I was reading the Thor: the movie kids novel and it was like “Thor was like Odin but Loki was much closer to his mother” AND I ASDFK;AJLSDGJKL;ASDKFGJSLD
❤
OH OH OH and let me take this opportunity to add to my many excessive thoughts about Asgardian royal family values re: Odin Is The Worst Dad.
I know that a lot of people take Odin at face value wrt his feelings for Loki, I guess, and go OH HE REALLY DIDN’T TELL LOKI BECAUSE HE JUST LOVED HIM and LOKI WAS JUST TWISTING HIS WORDS LIKE HE SAID despite the meaningful repetition of “He always does things for a reason,” even though he tried initially to deny it to Loki by calling him son, even while Loki demanded to know WHAT MORE THAN THAT because there had to be more than that and they both knew it.
But, you guys, like you understand what he did right? You understand what his plan was?
He stole a baby, not just any baby, but the King of Jotunheim’s son, and raised it as Asgardian with the intention of “making a permanent peace” through Loki and he would have done it, if not for Thor and company’s trip to Jotunheim that shattered the truce.
Let that sink in.
The only way Loki is valuable for making permanent peace is if Odin reveals him as Laufey’s lost heir. (Which is why btw I call UNRELIABLE NARRATOR BULLSHIT on ~abandoned~ and ~left to die~ because YOU CANNOT MAKE PEACE THROUGH A BABY THEY DIDN’T FUCKING WANT.) He was making Thor king, so obviously, the time for the fruition of this plan was near.
And what was this plan exactly for permanent peace through Loki? IT COULD ONLY BE TO DEPOSE LAUFEY AND THEN PUT LOKI, LAUFEY’S RIGHTFUL HEIR, IN HIS PLACE.
~making a permanent peace~
with a King of Jotunheim Odin raised away from his home because he thought that they were too cruel or barbaric or wtfever for any other kind of diplomacy.
~making a permanent peace~
with a King of Jotunheim who would hate his own people and think them monsters that needed to be controlled and contained and feared because that’s all he’s ever known and no one ever bothered to try to get him to think otherwise.
~making a permanent peace~
by having stolen
and raised
a King of Jotunheim that would bow to Asgard.
MAN THAT ODIN SURE IS A KEEPER, ISN’T HE?
This post is beautiful and perfect. When I was considering Loki’s role as stolen relic, I was also thinking of him as a kind of trans-racial adoptee, being adopted into a culture where he is Other, and he discovers this, that like all the other things in the chamber, he’s been stripped of his original context, has nowhere to turn to but the space where he remains Othered, like how many TRAs were stripped of their original culture so they “fit in better” with the adopted one.
So the next time I watch this movie and watch Loki scream “JUST ANOTHER STOLEN RELIC” I might cry.
find myself shouting terrible things at the screen every time I watch Thor
am no longer allowed to watch Thor in the company or general vicinity of normal people
should never watch Thor while handling a steam iron
I swear, even when I’m 80, every time I watch Thor I will be like this:
In the comments to Loki: An Allegory About Internalized Racism (link above), there’s this comment by Thor writer Zack Stentz to prove that We Haven’t Just Imagined This™:
Apparently there is still some argument over whether Loki was tortured/coerced into the actions of The Avengers? And whether there was any mind-scrambling involved?
Well I can see why. I mean…
Thanos would never do a thing like that (torture), because he’s surely a nicer guy than Nick Fury who suggests it right off the bat;
Loki would totally sign up to assist a much more powerful being in universe-conquering, that’s totally smart and sane and how he rolls, no coercion needed to place himself at the mercy of a cosmic-powered asshole;
The Other has clearly never threatened him before, Loki seems to trust it completely and is totally shocked that they don’t have the happiest business arrangement;
Loki’s “plan” isn’t reckless or bafflingly stupid or full of holes or in any way uncharacteristic of him at all;
It’s not like he has those same dark sleep-deprived circles around his eyes that Barton and Selvig develop;
It’s not as if he talks like a madman spouting indoctrinated-sounding nonsense like a freshly converted acolyte;
It’s not like even Thor thinks someone is controlling him;
Not like Thor and Banner both allude to him clearly being “beyond reason”, i.e. not in his right mind;
Not like Loki’s carrying a scepter around most of the film that is shown onscreen to negatively effect the emotions and behavior of people who even stand in a room with it for a short time, and anyway he’d surely be immune to it if he was, being so emotionally stable and not at all vulnerable;
Not like mind control is a running theme in this film or anything;
Loki’s dialogue in a cut extended scene certainly doesn’t allude to having been “touched” by the same power himself;
And of course he appears to be in great health, pallor and sweating and stumbling and lank greasy hair and months’ worth of shadows under his eyes notwithstanding, so it stands to reason he’s A-OK mentally. He’s just evil. For the evulz.
Yes, I can clearly see you’d have to be a hormone-addled bleeding-heart fangirl desperate to redeem the hot villain to see ANYTHING suspect in any of this. Torture, mind control, pfft. When will we learn to stop thinking like that? Logic schmogic, stop using your brains, girls.
I love this meta with my life
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Loki was not “mind controlled” in exactly the same way as Barton and Selvig, which we know because his eyes are definitely not that bright crystalline blue. BUT he’s clearly been threatened, probably tortured, and also quite probably messed with in some way using the Mind Stone. As ever, please see my currently 72,000-word fic for details on how this might have gone down.
This is not something we’ve seen him do before. Not that he would have had any occasion to in previous movies, but this is kind of in a different category from other things he does with magic: mostly illusions, shapeshifting, and moving things around.
This is some wild-ass, blatantly self-interested speculation, but… what if the power to draw out other people’s memories is a relatively new ability that he gained from his interaction with the Mind Stone? Scarlet Witch got her powers from experimentation with the Mind Stone, and one of the things we’ve seen her do is get into people’s heads and make them experience things based on their worst fears and most painful memories.
This at least suggests that forcing people to re-experience memories is one of the things that the Mind Stone can do, in addition to co-opting their will to make them serve the aims of the wielder. I think everyone I know has dismissed the idea that Thanos was controlling Loki the way Loki controlled Barton and Selvig; that’s probably not something you can do to a magically powerful being like Loki. BUT Scarlet Witch was able to do the fear-exploiting thing with Thor, and Loki simultaneously experienced and forced the Valkyrie to re-experience her worst memory – that is something you can do to more powerful beings.
So… this provides some circumstantial evidence in favor of the theory I explore in my fic The Abyss Gazes Also about what happened between Thanos and Loki: that Thanos exploited Loki’s own fears, resentments, and insecurities and forced him to re-experience his most traumatic memories involving his family (especially Thor and Odin) to manipulate him into invading Earth on Thanos’s behalf and fighting against his adoptive family.
@philosopherking1887 here for this theory… i thought something along these lines while watching the film:
“Well, THAT’S new. Has he been fuckin round with gemstones? Is this an easy device to do CHARACTER FLASHBACK + VERIFICATION? or is Loki just growing more into his skills in his spare time?”
answer? I personally think it’s probably all three 😀
Yeah… I’ve had some people reblogging saying they think Loki has always been able to do this, and I’m like… based on what? Probably they just want him always to have been as powerful as possible, but I’m big on consistency and constraints.
THIS WAS SUCH A PERFECTLY EXECUTED RUNNING STORY THREAD.
Loki’s use of illusion magic is shown throughout the film, it’s used to trick or betray or keep his distance, it shows his vulnerability when Valkyrie caught him, and then finally to show that he’s really there on the ship.
That final moment has all the greater impact because we’ve seen it used throughout the movie and because we realize that it’s tied to showing where Loki’s at. Is he in a manipulative place? A desperate place? A selfish place? A vulnerable place? We see all of those, demonstrated through whether he’s present or just a magic spell.
And then we see him really there and we understand that he’s not just really there physically, he’s really there emotionally, too. He’s ready to be something more, to move on from the past, to try being a little more actually present in this life and this family he wants.
The culmination of the use of his illusion magic is used beautifully in this movie, that moment shows everything about how Loki has grown after all the shit they’ve all been through. And we get it because we’ve seen that he’s a wily sort, he’ll absolutely use that tool to keep his distance when he wants to.
So if he’s really there, then he really chose to be there, in person and for real.
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.)
I think it’s two things – first of all, I do think Loki just genuinely likes dressing up and looking nice. I mean, in Thor we see him change clothes a few times where others (if I recall) don’t, and in this movie he had at least two thematic costume changes (not including the black suit). it’s part of his Aesthetic, and Loki is very much about the Aesthetic.
(more seriously: he’s very appearance-conscious in basically every way and that includes, of course, clothing.)
so then on Earth – Thor can dress down, I think because Thor is more comfortable on Earth generally (where for Loki it’s not a place he particularly wants to be) and also because Thor doesn’t feel the same need Loki does to project a specific image – an image, like you say, of authority, control, and status. three things Loki is never going to want to relinquish.
and it does fit in with what we’ve seen Loki wear when he comes toEarth before, which. it definitely is a lot of style choice. (and it’s such a good style.)
Costume meta!!!! YESSSS.
Loki is always as *covered* and buttoned up as possible, with which I’m obsessed. (It shows up in a lot of fanfiction and meta, so it’s not just me.) It reflects his closed off wariness and it’s always a sort of emotional armor, I think.
He’s so, so insecure, our Loki, that he hides behind this armor and yes, it absolutely projects an air of authority and confidence that he needs desperately to perform. I could talk for HOURS about his costuming.
I felt actually punched in the face when the first trailers were released and we saw him *not* wearing his signature green and black and gold.
That outfit, though, is in the Grandmaster’s colors. It reinforces the “ownership” of people the Grandmaster assumes on Sakaar. It’s a very Sakaar ensemble and in context I love it. Loki’s ingratiated himself to the most powerful being and his schemes have schemes.
Thor, of course, is often seen half-naked, sleeveless, and in casual clothing on Midgard. He’s more open, egregious, and straightforward. The contrast is beautiful between the brothers’ attire.
(Luna I keep forgetting to ask you what you thought of the costuming after seeing the movie!)
Amazing points about Loki’s attire.
Ah, well they are definitely not just my observations. I’m sure part of this comes from @philosopherking1887 (OMG her story The Abyss Gazes Also has an incredible cool explanation for Loki’s Avengers outfit) and there are SO many others who’ve written great observations about Loki’s clothing.
Regarding the costumes themselves as outfits, I’m a bit divided. None of Loki’s outfits were as beautiful and elegant as his TDW armour in my opinion (except maybe the black suit in terms of elegance but… it’s a suit not really a costume). But I do like the fact that they are bound to be easier to recopy: The metal armour bits aren’t as ornate, there are less metallic parts altogether, the leather looks like cheaper pleather, the patterns in general are less complex… So they are more cosplay-friendly.
I absolutely love that this helmet allows for both the horns AND the hair to show. This makes it BEST HELMET ❤
I think my fave Loki costume out of Ragnarok is the one when they fight on the bridge (cape and helmet mmmm)
I agree, regarding the costumes looking cheap and pleather-y. I was concerned about that when the first photos showed up, but I thought maybe they’d look better onscreen… and I guess they looked somewhat better, but still not great. And FFS, give the poor man a modesty flap.
On one level I agree with you about the helmet… but it also just looks completely useless as a piece of armor. It’s completely decorative, but also looks kind of cheap and plasticky. I think the helmet from The Avengers wins, because it’s an effective helmet but you can also still see his hair. Even though the way it makes the back of his head pointy does look a little silly.
This is not something we’ve seen him do before. Not that he would have had any occasion to in previous movies, but this is kind of in a different category from other things he does with magic: mostly illusions, shapeshifting, and moving things around.
This is some wild-ass, blatantly self-interested speculation, but… what if the power to draw out other people’s memories is a relatively new ability that he gained from his interaction with the Mind Stone? Scarlet Witch got her powers from experimentation with the Mind Stone, and one of the things we’ve seen her do is get into people’s heads and make them experience things based on their worst fears and most painful memories.
This at least suggests that forcing people to re-experience memories is one of the things that the Mind Stone can do, in addition to co-opting their will to make them serve the aims of the wielder. I think everyone I know has dismissed the idea that Thanos was controlling Loki the way Loki controlled Barton and Selvig; that’s probably not something you can do to a magically powerful being like Loki. BUT Scarlet Witch was able to do the fear-exploiting thing with Thor, and Loki simultaneously experienced and forced the Valkyrie to re-experience her worst memory – that is something you can do to more powerful beings.
So… this provides some circumstantial evidence in favor of the theory I explore in my fic The Abyss Gazes Also about what happened between Thanos and Loki: that Thanos exploited Loki’s own fears, resentments, and insecurities and forced him to re-experience his most traumatic memories involving his family (especially Thor and Odin) to manipulate him into invading Earth on Thanos’s behalf and fighting against his adoptive family.
I was thinking exactly along these lines and am SO EXCITED that for wherever reason we have new Loki powers to play with!
I think he always had the abilities to tap into someone’s memories, there just wasn’t any place to showcase those abilities yet or maybe he just never bothered to practice them. And I think it isn’t clear if HE could see Valkyrie’s memories, or if he simply triggered her to see them.
If he did that to distract her, why not take her down before she recovers from the flashback?
Instead, he seemed only a little less dazed than she was at the end which (added to her rage at having to remember) allows her to take him out with one punch.
His stricken facial expression, as well as his general air of disorientation, did seem to suggest that he had seen it, too.
I love how none of the Asgardians were surprised that Loki fought alongside Thor to protect Asgard; they know he’s the trickster but they also know they can trust him when shit hits the fan.
He’s still their prince.
They also acknowledge that even under the guise of Odin, he kept them safe for four years.
He was a prince for 1000 years, and a respected warrior for a large chunk of that time.
He’s been going off the rails for 6 years, tops.
1000 vs 6.
Why wouldn’t most of them trust him? Even the bad things he’s done have been aimed at the Asgardian people.
I bring this up all the time, the average Joe Asgardian most likely viewed it all as “some odinson shit” when Loki went off to misbehave on Earth That One Time. Then went back to playing magic soccer or some such. I don’t flatter myself thinking immortal golden space people give a shit about New Yorkers.
Then Loki got some private slap on the wrist punishment (Only the guards in TDW saw his *actual* sentencing before the dark elves showed up) before he re-emerged to DIE protecting Asgard and by extension really all the realms from Malekith. So yeah, Loki is definitely looked upon favorably.
This is not something we’ve seen him do before. Not that he would have had any occasion to in previous movies, but this is kind of in a different category from other things he does with magic: mostly illusions, shapeshifting, and moving things around.
This is some wild-ass, blatantly self-interested speculation, but… what if the power to draw out other people’s memories is a relatively new ability that he gained from his interaction with the Mind Stone? Scarlet Witch got her powers from experimentation with the Mind Stone, and one of the things we’ve seen her do is get into people’s heads and make them experience things based on their worst fears and most painful memories.
This at least suggests that forcing people to re-experience memories is one of the things that the Mind Stone can do, in addition to co-opting their will to make them serve the aims of the wielder. I think everyone I know has dismissed the idea that Thanos was controlling Loki the way Loki controlled Barton and Selvig; that’s probably not something you can do to a magically powerful being like Loki. BUT Scarlet Witch was able to do the fear-exploiting thing with Thor, and Loki simultaneously experienced and forced the Valkyrie to re-experience her worst memory – that is something you can do to more powerful beings.
So… this provides some circumstantial evidence in favor of the theory I explore in my fic The Abyss Gazes Also about what happened between Thanos and Loki: that Thanos exploited Loki’s own fears, resentments, and insecurities and forced him to re-experience his most traumatic memories involving his family (especially Thor and Odin) to manipulate him into invading Earth on Thanos’s behalf and fighting against his adoptive family.
@philosopherking1887 Honestly, my inclination as well. It’s not exactly like Loki would have been around to experience this happening so he couldn’t project something that he knew or witnessed, he had to have reached into her mind.
I further thought that Loki may have also been able to blend some of these new powers into whatever the hell he did to Odin because Odin would not have known or expected his son to come at him with these abilities.
(Sidenote, my ‘funny’ head canon is that Odin regaining his mind is what caused the actual destruction of that Shady Acres old folks home, take that or leave it :p)
Oh, interesting point about Odin. That actually suggests that the Mind Stone allows someone to delete or alter memories, or maybe even implant false ones. I was resisting the idea that that was something Thanos could have done to Loki – even though it’s a much neater explanation of the “I remember you tossing me into an abyss” line – because I thought it would be more interesting, poignant, and ultimately fucked-up if he was able to get Loki to the point he was at in “The Avengers” using only Loki’s own memories and emotions as raw material…
This is not something we’ve seen him do before. Not that he would have had any occasion to in previous movies, but this is kind of in a different category from other things he does with magic: mostly illusions, shapeshifting, and moving things around.
This is some wild-ass, blatantly self-interested speculation, but… what if the power to draw out other people’s memories is a relatively new ability that he gained from his interaction with the Mind Stone? Scarlet Witch got her powers from experimentation with the Mind Stone, and one of the things we’ve seen her do is get into people’s heads and make them experience things based on their worst fears and most painful memories.
This at least suggests that forcing people to re-experience memories is one of the things that the Mind Stone can do, in addition to co-opting their will to make them serve the aims of the wielder. I think everyone I know has dismissed the idea that Thanos was controlling Loki the way Loki controlled Barton and Selvig; that’s probably not something you can do to a magically powerful being like Loki. BUT Scarlet Witch was able to do the fear-exploiting thing with Thor, and Loki simultaneously experienced and forced the Valkyrie to re-experience her worst memory – that is something you can do to more powerful beings.
So… this provides some circumstantial evidence in favor of the theory I explore in my fic The Abyss Gazes Also about what happened between Thanos and Loki: that Thanos exploited Loki’s own fears, resentments, and insecurities and forced him to re-experience his most traumatic memories involving his family (especially Thor and Odin) to manipulate him into invading Earth on Thanos’s behalf and fighting against his adoptive family.
Loki is the Philosopher King 
