darklittlestories:

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incredifishface:

darklittlestories:

More Ragnarok Meta

SPOILERS, obviously.

So, the snake & stab story. Obviously I LIVE for snakes. So I was delighted that Loki shifting SOLIDLY*, into a snake.

And the giggle at mischievous young Loki (I mean, warrior culture? Sibling rivalries involve stabbings, right? lol)

But… BUT: “We were eight.” (I can’t confirm yet that this line wasn’t ‘He was eight’… anyone?)

But I think I heard “We.” Proceeding from there:

This means that Thor & Loki are the same age. Or within a year. That’s a HUGE character revelation. Imagine Loki’s resentment, all the stuff we know, but go back to when we first saw them on screen.

Two young princes, led by their Father-King. “But only one of you will rule.” And by now Loki has (canonically) already at least a seed of malice planted within.

He’s a mage, and a damn fine one to be shapeshifting so young, I’d wager. We know the parallel to Viking culture’s treatment of men perceived as *argr* or *ergi* tracks. We’ve seen Thor and friends mock him for his “tricks.”

So he’s aware of his difference from those warriors. He already feels judged less-than.

But now imagine that a spare few months are all that separates him from—and places him second in ascension order—Thor. How much more acute does that resentment read now?

My heart stings with yet *another* layer of damage to that psyche.

There’s a wealth of characterization to unpack, which is a very pleasant surprise for such a hilarious film, but right now I’m fixated on this narrow perceived-age difference. (Of course we likely will never know if Loki is any younger at all, or if the Jotunn even age analogously to Áesir.)

Somehow for me, knowing they’re closer in age adds so much depth to Loki’s resentment.

And of course their reunion that much sweeter.

Did you hear a ‘we’? Thoughts?

@philosopherking1887

@raven-brings-light

@incredifishface

@lunariagold

@fourletterwordsstartingwithl

@sexualthorientation

@writernotwaiting

*Not an illusion. So many new powers. I’m obsessed. Another post;)

I have to see it again and get back to you on that “we”

HOWEVER

this is one of those times when i am pretty reluctant to take the canon MCU line as it comes. Why? We know there was a lot of improvisation in that film. I seriously doubt there was as much thought put into every word of that snippet of dialogue as we put into our own headcanons. I simply refuse to change my entire headcanon or reassess fanon on the basis of that.

It doesn’t change that much for me either way. We know they’re close in age (see “both born to be kings” scene, similar heights), we don’t know enough about Asgardian/Jotun biology to make a final call on how they develop as kids (for beings that live up to 5000 years “8″ sounds like such a puzzlingly insignificant number), and I think considering these kids are about 1000 years old, and that for all but, like, 5 years or so, they were brothers, allies, lovers, and friends, give or take a stabbing or two, it does not seem a huge turning point in what we know. Even if they had been born months apart, we know Loki resents and loves his brother either way, that his dad favoured his brother either way, etc. 

Loki looks up to Thor like one looks up to an older brother, I think. That’s how I’ ve read and perceived the relationship to be at all times. So, they could have been born on the same day, and that wouldn’t change how Loki looks at Thor and relates to Thor: admiring him, worshipping him, thirsting for him like whoa, wanting to prove himself to him and be on a par with him, and outgrow him. That screams “little brother” to me. Be it age or just, you know, attitude, Thor will always be the older brother to me, and Loki the younger.  And I’m fine with that. 

Oh yeah, I’m not suggesting a retcon of old work of films, but for some reason that just stabbed me in my heart. (Stabbed—eheheheh)

I don’t know why it stood out to me so much. (It might just be because I LOVE AUs where they’re twins.)

But yeah the dynamic is absolutely still big brother/little brother. That’s so evident in this film, and obviously the others.

Very good observation about the improvisation in the movie, though. You’re right—it could be just a throwaway line.

I’m having *such feels* about it I’m sure it’ll inform my stories, but we’re all pretty solidly steeped in little brother psychology for Loki. I’m just gonna be processing shit from the movie for a while:D (Going to see it again later—w00t!)

I don’t take the “we were eight” line at heart, cause for all we know it could’ve been for brevity sake and keep it simple….he could’ve said"when we were little" tho.

I don’t think they have the same age (Loki is, as far as I know, canonically about 1048 yrs old in the first Thor film, btw), but they could be one or two years old apart, which for them is nothing. Their dynamic from day one has always been little brother Loki and big brother Thor, hell at times it seems to be Tom and Chris’s dynamics too which is funny cause Tom’s two years older.

What it did make me realise is how unimportant Loki stabbing and generally beating on Thor is in Avengers, and vice versa, this is how they are with each other. The only time Thor knew Loki wasn’t messing was when he sent the Destroyer to kill him and his friends. In the Avengers it’s a distraction, a way of getting Thor to stop and let him go, it’s not to kill. Same with the perceived “torture” scene in Ragnarok, sorry but Loki stood by while the disc was used on Thor, it wouldn’t have done that much injury to Loki and Thor had had enough. It’s the human equivalent of siblings pushing and shoving, and generally being brats. @incredifishface you won’t see this otherwise, stories will. I think the thing this film did really well, and almost certainly because the actors had so much input, was put everything we’d seen in the previous two films plus the avengers, into perspective. It gave us a foundation we never had. I loved it btw. One thing it did, surprisingly, is make me start to see thor and loki as they are, brothers…but that, and the small amount of fanfic I read atm, is a discussion for another time..

Yeah, ughhh the amount of (platonic? Who here even cares? lol) brotherly feels here DEFINITELY surpasses the previous movies. It’s the best BY FAR in my opinion, actually.

But much more importantly, INFORMATION!!!

How do y’all know Loki’s exact age in the MCU!??? Feed me knowledges!!! I’m thrilled to be proven wrong and with the improv argument I’m already starting to let go of my pangs of “omgggg SAME AGE BBYS!!!!! feels.” 😉

I think we still have license to play it any number of ways. Some people can run with the idea that they were raised as twins: that that’s the way Odin and Frigga explained away the fact that Frigga was never pregnant with Loki (which, as @raven-brings-light has remarked, is an unaddressed issue); that Loki has been doubly wronged because he’s actually a few days older than Thor, but Odin and Frigga called Thor the firstborn because they wanted their biological son to inherit; that part of Loki’s resentment was knowing that it was only a few minutes’ age difference that denied him the throne.

But people who prefer to write Loki as a few years younger than Thor to explain and accentuate the big brother/little brother dynamic between them can still do that too. There’s the fact that there was a lot of improvisation going on. And then there’s also the possibility that Thor just said “8″ as a rough human equivalent to give Bruce an idea of their developmental stage. It may be that Asgardians spend a few years at the equivalent of each year of human childhood, so Thor and Loki were both within the range that roughly matches up to 8 human years, but Thor was at the older end of that range and Loki at the younger. There are ways they could have hidden the fact that Frigga was never pregnant with Loki other than saying he and Thor were twins. A few people have speculated that Frigga lost a pregnancy around the same time, but hid that from the people and claimed that Loki was the product (maybe the miscarriage/stillbirth would have been Balder, and that would be an indirect way of representing myth-Loki’s involvement in Balder’s death). I may be the only one who thinks this, but the fact that it was wartime might have helped with the cover-up: it’s entirely possible that Frigga was in hiding somewhere in the countryside (such as it is) or in Vanaheim or something so that she would be safe in case of a Jotun invasion, so no one except her closest attendants would have known that she wasn’t pregnant before Loki showed up.

@darklittlestories – we know Loki’s exact age because there’s a date given as a subtitle/caption at the beginning of the prologue to the first Thor movie, when Odin is narrating the story of the Jotun invasion of Midgard and the Asgard’s intervention.