HEADCANON TIME: In the MCU it’s long been impossible for Loki to be Hela’s father (and it’s not true in the comics, either), we can handwave a lot away by, oh, comics like to do that thing where Asgardian magical villains like to wear green because, hey, that’s true.
BUT WHAT IF SOMETHING ELSE?
Things we know: – Approximately a thousand years ago is when Odin battled against Jotunheim and brought baby Loki home, after he was abandoned. Thor never knew that Loki was adopted, so he was young enough that he doesn’t remember this, which would also put his birth at about a thousand years ago. (Give or take a bit.) – Hela and Odin’s conquering ways were at some point between 5,000 years ago (the last Convergence when Bor was still king) and 1,000 years ago (when Odin went to war against Jotunheim for their invasion of Midgard), her banishment likely closer to the 1,000 years ago point.
– Hela said, when talking to Thor, about Odin’s change of heart, “And then, one day, he decided to become a benevolent king, foster peace, to protect life. To have… you.“
– Laufey was shown in the mural as an important peace treaty, the only one we know. Most likely a reference to the first movie (because this movie was all about references to previous movies) but bear with me. – Laufey’s talk with Loki has a strong undercurrent of him waiting to see where this goes, that he says it was his decision to leave baby Loki out on the rock, but he is very clearly trying to play along with this to see what he can get out of it. I don’t trust anything he says in that conversation. – Odin is the one who says that the baby he found was Laufey’s son, but we don’t know how he knows this.
What if one of the realms that Hela conquered last was Jotunheim, brutally savaging their civilization and so Odin felt responsible, that it was important to make a peace treaty with them, even after they invaded the far weaker Midgard, because of what Hela had done to them.
Hela, while there, took a war prize of their king, whether because she was in the mood or as a way to humiliate him because he was weak and she wanted to show that. And became pregnant with a half-Jotunn baby, maybe she wanted to see where this would go, what kind of monster she could birth, like her beloved Fenris, maybe one who had magical powers like her.
But the baby only half as strong because he was also half of this pathetic race, so she left the baby out in the cold, let Laufey do what he would or wouldn’t with it.
Instead, Odin found the baby, who recognized the touch of an As, who shifted to As form that looked just like his mother’s form.
It was no surprise to fate then, though no one else knew, that the baby would grow up with inky black hair and a talent for magic and favored black and green, along with a fondness for chaos and mischief.
You’re spot on that Odin loses the eye during that fight with Jotunheim–when we see him on Midgard, during the Jotnar’s attack on Earth, he still has both eyes:
But by the end of the preface, when he finally defeats Laufey, he’s obviously lost the eye very recently:
How does Hela know about the missing eye, since he clearly had it at this point? It’s possible that she simply saw him missing it from the murals she destroyed, she doesn’t mention it until after she’s seen those. (We’ll set aside however much she may or may not have been able to see from afar while she was imprisoned.)
Going back to rewatch the opening, Odin says this:
With the last great war ended, we withdrew from the other worlds, and returned home, to the realm eternal… Asgard.
In the movie he almost assuredly means withdrawing specifically from Jotunheim and Midgard, but Ragnarok is a movie that is very, very aware of the movies that came before it, there are dozens of references back to them, so what if it’s recontextualizing this to mean that this is “the last great war” in the sense that this is where Odin started to become a better ruler?
Hela says,
“And then, one day, he decided to become a benevolent king, foster peace, to protect life. To have… you.“ to Thor… and the war with Jotunheim would have been when Thor was too young to remember it.
What if this was the point where they split? Jotunheim had to be stopped, they were invading a vulnerable realm that couldn’t fight back against them, they were slaughtering humans. And what if this was where Hela wanted to keep going, wanted to crush Jotunheim but also Midgard? And Odin was tired of war, was tired of blood and death, wanted to protect these people who needed help, wanted to foster peace and life? And Hela refused, so she’s out there somewhere with the Jotnar or she’s freshly banished or even imprisoned by this point (the war likely lasted several years, if it was a “great war”) and her disdain for the Casket of Ancient Winters being “weak” is because the Frost Giants lost, even when she lent her aid to them.
Toss in that she had an “alliance” with Laufey (or some other Frost Giant), didn’t want the baby and so left it behind, Odin picks it up and maybe realizes he’s Hela’s or maybe has no idea at all that he’s picking up his grandson, only sees a baby that reminds him of his lost daughter and vows to do better by this child, to raise him better and love him and protect him and guide him to something better, along with Thor.
She’s a straight-up villainous character who isn’t “crazy” at all.
And I mean that both in the real sense of having mental dysfunctions and in the Hollywood sense of “evil, but irrational and senseless about it.”
Everything Hela is and does makes perfect sense for her and for the world she was raised in. She was born into a bloodthirsty society and was raised to be Daddy’s little warmonger. She was Odin’s executioner and she helped him conquer and destroy and empire-build. And when the day came when Odin decided he’d had enough blood and wanted to stop, Hela shrugged her shoulders and said, “Nah, I’m good as I am.”
That she then raised her banner against Odin when he tried to suppress her should really have come as no surprise to Odin or anyone. Hela is exactly what he raised her to be, and nothing about her is irrational or senseless any way. It’s merely that her priorities and values – all perfectly internally consistent – happen to be utterly inimical to our heroes, the civilians of Asgard, and the rest of the universe.
Thor is the next feminist film you’ve been waiting to see since Wonderwoman (spoilers!)
* Hela is a badass female villain who is so powerful and unbeatable they have to create a super-powered team to combat ONLY her
* Thor admits Hela is the rightful heir to the Asgardian throne (over him)…and the only reason he fights her for it is because but she’s a warmongering asshole
* Valkyrie drinks like a sailor, is drunk half the time (and not in a cute, giggly, girly way – the chick is hammered) and gives zero fucks about your sob story – plus, instead of getting the usual tragic victim backstory reserved for women, she has the guilt-ridden backstory and character arc usually reserved for male anti-hero characters
* The movie is female-gazey af – Valkyrie is fully covered in utilitarian armor the whole film, but Hulk has a naked ass shot and Thor walks around like a Chippendale dancer half the time…and the camera is super into it
* The most elite warriors in Asgard were a group of women on flying horses
* Thor admitted he wanted to join the Valkyries as a boy – when he learned they were all women it didn’t make him want to join less, he was just bummed out bc he knew they wouldn’t take him
* Nobody ever calls Hela a ‘bitch’, and nobody underestimates her scary ass just bc she’s a woman – she might be the most frightening villain Marvel has had outside of Thanos
* Though there are definitely stirrings of romantic interest between Valkyrie and Thor that may be explored in future films, she’s not the *love interest* character – Thor wants her around bc she can fight
THOR WANTED TO BE A VALKYRIE WHEN HE WAS A LITTLE BOY!!!!!
I HAVE BEEN FLAILING AT LENGTH ABOUT LOKI’S CHARACTER ARC IN THIS MOVIE AND POOR @5ummit HAS HAD TO LISTEN TO ME GO ON AND NOW IT’S EVERYONE ELSE’S TURN.
“You’re late.” “You’re missing an eye.”
I am just so delighted by how the introduction of Hela into the family shook things out of their rut and how it made everything that happened before feel necessary. Like, I think TDW was necessary because Loki needed that time to work through being the worst villain the family, the black sheep, to wallow in it to realize that it actually wasn’t satisfying at all. He had his time being WOE IS ME, he had his time being king of Asgard, and none of it really satisfied him. So, when shit goes sideways as it always does, when he went back to trying to betray Thor, it felt hollow, because Thor had accepted that that was a choice he might make, that Thor wasn’t bothered by it.
And then there’s Hela. Who takes the place of the worst Odinkid and Loki cannot really define himself by that role anymore, he’ll never be THE WORST after this. Instead, he’s somewhere in the middle. And I love that the movie seemed really aware of the gamut of this family, that Hela was on the far end of just deliciously, wonderfully violent and cruel, Thor was on the other end of how he had come through the fire and stayed good. And that these two children were each half of Odin, that he was a conqueror, but he was also a father who loved, that they’re the two sides of him. And Loki is that middle ground as well, he doesn’t have to be the best at being good, he doesn’t have to be the best at being evil, his siblings have that covered.
He can be something else, something more.
That’s why I loved that line so very much. It’s frustrating to want it to be more serious (but, then, wasn’t TDW serious enough for all of us?) but I think it kind of worked for me, in that Thor felt like he had really made peace with everything. It felt like Thor had MOVED ON and that’s what REALLY got to Loki.
So the idea that Thor might be indifferent to Loki is troubling for him, because that’s a defining feature of who his character is. I don’t belong in the family; my brother doesn’t love me; I hate my brother. The idea that his brother’s like, “Yeah, whatever,” it’s an interesting development. But the two of them, that’s what I kind of loved about Ragnarok when I first read it. The two of them are placed in such an extraordinary situation where everything is unfamiliar; that their familiarity, literally as family members, becomes important.
Loki, for all that he pushes people away and betrays them and stabs them in the back, desperately does not ACTUALLY want to be given up on. Thor making real peace with the idea that they’re going to go their separate ways? Thor’s indifference to Loki trying to scheme and plot?
That’s what Loki absolutely cannot stand.
And that’s what the past movies are about–Thor trying to reach him, Loki pushing him away (to see if Thor will keep coming back) but when Thor MOVES ON, when Thor is done mourning and finds his equilibrium again, when Thor says, all right, well, this is what you want, then let’s do it and he means it?
It leaves Loki with the choice to make himself. He can’t pin this choice on Thor or even on Odin. He tries briefly, “Funny how [Odin]’s death should split us apart.” and Thor’s just like, I loved you, but we parted ways a long time ago. You do what you want to do, Loki. Stay in your predictability or be something more, whatever you choose, you choose.
And when it’s on LOKI to make that choice, suddenly he can’t bear to be left behind. Suddenly he can’t bear for Thor to not care about him. Suddenly he can’t bear not to be something more than what he was, because there’s nothing to rebel against and instead it’s up to no one but Loki to make that choice.
So he chooses something more. (In the most Extra and dramatic fashion possible a;skjlakjslajks “YOOOOOUR SAVIOOOOR IS HERE!” oh my god.)
Loki is the Philosopher King 