Tag: loki meta

kittyprincessofcats:

“There’s nothing else left for Loki to do in the MCU! His story’s over!”

Well, personally I’ve barely seen any of the things I’ve wanted Loki to do so far, so here’s a list. Things that Loki should still do / that should still happen to Loki in the MCU:

– Loki having an actual deep conversation with Thor about why he’s angry and what went wrong in their relationship. Thor actually apologizing for treating Loki badly when they were younger. Thor and Loki hugging. (You know, kind of like the talk Gamora and Nebula got to have at the end of GotG2.)

– Other characters actually acknowledging that Odin wronged Loki and that (even though he went about it all wrong) Loki had a right to be upset. Thor acknowledging that Loki’s slights were not “imagined”.

– Loki meeting the Avengers again, becoming the snarky “villain-turned-ally” character (think Zuko from AtlA), and fighting alongside them

– Loki coming to terms with his Jotun heritage. We got a bit of this in Infinity War, but I wanted so much more, like:

– Loki changing into his Jotun form – and finding out what exactly Odin did to make him look Aesir in the first place

– Loki using his ice powers (and Tony wasting no time to nickname him ‘Elsa’ or ‘Jack Frost’)

– Loki travelling to Jotunheim to find out more about his birth culture. Meeting his biological siblings (and Thor getting jealous about it). Getting to hear the other side of the story of the war. Finding out how much of the story Odin told Loki about finding him abandoned as a baby is actually true and how much Odin invented to make himself look better. Dealing with any feelings of guilt Loki might have about killing Laufey and trying to destroy Jotunheim.

– Loki meeting the GotG and just getting to interact with them

– Loki and Gamora bonding over their similar backstories (I’ll make a whole other post about this at some point…)

– Loki and Nebula becoming snarky BFFs who bond over their pain and play pranks on their siblings together

– Mantis describing Loki’s own feelings of self-loathing to him

– Loki’s bisexuality/non-straightness actually being adressed (for example through him admitting he had an affair with the Grandmaster?)

– Loki coming out as genderfluid and shape-shifting into Lady Loki (played by Katie McGrath or Eva Green)

– Loki and Thor travelling to Heven and finding their long-lost sister Angela

– Loki living on Earth and becoming BFFs with Verity Willis

– For some reason I really want to see Loki running a night club on Earth

Feel free to add to the list

The thing is… I think a lot of the people saying Loki doesn’t have anything left to do or his story is over simply don’t recognize that Loki had any good reasons for being angry and upset, that the slights against him weren’t imagined, that Thor ever treated Loki badly or bore any responsibility for the poor state of their relationship. They seem to think (like Taika Waititi, apparently) that Loki was just being an asshole for no reason and that the only thing Thor was doing wrong or needed to change was continuing to reach out to Loki and offer him his love and trust.

lokisinsurrection:

mastreworld:

lasimo74allmyworld:

whitedaydream:

yume-no-fantasy:

whitedaydream:

glitteryfoggy:

2oo-ugly:

note-a-bear:

afro-elf:

whitedaydream:

vocifersaurus:

gaysunfire:

njadakas-grills:

afro-elf:

lasimo74allmyworld:

shine-of-asgard:

whitedaydream:

whitedaydream:

Avengers Infinity War BBC Interview:
Tom Hiddleston Talks about “The Tragedy of Loki” Scene

Int: And then Matt Damon, surely that must have been a pinch yourself…

Tom: It was very weird, yeah, very peculiar. Taika and I were both feeding him lines of things that I have said over the course of… And I was of course trying to give Matt really witty lines, like, “It would be fun if you said this because I said this in Avengers,” and Taika would just be like, “Nah,” and giving him much funnier things to say.

image

I don’t want to bring Loki back and let him fall into the wrong hands again. I wish that beautiful death scene in The Dark World was true with his last words “I didn’t do it for him.”

Translation: “I was trying to keep the character consistent and Waititi shat all over that again and again”.

THIS.

Also I’d like to know WHY the heck Marvel and TW hate this amazing character so much. And why they try in every possible way to put him in bad light, demeanor him and cut him off so blatantly from plots.

They should be grateful to him and Tom for brought them fans and money.

TAIKA WAITITI IS FUNNIER THAN TOM HIDDLESTON JUST IN GENERAL AND THERE’S REALLY NOTHING Y’ALL CAN DO ABOUT IT

The comments on this is so fucking funny. Taika breathed new life into Loki. Y’all boring asses should be grateful.

Tom: Taika is funnier than me and all the other writers and directors I’ve played this character for.

Loki Stan’s: buhbuh he wasn’t a bland pretentious baddie for us to wet ourselves overrrrrrr.

I forgot about the smile after the snake story! You’re totally right, @sleepynegress. Best Loki scene.

This movie is the only time he actually seemed like an interesting, conflicted trickster instead of a greasy asshole.

@afro-elf

@njadakas-grills @gaysunfire @vocifersaurus @sleepynegress  @bana05 Sorry to break all your delusions. 😉👇

image

is this graph supposed to mean something to me?

The only thing I see is that a majority of Loki stans are only interested in seeing him reduced to a genocidal fascist Christian Gray wannabe

i think taika did a good job at writing canon loki.

no, not marvel.

i mean, Canon Loki

@note-a-bear @blad-the-inhaler I beg your pardon? In Avengers Loki’s goal was to rule the earth. How could he rule people if he killed them all? And you know what is genocide? Here is a living case: In the first Thor movie, angel baby Thor invaded another planet and slaughtered local residents only because they gave him a nickname, and he wouldn’t stop the massacre until Odin arrived and shouted him down.

And in TDW Loki was not a villain anymore. He was an anti-hero there, by saving Thor’s girlfriend almost at the cost of his own life, saving Thor at the cost of being impaled and revenging his mother’s death. Even Kevin Feige admitted Loki acquired the throne without betraying Thor, because Thor renounced it on his own account first.

Now I believe waititi stans have never watched the previous Marvel films but they pretend they have.

Hiddleston:

-“I feel so lucky with the writing, the way he’s been written. In Kenneth Branagh’s film the writing was very poignant, and you can see the vulnerability in him. Rather like Killmonger in a way, he doesn’t start out as an antagonist; he becomes an antagonist through the revelations. And then Joss Whedon wrote him as a very witty, very charming, very charismatic, and… So I’ve been quite fortunate with some beautifully complex writing of the character.”

-“The best thing about Loki is that if he is afraid he won’t show it. He’s been highly trained through the experience of his slightly traumatic life to shield his fear.”

-“Loki’s death on Svartalfheim was written as a death, and I would say Chris and I played that scene for real. That was meant to be that he redeemed himself, he helped save his brother, he helped save Jane Foster but that he, in the process, sacrificed himself.”

–SDCC 2013

-When Loki stabbed Thor in the Avengers:

GAGNAROK and Waititi:

Waititi grossly misinterpreted and shat on the character that Hiddleston had painstakingly built; it’s a fact. If you need more evidence I have them. Some people need to learn the difference between character development and retcon. Other than the role of comic relief what did Gagnarok and Waititi give Loki?

To quote this article:

Waititi’s solution was a story in which Loki is mocked and emasculated in almost every scene. It’s very funny, and Hiddleston plays it without visible qualms, but it leaves the character nowhere else to go.

image credits: @whitedaydream

@yume-no-fantasy Thanks for these details! I’m just losing patience with these irrational waititi stans.

And speaking of misinterpretation, I happened to find one of waititi’s tweets:

source

Never doubt he’d always surprise us more.

The more I read his tweets/words, the more Taika Waititi seems the bully at my school who made my life a nightmare…

Which may be exactly why he appeals to bullies so much. He speaks their language.

So like, of all the things Waititi could pick on Loki for, he chooses to shit on him for being an orphan? What the fuck? That is EXACTLY what a bully would do. It isn’t funny, it’s incredibly mean-spirited. Kinda like making him joke about his attempted suicide.

What is hilarious to me, however, is Waititi trying to say that Loki only talks about himself and it’s annoying. Like… You do that more than anyone else, Taika. I’ve read interviews from you before, lmao. Don’t be a hypocrite.

I know it’s not worth trying to engage with the people who stan Ragnarok, Waititi, and Thor* (i.e., the version of Thor shown in Ragnarok, who is NOT the same person as the Thor of the previous movies he was in, and was definitely not the kind, goodhearted ray of sunshine that the Thor* stans want to pretend he is), so I’m not going to tag them. But note how simplistic and ill-informed their rebuttals are.

Yes, Tom recognizes that Taika is funnier than he is. But “funny” isn’t the only virtue in a character or a writer. The writers he praises, as @yume-no-fantasy points out, are the ones who gave him complexity to work with: Miller & Stentz (the writers of Thor 1) and Joss Whedon. And the way Whedon wrote Loki often was funny: “I’m listening”; “Are you ever not going to fall for that?”; “This usually works”; “If it’s all the same to you, I’ll have that drink now.” But it’s a subtle humor (which I guess goes over some people’s heads?) and Loki is as often in on the joke as it is at his expense. Which is as it should be: he’s intelligent and mischievous and doesn’t always take himself seriously. If all the Waititi/TR/Thor* stans see is “a bland pretentious baddie” or “a greasy asshole” that’s their problem.

Similarly, if they didn’t see “an interesting, conflicted trickster” in the previous movies, all I can conclude is that they didn’t understand (or watch) the previous movies. In Thor 1, Loki secretly disrupts Thor’s coronation and subtly goads him into charging into Jotunheim (trickster) – not only “to ruin my brother’s big day,” but because he recognizes that Thor isn’t ready to rule (interesting). He finds out that he’s a member of a people that has historically been Asgard’s enemies (interesting, conflicted). He makes overtures to the ruler of that people, his biological father, offering to let them into Asgard to murder Odin so that Loki can take the throne permanently (trickster, conflicted); but then he turns around and kills his biological father to protect his adoptive father to prove his loyalty to Asgard and enmity toward Jotunheim (double trickster, double conflicted). He lies to Thor to keep him from returning to prevent him from going through with this plan (trickster), but on his way out tries to lift Mjolnir, desperate to be found worthy (conflicted); he obviously hesitates before he has the Destroyer strike Thor, and he does it in a way that isn’t guaranteed to kill him the way blasting him with fire would (conflicted). He tries to destroy the planet where he was born because he so deeply hates what he now knows he is; he begs Thor to fight him while fucking crying (have I given enough proof that he’s interesting and conflicted?).

I could keep doing this with The Avengers and Thor: The Dark World, but I have better things to do than write Reader’s Digest summaries of Marvel movies for people who didn’t understand them the first time around. (I didn’t exactly think they were intellectually taxing, but people continue to surprise me.)

I know interpreting graphs is hard and American schools (at least) don’t teach statistics very well, but here’s a hint: the spikes in interest in the search term “loki” indicate that The Avengers and TDW *generated* interest in Loki. These are searches from people who were not previously “Loki stans”; the loyal fans are the ones who sustain the lower levels of interest in between the spikes. No, Ragnarok did not “breathe new life” into Loki; very few new people became interested in Loki after it came out. And that was deliberate on the part of the filmmakers.

Also, what the hell is “Canon Loki” if it isn’t Marvel canon? Did Taika do a good job at writing myth Loki? Most of my myth expert friends don’t think so. Did he do a good job writing comics Loki? MCU Loki was never supposed to be identical with the Loki of the comics, for one thing; but for another, most of the people I know who are familiar with Loki comics (though there is one exception I know of) don’t think that Ragnarok Loki is a good representation of the Loki of recent comics, who is much smarter and more complex than Ragnarok Loki (not that that would be hard…).

Finally… if Taika is so into sympathetic representations of outsiders, he should have been thrilled with the opportunity Loki presented him. Instead, he decided Loki was to be dismissed as a spoiled, whiny little bitch and ridiculed for exactly the characteristics that make him an outsider: his mental illness, his (implicit) queerness, and his history as an adoptee from another race who spent most of his life ignorant of his heritage. As I’ve discussed before, you’d think that last part would present a great opportunity in a movie that supposedly wanted to make a point about imperialism and the victims of war, but I guess not. As for the other issues, the conclusion I’m forced to draw from Taika’s handling of them is that he’s a mental ableist who thinks Loki just needs to “grow up and get over” his problems (or maybe was faking them?) and quite possibly also homophobic.

(Source: https://www.youtube.com/)

saygoodbye-not-thisday:

philosopherking1887:

saygoodbye-not-thisday:

juliabohemian:

saygoodbye-not-thisday:

You know, I get all the criticisms of Ragnarok, I see where they are coming from, I agree with a number of them, and they’re all valid even if I don’t agree with all of them, but…

I just wish there was a little more positivity around the film… for instance, I would love to read some in-depth positive discussion around it, because I personally enjoyed it, I think it did some new interesting things with the direction of Thor and Loki’s relationship and characters and I don’t think it butchered their characterizations. I do think that the style feels like a radical departure from the previous films, and that humorous style in which the narrative was painted jarred at times with the emotions it conveyed.

Most of the positivity I see on Tumblr tends to come from more pro-Thor, anti-Loki blogs (which I care absolutely nothing for) or from shippy blogs. Among the blogs I tend to relate more to (more gen-focused and Loki-supportive) the only discussion I can seem to find is discourse on how bad Ragnarok was. Which, again, I can understand, but at times it’s just a little downing.

I don’t like to be a downer, because I totally understand how it feels to be looking for positivity and coming across negativity instead. I consider myself to be more analytical than negative. Unfortunately, analysis can often result in pointing out the negative aspects of something.

However…I think I can explain why it is that you notice positivity coming from the pro-Thor anti-Loki blogs. Simply put -there’s a reason why people like the things that they do.

Thor appeals to a certain kind of person. More specifically, the manner in which he’s been characterized appeals to a certain kind of person. And that is the kind of person who finds movies like Ragnarok amusing. Thor is not a deep thinker. He’s not stupid by any means, but he’s not introspective. He’s not intellectual. And there’s nothing wrong with that. That’s just who he is. He’s a physical guy, for the most part. He’s a jock. He acts based on gut instinct. He doesn’t look below the surface of things. He sees no need to. He’s ego driven. And thus -he appeals to people who function similarly. The protagonist electrocuting his no good brother? That’s hilarious. Using the no good brother as a battering ram? He had it coming, of course. He’s no good. Duh!

To be perfectly honest, if one doesn’t dig TOO deeply, Ragnarok is a very entertaining movie. It’s visually stunning. The music is great. The dialogue is witty. If you completely disregard the established canon for the characters and don’t think too deeply about the implications of anything they are saying or doing, the movie is great fun. Thor fans are looking for what is explicit and Ragnarok is full of it.

Now -Loki fans are the opposite of that. They are deep thinkers. They take things very seriously. They want to to know the WHY of everything. They are largely made up of people who know what it is to be rejected and despised, or at the very least, to feel different. They see the pain that is unspoken. Behind every one of Loki’s words or actions, they see the contributing trauma. They see more than what is shown. Loki fans are always looking for what is implicit. Give them a film directed by a Shakespearean actor like Sir Kenneth Branagh and they will are happy as a pig in shit.

So, Ragnarok is not without merit. But you’re not likely to find many die hard Loki fans who don’t have at least some criticisms of its treatment of their favorite character.

I think maybe my calling certain blogs “anti-Loki” is a bit strong, through they are definitely pro-Thor. I don’t believe that people who prefer Thor are necessarily more shallow or less introspective, or that people who prefer Loki are deeper thinkers. It feels too much like generalizing and slapping a label on people. I have encountered a number of intelligent analytical people who loved Ragnarok and who also see Loki as a complex character more than a villain and who are pro-Loki AND pro-Thor (What do I even mean by pro-Thor? I guess I mean that they didn’t see Thor’s actions/characterization in Ragnarok as mainly problematic). I wish there were more of those people.

I’m not saying I want to see zero criticisms, I’m saying I want to see some other discussion mixed in as well. A lot of the problems Loki fans on here have seem to be with Ragnarok dismissing Loki’s past sufferings, experiences and depth as a character, when I don’t feel it did that. I feel like Loki changed and grew in this film, as he does in every film he has appeared in. To say that Loki has been moving beyond his past pain and trauma is not the same as belittling those experiences, even if I agree that it is easy to read the film as saying that Loki should “just get over it.” And that is one legitimate interpretation of the film, but it is not the only one, and it is not mine. I take issue with the concept that, if you can move on in any way from your past pain, if you can get better, then your pain and struggles must not have been real in the first place. It’s invalidating. That kind of thinking has got me stuck a long time before. It has got many people who suffer from mental illness stuck.

I appreciate Loki in Ragnarok, because he has clearly done some healing for himself in the interval, has started being willing to discuss some of what he went through (in the play and in his convo with Thor in prison), some of the sharpest pain has worn off, but he is still recovering, still struggling with how exactly to move on from it and who exactly he is in the aftermath. This is not unusual for those who have gone through trauma/mental illness, this is part of the recovery period where they are looking to build their life back. 

Loki was afraid to confront Hela, which has been criticized as a cowardly characterization of the character – but I disagree. Fear is not cowardly, fear is a survival mechanism. Loki in the Avengers and in TDW would probably have thrown himself recklessly into the fight, regardless of the odds (and in this case I’m certain the odds are that Hela would have easily defeated them both and Loki KNOWS the odds because he isn’t actually stupid), because he was self-destructive and didn’t truly care about his life. In contrast in Thor 1, before he learns the shattering truth and even before he gives up all hope on the Bifrost, Loki clearly favored non-confrontational methods first, as on Jotunheim when he preferred to placate rather than provoke Laufey. In moving past some of his self-destructiveness, Loki is in a way going back to who he was before. There was nothing to be won from confronting Hela then and there, what he couldn’t account for in his panic was her following.

In my opinion, Loki was seeking his sense of direction in this film. He has overcome some of his past self-destructiveness, but without yet having a clear idea of where to go from here. Like I said, he’s been recovering, it’s a tenuous period where he is rediscovering and redefining himself, he’s going back and looking at his memories and taking back his own narrative – where he was once “the monster that parents tell their children about,” he chooses to be the “savior of Asgard” – but it’s a process and he was just not ready yet to confront Hela and save Asgard.

Loki says “Take US back” which means him AND Thor, and this is key. Loki was trying to get Thor to stay on Sakaar, and I’ve discussed this before, but I personally think Loki’s main, selfish goal throughout most of the film was to keep Thor alive, to not lose the last of his family. On the one hand, I consider this bravery, that Loki seems to have reached a level of honesty with himself, that he does value his family, the family that let him down and hurt him, inadvertently or not, and that could still reject him (see again his conversation with Thor, he had to know that Thor might still reject his help and invalidate his sincerity), rather than simply pushing them away and running from the pain of past and potential rejection.

Ragnarok is not perfect, obviously. The dynamic between the brothers is unbalanced, and Loki might not have returned to Thor’s side for the healthiest of reasons – their relationship will always have a flavor of codependency to me. But for me, this does not invalidate what I consider to be good character development and progress on Loki’s part. Besides, I love that I have a reflection of how messed-up and hurtful relationships can be in real life, even when the other person does love you. I also disagree that the narrative affirms Thor at every turning, he is mocked plenty as well while he flounders in Sakaar at the mercy of Valkyrie and the Grandmaster. The film stops mocking both Thor and Loki once they are back on Asgard working towards a selfless goal, rescuing the survivors on Asgard. 

It’s just my opinion. I get most people will probably disagree with me, and that’s okay.

I can’t speak for other Loki fans who have been criticizing Ragnarok, but my problem with its depiction of Loki’s psychology is not that it shows him having “moved past” his trauma; rather, it either ignores it, or actively mocks and minimizes it. A few people who have a negative overall opinion of TR, like @foundlingmother, have decided for the purpose of fanfiction (or avoiding despair) to read the play as Loki’s self-therapy, his attempt to come to terms with his heritage and achieve some kind of catharsis regarding his sacrifice… but that’s an extremely generous interpretation, and I doubt very much that it’s the one the film’s creators (screenwriter Eric Pearson as well as director Taika Waititi) intended. The film doesn’t even acknowledge that Loki’s Jotun heritage was ever a problem for him or for Asgard; if the revelation in the play was intended to show reconciliation of himself and/or Asgard to the idea, it might have alluded to the fact that Asgardians (used to) regard Frost Giants as monsters. It also seems implausible that it’s supposed to help him move past his near-death experience, because the movie never acknowledges that Loki was actually stabbed, whether or not he believed he was going to die. Loki never contests Thor’s claim that he “faked his death” – suggesting that he staged the whole thing – and the movie invites us to think that the only reason he did it was to usurp the throne, and that the only reason he did that was so he could glorify himself and live in luxury, rather than, say, hiding from Thanos and trying to keep the Infinity Stones away from him, or even taking (not totally unjustified) revenge on Odin for his lies and maltreatment.

Someone else pointed out recently that the play has Loki say “I’m sorry about that thing with the Tesseract. I just couldn’t help myself,” and then his next line is “I’m a trickster,” which seems to be intended as an explanation. I guess I can see why he wouldn’t want to reveal to all of Asgard that he was under severe pressure from a bigger supervillain… but he didn’t have to mention it at all. This, and the implied explanation for Loki’s seizing the throne, is a general pattern: TR consistently reduces Loki’s motivation to “I’m a trickster, it’s in my nature” – or, effectively, “I did it for the lulz” – when his motivations in previous films have never been that simplistic. Arguably, letting the Frost Giants in to disrupt Thor’s coronation and goading him into trying to go to Jotunheim might have been partly out of mischief (“to ruin my brother’s big day”), but it was also because he wanted to prove to Odin that Thor wasn’t ready to rule – and he wasn’t wrong about that. His reasons for lying, betraying Thor, and causing destruction throughout Thor are envy and resentment, the desire to prove himself to Odin, and emotional pain over the revelation of his origins. His reasons for invading Earth in The Avengers are ambition, anger at Thor and Odin, and some level of coercion from Thanos.

There are definitely respects in which Loki acts like a trickster in earlier films, weaving complicated schemes, delighting in chaos, and hiding his true intentions; but he always has comprehensible, psychologically realistic motivations for his crimes and betrayals. What’s more, it should be clear from watching the previous movies that he almost never enjoys betraying Thor. FFS, he’s crying while he fights him at the end of Thor; he’s obviously affected, even tempted, by Thor’s pleas for him to come home in The Avengers, he hesitates before he drops the cage, he has tears in his eyes when he stabs Thor on the tower. As I’ve discussed elsewhere, TR ignores all of that and scrapes Loki’s psychology paper-thin, essentializing him as a simplistic version of the trickster archetype who just can’t resist the urge to betray people for shits and giggles.

It’s only because of this denial of Loki’s psychological depth and motivational complexity that TR can set up the bit where Thor “tricks the trickster” and gives that lecture about change. As @endiness (and others, probably) has speculated, the creators seem to have ignored all of Loki’s character development in previous films precisely so that Thor can get all the credit for his “reform” and “redemption.” It’s not at all clear why Loki betrays Thor on Sakaar; again, people trying to rescue the movie’s characterization can speculate that it’s because Loki is pissed at Thor for dismissing him, or maybe to keep Thor from what Loki thinks of as a suicide mission to fight Hela, but I think (and Thor’s little speech strongly suggests) the movie wants us to assume Loki did it for the same reason it claims he went after the Tesseract: “I just couldn’t help myself. I’m a trickster.” It’s really kind of rich that Thor is preaching at Loki about growth and change, considering how much Loki has changed over the course of the films, while TR regresses Thor back to the brash arrogance of the first film – no, worse; it makes him narcissistic and cruel in a way he wasn’t even at the beginning of Thor, as oblivious and insensitive as he could be. Many of the people who condemn TR are people who love Thor (almost) as much as they love Loki, and all of them agree that it ruins Thor’s character even more than Loki’s. I kind of don’t understand how the “Thor stans” can still call him a kindhearted little ray of sunshine in light of his behavior toward Bruce/Hulk as well as Loki… but as I said before, I think they’re motivated to like the movie and the version of Thor that together put Loki in his place.

As I’ve said, it’s possible to give the portrayal of Loki a more generous interpretation than I’ve offered, but part of the reason I seriously doubt it’s intended that way is that if you put the text of the movie, including the mocking tone of the little play, together with Taika Waititi’s interviews and other conduct, you get a picture of someone who is contemptuous of the rest of the Thor franchise, of Loki as a character, of Tom Hiddleston as an actor, and of Tom Hiddleston-as-Loki’s mostly female fans. Of course, people who are more gung-ho than I am about “the death of the author” have a policy of ignoring the artist’s intentions entirely, and that might be a good strategy if you want to stay positive about the movie.

This is the most direct addressing of the points I raised that I have ever got, so thank you. I hadn’t thought about framing Loki’s actions and motivations throughout Ragnarok through the lens of the specific wording in the play. Hm. The play is one of those things I’m still thinking on – because I agree entirely with everything you have to say about the complex psychological motives behind all of Loki’s past actions.

As to Thor…I admit I have devoted most of my energy to thinking about Loki in this film, and haven’t perfectly worked through my conflicting feelings on Thor’s characterization. I do feel like I understand why Thor is acting this way, considering that Loki has hurt him in the past, but their problems run both ways, and I would have liked it a lot better if Thor would have acknowledged this at all and tried even once to genuinely reach out to Loki. I get that the film is trying to say that sometimes if a relationship is toxic, it’s better to cut off contact than continue to try to help someone who refuses to change, à la A&E Intervention. The execution could have been done better, because I don’t think Thor has given Loki a proper chance at communication first or recognized his own role in the problem yet, before deciding to just leave him vulnerable on Sakaar. So, yes, much of what Thor does in this film sometimes feels unkind or thoughtless, if not cruel.

I disagree on the part where you say it is entirely unclear why Loki betrays Thor on Sakaar again. I thought there a good number of signs that Loki was anxious about Thor going back to Asgard, from reminding Thor that “our sister destroyed you hammer like a piece of glass, you’re not seriously thinking of going back” to his anger that Valkyrie had helped Thor escape. 

But you bring up a lot of good interesting points…I understand a little better now why people take issue with the film. I don’t disagree with you that the mocking tone of the play and Waititi’s words don’t mesh very well with my interpretation. I am aware of what Waititi has said, I guess I had kind of decided to throw that out. I usually am a stickler for authorial intent, but in this case I’m willing to make an exception, because Ragnarok is not only Waititi’s creation, it’s also the actors’ and furthermore must be understood within the wider context of previous movies. Like, I am pretty sure Loki was not meant to have faked his death in TDW – so, since Ragnarok implied he did, but never makes any definite statement on it either way, I will continue to assume that he did not. 

Another thing I am not doing is taking Thor’s words and interpretation within the film as the framing for the narrative of the film, even if I suspect that authorial intent intended the film to be read that way. So when Thor talks down to Loki and accuses him of not changing and growing – I am not assuming that that is the interpretation of Loki that the film says is correct. I’m just taking it as presenting Thor’s opinion on Loki. Thor’s POV, and not necessarily the film’s POV. Thor also believes that Odin is “stronger” (that was a WHATT??!? moment for me) even after learning about all the bloodshed and lies he kept, and I don’t think that the film is condoning those lies and bloodshed. Well maybe that all sounds a bit convoluted. Call it mental gymnastics if you will, I guess, it’s the interpretation I enjoy better.

Well, I am an academic philosopher. Addressing points directly is kind of what we do.

There are more problems with Thor’s characterization than just the way he treats Loki, though of course the electrocution scene is the most glaring example of how callous, self-satisfied, and careless of others’ well-being he is in TR. The way he manipulates Hulk and Bruce, telling each that he likes him better than the other, is meant to be funny, but he really just comes off as an insensitive jerk. Likewise with the “Is he though?” about Bruce being powerful and useful. All the self-congratulatory “That’s what heroes do” crap… it feels like a disdainful parody of the actual heroism that Thor and the other Avengers have shown throughout the MCU. It’s one thing to be self-aware about the inherent silliness of superhero movies (which Marvel generally is); it’s another to mock one’s own franchise, both narrowly (the Thor films) and broadly (the MCU), at every turn. And regarding Thor’s “tough love” in “cutting off a toxic relationship” (which, BTW, I’ve been convinced was not actually the goal; Thor was just manipulating Loki by giving him what looked like an ultimatum, and fully expected him to fall in line)… I encourage you to read this post if you haven’t already.

I can’t use the block quote indentation thing to quote from your post because Tumblr has been making the font huge (why?!), so I’ll use italics:

“Another thing I am not doing is taking Thor’s words and interpretation within the film as the framing for the narrative of the film, even if I suspect that authorial intent intended the film to be read that way. So when Thor talks down to Loki and accuses him of not changing and growing – I am not assuming that that is the interpretation of Loki that the film says is correct. I’m just taking it as presenting Thor’s opinion on Loki. Thor’s POV, and not necessarily the film’s POV.”

It seems perfectly clear to me that the film does intend for us to read Thor’s interpretation of Loki’s actions and character flaws as correct, and to applaud him for turning the tables on Loki, telling him what’s what, and getting him to grow up and get over himself and just do what Thor wants him to. As a writer of canon-compliant Thor/Loki fanfiction, however, I find myself in a bind: given that Ragnarok is now part of canon, how can I continue to write in a way that makes both of them basically sympathetic (while acknowledging their flaws)? So for the purpose of fanfiction, I’ve been making interpretive moves similar to yours; I’ve had Loki (and Heimdall!) reproach Thor for his actions, and I’ve had Thor recognize that he overreacted in anger and feel guilty about it, even though I know that the Thor of TR (whom I’ve been calling Thor* because I consider him a completely different character than the Thor of the previous films) probably still thinks he’s perfectly justified, and Loki* (to use the same convention) probably agrees. But the difference between our approaches is that I’m being unrealistically charitable only for the purpose of fanfiction, while my default interpretation of the movie takes into account the authors’ intended interpretation and is therefore almost wholly negative (except that I like what they did with Heimdall and mostly like Valkyrie).

saygoodbye-not-thisday:

juliabohemian:

saygoodbye-not-thisday:

You know, I get all the criticisms of Ragnarok, I see where they are coming from, I agree with a number of them, and they’re all valid even if I don’t agree with all of them, but…

I just wish there was a little more positivity around the film… for instance, I would love to read some in-depth positive discussion around it, because I personally enjoyed it, I think it did some new interesting things with the direction of Thor and Loki’s relationship and characters and I don’t think it butchered their characterizations. I do think that the style feels like a radical departure from the previous films, and that humorous style in which the narrative was painted jarred at times with the emotions it conveyed.

Most of the positivity I see on Tumblr tends to come from more pro-Thor, anti-Loki blogs (which I care absolutely nothing for) or from shippy blogs. Among the blogs I tend to relate more to (more gen-focused and Loki-supportive) the only discussion I can seem to find is discourse on how bad Ragnarok was. Which, again, I can understand, but at times it’s just a little downing.

I don’t like to be a downer, because I totally understand how it feels to be looking for positivity and coming across negativity instead. I consider myself to be more analytical than negative. Unfortunately, analysis can often result in pointing out the negative aspects of something.

However…I think I can explain why it is that you notice positivity coming from the pro-Thor anti-Loki blogs. Simply put -there’s a reason why people like the things that they do.

Thor appeals to a certain kind of person. More specifically, the manner in which he’s been characterized appeals to a certain kind of person. And that is the kind of person who finds movies like Ragnarok amusing. Thor is not a deep thinker. He’s not stupid by any means, but he’s not introspective. He’s not intellectual. And there’s nothing wrong with that. That’s just who he is. He’s a physical guy, for the most part. He’s a jock. He acts based on gut instinct. He doesn’t look below the surface of things. He sees no need to. He’s ego driven. And thus -he appeals to people who function similarly. The protagonist electrocuting his no good brother? That’s hilarious. Using the no good brother as a battering ram? He had it coming, of course. He’s no good. Duh!

To be perfectly honest, if one doesn’t dig TOO deeply, Ragnarok is a very entertaining movie. It’s visually stunning. The music is great. The dialogue is witty. If you completely disregard the established canon for the characters and don’t think too deeply about the implications of anything they are saying or doing, the movie is great fun. Thor fans are looking for what is explicit and Ragnarok is full of it.

Now -Loki fans are the opposite of that. They are deep thinkers. They take things very seriously. They want to to know the WHY of everything. They are largely made up of people who know what it is to be rejected and despised, or at the very least, to feel different. They see the pain that is unspoken. Behind every one of Loki’s words or actions, they see the contributing trauma. They see more than what is shown. Loki fans are always looking for what is implicit. Give them a film directed by a Shakespearean actor like Sir Kenneth Branagh and they will are happy as a pig in shit.

So, Ragnarok is not without merit. But you’re not likely to find many die hard Loki fans who don’t have at least some criticisms of its treatment of their favorite character.

I think maybe my calling certain blogs “anti-Loki” is a bit strong, through they are definitely pro-Thor. I don’t believe that people who prefer Thor are necessarily more shallow or less introspective, or that people who prefer Loki are deeper thinkers. It feels too much like generalizing and slapping a label on people. I have encountered a number of intelligent analytical people who loved Ragnarok and who also see Loki as a complex character more than a villain and who are pro-Loki AND pro-Thor (What do I even mean by pro-Thor? I guess I mean that they didn’t see Thor’s actions/characterization in Ragnarok as mainly problematic). I wish there were more of those people.

I’m not saying I want to see zero criticisms, I’m saying I want to see some other discussion mixed in as well. A lot of the problems Loki fans on here have seem to be with Ragnarok dismissing Loki’s past sufferings, experiences and depth as a character, when I don’t feel it did that. I feel like Loki changed and grew in this film, as he does in every film he has appeared in. To say that Loki has been moving beyond his past pain and trauma is not the same as belittling those experiences, even if I agree that it is easy to read the film as saying that Loki should “just get over it.” And that is one legitimate interpretation of the film, but it is not the only one, and it is not mine. I take issue with the concept that, if you can move on in any way from your past pain, if you can get better, then your pain and struggles must not have been real in the first place. It’s invalidating. That kind of thinking has got me stuck a long time before. It has got many people who suffer from mental illness stuck.

I appreciate Loki in Ragnarok, because he has clearly done some healing for himself in the interval, has started being willing to discuss some of what he went through (in the play and in his convo with Thor in prison), some of the sharpest pain has worn off, but he is still recovering, still struggling with how exactly to move on from it and who exactly he is in the aftermath. This is not unusual for those who have gone through trauma/mental illness, this is part of the recovery period where they are looking to build their life back. 

Loki was afraid to confront Hela, which has been criticized as a cowardly characterization of the character – but I disagree. Fear is not cowardly, fear is a survival mechanism. Loki in the Avengers and in TDW would probably have thrown himself recklessly into the fight, regardless of the odds (and in this case I’m certain the odds are that Hela would have easily defeated them both and Loki KNOWS the odds because he isn’t actually stupid), because he was self-destructive and didn’t truly care about his life. In contrast in Thor 1, before he learns the shattering truth and even before he gives up all hope on the Bifrost, Loki clearly favored non-confrontational methods first, as on Jotunheim when he preferred to placate rather than provoke Laufey. In moving past some of his self-destructiveness, Loki is in a way going back to who he was before. There was nothing to be won from confronting Hela then and there, what he couldn’t account for in his panic was her following.

In my opinion, Loki was seeking his sense of direction in this film. He has overcome some of his past self-destructiveness, but without yet having a clear idea of where to go from here. Like I said, he’s been recovering, it’s a tenuous period where he is rediscovering and redefining himself, he’s going back and looking at his memories and taking back his own narrative – where he was once “the monster that parents tell their children about,” he chooses to be the “savior of Asgard” – but it’s a process and he was just not ready yet to confront Hela and save Asgard.

Loki says “Take US back” which means him AND Thor, and this is key. Loki was trying to get Thor to stay on Sakaar, and I’ve discussed this before, but I personally think Loki’s main, selfish goal throughout most of the film was to keep Thor alive, to not lose the last of his family. On the one hand, I consider this bravery, that Loki seems to have reached a level of honesty with himself, that he does value his family, the family that let him down and hurt him, inadvertently or not, and that could still reject him (see again his conversation with Thor, he had to know that Thor might still reject his help and invalidate his sincerity), rather than simply pushing them away and running from the pain of past and potential rejection.

Ragnarok is not perfect, obviously. The dynamic between the brothers is unbalanced, and Loki might not have returned to Thor’s side for the healthiest of reasons – their relationship will always have a flavor of codependency to me. But for me, this does not invalidate what I consider to be good character development and progress on Loki’s part. Besides, I love that I have a reflection of how messed-up and hurtful relationships can be in real life, even when the other person does love you. I also disagree that the narrative affirms Thor at every turning, he is mocked plenty as well while he flounders in Sakaar at the mercy of Valkyrie and the Grandmaster. The film stops mocking both Thor and Loki once they are back on Asgard working towards a selfless goal, rescuing the survivors on Asgard. 

It’s just my opinion. I get most people will probably disagree with me, and that’s okay.

I can’t speak for other Loki fans who have been criticizing Ragnarok, but my problem with its depiction of Loki’s psychology is not that it shows him having “moved past” his trauma; rather, it either ignores it, or actively mocks and minimizes it. A few people who have a negative overall opinion of TR, like @foundlingmother, have decided for the purpose of fanfiction (or avoiding despair) to read the play as Loki’s self-therapy, his attempt to come to terms with his heritage and achieve some kind of catharsis regarding his sacrifice… but that’s an extremely generous interpretation, and I doubt very much that it’s the one the film’s creators (screenwriter Eric Pearson as well as director Taika Waititi) intended. The film doesn’t even acknowledge that Loki’s Jotun heritage was ever a problem for him or for Asgard; if the revelation in the play was intended to show reconciliation of himself and/or Asgard to the idea, it might have alluded to the fact that Asgardians (used to) regard Frost Giants as monsters. It also seems implausible that it’s supposed to help him move past his near-death experience, because the movie never acknowledges that Loki was actually stabbed, whether or not he believed he was going to die. Loki never contests Thor’s claim that he “faked his death” – suggesting that he staged the whole thing – and the movie invites us to think that the only reason he did it was to usurp the throne, and that the only reason he did that was so he could glorify himself and live in luxury, rather than, say, hiding from Thanos and trying to keep the Infinity Stones away from him, or even taking (not totally unjustified) revenge on Odin for his lies and maltreatment.

Someone else pointed out recently that the play has Loki say “I’m sorry about that thing with the Tesseract. I just couldn’t help myself,” and then his next line is “I’m a trickster,” which seems to be intended as an explanation. I guess I can see why he wouldn’t want to reveal to all of Asgard that he was under severe pressure from a bigger supervillain… but he didn’t have to mention it at all. This, and the implied explanation for Loki’s seizing the throne, is a general pattern: TR consistently reduces Loki’s motivation to “I’m a trickster, it’s in my nature” – or, effectively, “I did it for the lulz” – when his motivations in previous films have never been that simplistic. Arguably, letting the Frost Giants in to disrupt Thor’s coronation and goading him into trying to go to Jotunheim might have been partly out of mischief (“to ruin my brother’s big day”), but it was also because he wanted to prove to Odin that Thor wasn’t ready to rule – and he wasn’t wrong about that. His reasons for lying, betraying Thor, and causing destruction throughout Thor are envy and resentment, the desire to prove himself to Odin, and emotional pain over the revelation of his origins. His reasons for invading Earth in The Avengers are ambition, anger at Thor and Odin, and some level of coercion from Thanos.

There are definitely respects in which Loki acts like a trickster in earlier films, weaving complicated schemes, delighting in chaos, and hiding his true intentions; but he always has comprehensible, psychologically realistic motivations for his crimes and betrayals. What’s more, it should be clear from watching the previous movies that he almost never enjoys betraying Thor. FFS, he’s crying while he fights him at the end of Thor; he’s obviously affected, even tempted, by Thor’s pleas for him to come home in The Avengers, he hesitates before he drops the cage, he has tears in his eyes when he stabs Thor on the tower. As I’ve discussed elsewhere, TR ignores all of that and scrapes Loki’s psychology paper-thin, essentializing him as a simplistic version of the trickster archetype who just can’t resist the urge to betray people for shits and giggles.

It’s only because of this denial of Loki’s psychological depth and motivational complexity that TR can set up the bit where Thor “tricks the trickster” and gives that lecture about change. As @endiness (and others, probably) has speculated, the creators seem to have ignored all of Loki’s character development in previous films precisely so that Thor can get all the credit for his “reform” and “redemption.” It’s not at all clear why Loki betrays Thor on Sakaar; again, people trying to rescue the movie’s characterization can speculate that it’s because Loki is pissed at Thor for dismissing him, or maybe to keep Thor from what Loki thinks of as a suicide mission to fight Hela, but I think (and Thor’s little speech strongly suggests) the movie wants us to assume Loki did it for the same reason it claims he went after the Tesseract: “I just couldn’t help myself. I’m a trickster.” It’s really kind of rich that Thor is preaching at Loki about growth and change, considering how much Loki has changed over the course of the films, while TR regresses Thor back to the brash arrogance of the first film – no, worse; it makes him narcissistic and cruel in a way he wasn’t even at the beginning of Thor, as oblivious and insensitive as he could be. Many of the people who condemn TR are people who love Thor (almost) as much as they love Loki, and all of them agree that it ruins Thor’s character even more than Loki’s. I kind of don’t understand how the “Thor stans” can still call him a kindhearted little ray of sunshine in light of his behavior toward Bruce/Hulk as well as Loki… but as I said before, I think they’re motivated to like the movie and the version of Thor that together put Loki in his place.

As I’ve said, it’s possible to give the portrayal of Loki a more generous interpretation than I’ve offered, but part of the reason I seriously doubt it’s intended that way is that if you put the text of the movie, including the mocking tone of the little play, together with Taika Waititi’s interviews and other conduct, you get a picture of someone who is contemptuous of the rest of the Thor franchise, of Loki as a character, of Tom Hiddleston as an actor, and of Tom Hiddleston-as-Loki’s mostly female fans. Of course, people who are more gung-ho than I am about “the death of the author” have a policy of ignoring the artist’s intentions entirely, and that might be a good strategy if you want to stay positive about the movie.

foundlingmother:

philosopherking1887:

buckeed:

Thor: The Dark World || Thor: Ragnarok

#this is an interesting difference between the brothers#thor refuses the even give loki an answer#and only comes to loki because he needs him for the plan#loki comes and shares their grief#and offers to help thor#despite him being unnecessary for loki’s plan#thor loves loki#i don’t dispute it#i think he works really hard to stay mad at loki#and he tries really hard in avengers to bring loki back#but he also sometimes acts like a massive thoughtless dick to loki#and i think it’s that same malformed view of loki that i’ve spoken of#thor conceptualizes loki as a bad person who needs to be fixed or managed#and it’s much more complicated than that#and he’s going to feel horrible about everything#when he realizes that (via @foundlingmother)

I think the relevant difference between these two scenes is that in the first, Thor is still hurt and bewildered and angry at Loki over what happened in The Avengers (and probably toward the end of Thor 1, too), while in the second, Loki isn’t shown as having any particular reason to be mad at Thor. (He probably should be mad at Thor for blowing his cover and potentially allowing Thanos to discover where he is, but the movie doesn’t even acknowledge that as a reason why Loki was pretending to be Odin. Or any reason other than “mischief, hur hur.”)

Maybe there is more continuity between Thor’s thoughtlessness toward Loki in earlier movies and in Ragnarok than I’ve acknowledged, but earlier on it seems more complex and well-motivated.

I don’t think I would say that Thor consistently “conceptualizes Loki as a bad person who needs to be fixed or managed” before Ragnarok.

Thor’s callousness in TDW seems put-on, deliberate, and painful even for him; in Ragnarok it’s just a matter of course.

In my experience hurt doesn’t work that way. They’ve never dealt with their issues, so I’m pretty sure it’s all festering. I think they’d both still be holding on to a lot of pain that relates to one another (and Odin, that gets attached to one another unfairly). 

You know, I think that brings up something I hadn’t considered. Maybe the problem with how Thor acts towards Loki in Ragnarok isn’t the actions (at least most of the time *glances at that one scene that is too ooc*) or words themselves, but the feeling behind it. See, what I mean when I say that Thor sees Loki as a bad person, I think it’s, 1. pretty forced on his part and something he has to keep reminding himself of, and 2. something he sees as a new and hopefully temporary (though he tries not to hope) insanity Loki’s experiencing. It’s painful for him how far he feels Loki’s fallen, and he wants his brother back.

Ragnarok just kind of makes him mad at Loki, and you don’t feel the love that’s tangible even under the anger in the previous Thor movies and Avengers. 

Honestly, I don’t feel like I can take any of Loki’s (or Thor’s) actions in Ragnarok to shed light on preexisting aspects of their character. Would Loki share Thor’s grief even while being (justifiably) mad at him? I think so, but Ragnarok is just so blatantly OOC all the time that I don’t think it counts as evidence in favor. Rather, the evidence is that throughout his three movies, Loki never disregards or dismisses Thor’s feelings. He’s very attentive to them, whether he wants to flatter him, soothe him, provoke him, or outright wound him.

Of course I think Loki has a lot of reasons to still be pissed at Thor, but Ragnarok doesn’t frame it that way. It presents all of Loki’s grudges and resentments as childish and insignificant, things he just needs to grow up and get over. So the scene doesn’t present him as comforting Thor in spite of his hurt and anger; it presents him as trying to mend fences when Thor is still (justifiably, yes, but not as righteously as the movie makes out) pissed at him.

Your last point – “Ragnarok just kind of makes him mad at Loki, and you don’t feel the love that’s tangible even under the anger in the previous Thor movies and Avengers” – seems exactly right. Some of it surely is the words and actions themselves (it’s hard to believe he would say or do some of those things to someone he loves), but a lot of it is also the affect. Thor consistently has an air of “done with Loki’s shit” that’s supposed to show that he’s wised up, he has Loki’s number, he’s nobody’s fool anymore (pick your cliché), but all it says to me is that he’s given up on understanding Loki as a person and now just wants to control/manage him (as you said). And this might make sense if we were to accept Ragnarok’s retcon of Loki’s character as a capricious trickster who does bad shit just for the hell of it… but in light of the complexity of Loki’s emotions and motivations as shown in previous films, it just seems inexcusably cruel and obtuse (which also serves as an apt description for the entirety of Thor’s character in TR…).

P.S., on the subject of Thor figuring out how complicated Loki actually is, have you read my fic Starting Over, which is basically my fantasy version of Thor and Loki’s post-AOU reunion conversation (+ sex)?

shine-of-asgard:

juliabohemian:

apocalypticwafflekitten:

lucianalight:

juliabohemian:

lasimo74allmyworld:

mosellegreen:

ameliawilliams:

You think you could make Loki tell us where the Tesseract is?

Shit I hate it when I notice new things about these movies.

We’ve covered how conceited it is of Thor to assume, incorrectly, that this is about him. But what else can we expect from this spoiled brat.

And we’ve covered that this is Fury proposing torture. Asking a man to torture his own brother. Anyone who still thinks Fury is one of the good guys… he’s not.

But Thor says “There’s no pain would prise his need from him.”

Thor knows that pain won’t make Loki knuckle under.

Which means he must have tried it. Before Loki was officially designated a villain. When he was just the younger prince of Asgard, Thor’s loyal brother and comrade in arms.

Thor knows that torture won’t work on Loki from experience.

Shit. Did they think about what they were putting in these fucking movies at all?

The more we analyse the movies, the more we discover that the bad guys are the ones with shining armour and boosted egos.

Really, the painful truth I read above breaks my heart.

I also think it’s interesting that Thor assumes Loki coming to Earth is about him. It had nothing to do with Thor at all, but Thor never finds that out. Here’s hoping Infinity War will bring some shit to light, but I’m not holding my breath.

Also the thought that Thor knows Loki has an incredibly high pain tolerance kind of makes me cringe. 

“Which means he must have tried it. Before Loki was officially designated a villain. When he was just the younger prince of Asgard, Thor’s loyal brother and comrade in arms.

Thor knows that torture won’t work on Loki from experience.”

Before TR I would never believe that Thor would ever torture Loki, or put him through any kind of serious pain. So what I understood from Thor’s line in Avengers was that Thor had seen Loki going through torture and didn’t break. Not that he had done it himself. I mean they are princes, any kind of voilence could have happened by their enemys. But damn TR and that scene with obedience disk makes me question everything now.

@mosellegreen

@lasimo74allmyworld

@juliabohemian

@lucianalight

Alrighty. I know I’m late, but upon coming across this, have things to say. Don’t know if you’re going to like or agree with them, but here we go.

Im not going to get into Thor’s vanity, because that’s a topic for another time, but here we go on Loki and abuse:

I can NEVER belive that Thor would EVER torture Loki. He wouldn’t abuse him, or experiment on him because he loves his brother. I mean, look at the ENTIRE elevator scene in Ragnarok. Thor literally says in a morose, and reminiscent voice: “I thought the world of you. I thought we’re were always going to fight side by side.” (Something along those lines. Sorry if the quote isn’t correct.)Personally, I would never beat anyone if I thought the world of them. I wouldn’t wish to fight by their side if I hated them enough to beat them.

And it goes back to before then even. Look at TDW. The scene where Thor is asking for Loki’s help? He states that he used to belive that there was a glimmer of goodness and redeemability in Loki.

DO YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS?!?!!??!? It means that he wanted to save his brother! If youre abusing someone, why would you wish to save them?

Granted, he does say that that is/was gone, but we never see him abuse or beat Loki after that. And then theres all the other things Loki did for Thor in that move.

  • He agreed to help him in the first
  • Saved/Protected Jane.
  • Twice
  • Didn’t actually betray him at all until he “died”
  • And, my personal favorite
  • LEFT THOR WITH THE THOUGHT THAT HIS FATHER WAS ACTUALLY A GOOD FATHER BY TELLING HIM SOMETHING KIND AND DEEP. SOMETHINGBHE NEEDED TO HEAR SO THE HE DIDNT ABSOLUTELY HATE HIS FATHER; HIS IDOL SINCE HE WAS A SMOL LIGHTNING BOLT WHILE DISGUISED AS ODIN

You don’t do things like that for people you hate.

Then there the first Thor movie. Did you see any of the scenes before it was revealed to Loki what his heritage was? The two were close. Look at the deleted scenes. Loki says something similar to: “I admit that there have been times when I was envious, but never doubt that I love you.” Why would Loki say he loves Thor if his brother abused him? I hear y’all saying “Well it could be a show!” “He’s faking!” “Thor threatened him!” But look at the deleted scene mentioned earlier in this paragraph. The two are completely alone. Loki is smiling, and it’s genuine. There are creases by his eyes from his cheeks lifting. (That’s the physical cue that a smile is genuine) Loki’s body language in that scene doesn’t show any sort of discomfort or fear. He’s comfortable around his brother.

And then there were the scenes in Jotunheim in the first Thor. Loki is insistant that they go home (and that they not go at all, calling it suicide)because he doesn’t want to see his brother or ever his brother’s friends hurt or worse.

Oh, and this little gem: “I love Thor more dearly than any of you.”

If you look at the body language of someone whose been beaten while they’re around the person they are beaten by, you’ll see slouched shoulders, a tense body, constant glances to anywhere but their abusers face, clammy hands, hands in pockets (a cue that the person is trying to hide something) and just a general feel of unease and unrest. Fear and terror.

You see NONE of that body language when Loki and Thor are together. Look at Ragnarok. They’re fighting together to end Hella. They don’t hate each other. Loki isn’t afraid of Thor. He’s just so used to being in Thor’s shadow and he’s sick of it. He wants to be recognized.

When the two are alone at the end of Ragnarok, you don’t see Loki tense, or avoiding eye contant. He’s looking strait at Thor withought any glint of fear.

He’s comfortable.

Oh, and the line “I’m Here.”

And “Maybe you’re not so bad.”

Im gonna bring up a thought now.

They. Are. Norse. Gods. And. Brothers.

That means battles, and fighting side by side. Seeing each other take hits and blows, stabs and cuts. Seeing them push themselves to their limits. Thor knows that Loki won’t stop no matter the pain because he’s seen it in his brother in battle. He’s seen that fight in Loki’s eyes. He knows his brother’s ambitious nature.

“So how does Thor know that pain won’t stop Loki?” I hear you ask.

Well my friends. All you have to do is look at the ending of the first Thor film.

Loki is hellbent on destroying Jotumheim. So hellbent that he would fight his own brother to do it. Sure, Loki was angered and confused because of what he had recently learned, and he didn’t belive Thor to be his brother, but it had to hurt to fight his brother. I mean, it would hurt me to fight my brother.

At this point, Loki has discarded pain for his ambition and let it consume him. He didn’t care that he had to fight Thor. He didn’t care that destroying Jotunheim would have awful reprocussions. He just wanted to prove himself to someone, *cough cough* his father *cough*

And at the end you see Loki showing that he care for Thor. When Thor is destroying the Bifrost Loki yells at him: “But if you destroy the Bifrost you’ll never see her again!!!”

I don’t know about you, but to me, that screams that Loki cares about Thor’s wellbeing and interests. He cares about his brother’s happiness despite feeling estranged and ostracized because of what he is.

That’s not typically seen in someone who is abused. The care for their abusers wellbeing.

So no. I don’t think Thor would ever abuse Loki. They’re too close. They’ve been through too much together. Thor does NOT deserve that kind of belittlement. He has fought to save and protect his little brother since the beginning, and that ain’t gonna change.

@

apocalypticwafflekitten

Let me just preface this by saying that I have studied psychology, child development and trauma/abuse recovery at great length and for many years. I don’t usually bother responding to posts like this, simply because I don’t have the time, but given that your argument is based on some disturbingly false premises, I feel like I owe it to other Loki fans to construct a reply. You seem very young and sweet, so I’m going to do my best to be kind. 

Tagging a few peeps here to see if they would like to chime in: @mosellegreen @lasimo74allmyworld @lucianalight @lokiloveforever 

“I can NEVER believe that Thor would EVER torture Loki.” 

I LIKE Thor and I have zero trouble believing this at all. Thor left Loki being electrocuted by the obedience disk. Thor had no idea how long Loki would lie there, or how much he could withstand. He didn’t know if Loki would be rescued, or if he’d be found by someone who was going to simply execute him…and they were on a planet where people were executed regularly (and painfully) for ridiculous reasons. In fact, Thor witnessed an execution, so he knew this for sure. And Thor didn’t JUST leave Loki there, he did so gleefully. So even if his comment to Nick Fury about knowing how much pain Loki can withstand doesn’t mean anything, the scene in Ragnarok leaves very little to the imagination.

“And it goes back to before then even. Look at TDW. The scene where Thor is asking for Loki’s help? He states that he used to belive that there was a glimmer of goodness and redeemability in Loki.”

The thing is, this is actually an awful thing to say. Like many of Thor’s comments towards Loki, it’s an insult disguised as a compliment. Thor has a lot of balls asking for help at that moment, in the first place. Loki does it because he loves his mother and wants to avenge her. The problem is that you are interpreting this from the POV that Loki is a villain who needs to be redeemed, instead of someone who has feelings and motives for his behavior, just like Thor. 

Interestingly enough, I’ve noticed that people who tend to defend Thor’s actions are people who share the view that he and Loki are not actually equals. 

“DO YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS?!?!!??!? It means that he wanted to save his brother! If youre abusing someone, why would you wish to save them…You don’t do things like that for people you hate.”

First of all, no one has said that Loki hates Thor. For the record, I don’t think that Thor hates Loki either. Abuse victims don’t usually hate their abusers. In fact, many would openly claim to love them. Abuse victims also absolutely do defend their abusers, do things for their abusers and feel loyal and/or indebted to their abusers. It’s actually more common for abuse victims to feel this way, than not. That’s pretty textbook. Extreme versions of this are known as Stockholm Syndrome. 

Loki is consistently desperate for Thor’s approval and validation, as well as that of his father’s. He even says as much. “All I ever wanted was to be your equal…” Loki’s motives can be summed up, almost entirely by that quote alone. He tries to kill himself when he realizes that his dad isn’t going to give him that approval. Let’s take a moment to recognize what a devastating act that is. It’s not the sort of thing someone does when they are secure in their position in their family. That’s the act of a desperate person, who just wants to put themselves out of their misery.

Did you see any of the scenes before it was revealed to Loki what his heritage was? The two were close. Look at the deleted scenes. Loki says something similar to: “I admit that there have been times when I was envious, but never doubt that I love you.” 

Yes, I have seen all of them, many times. Loki says he loves Thor and Thor says…thank you. That’s got to be the absolute worst response a person can offer to someone who is telling them that they love them. And once again…abuse victims tell their abusers that they love them all the time. It’s very, very common. Abusers also withhold love and affection in order to control their victims. They might -for instance- refuse to say the words I love you, even when those words are said to them.

“Well it could be a show!” “He’s faking!”

No, it’s not a show. Loki believes what he is saying when he tells Thor that he loves him. He is sincere. Loki loves Thor, whatever that means for Loki. He doesn’t need to be faking for it to be evidence of an unhealthy relationship. It is possible for someone to be a victim of emotional abuse and to feel like they love someone or to feel that they are happy in their relationship. They can laugh and smile and hug and even make love to their significant other, because they are not aware of the dysfunction they are living in. Because of that dysfunction, their perception of what it means to love someone is skewed and disordered.

“If you look at the body language of someone whose been beaten while they’re around the person they are beaten by, you’ll see slouched shoulders, a tense body, constant glances to anywhere but their abusers face, clammy hands, hands in pockets (a cue that the person is trying to hide something) and just a general feel of unease and unrest. Fear and terror.” 

I mean no disrespect when I say this, but you either have no firsthand knowledge whatsoever of what an abusive relationship is like OR you are in one and are deep in denial about it. 

I say this as someone who has worked with many people who recovering from various types of abuse. Loki’s body language towards Thor is fairly consistent with someone who feels inferior and who is desperate for approval. When Loki is not in Thor’s presence, he actually stands taller and speaks more confidently. And I recognize that such a thing doesn’t necessarily imply physical abuse, but it definitely implies emotional abuse. It implies a disparity in their relationship that isn’t healthy. 

And “Maybe you’re not so bad.”

Oh my, this is another terrible thing to say. It’s another insult, disguised as a compliment. Who said he was bad in the first place? This, once again, comes from the premise that Loki is someone who needs to be redeemed and Thor is not.

“I don’t know about you, but to me, that screams that Loki cares about Thor’s wellbeing and interests. He cares about his brother’s happiness despite feeling estranged and ostracized because of what he is.That’s not typically seen in someone who is abused. The care for their abusers wellbeing.“

I have no doubt that Loki cares for Thor, because we have seen plenty of evidence of that. I believe that Thor only cares for Loki conditionally. Thor loves Loki as long as Loki is the person Thor thinks he should be, but he doesn’t really seem to KNOW Loki at all. I find it tragic that Loki has become okay with this. I had hoped that Ragnarok would end with Thor apologizing for not trying harder to understand his brother. Instead, Loki has embraced that he will never be understood and that the only way he’s doing to have Thor in his life is to accept that he will never be regarded as an equal.

Thor’s attitude towards his brother is evident with lines like “know your place” and “your imagined slights.” Thor does not see Loki as his equal, so in his mind it is totally reasonable for him to disregard Loki’s feelings. This is not entirely his fault. He was raised to see himself as better, as superior. Loki appears to know, even before his Jotun origins are revealed, that he is somehow less than his brother. This is not a perception that comes out of thin air. 

Let me rephrase that -Loki’s slights are not “imagined” simply because the protagonist says they are. This is a common mistake people make when digesting fiction. They accept the hero or good guy’s POV as reality, instead of what it is…that one person’s POV. This is especially evident when you have characters who are larger than life like Captain America or Han Solo or Harry Potter.

What’s amusing is…Loki cares openly about Thor’s feelings. He acknowledge’s Thor’s loss when Frigga dies, and again when Odin dies. He even pats him on the back when he is reminded that Jane broke up with him. These are the actions of someone who has accepted that his feelings do not matter, but the other party’s do. This is actually a very common dynamic in abusive or codependent relationships.

You mention Thor’s line in Ragnarok. “I thought the world of you. I thought we’re were always going to fight side by side.” 

Except that…we’ve seen zero evidence that Thor EVER thought the world of Loki. We’ve seen plenty of evidence that Loki thinks the world of Thor. Granted he says some negative things about him too -but he does so bitterly. Thor treats his brother as a pest in the original film. He talks down to him almost consistently, throughout all 4 films they are in together. In Avengers, Thor doesn’t even ask what Loki is doing on Earth or suspect something might be wrong (he’s suddenly trying to invade a planet he previously had no interest in). Thor makes one brief attempt to appeal to Loki, but it’s only so he can put an end to the battle and cart him off to prison. He shows no interest in finding out why Loki did what he did and we learn in TDW that Thor doesn’t even visit Loki in prison.

“Personally, I would never beat anyone if I thought the world of them.”

I believe you! I wouldn’t be able to beat anyone, even if I couldn’t stand them, but since these characters are not based on you or me, that’s not really useful information.

Do I know for sure that Thor has tortured Loki? Outside of the scene in Ragnarok, no. But do I think he’s capable of it? Absolutely. And that’s all this post is really about…whether Thor is capable of such thing. I’m amused that people are threatened by that notion. It’s almost as though they think that Thor’s motives are all good, simply because he has been cast as the hero.

Do I think Thor is a terrible person? No. He’s a character that is flawed, just like all the other Marvel characters. Thor is a product of his childhood and his family, just like Loki. They were both set against one another from the get go. They are both flawed and deeply messed up and that’s what makes them interesting.

Here’s the thing, though. While I believe there is evidence to support the fact that Loki’s relationship with Thor is imbalanced and dysfunctional…I don’t think it was the intention of the MCU writers to portray it as such. I think it’s just poor and inconsistent writing. I think it’s also a result of the fact that comic style writers tend to subscribe to the notion that anything the hero does is okay, simply because they are the hero and anything the villain does is not okay, simply because they are the villain. Which is a shame, but we take what we can get.

@juliabohemian Thank you for the in depth and lovely meta. It certainly puts many things into perspective. Sadly, I agree that such a rich interpretation wasn’t intentional and came about through a combination of cliched writing and Tom Hiddelston’s method acting, which is why we will see no acknowledgement of these issues and no resolution on screen. But it’s still important that the audience interpret what’s onscreen critically, and this includes judging the heroes by their deeds and not by their words.

I also appreciate @juliabohemian‘s meta, because it very neatly punctured the idea that the points the previous reblogger (not tagging because I don’t want to get into it with them) raises are evidence against abuse. It’s actually kind of hilarious how bad an argument it is for the intended conclusion, especially considering that some of the evidence offered (Thor’s claims that Loki “still has some good” in him or “isn’t so bad”) is actually evidence for the exact opposite.

That said… I absolutely did not draw the conclusion @mosellegreen did from that line in The Avengers. I think we were supposed to think, as @lucianalight suggested, that Thor knows Loki can hold up under torture because of experience with their common enemies during one of the many campaigns they’ve fought in together. And even after Ragnarok, I still think that, because I do not consider it legitimate to read Thor’s character as presented in Ragnarok back into the earlier movies. It’s so different, so discontinuous, that it provides absolutely no insight into his character in the other movies. The Thor of TR gleefully inflicts pain on his brother to “teach him a lesson”; the Thor of the earlier movies would not do that.

Yes, Thor probably “beat up on” little brother Loki in the way that siblings do, and Loki probably gave as good as he got, both in physical fights and in obnoxious pranks. (Forget the story about Loki “trying to kill” Thor by stabbing him when they were 8… that makes no damn sense for a lot of reasons. If Loki stabbed Thor with anything, it was probably the equivalent of a pair of scissors.) If their relationship was “abusive” in Thor 1 and before, it was just a matter of Thor being one of the “cool kids” who dismisses and sometimes bullies his tag-along uncool little brother… and of accepting the superiority that Odin has convinced both him and Loki that he (Thor) possesses. But that, I think, is better described as a situation where both Thor and Loki are victims of Odin’s crappy parenting, albeit in different ways (which seems to be the conclusion @juliabohemian reaches as well). I’m definitely bothered by the ways in which Thor shows, pre-TR, that he doesn’t care about Loki’s feelings (dismissing him, not asking him WTF happened in the year he was gone, assuming invading Midgard was All About Him, not visiting him in prison…), but I can accept that because Thor 1 acknowledges that its hero is flawed, and both that movie and The Avengers show him as improving but still a work in progress. He is getting better in TDW, and their brotherly dynamic is kind of adorable; he still says some pretty cringe-y things, but you can also see genuine respect and affection there. TR just ignores and/or reverses all the growth we’ve seen in Thor’s character and presents him as a self-absorbed, manipulative asshole who’s willing to punish and “train” Loki with severe pain while smiling smugly and speechifying at him, and then blithely leave him vulnerable in a hostile world, because he just kind of doesn’t care how anyone else feels or even, apparently, regard Loki as a full person.

foundlingmother:

philosopherking1887:

shine-of-asgard:

salazharshaikh:

shine-of-asgard:

endiness:

the more i think about ragnarok, the more problems i have with it and the more i feel like it’s ultimately a disservice (if not an outright insult) to loki’s character.

Seguir leyendo

Loki’s 3 movie long development getting retconned so that Thor could be credited for it at the last hour in Ragnarok is the logical conclusion to the characterisation mess. Yep.

This whole mess reeks of Chris Hemsworth’s jealousy of Loki being more popular than Thor in the MCU. I maybe wrong but it seems likely that’s the case.

I don’t know enough about the actors to feel comfortable accusing them of active behind-the-scenes meddling, but there clearly was only one winner in this case and he was very eager to shit on the previous movies and outspoken about how cool and great it was that Thor was the centerpiece of Ragnarok. Hmmmm… So maybe he didn’t actively make it happen, but he sure is happy that it happened :/.

Oh, I’m perfectly willing to accuse Hemsworth of behind-the-scenes meddling. I also suspect that the recent coldness between him and Tom, and Tom’s relative lack of involvement in Ragnarok promotion, has to do with the fact that Tom was completely aware of TW and CH’s lack of respect for Loki’s character (and Thor’s!) and was trying to resist it but got steamrollered over.

W.r.t. @endiness‘s discourse about the mistreatment of Loki’s character in Ragnarok, I completely agree. In fact, @foundlingmother and I have discussed at length the way that TR missed – or rather, deliberately ignored – the opportunity to bring up the issue of Loki’s adoption and internalized racism in connection with the imperialism allegory. I’ve also remarked on the regression of Loki’s character and suggested an explanation in terms of replacing a Shakespearean villain with a simplistic version of the trickster archetype, and I’d be curious to know what y’all think of that hypothesis.

Regarding Loki using the story of his fall as an amusing anecdote on Sakaar, I think @endiness is completely right:

while i could find it entirely possible that loki was regaling them of his tales to somehow endear himself to the populace and i could find it believable that, in general, loki would use his pain and trauma in whatever way necessary to benefit himself… i doubt the sincerity of that in this movie. because when any of loki’s trauma was even mentioned at all, it was shown more as a joke at his expense rather than something actually meaningful and significant.

This is something else I’ve discussed with @foundlingmother and others. Ignoring authorial intent (which is often a good idea), one could certainly interpret this bit of storytelling, as well as the play at the beginning, as Loki taking ownership of his trauma and turning it into an asset so that it no longer has power over him… but I think it’s patently obvious that that’s not the interpretation intended by Waititi and Pearson (the screenwriter). They take every opportunity to minimize and ridicule Loki’s problems and motivations. The fact that the events can be given a better and deeper interpretation should not be credited to the film itself as a product of its actual creators, but to the ingenuityof the fans who actually care about the characters.

I also think @endiness makes some very good points about the lost opportunity to give Loki a prior connection to Sakaar, especially this:

“lost and unloved. like you. but here on sakaar, you are significant. you are valuable. here, you are loved. where once you were nothing, now you are something.” perfectly describes loki’s mindset for having let go in the first place.

In fact, I was somewhat concerned when I was reading stuff before Ragnarok came out about how Sakaar is where wormholes dump their trash that we would learn that Loki ended up on Sakaar after the end of Thor, which would automatically falsify the fic I’ve been writing about what happened to Loki between Thor and The Avengers. The nice thing about Marvel not caring enough about Loki to provide such an account that is that my fic will never become defunct and irrelevant 😛 (Though it’s still a possibility that Infinity War will explain the connection between Loki and Thanos instead of just having Thanos kill Loki in the first 5 minutes.)

You know what’s amusingly unamusing to me when I think about ignoring authorial intent and Ragnarok? In trying to make Thor cooler and Loki less complex, they ruined Thor’s character more than Loki’s. Most of Loki’s actions in Ragnarok can be manipulated to mesh well with the character we know from previous films. It’s Thor’s character that can’t be reconciled. The thoughtfulness, protectiveness, and subtle humor vanished, and the only traits he retains are hot-headedness, which he’d been working on, and ignorance born of bad parenting and Asgardian society, which he’d also started chipping away at (defying Odin in TDW was a great first step). 

Interesting point, and I think you’re right that they screwed up Thor’s character more than Loki’s. The reasons I tend to focus on the damage to Loki’s character are (1) I cared more about Loki going in, (2) the other people who post threads criticizing Ragnarok tend to be Loki fans (how ironic is it that the Thor “stans” all seem to like the hash that was made of his character integrity?!), and (3) the character assassination of Loki was deliberate and malicious and I’m pissed about how little respect the creators have for Loki’s many fans (mostly female, natch) and for Tom Hiddleston, an actual Shakespearean actor who has poured a lot of heart and serious thought into the character.

I do still think that to rescue Loki’s character you have to ignore not only authorial intent but tonal cues, which are actually part of the text (and often the most explicit expression of authorial intent in the text).

shine-of-asgard:

salazharshaikh:

shine-of-asgard:

endiness:

the more i think about ragnarok, the more problems i have with it and the more i feel like it’s ultimately a disservice (if not an outright insult) to loki’s character.

Seguir leyendo

Loki’s 3 movie long development getting retconned so that Thor could be credited for it at the last hour in Ragnarok is the logical conclusion to the characterisation mess. Yep.

This whole mess reeks of Chris Hemsworth’s jealousy of Loki being more popular than Thor in the MCU. I maybe wrong but it seems likely that’s the case.

I don’t know enough about the actors to feel comfortable accusing them of active behind-the-scenes meddling, but there clearly was only one winner in this case and he was very eager to shit on the previous movies and outspoken about how cool and great it was that Thor was the centerpiece of Ragnarok. Hmmmm… So maybe he didn’t actively make it happen, but he sure is happy that it happened :/.

Oh, I’m perfectly willing to accuse Hemsworth of behind-the-scenes meddling. I also suspect that the recent coldness between him and Tom, and Tom’s relative lack of involvement in Ragnarok promotion, has to do with the fact that Tom was completely aware of TW and CH’s lack of respect for Loki’s character (and Thor’s!) and was trying to resist it but got steamrollered over.

W.r.t. @endiness‘s discourse about the mistreatment of Loki’s character in Ragnarok, I completely agree. In fact, @foundlingmother and I have discussed at length the way that TR missed – or rather, deliberately ignored – the opportunity to bring up the issue of Loki’s adoption and internalized racism in connection with the imperialism allegory. I’ve also remarked on the regression of Loki’s character and suggested an explanation in terms of replacing a Shakespearean villain with a simplistic version of the trickster archetype, and I’d be curious to know what y’all think of that hypothesis.

Regarding Loki using the story of his fall as an amusing anecdote on Sakaar, I think @endiness is completely right:

while i could find it entirely possible that loki was regaling them of his tales to somehow endear himself to the populace and i could find it believable that, in general, loki would use his pain and trauma in whatever way necessary to benefit himself… i doubt the sincerity of that in this movie. because when any of loki’s trauma was even mentioned at all, it was shown more as a joke at his expense rather than something actually meaningful and significant.

This is something else I’ve discussed with @foundlingmother and others. Ignoring authorial intent (which is often a good idea), one could certainly interpret this bit of storytelling, as well as the play at the beginning, as Loki taking ownership of his trauma and turning it into an asset so that it no longer has power over him… but I think it’s patently obvious that that’s not the interpretation intended by Waititi and Pearson (the screenwriter). They take every opportunity to minimize and ridicule Loki’s problems and motivations. The fact that the events can be given a better and deeper interpretation should not be credited to the film itself as a product of its actual creators, but to the ingenuityof the fans who actually care about the characters.

I also think @endiness makes some very good points about the lost opportunity to give Loki a prior connection to Sakaar, especially this:

“lost and unloved. like you. but here on sakaar, you are significant. you are valuable. here, you are loved. where once you were nothing, now you are something.” perfectly describes loki’s mindset for having let go in the first place.

In fact, I was somewhat concerned when I was reading stuff before Ragnarok came out about how Sakaar is where wormholes dump their trash that we would learn that Loki ended up on Sakaar after the end of Thor, which would automatically falsify the fic I’ve been writing about what happened to Loki between Thor and The Avengers. The nice thing about Marvel not caring enough about Loki to provide such an account that is that my fic will never become defunct and irrelevant 😛 (Though it’s still a possibility that Infinity War will explain the connection between Loki and Thanos instead of just having Thanos kill Loki in the first 5 minutes.)

thelightofthingshopedfor:

tonight I am having Many Feelings about Loki dealing with serious touch-starvation issues due to, you know, EVERYTHING, i.e. the Void and whatever happened with Thanos for a year or more, and then solitary confinement for a year with only one visitor who couldn’t even be there physically, and then a few more years as Odin where getting too close to anyone physically would’ve been suspicious and maybe bad for the illusion 

and then…Sakaar, which must have been overwhelming in basically every way possible, and I don’t really have any conclusions about this, just Feelings

foundlingmother:

latent-thoughts:

burningarbiterheart:

endiness:

more reasons why i don’t understand how people can say t////’s version of loki was good and that he understood him: the movie literally mocks all of the serious, emotionally meaningful, significant moments for loki in past movies that gave insight into his character and fleshed him out and gave him depth and complexity. that alone implies some kind of intentional maliciousness to what went into creating his character for this movie.

and, ffs, look at how everything else that went into creating the thor franchise was treated: jane was written out in a line of dialogue. darcy and selvig weren’t even mentioned. the warriors three were unceremoniously killed off as fast as possible. sif wasn’t even mentioned. asgard being destroyed was used as a punchline. even thor’s characterization felt like it was made by someone who didn’t like thor in the past movies, either, and wanted to make him into their misguided idea of a better character. like, how the fuck could the movie have treated loki with respect and have any regard for his character when it didn’t for anything else!?

@latent-thoughts

I concur with the many points raised above. 

I understand that Darcy and Erik didn’t work as part of s plot so they were not mentioned at all. That’s still better than what they did with characters like Jane and warriors 3. 

I’ve also been mentioning the OOC behaviour of everyone, from Thor and Loki to even Bruce. Now, I can understand Bruce acting like that, after such a long time of Hulk taking over. I’m sure he was not feeling himself and was hence acting all nervous and sans filter.

Further, there was way too much pontificating going on. The whole holier than thou attitude of the characters, especially Thor and Valkyrie, against Loki, really irked me. I need to see a character do heroic acts, not claim himself to be a hero and justify his acts thusly as heroic. Valkyrie had her hypocritical moment when she threw the bottle at Loki and asked why he felt the urge to do the right thing. She was a willful participant in human trafficking, she sold people off to die for booze. I understand that she was suffering from severe PTSD, but that didn’t give her the right to do those shitty things. I still am ok with that story arc, as she eventually woke up from her haze of trauma and helped people of Asgard. But she didn’t have the moral high ground to act as though she was a better person than Loki, or that she even knew Loki enough to judge him on his actions.

The movie wants us to think that Thor and Valkyrie pontificating is justified, that it’s the right thing to do, because… that’s what heroes do. The perspective of the movie is too centred on projecting a heroic image for certain characters rather than showing why or how they are heroic.

@latent-thoughts To be fair to Valkyrie, I think most of her animosity towards Loki comes from him forcing her to relive a traumatic memory, which was kind of a dick move.

However, I do find it strange that the parallels between Loki and Valkyrie are never addressed by the movie. To list a few off the top of my head:

  • Both desire to remain on Sakaar to avoid their responsibilities and enemies that have inflicted trauma upon them (Thanos/Hela).
  • Both of them express contempt for the lies of the Asgardian royal family, or the crown in general, really.
  • Neither of them are primarily concerned by the plight of the Asgardians (it’s a secondary concern), but motivated to leave Sakaar for other reasons (Loki to protect Thor, and a bit to prove him wrong, and Valkyrie to get her revenge).

Valkyrie’s treated far more sympathetically. As soon as she makes the choice to redeem herself, she’s treated heroically and respectfully, and her character never gets sacrificed. It’s never mentioned again that she sold people into slavery, and never mentioned at all that before that she fought for Odin, a conquering imperialist bastard. Meanwhile, Loki’s redemption arc wallows in his wrongdoings. And yes, Loki’s done wrong, and we shouldn’t overlook that, just like Valkyrie’s crimes shouldn’t be overlooked. There’s a clear bias evident in the treatment of these characters that parallel one another. 

In my opinion, the only “hero” in Ragnarok is Heimdall, and he happens to be the only character treated seriously in every scene he takes part in. All the other characters are a mess of jokes and wasted potential. And that’s why I can’t stand that it’s an irreverent comedy movie.