I wanted to write this post since I
watched TR but I wasn’t calm enough for it until now. Even writing so little
about how TR unfairly treated Loki’s character and disrespected him and his
fans in my TR reviews made me angry enough to start shouting in my head and
rendered me unable to write it the way I wanted. Then IW happened and it was
the cause for another wave of rage in me. So it took me a long time.
We always talk about how TR
disrespected Loki and took away a lot of his canon characterizations and
motives and his arc from him. I noticed we never explained it in details and it
caused a lot of misunderstandings about why we hate TR and what we mean. So
this is a detailed explanation of how TR took everything from Loki.
Again, great analysis, and I just have to highlight the conclusion:
“By dismissing Loki’s pain, the narrative paints Loki as someone who is always in the wrong and Thor as blameless in everything. It leads to Thor dismissing Loki’s pain and it leads to disguising Thor and Loki’s imbalanced relationship (Thor as superior and Loki as inferior the way they started in the first Thor movie) as reconciliation and healing.
“You know what all of this led to right? A Loki robbed of his sacrifice, bravery, intelligence and planning skills, his magic and power had no place in IW. He was useless in the authors’ minds. He was healed after all! What else could Loki do except failing at tricking Thanos when he could be outsmarted by Thor and Dr. Strange. What else could Loki do except attacking Thanos with a tiny dagger when that was all the weapons he was left with? At least they gave him his bravery back so his stupid attack makes some sense. In their minds the only way his story could end, and he could completely be redeemed was a true sacrifice (which was pointless since Thanos could still kill Thor) in which he actually dies with no resurrection. This is how they took away Loki from us, by taking away everything from his character first and then when he had nothing left they killed him.”
This is why I’m still so pissed about Loki’s death in IW. Not just because he died – not just because it was unnecessarily brutal and graphic – but because it made him into a plot device rather than a character; because it passed the judgment that he had outlived his interest and usefulness and could only serve as a functionary in someone else’s story. It wasted the potential for a payoff of the connection to Thanos established in The Avengers; it showed that the creators (writers, producers, and directors) did not care enough about Loki’s character to give us that payoff or even tell us what the hell happened with Loki and Thanos. But Loki’s treatment in Ragnarok should have shown us that it was inevitable. Of course Markus & McFeely couldn’t know how thoroughly Taika Waititi was planning to ridicule and emasculate Loki, but if they saw the basic script, they might have had some idea of how his power, intelligence, and complexity were going to be minimized, and how the narrative was going to tie a neat little bow on his “redemption” and “reconciliation” with Thor. And of course these movies have no time for recovery from trauma, except maybe if your name is Tony Stark (and he has RDJ going to bat for him).
I was glad that Loki turned out not to be dead at the end of TDW because I thought he was going to have more time to develop his relationship with Thor and achieve genuine reconciliation, that we might find out what happened with Thanos, that Thor might finally ask what happened, that they might confront the prejudice against Frost Giants that led both of them to kill so many in Thor 1. But now I agree with @lucianalight: I would rather that he had died being noble and clever (turning on the grenade while impaled!!) than live to have everything that made him a magnificent character negated and shat on.
honestly, in my opinion, the dynamic between loki and thor is fundamentally very unhealthy, on both sides, and the reason for this is because neither of them knows how to really listen to the other, and neither knows how to communicate with the other.
loki:
thinks that he knows thor better than thor knows himself
loki is very unstable, and his perception of how thor feels is heavily affected by his own self esteem at the time
even if thor is literally saying the opposite, loki will convince himself he knows what thor Really Means
loki fundamentally thinks thor is better than him and more important than him, and that means he will automatically put thor’s needs and desires (or perceived needs and desires) above his own
loki is frightened that if he disagrees with or openly disobeys thor (esp pre-thor 2011), that thor will withhold affection and love in the same way that odin will
often avoids questions, both as a defensive mechanism and to protect thor’s feelings
loki is hyperaware of the fact that people love thor, and hate loki, and that that is the natural scheme of things.
he is uncomfortable when thor acts like people should like loki, because it usually means – from loki’s perspective – that they will pretend to like him in order to please thor.
thor:
is quite arrogant, and does think that loki should obey thor’s orders.
does not take into account that loki might actually feel inferior to him, and genuinely does respect and love loki. he just settles naturally into his role as leader, and thinks loki should respect thor’s authority to some extent.
fundamentally thinks that a lot of the issues loki faces with strangers (before he does anything terrible) are bc loki doesn’t try hard enough to be likable.
he does not take into account how it might feel to be in loki’s position, and constantly be compared (and found lacking in comparison to) thor.
thinks that loki just shouldn’t get upset when people call him ergi, and would tell loki to just ignore it before he ever told somebody else to stop saying it in the first place.
becomes confused, upset, and defensive when loki deceives him instead of disagreeing to his face. he assumes that loki’s deception is inherently malicious, rather than a fear of confrontation.
often talks over loki and disagrees with him before he’s finished explaining something, especially if he doesn’t like loki’s tone.
literally loves loki more than anything else in the universe, and tends to change the subject when people say they hate him. he will always defend loki’s good intentions, and will normally prevent people from being straight up nasty to loki’s face.
doesn’t really occur to him that once thor leaves the room, that faux-nicety will fade
I love this scene too. It’s such a shame it was cut from the final film. I wish Marvel did extended edition dvds. When I saw it, it put Loki’s comment about having been king in a different light. And it also gives the following scene with the Warriors Three a different tone, more nuanced, less outright lying villan.
This is relevant to a recent discussion about that scene in the throne room with Sif and the Warriors Three. I think we’re supposed to think that they mistrust and dislike him more than his previous actions actually warrant; they turn out to be correct that he is up to no good, but they have no way of knowing that or the actual reason for it (i.e., the shattering revelation of his identity). We’re also supposed to think they have some reason for mistrusting him (“Loki’s always been one for mischief”), but not as much as they do: they seem to think that he’s usurped the throne (and maybe deliberately harmed Odin?!), but we know that the inheritance was completely legitimate and Frigga-approved.
From the deleted Thor & Loki scene where Thor says “Some do battle, others just do tricks,” the servant laughs, and Loki scares him by turning wine into snakes, I got the impression that Asgardians are simultaneously disdainful and suspicious of sorcery, especially when used by men and/or on the battlefield. That’s perfectly in keeping with the actual attitude toward the practice of seidr in ancient Norse culture: men who practice it were tarred with ergi,“unmanliness” (the major implication being that they bottom during sex with men). You see a similar attitude toward a man’s use of anything considered a “woman’s weapon,” such as poison: it’s considered cowardly, underhanded, dishonorable; but it’s also especially frightening because it’s hard to see coming and defend against. Asgardians expect Loki to be sneaky, not least because he’s a sorcerer. This may be a stretch, but it seemed to me that Hogun’s accusation drew attention to this connection: “A master of magic could bring three Jotuns into Asgard.” On the surface, he’s just saying that Loki had the capability to do it; but more implicitly he’s also suggesting that Loki is the type of person who would do it.
I suspect there’s something distinctively Shakespearean going on here: the villain who becomes a villain in part because everyone expects him to be one. One notable example is Richard III, who implies that he chose to become a monster in part because his deformity makes people see him as a monster already: “Deformed, unfinish’d, sent before my time / Into this breathing world, scarce half made up, / And that so lamely and unfashionable / That dogs bark at me as I halt by them… And therefore, since I cannot prove a lover, / To entertain these fair well-spoken days, / I am determined to prove a villain…” Another example is Shylock, who pursues the forfeit of a pound of flesh because Antonio has consistently spat on him and insulted him and his people. He puts the point elegantly: “Thou call’dst me dog before thou hadst a cause; / But, since I am a dog, beware my fangs!” I think both of these examples are instructive in Loki’s case. Loki accuses Odin of wanting to “protect him from the truth” of his origin “because I am the monster parents tell their children about at night”; and I have a variety of reasons for connecting Loki with Shylock.
sb: thor isn’t made of sunshine and rainbows, and is actually a complicated guy who’s done some bad shit, and shouldn’t be treated as an innocent teddy bear
thor stans: is this character hate?
thor stans: thor isn’t perfect but he’s not malicious and sure as shit didn’t try to commit genocide
sb: wow such a flat outlook on character. thor stans just can’t see thor as anything but perfect. sad.
As a fan of both Loki and Thor who finds Loki more interesting as a character but certainly does not deny that he has more moral problems than Thor, I have to point out that that’s a peculiarly bad example. Kid Thor saying “When I’m king, I’ll hunt the monsters down and slay them all” can be dismissed as little-boy careless bravado. Young man Thor, after starting a destructive battle on Jotunheim, shouting “Father! We’ll finish them together!”… harder to dismiss. Maybe he just means “defeat them definitively”; maybe it’s just the rage of battle talking. Or maybe he meant what he said when he was a kid.
Loki certainly has a more effective plan to commit genocide, and probably comes closer to succeeding. It’s indirect and technological rather than direct and warrior-like; that’s part of the difference between their characters. Loki’s attempt also has the complexity of being undertaken after finding out that he’s a member of the group he’s trying to wipe out. Does that make it morally better? Not exactly, but it does add an element of twisted pathos. In both cases, Odin’s miseducation deserves a large share of the blame.
exactly, they both have done wrong things, Thor changed and realised genocide isn’t the answer while Loki went the other way. And yet….they were both raised by a conqueror, someone who taught them their history in which it obviously shows that wiping out entire civilizations was alright cause they were inferior.
Thor says that you can’t kill an entire race while Loki answers: Why not? And what is this newfound love for the frost giants?You, could have killed them all with your bare hands!
It did surprise me that when Loki had the throne, he chose to stay put, and only care for Asgard, the Loki in Thor and Avengers would’ve turned into Hela, and he knows it.
Problem is, Thor is always painted as the Hero™ and that means that he can do or has done nothing wrong, and is not that simple.
Egh, I actually don’t agree that Loki really hated the Frost Giants and wanted to kill them. I think that was a panicked response to a situation he’d already escalated to fuck, and was very much prompted by self-loathing – barely ten minutes after attacking the Jötnar he tried to kill HIMSELF, and I think it was all to do with his hatred of himself that he wanted to attack Jötunheimr. A mix of hating himself and wanting desperately to make Odin proud.
Attempted Genocide round two. The invasion of Muspelhiem, the assassination of Surtr. The slaughter of its people. Thor was under the evil influence of Thanos after being tortured by him, wait that was wrong. Thor had just found out that he was a fire giant and his father told him his destiny was to die, and his brother had just gone off and tried to kill all the fire giants. No wait that’s wrong too. Umm.. Three fire giants sneaked into Asgard and tried to steal the cask of summer?? No.. Oh I remember. Thor was attacked by the Scarlet Witch and she had him hallucinate about Ragnarok. He became so obsessed by his hallucination, even though every other hero had experienced a similar attack he decided to drop all his obligations and race off across the nine realms trying to stop his hallucination from becoming reality. That was his reasoning. Sorry dude I’ve dropped acid in my time. I don’t go around cutting down trees because of the one bad trip where I hallucinated a tree was following me around all night, to eat me. You only had a 20 minute spell. I call bullshit on his heroism.
Ok so I wasn’t gonna get into this because I haven’t seen the first movie in awhile and I’m not even in the headspace to discuss character motivations right now, but I think I’m gonna have a go.
The problem with this whole thing, in my opinion, is that- to most normal audience members who aren’t obsessed with all the intricacies of these films (*cough* not nerds)- it seems that Thor is constantly in the right, not because he’s never tried to commit genocide or expressed disturbing bigoted ideals and flawed morals, but because every time he has done these things, the film makers have made it out to seem like he’s doing them for all the right reasons.
It’s like: He hates jotuns and sees them as nothing more than monsters to be slain? Well that’s just because they attacked Midgard long ago, so technically he’s right. Oh, he wants to kill all of the jotuns? Well, they did ruin his coronation and they do seem like cold cruel people, so he’s just doing the universe a favor, probably.
More examples: What, Thor chooses to strangle Tony instead of talking like a civilized individual? Well, Tony did just accidentally create a murder robot so he deserves to be physically threatened by a being much stronger than him. Oh, Thor runs off to assuage his paranoia over the hallucinations instead of staying and protecting Midgard (like he said he’d do) or returning and checking on Asgard? Well, it ultimately led him back to Asgard, so it’s cool.
I have a ton more examples, but I can’t add them right now because I’m posting this on my phone and mobile gets glitchy once you’ve typed so much.
But yeah, the issue isn’t that people don’t acknowledge his wrongdoings. It’s that they brush them aside simply because Thor is made out to be this heroic honorable awesome Good Guy, and they assume that means every single one of his dick moves are justified.
And it’s not just Thor. Almost every single one of the Avenegers gets the same hypocritical treatment from fans. Steve started an entire war and was a complete arrogant fuckface while doing it? Oh, he was protecting his friend so we can argue that all of that was the right move and even congratulate him for it. Natasha, Clint, Tony, and Bruce all killed lots of people in their pasts? It’s fine, they’re heroes now. Wanda literally messed with everyone’s minds and she and Pietro fought against the Avengers to achieve the goals of their evil leader? It’s ok, he manipulated them and they were heroes in the end so it’s totally fine.
I mean, I love all of the people I just mentioned. They’re great and they absolutely are heroes, but it’s extremely irritating when people don’t hold them accountable for their past actions simply because they “meant well” or because “they’re heroes now”. Because how much do you wanna bet that those fans are the same ones shitting on Loki and Odin and others for their flaws and mistakes and refusing to acknowledge their heroic traits.
I think @musclesandhammering is quite right about the interpretive pattern. Framing is powerful, and framing certain characters as “heroes” (i.e., we root for these ones) and others as “villains” (we boo them) primes us to read their actions in predetermined ways.
sb: thor isn’t made of sunshine and rainbows, and is actually a complicated guy who’s done some bad shit, and shouldn’t be treated as an innocent teddy bear
thor stans: is this character hate?
thor stans: thor isn’t perfect but he’s not malicious and sure as shit didn’t try to commit genocide
sb: wow such a flat outlook on character. thor stans just can’t see thor as anything but perfect. sad.
As a fan of both Loki and Thor who finds Loki more interesting as a character but certainly does not deny that he has more moral problems than Thor, I have to point out that that’s a peculiarly bad example. Kid Thor saying “When I’m king, I’ll hunt the monsters down and slay them all” can be dismissed as little-boy careless bravado. Young man Thor, after starting a destructive battle on Jotunheim, shouting “Father! We’ll finish them together!”… harder to dismiss. Maybe he just means “defeat them definitively”; maybe it’s just the rage of battle talking. Or maybe he meant what he said when he was a kid.
Loki certainly has a more effective plan to commit genocide, and probably comes closer to succeeding. It’s indirect and technological rather than direct and warrior-like; that’s part of the difference between their characters. Loki’s attempt also has the complexity of being undertaken after finding out that he’s a member of the group he’s trying to wipe out. Does that make it morally better? Not exactly, but it does add an element of twisted pathos. In both cases, Odin’s miseducation deserves a large share of the blame.
LOKI LAFEUYSON IS A PROUD BOTTOM BITCH AND THAT IS CANON
Here’s my take: Loki is, at his core, a masochistic sub. He likes to be chained up and slapped. It satisfies his profound self-loathing. But he also, occasionally, enjoys taking the dom role just to see what it’s like. And if someone (*cough*Thor*cough*) needs to sub every once in a while in order to fully relax, Loki is willing to play along for their benefit.
The Avengers does not show Loki as an actual dom. It shows him playing a part, which should be obvious from the scenes that indicate he’s under severe pressure from Thanos. Loki is an actor; we’ve known that since the first Thor movie. He can play a tyrant when he needs to; he can even kind of enjoy it. But that’s not really who he is.
P.S. the dom/sub contrast is separable from the top/bottom contrast. @illwynd’s powerful Thor/Loki fic I Remember a Shadow portrays Thor as a dominant bottom and Loki as a submissive top. It’s the sub aspect that’s core to Loki’s character, not the bottom aspect.
Now if that’s doesn’t spark a Loki movie, I don’t know what will.
I love you for saying this.
“Not enough Loki.” -Rolling Stone
Just casually bringing this back in 2018
^^^ in which I am reminded how much I love The Dark World and detest Ragnarok
And Taika Waititi’s response to this critical consensus – probably motivated by Chris Hemsworth, and with the blessing of Kevin Feige – was to gut Loki’s character, to ridicule and emasculate him at every turn, to deprive him of the complex interiority that all of these critics love, to reduce his motivations to “I couldn’t help myself, I’m a trickster” (an actual line from the ridiculous play in Ragnarok), a.k.a. “I did it for the lulz.”
Don’t give me that “But he foregrounded Thor and Loki’s relationship!” bullshit. He reinforced and endorsed the imbalance that was always present; he dismissed and delegitimized all of Loki’s grievances and presented his complete submission to Thor’s will as his redemption.
First, I’d really like to write more about this, but free time is intermittent for me. Please, please don’t comment or share this just to argue with me. If you have well thought out points that are based on critical thinking, okay. Otherwise, that’s not why I come to this site. And I will probably just end up blocking you to save myself the stress.
That being said…
I think my issue with Thor fans is that they don’t analyze Loki’s relationship with him critically. Imagine that you just met these two guys. They weren’t gods. They were just two brothers. One wasn’t a hero and one wasn’t a villain. They were just regular guys. Their relationship would seem woefully imbalanced. Most people’s perception of these two characters is deeply colored by the fact that one is marketed to us as a hero and the other a villain.
I often seen people cite examples of how Thor loves Loki -but then they will list something that is actually an example of how their relationship is dysfunctional. Thor “trusting” Loki in TDW was not love. It was desperation to save Jane. It was about his infatuation for Jane. Thor’s relationship with Jane didn’t last -most likely because it was more about possessing her than actually being with her physically.
Thor telling Loki “maybe you’re not so bad” or “maybe there’s still good in you” or “I thought the world of you” is not love. It’s manipulative and passive aggressive and once again, dysfunctional.
Thor using Loki to do “get help” was not an example of how well they get along. It was an example of how Thor continually disregards Loki’s feelings, as long as it serves his purpose.
Thor is nice to Loki when he needs something from him. The eagerness with which Loki responds to this is disturbing. They are both very messed up people. Loki’s eagerness to gain validation from someone is most likely what led to his entanglement with Thanos.
Thor’s obsession with Earth is not love. It’s ego. He likes the idea of protecting someone who is smaller than he is. He likes that they adore and worship them there. And in his defense…who the hell wouldn’t like that?
Does that mean Thor isn’t capable of love? No way. It just means that because of his personalty, experience and maturity level, his concept of what it means to love someone is fairly skewed. Loki’s too, for that matter.
Now all of that being said, I don’t mind that this is their relationship. If they weren’t dysfunctional, they would likely be very boring. I continue to be confused as to why people want to defend Thor, as though the fact that he is a hero means he is supposed to be completely without flaws or questionable motives.
In classic literature, heroes are flawed by nature.
Here’s what Thor SHOULD have said to Fury in Avengers: “My brother tried to kill himself and I’m frankly relieved to find out that he’s still alive. He is unwell, I’m afraid. Please allow me to talk to him and reason with him and take him back home.” And then Thor would have done his best to return Loki to Asgard immediately, instead of dicking around on a hillside with Tony Stark and then dragging Loki off so SHIELD could put him in Bruce Banner’s cage. Those would have been the actions of someone who loved and cared for his brother. Unfortunately, they would also have made for a very boring movie, which is why we got something else.
I will add to this later, when I have time.
I have less of a problem with Thor’s lapses in sensitivity in The Avengers than in Thor: Ragnarok, because he’s still working on his process of maturation and we’re aware that he comes from a warrior culture steeped in toxic masculinity and completely lacking a compassionate understanding of mental illness. But we watch him growing up through the movies that follow… until Thor: Ragnarok, when all of that is more than reversed.
The other extremely problematic thing that I see people citing as an example of how much Thor loves Loki is “Thor didn’t kill Loki when he could have.” Like, what? That is such an incredibly low bar. No shit you don’t kill someone you love, even when they do something shitty to you. If you love them, you also don’t inflict unnecessary pain on them. Saying “Thor just immobilized him with the obedience disk instead of killing him for his betrayal” is like saying “You know that husband loves his wife because he only sprained her wrist when he found her cheating on him, he didn’t actually break it.”
And no, that is not comparable to arguing that Loki still cares about Thor even when he’s in villain mode because he only does things to incapacitate him, not kill him. What Loki does when he’s having a complete emotional and psychological breakdown in Thor or when he’s been manipulated, probably tortured, and severely coerced by Thanos (NOT brainwashed or mind-controlled, I didn’t say that) is NOT comparable to what Thor does when he’s completely in control of his rational faculties, as part of his “clever plan” to reform Loki. In my fanfiction, I’ve had to reinterpret that incident in Ragnarok as Thor reacting in irrational anger, because otherwise it’s unconscionable.
the fact that Loki’s death scene in Thor 2 was originally intended to be real & retconned later and the end where he’s alive was filmed during pickups has me SO fucked up because now I can’t choose between which headcanon I prefer re: his behavior in Ragnarok. like listen, okay, either:
1. loki was planning on playing dead the whole time and so his very sad death scene & everything he said therein was a calculated move and he was practically writing the theatrical version of it (starring matt damon as himself) as he went along
OR
2. loki really thought he was dying and every melodramatic word of his death scene was 100% heartfelt and then after he realized he wasn’t dead he fucking… woke up peaced out to go take over asgard (lol?) and several months later he was sitting on the throne and could remember every word of what he said to thor on that day and was like “wow im so fucking poetic. that should be a play. starring matt damon as Me perhaps”
OR, How I Can’t Stop Thinking About Loki’s Grotesque End in Infinity War and Why It Doesn’t Sit Right In the Cinematic Universe
I get the WHY. But not the HOW.
Constantly thinking about this is what inspired me actually the other day to writeup this post (re: Zara in Jurassic World) because that was the last time a movie death made me feel queasy and I have seen SO MANY MOVIES in the last three years.
It’s not like characters in both JP and the MCU aren’t disposed of all the time but generally films follow a rule of the punishment fitting the crime.This BirthMoviesDeath article elaborates on this concept and the Jurassic deaths really well and aligns with how I’m going to be talking about Loki here. This isn’t a rule based in life obviously or even in all movies, but it is established in popcorn blockbusters which these indisputably are. In Zara’s case, there was exactly zero respect for the fact that she was just a flighty nanny when the movie ran her through an absolute horror show. And it stood out like a sore thumb.
In Loki’s case, it’s obvious that this film’s “reasoning” for his dying was to fuel Thor who didn’t really need it and to show off their Bigger Stronger Newer Villain. Fine. I anticipated all of that. It’s somewhat lazy, but it is an effective shorthand for those story points.
The disturbing thing here though is Loki hasn’t been a proper villain in years. In fact, in 2017 he moved to full on hero status in the last act of Ragnarok— and even when he was at Peak Villain, he was not a torturer. TELL THAT TO AGENT COULSON OR THE ONE-EYED DOCTOR IN GERMANY, LAUREN! I WILL GET TO BOTH, HUSH. So that’s what makes his death so disproportionately upsetting. It is, for lack of a better term, overkill.
His largest scale villainy was the invasion in the first Avengers where his personal kills were instant blasts of energy, and presumably the fallout of destroyed buildings. The former isn’t in the torture range, the latter’s impact is cinematically blunted by the Marvel universe rarely showing the injuries in large scale invasions or going to great lengths to have their heroes evacuate the affected areas and that distinction matters here.
So let’s go through how it DID go down and how it could have gone without leaving the audience needlessly wincing five minutes in and weeks after.
Sorry in advance by the way, because in the end of my analysis and my suggestions for how this might have been better handled, Loki’s neck is still broken.
To date myself, I said Loki got “Jenny-Calendar’ed”. And they could have easily done this as quickly (you still get to use that gross sound effect, Russo team!) but INSTEAD we have: (And if you don’t feel like reliving this, go ahead and skip over the bullet points)
Loki is picked up by the throat and begins kicking like a helpless animal
We watch as Loki’s eyes bulge and he struggles to speak
He does get out a final line though his face is practically blue
Thanos cracks his neck with his thumb and a sickening sound effect
The camera does not cut away, we see Loki’s face and frame go slack
Thanos does not drop Loki, but instead walks the ragdoll-like body in frame, to drop him in front of his brother.
Loki brandishes the eye snatching device and brings it down upon the terrified doctor but the film cuts away from the victim and focuses on Loki’s grin as the onlookers scatter. The most we see of this act is an obscured shot of the German man’s body twitching (also, if I recall correctly, the blu-ray captions say “squelching sounds.” Ick).
I bring this up only because I was struggling to find an act that Loki did on screen where what he dealt out was comparably as grotesque as to what happened to him. Only the first Avengers didn’t amplify this violence by—and you could just IMAGINE the outcry that would have happened if instead—Loki pulled out the device, he rammed it into the doctor’s face, we then STAYED on the doctor and watched his eye be excised from its socket. When Loki is done in this version, he would push the body off the table and show the isolated eyeball to nearby innocents and we would hold on a closeup on the German’s corpse.
IF this had happened, I would have said watching Loki getting choked out was fair cinematic game.
Additionally, Loki’s stabbing of Agent Coulson was literally cinematically declawed. OUTTAKES:
Catch the difference? The filmmakers removed the impaling scepter tip from going all the way through in the final product because it was unnecessarily violent for getting the point (harhar) across in this PG-13 comic book film. Here, the point was to unite the Avengers against this evil and taking out Phil galvanized them on a more personal level. In the meantime, it didn’t needlessly maim Agent Coulson. You felt sorry for him, but not nauseated. (Sidenote: Poor Thor having a front row on both of these deaths.) (Second Sidenote: Remember when Loki could teleport away from problems as illustrated in the above scene? Huh.)
Moving on. So going by the premise that Loki just had to die to similarly motivate Thor to vengeance on Thanos, how might have Infinity War have HONORABLY discharged Loki, so to speak?
My thoughts:
Loki pulls his dagger on Thanos, who then grabs his wrist as we saw.
Thanos makes plain that he means to kill him (you could even keep that same snarky line spitting “undying” back in Loki’s face)
Thanos wraps his Gauntleted hand around Loki’s throat (not lifting or choking), while the space gem glows brightly indicating Loki’s teleporting means are stunted and he is truly stuck. (Like how they explained Vision’s failed phasing later)
Loki, confidently, ANGRILY and in clear voice delivers his “You’ll never be a god”
Thanos *maybe* gets in a quick retort or *maybe* throws some snide remark in Thor’s direction.
(WIDE DISTANT SHOT) Thanos snaps Loki’s neck, loudly and quickly
Loki’s body falls swiftly down before Thor
You might disagree with my specifics or have your own ideas. I’m no screenwriter. But in my scenario, Loki is not made to suffer, the audience doesn’t have to see a graphic depiction of strangulation AND Thanos is still shown to be stronger than the perceived ‘reigning’ MCU Villain. Also, by utilizing the stones or making reference to their impacting the fight against Loki, you’re not inexplicably stripping Loki of his hitherto demonstrated wide array of tricks.
Did I seriously just say hitherto demonstrated?
Agreed, with one correction: Loki’s largest-scale villainy was the attempted destruction of Jotunheim. We don’t know how many Jotnar were actually killed, but we do see the impact of the Bifrost breaking up the ground and causing structures to collapse like a massive earthquake, and we see Jotnar screaming and running from the spreading destruction. But of course no one in the MCU mentions that again – it’s all about Loki’s attack on Earth – because they don’t really want us to care about Frost Giants; if we did, we might place more weight on the wholesale slaughter that *Thor* perpetrated at the beginning of the movie. But that wouldn’t do; they need Thor to be completely absolved of previous sins so he can assume Unproblematic Hero status. Meanwhile, nothing Loki does to save various worlds can make up for his earlier crimes.
NB: I don’t hate Thor, I don’t think he’s evil, I don’t think it’s bad that he (or Tony Stark, or Wanda Maximoff) can be considered a hero after having done terrible things. I’m also quite willing to grant that Loki’s record is worse than Thor’s. But no one even mentions Thor’s unwarranted aggression again (except that “In my youth I courted war” line – that was LAST YEAR, ffs), while the “villain” label, and apparently the inevitable fate of a villain, follows Loki forever.
Same, @saygoodbye-not-thisday. And I still think they wanted to dispose of Loki as quickly, brutally, and humiliatingly as possible as a kind of revenge: they couldn’t stand that this morally ambiguous, unconventionally masculine character is more popular and attracts more female interest than Thor, their approved male power fantasy; and they probably think the silly Hiddleston fangirls (who are too immature to go for one of the Real Men they’re selling) are bad for Marvel’s image (though of course they’ll take our money before punching us in the gut).
Loki is the Philosopher King 