just a general feel of unease and unrest. Fear and terror.

You see NONE of that body language when Loki and Thor are together. Look at Ragnarok. They’re fighting together to end Hella. They don’t hate each other. Loki isn’t afraid of Thor. He’s just so used to being in Thor’s shadow and he’s sick of it. He wants to be recognized.

When the two are alone at the end of Ragnarok, you don’t see Loki tense, or avoiding eye contant. He’s looking strait at Thor withought any glint of fear.

He’s comfortable.

Oh, and the line “I’m Here.”

And “Maybe you’re not so bad.”

Im gonna bring up a thought now.

They. Are. Norse. Gods. And. Brothers.

That means battles, and fighting side by side. Seeing each other take hits and blows, stabs and cuts. Seeing them push themselves to their limits. Thor knows that Loki won’t stop no matter the pain because he’s seen it in his brother in battle. He’s seen that fight in Loki’s eyes. He knows his brother’s ambitious nature.

“So how does Thor know that pain won’t stop Loki?” I hear you ask.

Well my friends. All you have to do is look at the ending of the first Thor film.

Loki is hellbent on destroying Jotumheim. So hellbent that he would fight his own brother to do it. Sure, Loki was angered and confused because of what he had recently learned, and he didn’t belive Thor to be his brother, but it had to hurt to fight his brother. I mean, it would hurt me to fight my brother.

At this point, Loki has discarded pain for his ambition and let it consume him. He didn’t care that he had to fight Thor. He didn’t care that destroying Jotunheim would have awful reprocussions. He just wanted to prove himself to someone, *cough cough* his father *cough*

And at the end you see Loki showing that he care for Thor. When Thor is destroying the Bifrost Loki yells at him: “But if you destroy the Bifrost you’ll never see her again!!!”

I don’t know about you, but to me, that screams that Loki cares about Thor’s wellbeing and interests. He cares about his brother’s happiness despite feeling estranged and ostracized because of what he is.

That’s not typically seen in someone who is abused. The care for their abusers wellbeing.

So no. I don’t think Thor would ever abuse Loki. They’re too close. They’ve been through too much together. Thor does NOT deserve that kind of belittlement. He has fought to save and protect his little brother since the beginning, and that ain’t gonna change.

@

apocalypticwafflekitten

Let me just preface this by saying that I have studied psychology, child development and trauma/abuse recovery at great length and for many years. I don’t usually bother responding to posts like this, simply because I don’t have the time, but given that your argument is based on some disturbingly false premises, I feel like I owe it to other Loki fans to construct a reply. You seem very young and sweet, so I’m going to do my best to be kind. 

Tagging a few peeps here to see if they would like to chime in: @mosellegreen @lasimo74allmyworld @lucianalight @lokiloveforever 

“I can NEVER believe that Thor would EVER torture Loki.” 

I LIKE Thor and I have zero trouble believing this at all. Thor left Loki being electrocuted by the obedience disk. Thor had no idea how long Loki would lie there, or how much he could withstand. He didn’t know if Loki would be rescued, or if he’d be found by someone who was going to simply execute him…and they were on a planet where people were executed regularly (and painfully) for ridiculous reasons. In fact, Thor witnessed an execution, so he knew this for sure. And Thor didn’t JUST leave Loki there, he did so gleefully. So even if his comment to Nick Fury about knowing how much pain Loki can withstand doesn’t mean anything, the scene in Ragnarok leaves very little to the imagination.

“And it goes back to before then even. Look at TDW. The scene where Thor is asking for Loki’s help? He states that he used to belive that there was a glimmer of goodness and redeemability in Loki.”

The thing is, this is actually an awful thing to say. Like many of Thor’s comments towards Loki, it’s an insult disguised as a compliment. Thor has a lot of balls asking for help at that moment, in the first place. Loki does it because he loves his mother and wants to avenge her. The problem is that you are interpreting this from the POV that Loki is a villain who needs to be redeemed, instead of someone who has feelings and motives for his behavior, just like Thor. 

Interestingly enough, I’ve noticed that people who tend to defend Thor’s actions are people who share the view that he and Loki are not actually equals. 

“DO YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS?!?!!??!? It means that he wanted to save his brother! If youre abusing someone, why would you wish to save them…You don’t do things like that for people you hate.”

First of all, no one has said that Loki hates Thor. For the record, I don’t think that Thor hates Loki either. Abuse victims don’t usually hate their abusers. In fact, many would openly claim to love them. Abuse victims also absolutely do defend their abusers, do things for their abusers and feel loyal and/or indebted to their abusers. It’s actually more common for abuse victims to feel this way, than not. That’s pretty textbook. Extreme versions of this are known as Stockholm Syndrome. 

Loki is consistently desperate for Thor’s approval and validation, as well as that of his father’s. He even says as much. “All I ever wanted was to be your equal…” Loki’s motives can be summed up, almost entirely by that quote alone. He tries to kill himself when he realizes that his dad isn’t going to give him that approval. Let’s take a moment to recognize what a devastating act that is. It’s not the sort of thing someone does when they are secure in their position in their family. That’s the act of a desperate person, who just wants to put themselves out of their misery.

Did you see any of the scenes before it was revealed to Loki what his heritage was? The two were close. Look at the deleted scenes. Loki says something similar to: “I admit that there have been times when I was envious, but never doubt that I love you.” 

Yes, I have seen all of them, many times. Loki says he loves Thor and Thor says…thank you. That’s got to be the absolute worst response a person can offer to someone who is telling them that they love them. And once again…abuse victims tell their abusers that they love them all the time. It’s very, very common. Abusers also withhold love and affection in order to control their victims. They might -for instance- refuse to say the words I love you, even when those words are said to them.

“Well it could be a show!” “He’s faking!”

No, it’s not a show. Loki believes what he is saying when he tells Thor that he loves him. He is sincere. Loki loves Thor, whatever that means for Loki. He doesn’t need to be faking for it to be evidence of an unhealthy relationship. It is possible for someone to be a victim of emotional abuse and to feel like they love someone or to feel that they are happy in their relationship. They can laugh and smile and hug and even make love to their significant other, because they are not aware of the dysfunction they are living in. Because of that dysfunction, their perception of what it means to love someone is skewed and disordered.

“If you look at the body language of someone whose been beaten while they’re around the person they are beaten by, you’ll see slouched shoulders, a tense body, constant glances to anywhere but their abusers face, clammy hands, hands in pockets (a cue that the person is trying to hide something) and just a general feel of unease and unrest. Fear and terror.” 

I mean no disrespect when I say this, but you either have no firsthand knowledge whatsoever of what an abusive relationship is like OR you are in one and are deep in denial about it. 

I say this as someone who has worked with many people who recovering from various types of abuse. Loki’s body language towards Thor is fairly consistent with someone who feels inferior and who is desperate for approval. When Loki is not in Thor’s presence, he actually stands taller and speaks more confidently. And I recognize that such a thing doesn’t necessarily imply physical abuse, but it definitely implies emotional abuse. It implies a disparity in their relationship that isn’t healthy. 

And “Maybe you’re not so bad.”

Oh my, this is another terrible thing to say. It’s another insult, disguised as a compliment. Who said he was bad in the first place? This, once again, comes from the premise that Loki is someone who needs to be redeemed and Thor is not.

“I don’t know about you, but to me, that screams that Loki cares about Thor’s wellbeing and interests. He cares about his brother’s happiness despite feeling estranged and ostracized because of what he is.That’s not typically seen in someone who is abused. The care for their abusers wellbeing.“

I have no doubt that Loki cares for Thor, because we have seen plenty of evidence of that. I believe that Thor only cares for Loki conditionally. Thor loves Loki as long as Loki is the person Thor thinks he should be, but he doesn’t really seem to KNOW Loki at all. I find it tragic that Loki has become okay with this. I had hoped that Ragnarok would end with Thor apologizing for not trying harder to understand his brother. Instead, Loki has embraced that he will never be understood and that the only way he’s doing to have Thor in his life is to accept that he will never be regarded as an equal.

Thor’s attitude towards his brother is evident with lines like “know your place” and “your imagined slights.” Thor does not see Loki as his equal, so in his mind it is totally reasonable for him to disregard Loki’s feelings. This is not entirely his fault. He was raised to see himself as better, as superior. Loki appears to know, even before his Jotun origins are revealed, that he is somehow less than his brother. This is not a perception that comes out of thin air. 

Let me rephrase that -Loki’s slights are not “imagined” simply because the protagonist says they are. This is a common mistake people make when digesting fiction. They accept the hero or good guy’s POV as reality, instead of what it is…that one person’s POV. This is especially evident when you have characters who are larger than life like Captain America or Han Solo or Harry Potter.

What’s amusing is…Loki cares openly about Thor’s feelings. He acknowledge’s Thor’s loss when Frigga dies, and again when Odin dies. He even pats him on the back when he is reminded that Jane broke up with him. These are the actions of someone who has accepted that his feelings do not matter, but the other party’s do. This is actually a very common dynamic in abusive or codependent relationships.

You mention Thor’s line in Ragnarok. “I thought the world of you. I thought we’re were always going to fight side by side.” 

Except that…we’ve seen zero evidence that Thor EVER thought the world of Loki. We’ve seen plenty of evidence that Loki thinks the world of Thor. Granted he says some negative things about him too -but he does so bitterly. Thor treats his brother as a pest in the original film. He talks down to him almost consistently, throughout all 4 films they are in together. In Avengers, Thor doesn’t even ask what Loki is doing on Earth or suspect something might be wrong (he’s suddenly trying to invade a planet he previously had no interest in). Thor makes one brief attempt to appeal to Loki, but it’s only so he can put an end to the battle and cart him off to prison. He shows no interest in finding out why Loki did what he did and we learn in TDW that Thor doesn’t even visit Loki in prison.

“Personally, I would never beat anyone if I thought the world of them.”

I believe you! I wouldn’t be able to beat anyone, even if I couldn’t stand them, but since these characters are not based on you or me, that’s not really useful information.

Do I know for sure that Thor has tortured Loki? Outside of the scene in Ragnarok, no. But do I think he’s capable of it? Absolutely. And that’s all this post is really about…whether Thor is capable of such thing. I’m amused that people are threatened by that notion. It’s almost as though they think that Thor’s motives are all good, simply because he has been cast as the hero.

Do I think Thor is a terrible person? No. He’s a character that is flawed, just like all the other Marvel characters. Thor is a product of his childhood and his family, just like Loki. They were both set against one another from the get go. They are both flawed and deeply messed up and that’s what makes them interesting.

Here’s the thing, though. While I believe there is evidence to support the fact that Loki’s relationship with Thor is imbalanced and dysfunctional…I don’t think it was the intention of the MCU writers to portray it as such. I think it’s just poor and inconsistent writing. I think it’s also a result of the fact that comic style writers tend to subscribe to the notion that anything the hero does is okay, simply because they are the hero and anything the villain does is not okay, simply because they are the villain. Which is a shame, but we take what we can get.

@juliabohemian Thank you for the in depth and lovely meta. It certainly puts many things into perspective. Sadly, I agree that such a rich interpretation wasn’t intentional and came about through a combination of cliched writing and Tom Hiddelston’s method acting, which is why we will see no acknowledgement of these issues and no resolution on screen. But it’s still important that the audience interpret what’s onscreen critically, and this includes judging the heroes by their deeds and not by their words.

I also appreciate @juliabohemian‘s meta, because it very neatly punctured the idea that the points the previous reblogger (not tagging because I don’t want to get into it with them) raises are evidence against abuse. It’s actually kind of hilarious how bad an argument it is for the intended conclusion, especially considering that some of the evidence offered (Thor’s claims that Loki “still has some good” in him or “isn’t so bad”) is actually evidence for the exact opposite.

That said… I absolutely did not draw the conclusion @mosellegreen did from that line in The Avengers. I think we were supposed to think, as @lucianalight suggested, that Thor knows Loki can hold up under torture because of experience with their common enemies during one of the many campaigns they’ve fought in together. And even after Ragnarok, I still think that, because I do not consider it legitimate to read Thor’s character as presented in Ragnarok back into the earlier movies. It’s so different, so discontinuous, that it provides absolutely no insight into his character in the other movies. The Thor of TR gleefully inflicts pain on his brother to “teach him a lesson”; the Thor of the earlier movies would not do that.

Yes, Thor probably “beat up on” little brother Loki in the way that siblings do, and Loki probably gave as good as he got, both in physical fights and in obnoxious pranks. (Forget the story about Loki “trying to kill” Thor by stabbing him when they were 8… that makes no damn sense for a lot of reasons. If Loki stabbed Thor with anything, it was probably the equivalent of a pair of scissors.) If their relationship was “abusive” in Thor 1 and before, it was just a matter of Thor being one of the “cool kids” who dismisses and sometimes bullies his tag-along uncool little brother… and of accepting the superiority that Odin has convinced both him and Loki that he (Thor) possesses. But that, I think, is better described as a situation where both Thor and Loki are victims of Odin’s crappy parenting, albeit in different ways (which seems to be the conclusion @juliabohemian reaches as well). I’m definitely bothered by the ways in which Thor shows, pre-TR, that he doesn’t care about Loki’s feelings (dismissing him, not asking him WTF happened in the year he was gone, assuming invading Midgard was All About Him, not visiting him in prison…), but I can accept that because Thor 1 acknowledges that its hero is flawed, and both that movie and The Avengers show him as improving but still a work in progress. He is getting better in TDW, and their brotherly dynamic is kind of adorable; he still says some pretty cringe-y things, but you can also see genuine respect and affection there. TR just ignores and/or reverses all the growth we’ve seen in Thor’s character and presents him as a self-absorbed, manipulative asshole who’s willing to punish and “train” Loki with severe pain while smiling smugly and speechifying at him, and then blithely leave him vulnerable in a hostile world, because he just kind of doesn’t care how anyone else feels or even, apparently, regard Loki as a full person.

foundlingmother:

philosopherking1887:

shine-of-asgard:

salazharshaikh:

shine-of-asgard:

endiness:

the more i think about ragnarok, the more problems i have with it and the more i feel like it’s ultimately a disservice (if not an outright insult) to loki’s character.

Seguir leyendo

Loki’s 3 movie long development getting retconned so that Thor could be credited for it at the last hour in Ragnarok is the logical conclusion to the characterisation mess. Yep.

This whole mess reeks of Chris Hemsworth’s jealousy of Loki being more popular than Thor in the MCU. I maybe wrong but it seems likely that’s the case.

I don’t know enough about the actors to feel comfortable accusing them of active behind-the-scenes meddling, but there clearly was only one winner in this case and he was very eager to shit on the previous movies and outspoken about how cool and great it was that Thor was the centerpiece of Ragnarok. Hmmmm… So maybe he didn’t actively make it happen, but he sure is happy that it happened :/.

Oh, I’m perfectly willing to accuse Hemsworth of behind-the-scenes meddling. I also suspect that the recent coldness between him and Tom, and Tom’s relative lack of involvement in Ragnarok promotion, has to do with the fact that Tom was completely aware of TW and CH’s lack of respect for Loki’s character (and Thor’s!) and was trying to resist it but got steamrollered over.

W.r.t. @endiness‘s discourse about the mistreatment of Loki’s character in Ragnarok, I completely agree. In fact, @foundlingmother and I have discussed at length the way that TR missed – or rather, deliberately ignored – the opportunity to bring up the issue of Loki’s adoption and internalized racism in connection with the imperialism allegory. I’ve also remarked on the regression of Loki’s character and suggested an explanation in terms of replacing a Shakespearean villain with a simplistic version of the trickster archetype, and I’d be curious to know what y’all think of that hypothesis.

Regarding Loki using the story of his fall as an amusing anecdote on Sakaar, I think @endiness is completely right:

while i could find it entirely possible that loki was regaling them of his tales to somehow endear himself to the populace and i could find it believable that, in general, loki would use his pain and trauma in whatever way necessary to benefit himself… i doubt the sincerity of that in this movie. because when any of loki’s trauma was even mentioned at all, it was shown more as a joke at his expense rather than something actually meaningful and significant.

This is something else I’ve discussed with @foundlingmother and others. Ignoring authorial intent (which is often a good idea), one could certainly interpret this bit of storytelling, as well as the play at the beginning, as Loki taking ownership of his trauma and turning it into an asset so that it no longer has power over him… but I think it’s patently obvious that that’s not the interpretation intended by Waititi and Pearson (the screenwriter). They take every opportunity to minimize and ridicule Loki’s problems and motivations. The fact that the events can be given a better and deeper interpretation should not be credited to the film itself as a product of its actual creators, but to the ingenuityof the fans who actually care about the characters.

I also think @endiness makes some very good points about the lost opportunity to give Loki a prior connection to Sakaar, especially this:

“lost and unloved. like you. but here on sakaar, you are significant. you are valuable. here, you are loved. where once you were nothing, now you are something.” perfectly describes loki’s mindset for having let go in the first place.

In fact, I was somewhat concerned when I was reading stuff before Ragnarok came out about how Sakaar is where wormholes dump their trash that we would learn that Loki ended up on Sakaar after the end of Thor, which would automatically falsify the fic I’ve been writing about what happened to Loki between Thor and The Avengers. The nice thing about Marvel not caring enough about Loki to provide such an account that is that my fic will never become defunct and irrelevant 😛 (Though it’s still a possibility that Infinity War will explain the connection between Loki and Thanos instead of just having Thanos kill Loki in the first 5 minutes.)

You know what’s amusingly unamusing to me when I think about ignoring authorial intent and Ragnarok? In trying to make Thor cooler and Loki less complex, they ruined Thor’s character more than Loki’s. Most of Loki’s actions in Ragnarok can be manipulated to mesh well with the character we know from previous films. It’s Thor’s character that can’t be reconciled. The thoughtfulness, protectiveness, and subtle humor vanished, and the only traits he retains are hot-headedness, which he’d been working on, and ignorance born of bad parenting and Asgardian society, which he’d also started chipping away at (defying Odin in TDW was a great first step). 

Interesting point, and I think you’re right that they screwed up Thor’s character more than Loki’s. The reasons I tend to focus on the damage to Loki’s character are (1) I cared more about Loki going in, (2) the other people who post threads criticizing Ragnarok tend to be Loki fans (how ironic is it that the Thor “stans” all seem to like the hash that was made of his character integrity?!), and (3) the character assassination of Loki was deliberate and malicious and I’m pissed about how little respect the creators have for Loki’s many fans (mostly female, natch) and for Tom Hiddleston, an actual Shakespearean actor who has poured a lot of heart and serious thought into the character.

I do still think that to rescue Loki’s character you have to ignore not only authorial intent but tonal cues, which are actually part of the text (and often the most explicit expression of authorial intent in the text).

shine-of-asgard:

salazharshaikh:

shine-of-asgard:

endiness:

the more i think about ragnarok, the more problems i have with it and the more i feel like it’s ultimately a disservice (if not an outright insult) to loki’s character.

Seguir leyendo

Loki’s 3 movie long development getting retconned so that Thor could be credited for it at the last hour in Ragnarok is the logical conclusion to the characterisation mess. Yep.

This whole mess reeks of Chris Hemsworth’s jealousy of Loki being more popular than Thor in the MCU. I maybe wrong but it seems likely that’s the case.

I don’t know enough about the actors to feel comfortable accusing them of active behind-the-scenes meddling, but there clearly was only one winner in this case and he was very eager to shit on the previous movies and outspoken about how cool and great it was that Thor was the centerpiece of Ragnarok. Hmmmm… So maybe he didn’t actively make it happen, but he sure is happy that it happened :/.

Oh, I’m perfectly willing to accuse Hemsworth of behind-the-scenes meddling. I also suspect that the recent coldness between him and Tom, and Tom’s relative lack of involvement in Ragnarok promotion, has to do with the fact that Tom was completely aware of TW and CH’s lack of respect for Loki’s character (and Thor’s!) and was trying to resist it but got steamrollered over.

W.r.t. @endiness‘s discourse about the mistreatment of Loki’s character in Ragnarok, I completely agree. In fact, @foundlingmother and I have discussed at length the way that TR missed – or rather, deliberately ignored – the opportunity to bring up the issue of Loki’s adoption and internalized racism in connection with the imperialism allegory. I’ve also remarked on the regression of Loki’s character and suggested an explanation in terms of replacing a Shakespearean villain with a simplistic version of the trickster archetype, and I’d be curious to know what y’all think of that hypothesis.

Regarding Loki using the story of his fall as an amusing anecdote on Sakaar, I think @endiness is completely right:

while i could find it entirely possible that loki was regaling them of his tales to somehow endear himself to the populace and i could find it believable that, in general, loki would use his pain and trauma in whatever way necessary to benefit himself… i doubt the sincerity of that in this movie. because when any of loki’s trauma was even mentioned at all, it was shown more as a joke at his expense rather than something actually meaningful and significant.

This is something else I’ve discussed with @foundlingmother and others. Ignoring authorial intent (which is often a good idea), one could certainly interpret this bit of storytelling, as well as the play at the beginning, as Loki taking ownership of his trauma and turning it into an asset so that it no longer has power over him… but I think it’s patently obvious that that’s not the interpretation intended by Waititi and Pearson (the screenwriter). They take every opportunity to minimize and ridicule Loki’s problems and motivations. The fact that the events can be given a better and deeper interpretation should not be credited to the film itself as a product of its actual creators, but to the ingenuityof the fans who actually care about the characters.

I also think @endiness makes some very good points about the lost opportunity to give Loki a prior connection to Sakaar, especially this:

“lost and unloved. like you. but here on sakaar, you are significant. you are valuable. here, you are loved. where once you were nothing, now you are something.” perfectly describes loki’s mindset for having let go in the first place.

In fact, I was somewhat concerned when I was reading stuff before Ragnarok came out about how Sakaar is where wormholes dump their trash that we would learn that Loki ended up on Sakaar after the end of Thor, which would automatically falsify the fic I’ve been writing about what happened to Loki between Thor and The Avengers. The nice thing about Marvel not caring enough about Loki to provide such an account that is that my fic will never become defunct and irrelevant 😛 (Though it’s still a possibility that Infinity War will explain the connection between Loki and Thanos instead of just having Thanos kill Loki in the first 5 minutes.)