pet peeve – when people call loki’s speech in iw character development
1. it’s not development when it comes out of nowhere
2. it’s not development if it was all resolved in the previous movies
i just hate how loki was used in the past two movies. they just needed him to get from point a. to point b. no explanations for his actions. i think this is what i personally dislike most about both ragnarok and infinity war. yeah there are important changes but i don’t feel them. i used to -get- loki. i don’t anymore. idk maybe it’s just me.
Oh gosh! Yes!
The part that sticks out the most is the way Ragnarok and IW handled Loki being a Frost Giant (I’m sure we’re on exactly the same wavelength in thinking that). Ragnarok shows Loki revealing he’s a Frost Giant to Asgard, and never explores why he did this or the reaction of the people (perhaps because it doesn’t understand or care about how the previous movies would suggest their reaction would be negative).
The why part’s interesting to explore. Some people, myself included, have speculated Loki did a lot of self-healing in the four years he posed as Odin. There are ways that Loki could have been written where it would make sense that he reveals himself (I’m exploring one way in Debts). However, the purpose of the play isn’t to assure us that Loki’s been caring for himself and coming to terms with what he is. It’s to summarize the important points from the previous films in a “respectfully disrespectful” (I believe those were TW’s words) manner, and to show off how silly Loki is for writing a bad play about himself.
And then in IW he claims he’s the rightful king of Jotunheim. What?! The last mention of your feels were in a single line to Thor about how much being lied to hurts. Was I supposed to take from that and the weird play that everything was cool now? That the major fucking catalyst for Loki’s emotional breakdown in Thor was resolved by four years of relaxation and Thor (Loki’s brother who used to talk about how he was going to slay every fucking Frost Giant) ignoring Loki’s mention of it? I refuse!
And on the fandom side of things… the people who say Loki finally proved he loved Thor and was willing to die for him in IW drive me up a wall! First, did you not watch TDW? Even if you’re assuming Loki was only pretending (which doesn’t make sense but whatever) or planned to pretend to die, he couldn’t have predicted the black hole grenade that nearly took him out. He wasn’t protecting Jane for her sake. Second, Loki doesn’t die for Thor in IW. I’m sorry, but that’s the truth. Loki’s actions don’t prevent Thanos from killing Thor. He could have easily done so after finishing off Loki. Loki’s death in IW is meaningless. It’s just there to say “see how easily our new bad guy takes out the old one”.
pet peeve – when people call loki’s speech in iw character development
1. it’s not development when it comes out of nowhere
2. it’s not development if it was all resolved in the previous movies
i just hate how loki was used in the past two movies. they just needed him to get from point a. to point b. no explanations for his actions. i think this is what i personally dislike most about both ragnarok and infinity war. yeah there are important changes but i don’t feel them. i used to -get- loki. i don’t anymore. idk maybe it’s just me.
It’s not just you. And the reason you don’t get him anymore is because there’s nothing to get. He no longer resembles a person with a complex, comprehensible psychology. He’s a cardboard cutout of a (“reformed”) trickster.
Unless they’re black, I guess. In which case it’s perfectly acceptable to put hundreds of them at risk of death for (1) Sad Robot
what the hell would Steve have done if Wakanda had done the intelligent, rational and understandable thing and said “no”? would the narrative have pissed on Wakanda for daring to say no to its precious never wrong Steve Rogers?
my gut says “yes”
THIS BOTHERED ME SO MUCH
I still need to post about the “we don’t trade lives” thing and deontology vs. consequentialism in the MCU but that would take a long time and I have other things I should do first… and there’s only so much brain energy I want to spend on the shit show that was Infinity War.
Long story short: Markus & McFeely are, as I have said, dimwitted hacks.
So, many people have wondered why Doctor Strange didn’t cut Thanos’ gauntlet hand off with a Sling-Ring portal…
…But remember -In Thor Ragnarok, Strange says he needs a hair sample to transport Thor through his portals.
And I doubt that would work for Thanos, someone stronger than Thor, and who would probably require more clauses for portal stuff (especially with the Space Stone already in his gauntlet).
BUT- There IS another portal we also saw in Thor Ragnarok that CAN slice things really easily-!
So… with that in mind, here’s how the first 10 minutes of Infinity War would have played out!
The End!
The post made some mistakes about Dr. Strange’s portal in TR. Strange needed Thor’s hair to find Odin, not to transport Thor. So the thing about hair is not correct. He could totally use a portal to slice Thanos’ arm. Scratch that, they could use any weapon to do that. The thing is they wanted Thanos to win by any means neccessary, even making heroes look stupid.
Apart from that, yes, this could work. Just transporting Thanos to a black hole or the surface of a star, would do the job.
The next… chapter? Did Tom just secretly confirm that Loki isn’t dead after all?!
I’m still skeptical. It could be a very short “chapter,” and the sense in which it “honors what has come before” might just be that Loki is a boring “good guy” now and recognizes that his only purpose in life is to sacrifice himself for Thor (again). And he does say “it will be surprising for the audience in terms of what they expect next” – which could be code for, “Surprise! He dies in the first 5 minutes, way more stupidly than you ever would have expected him to, and that’s it for your favorite character.”
Yeah I am extremely skeptical that this “you’ll be surprised” nonsense is anything but a red herring. I’m still not 100% certain we’ll even see Loki in A4; has anyone seen any other set pictures besides the one? Remember he was supposed to have a cameo in AoU and that ended up getting cut. I’m maintaining a zero faith policy tbh, all this theorizing is frankly giving Marvel too much credit. Maybe the new fan campaign to bring Loki back will work, maybe it won’t, but odds are even if it does they’ll just let writers/directors who don’t like him or understand him continue to butcher his character.
Oh yeah, fair point about the AoU scene. And I completely agree about the zero faith policy. Except for “Spider-Man” and “Black Panther,” all the MCU movies that have come out since 2016 have been huge disappointments. And I absolutely do not trust anyone there with Loki’s character.
To all the people saying “the Russo brothers and Markus & McFeely are smart, they wouldn’t kill Loki in such a stupid way and leave all these hints that he might still be alive”:
They’re not that smart. Civil War was terrible; The Winter Soldier wasn’t as great as everyone says it was; and hello, have you seen what they did with Infinity War? Even aside from Loki’s stupid death, I mean. Thanos’s “sympathetic” Malthusian worldview? Fridging Gamora for Quill’s AND Thanos’s Manpain™? Our heroes deciding that a whole bunch of Wakandans can die so that Vision doesn’t have to because “we don’t trade lives” (right…)?
Markus & McFeely wrote Thor: The Dark World, which had a really weak main plot and not that much involvement from Loki until Joss Whedon was brought in as a script doctor and added more for reshoots.
Markus & McFeely originally intended to kill Loki permanently in TDW but Feige made an executive decision to bring him back because of his popularity with fans at the time. His mainstream popularity has (I think) waned since then (partly due to the deliberate diminution and demeaning of his character in Ragnarok).
I wouldn’t be surprised if M&M wanted to finish the job they started in TDW. They fridged Frigga to bring Thor and Loki together through Manpain; they had every intention of fridging Loki permanently for the sake of Thor’s Manpain.
Thor: My brother once pretended to cut off my arm to stop me from using Mjolnir, a supposedly unstoppable and indestructible weapon. He also went for Thanos’s throat when he attacked him. So I’m going to stab Thanos in the chest because I want to look him in the eyes when life leaves his body and be dramatic. It’s not like the fate of half of the universe depends on it if I lose.
Tony: I had a built-in dagger in my suit which I used to cut off Mandarin’s arm when he was about to kill me. I also cut off Bucky’s metal arm by my arc reactor. So the genius plan for defeating Thanos is trying to pull of the gauntlet from his hand.
Avengers: Infinity War a.k.a the movie that reduced its characters’ intelligence just for the sake of the plot to have a guarantee that the audiance will show up for the second part. In other words, lazy writing for more money.
Bonus:
Loki: I’m a master sorcerer and my magical abilities include illusion manipulation, hypnosis, presence concealment, conjuration and telekinesis. I possess immense knowledge of and skill in wielding mystical artifacts and arcane lore. I have genius-level intellect and I’m a master manipulator. So I think it’s a good plan to attack Thanos with a tiny dagger. It’s not like I could overpower Odin with magic or sth.
Loki is the Philosopher King 