Thor was a victim of Odin’s abuse and brainwashing too, so maybe try not to blame him for thinking Loki was beyond hope because when a parent you’ve been raised to trust tells you that, you’re inclined to believe them
“Thor was a victim of Odin’s abuse and brainwashing too”
AHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Yeah, because being the golden child that everyone loves totally isthe same as being the scapegoat outcast whose father literally said his birthright was to die and then locked him in the dungeons for what was meant to be the rest of his life with no content with the outside world.
*snort*
Sure, Thor was totally abused too xD
Not all abuse follows the same pattern and no one is saying Thor was abused to the same degree as Loki was.
Let’s look at the 3rd child, Hela, because her abuse has most in common with Thor. Odin seemed to treat her well and judging from the friezes she uncovered, they seem to show she was respected by Asgard, ruling at Odin’s side. She was given the same weapon as Thor and raised to be a warmonger than Odin could unleash on his enemies.
But he had moulded her into a mass murderer. Do you doubt that doing that to a child is abusive?
It doesn’t excuse what she did, just as Loki’s abuse doesn’t excuse what he did, but it does help you understand why these things happened.
As for Thor, he basically got the Hela-lite treatment. He was raised to love war and fighting, he was even raised to be a cold-blooded killer (just look what he did on Jotunheim), just not to the same degree that Hela was.
Neither Thor and Hela were raised to have introspection, given the ability to question their actions, thoughts, or beliefs.
And when they did what they had been raised to do (wage war) but without Odin’s permission, both were banished.
None of his children were raised with their best interests at heart. Rather, they were turned into what Odin wanted them to be. He viewed them as extensions of himself that he could do what he wanted with, rather than as people in their own right.
Nothing about this is healthy parenting. Nothing about this raises well-rounded adults. He has damaged all his children via the emotional abuse used to turn them into what he wanted them to be.
Thor was able to overcome his abuse and become a wise, rounded adult (well, ish. He succeeded as long as you ignore the BS that was Ragnarok).
Although it wasn’t shown onscreen, Loki seems to have taken strides too, not to overcome the abuse perse, but to become his own person, who he wants to be rather than who Odin wanted him to be, or a rebellion against who Odin wanted him to be.
Some of Odin’s children received different kinds and different levels of abuse, but they were all abused.
I’m going to point it out again: Another genius moment in acting/directing. Look at his expression. He feels nothing. Nothing at all.
There’s no one to put on a show for here. There’s no need for posturing when he doesn’t have an audience. And what do we get when he’s basically alone? Nothing. He feels nothing.
Like I said in a previous post (when he dropped Thor from the helocarrier), this is not a lack of sympathy or regret necessarily. This is not a lack of the normal spectrum of emotions. This is a lack of resolution. He went into this mad plan with expectations. Expectations of feeling powerful. Of finally being equal to Thor—maybe even more. Of revenge. None of those expectations are fulfilled (long before he gets Hulk-smashed).
I’m going to put forth an unusual speculation here. His actions, particularly in these moments, speak less of being a sociopath or psychopath, and more of severe depression. I’m not talking about the blues when you’re having a bad day or a bad week. Severe depression is not being sad all the time.
It’s being numb. All. The. Time. It’s feeling nothing when you know you should feel something. It’s not caring. About anything.
Severe depression messes with your moral center (and I don’t mean religious morals). It’s very difficult to differentiate between right or wrong because you feel no guilt, no shame, no elation. The quest becomes less about finding happiness (while in the throes of such an acute depression, happiness is not only impossible, the notion is utterly unbelievable—a fiction without any truth). The quest is merely to feel better. To feel at all.
Think about it. Despite his act of insincerity, Loki was probably prone to brooding even before his world fell apart. He probably experienced bouts of mild to moderate depression throughout his life. (The mischief might have helped to alleviate that.) Then he finds out what he is—not the son of Odin (whose approval he desperately wanted)—but one of very enemy he was raised to hate. Fast forward through his botched attempt at genocide, fratricide and successful patricide—then a fall through the vortex of the dying Bifrost (who knows what happened there?), and finally he was held captive by Thanos.
How is he not depressed? (If not suffering from a complete psychosis.) And I doubt he is not cognizant enough to realize the severity of his mental illness.
And so he pursues these things, thinking that he’ll feel better (that he’ll feel something) and in the end, he still feels nothing.
You’ll never convince me that Loki’s look of blankness as he lets go of Gungnir, that that was a suicide attempt, is not part of some severe depression issues and that everything just gets magnified to about a thousand times worse and twisted up when he goes through the Void.
“Loki is often the voice of reason to Thor’s impulsiveness and is usually relied on to talk his older brother out of sticky situation. ”
“As Odin’s younger son, Loki has always known the throne of Asgard will never belong to him. He has, however, tried his best to be a good brother to Thor and a son Odin could be proud of.”
BONUS:
Interesting.
Teleport is canon!
This irritates me…… a lot.
He can teleport.
Why the hell wasn’t this used in any of the other movies?
This is so important.
The argument could be made that he did teleport in the first Avengers. Loki cast an illusion of himself/became invisible and teleported behind Coulson to stab him with his staff.
Also he may have teleported himself into the room Thor was being kept in by S.H.I.E.L.D. in the first Thor movie and we just didn’t get to see it.
Honestly, I just ignore the teleportation thing in my fic writing. There’s a lot of stuff in canon that wouldn’t make sense if he could teleport.
The fact that Loki can teleport makes a LOT of canon stuff make no sense. The first 5 minutes of Infinity War especially.
Loki’s teleporting is definitely worth discussing, but can we talk about what they listed as Frigga’s “abilities”? Like … what even lol.
I should clarify: by “canon” (involving Loki) I mean Thor (2011), The Avengers (2012), and Thor: The Dark World (2013).
Yeah, they kind of forgot about Frigga’s illusion magic and swordfighting skills… or maybe they didn’t decide to put those in until TDW.
Re: @angryowlet‘s speculation, I don’t think any teleportation was involved in killing Coulson. I think Loki made two illusory copies of himself: one to lure Thor into the cage, and one to taunt Thor while the actual Loki was off retrieving the scepter.
The main reason I think teleportation would mess with canon logic is that Thor probably would have known that Loki could teleport, and that would be an extremely clear indication that he had gotten himself captured on purpose in The Avengers. He also could have teleported away to keep himself from being apprehended and imprisoned at the end, though I suppose he might have had reasons to want to place himself under Asgardian protection. Also (and this is mostly kind of silly), he wouldn’t have needed to ride a horse from the palace to the Bifrost observatory toward the end of Thor.
“Loki is often the voice of reason to Thor’s impulsiveness and is usually relied on to talk his older brother out of sticky situation. ”
“As Odin’s younger son, Loki has always known the throne of Asgard will never belong to him. He has, however, tried his best to be a good brother to Thor and a son Odin could be proud of.”
BONUS:
Interesting.
Teleport is canon!
This irritates me…… a lot.
He can teleport.
Why the hell wasn’t this used in any of the other movies?
This is so important.
The argument could be made that he did teleport in the first Avengers. Loki cast an illusion of himself/became invisible and teleported behind Coulson to stab him with his staff.
Also he may have teleported himself into the room Thor was being kept in by S.H.I.E.L.D. in the first Thor movie and we just didn’t get to see it.
Honestly, I just ignore the teleportation thing in my fic writing. There’s a lot of stuff in canon that wouldn’t make sense if he could teleport.
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This looks like it’s from a silent film and he should have much more eye make up on
Loki is the Philosopher King 