Tag: dracarys–stormborn

I compared him to Tony Stark because of their similar “humor” – and I put that in quotes because Tony is actually funny. You are right though, new Thor didn’t give a shit about anything – his dead friends, the conflict with Loki, his home being destroyed. But those writers do sound … troubling. I see the criticism for Civil War, but I would argue that some of the personal soap opera conflicts weren’t done that well. They were never truly angry at each other, so the stakes never felt real.

Right, and of course TW was explaining the change in Thor’s speech patterns by citing the time he’s spent with Tony Stark. Which somehow occurred in the 2 years after AOU when Thor was not on Earth, but out in the universe searching for Infinity Stones.

The whole thing in Civil War was just kind of bizarre… and the writers have said things suggesting that they think Cap’s moral certainty is a virtue and Tony’s self-doubt is somehow a bad thing. Which I think is completely absurd, because it seemed to me that Tony came off as the reasonable one and Cap as an arrogant, self-righteous asshole.

(To the people tempted to bring up General Ross and the HYDRA infiltration of SHIELD again: I kind of doubt that HYDRA is going to infiltrate the governments of all the member countries of the UN. And recall that it was Wakanda leading the call for international supervision of the Avengers. Wakanda. Uncolonized, technologically advanced, hidden African nation Wakanda.)

I’ll be sure to check it out! :) Do you have some fic recs that are postRagnarok that are kinda angsty? I’ve been looking for some that talk about the dramatic things that the movie glossed over for the sake of comedy, like Odin’s lies, Thor/Loki’s problems that weren’t really addressed enough imo, Asgard being gone, Thor’s friend’s being killed by Hela, etc. But I only found one oneshot. Guess it’s too early?

Sorry to keep self-promoting, but have you read my post-Ragnarok fic, Zeno’s Paradox? It’s pretty short, so it doesn’t address all of those issues, but I do try to acknowledge some of the shit that Odin left in his wake. @incredifishface a.k.a. thebookhunter’s fic, appropriately enough called Bookie’s Hug Fic, also makes a point of acknowledging the rift in Thor and Loki’s relationship. @raven-brings-light‘s fic The opposite of love offers an interestingly angsty reading of the sotory about 8-year-old Loki turning into a snake and stabbing Thor.

The absolute angstiest fic I’ve read is @illwynd‘s Over Now. It’s sort of an alternate-ending Ragnarok fic based on the 2004 Ragnarok storyline in the comics, and using that to comment on Thor’s attitude toward Loki in the movie. Warning: darkness ahead.

(Reply to The Neck Thing) I get why you would see it that way, that the gesture scared him because it threatened the mission. I always interpreted the longing look in his eyes to mean that the nostalgia of the touch made him consider taking up Thor’s offer: to stop everything and come home. That little laugh and head shake he does afterward always made me think that he was pushing the thought from his mind because he feels he can’t stop, because he feared Thanos or whatever reason he had.

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!).

As for The Neck Thing™ I see what you mean about it having an old culture feel. It’s very intimate, and nowadays men don’t show affection like that (usually). With that being said, they did The Neck Thing in The Avengers, and I really feel like it worked there. I didn’t ship Thorki when I first saw that movie, and I was really touched by how the gesture affected Loki – you could see it in his eyes how much it meant to him, probably because it reminded him of their bond and made him feel safe.

I would say it made him feel the opposite of safe, because the re-emergence of affectionate feelings toward Thor was a threat to his ability to carry out his mission! But yes, you could really see how the gesture called up strong associations and memories of their relationship over the centuries.

Yeah Thor was very anachronistic and out of character the entire movie. Sometimes I felt like I was listening to a blonde Tony Stark. Or Chris Hemsworth playing himself. I think Thor could be funny while also being in character. Do you agree?

In some ways, but not as much as I feared. Actually, what I was really afraid of was that they would turn Thor into Kevin from Ghostbusters, or he would be the version of Thor we saw in the “Thor: Civil War” video. I was incredibly relieved to see that the stupid line in one of the trailers about Thor having more brains because he has more muscles did not make it into the movie.

The filmmakers were clearly aware of the possibility that Thor would come off as anachronistic and/or Tony Stark-like; Taika Waititi even said in an interview that Thor’s change in diction and demeanor could be explained by his having spent more time on Earth hanging out with Tony Stark and learning about sarcasm. There was room for some movement in that direction, but I think they went too far with it. Thor has shown a sense of humor in earlier movies, most notably in the scene in TDW where he and Loki commandeer the Dark Elf ship with a lot of brotherly bickering, but also in Age of Ultron. There’s a post that I’ve seen going around occasionally with all the instances of Thor “trolling” people in AOU; I think the “I am Thor son of Odin, and as long as I have life in my breast I am… running out of things to say” bit is the most memorable. But it was always kind of an understated humor.

I’ve seen some people saying that they see some of the character change as a reversion to the brash, cocky warrior-prince of the first Thor movie, but with more cunning and caution and a better sense of proportion. I guess I can see that, and I can sort of see how that might have happened as he gained some distance from the traumatic events that turned him into the grave, almost world-weary figure he presented in TDW and AOU… but again, I think they went too far in that direction. I’m trying to stay mostly positive about the movie, because for the most part I did like it, and it was not nearly as much of a travesty of the characters as I was afraid it might be. But yeah, I’ll admit to finding the abrupt character transformation somewhat jarring.

Everyone is upset that we didn’t get a Thorki hug, but what about The Neck Thing™? That’s way more intimate to me than a hug because it’s a personal thing between them that Thor does to express his love for Loki without speaking. Why didn’t we get that? I would have taken that over a hug any day. :( Or if not that, why not have Thor mention that Loki finally came home, or Loki saying it? That was all Thor asked him to do in The Avengers.

To be honest, I kind of suspect that The Neck Thing™ was one of the things Chris Hemsworth was tired of. It does seem oddly antiquated, characteristic of an ancient warrior culture (though lord knows why it strikes me that way, since I’ve never been in an ancient warrior culture), and they were going for a more modern Thor this time (which sometimes annoyed me). It also reflects a particular kind of dynamic between Thor and Loki: a protective, almost possessive or controlling big-brotherly affection, whereas in Ragnarok Thor was taking a more hands-off approach, both literally and metaphorically. Many of us here in Thorki-land like the possessive dynamic and the ancient-warrior-culture vibe, so we’re into The Neck Thing, but other viewers might find it weird.