My favorite thing about this scene, which I didn’t really notice at first, was that Thor actually pushes Loki away from the on-coming hammer. The best thing about it is that he does it while he’s angry (because he realized that Loki manipulated him and probably did something to Odin) yet he still pushed him away because he never wanted to risk his brother getting hurt. It’s so subtle yet so sweet. ❤
Oh interesting, I missed that… I thought Thor just let go and Loki jumped away from the hammer. This is a lot nicer.
I had a similar thought. It always seemed very deliberate that that is the only time in Avengers we see him use his daggers like in the first movie. Like he wanted to wound Thor more with the memory of how he used to be than cause actual physical harm. (Because hellllllllloooooooo, Asgardian constitution?) But when you add the snake story on top of that… Oh.
Ha, so it was Loki’s answer to Thor trying The Neck Thing™ on him.
“Thanks for bringing up such a painful memory. While you’re at it, why don’t you give me a nice paper cut and pour lemon juice on it?”
Do you know what’s another moment I loved about this movie? When Loki makes his grand YOUR SAVIOR IS HERE! entrance, this is Thor’s reaction:
He’s delighted to see that dramatic little shit!
It complements the moment that comes not too much later, when Thor finds his lightning powers again and comes raining lightning down on the bridge, Loki does this absolute fucking smirk:
THEY ARE SO DELIGHTED BY EACH OTHER.
After all the years we had to struggle our way through the breaking of their relationship, the losses they both suffered, the cracks to both their foundations, the bitterness and strife that kept wedging itself in between them, literal years of watching them break apart and break apart and break apart.
And this movie could have broken them for good. But instead it understood that they cannot go backwards, but that does not mean they cannot still go forward. That they can’t both be grow and change and find each other again.
The death of the last of their family might have split them apart, it almost did, but when it really came down to it, they both chose to move on, to be something more, and that allowed them to come back together.
It allowed them to smile when they saw each other again, genuine and real. After all that hurt–when Loki shows up again, their first reaction to the sight of the other is one of being glad to see the other, both of them.
Oh, absolutely. As I’m sure you know, because I talk about it a lot on my blog (it’s easier for me to point people to it than rewrite it on Tumblr as meta, but people usually aren’t interested…), I have written a fic, The Abyss Gazes Also, speculating about how exactly Thanos got Loki to the point where he was willing to go to Earth to fetch the Tesseract for him. It’s now reached the events of The Avengers, which I’m telling from Loki’s POV, and the most recent chapter deals with that conversation with Thor, including Loki’s conflicted feelings about Thor trying The Neck Thing on him (twice!).
Loki is the Philosopher King 