#i feel like this scene speaks a lot for how loki truly felt#in time#he didnt think he was ready#but he didnt necessarily think he would never be ready#he was doing what he thought was best for thor and asgard#but in the wrong way#and it ended up a giant mess#i feel like lokis true desire for the throne was only after finding out his entire life was a lie @shineonloki
I’m not sure I agree Loki ever really wanted the/a throne, even after he discovered his entire life was a lie. The throne is more a symbol or a means to achieve what Loki actually wants at any given moment.
In the latter half of Thor, that’s acceptance and validation from Odin. He works so hard to keep Thor away because, as regent, Loki has the power to defeat the Frost Giants without costing Asgard anything. He thinks that defeating this enemy will prove he’s worthy, and that he belongs on Asgard. That he’s not one of those monsters…
In Avengers, Loki says he wants to rule Midgard, but it seems far more likely that he’s trying to hurt Thor, embarrass Odin, and above all free himself from Thanos. Others will argue that Loki’s trying to lose. Either way, he doesn’t actually want to rule Midgard. At the same time, this is when he begins repeating that he was the rightful King of Asgard, that he was promised a throne, etc. But, again, it’s not the throne Loki cares about, it’s the injustice of being promised something no one ever had any intention of giving him. Being promised his father’s approval, his people’s acceptance, worthiness (or the opportunity to receive it, at least), only to discover that what you are is entirely incompatible with everything you ever wanted. So he harps on about a throne–about that part of the lie–because it allows him to appear detached. He’s much less vulnerable demanding power than he is demanding acceptance, especially when he doesn’t even believe he’s worthy of that acceptance (internalized racism is a bitch).
The deleted scene from TDW contributes to that idea. The fantasy isn’t about ruling or holding power, it’s about the people celebrating him (the way they do Thor). It’s about being worthy. Loki does get the throne again at the end of TDW, but he usurps it because he wants freedom and safety, and he can get that by masquerading as Odin. And even then he offers it to Thor. He might have anticipated that Thor would reject, but he still offered the choice.
Tag: loki’s coronation deleted scene
OK but the thing about this is that I would actually say Loki was at a lower point in the second image than in the first. In the first scene he’s just been physically defeated, but as we see in his response to the Avengers when they apprehend him (“If it’s all the same to you, I’ll have that drink now”), he’s still mentally composed. In the second scene, he’s psychologically defeated, driven by isolation, despair, and self-loathing to escape into illusions of… being someone else, basically.
God damn, that scene still makes me so fucking sad.
The saddest part abut the red cape is that this is all about Thor again. This is not about Loki. He could imagine a scenario where Sif or Fandral pat his shoulder for slaying their enemies in battle with his illusions or anything else that is about appreciating what and who he is but it´s not. It ´s about Thor´s triumph. He is raising the hammer while he could present any of his own talents. We know he has enough of them but he thinks, and has learned that they won´t be appreciated. It´s not about himself and what he could have archived it´s about Thor. His hammer, his throne, his friends. No one in the audience is cheering for anything “Loki” they are cheering for Thor. Loki only slipped into his clothes. His whole time living there made him think that he does not stand a chance being himself, not in Asgard and not in front of his father. Being Loki has just brought him behind bars, pretending he is like Thor takes pieces of him into freedom again. He gives people what they want and that is Thor, not him. Loki was never enough. Loki is not enough, not even in his own day dreams.
that is the tragedy of loki.
@philosopherking1887 I hope you will at some point talk about this scene.
I see this analysis of it a lot, and I think that it’s a fairly accurate analysis of the scene as it stands on its own, but I don’t necessarily agree with what it says about Loki’s character. There’s a distinction to be made between wanting to be Thor and wanting to be Thor’s equal, and my interpretation of Loki is that I believe him when he says he wants the latter (or wanted…I’m not 100% sure what Loki wants anymore…probably not to get killed/tortured/used by Thanos). In the first Thor movie, Loki’s plan to impress Odin didn’t involve him becoming like Thor, but revealing to Odin the weaknesses of his bloodthirsty warrior son. Thor charges in and threatens the tenuous peace between Asgard and Jotunheim. I’m not sure what Loki’s plan was after that–I think things got a bit off track when he found out what he was and Odin took a nap–but I assume he would have used his skills to put things right, one way or another.
I think the real tragedy of Loki is that he knows he’s powerful, but nobody else realizes. It’s incredibly frustrating to know you’re brilliant and for nobody else to recognize it. For them to keep telling you that you’re not. Not only are you unsure of your skills, you’re unsure about what made you want to cultivate them. It can even lead to you sort of questioning your perception of reality. If nobody else agrees that I’m powerful, why do I think that? Am I deluded? It’s numerous layers of insecurity.
All that said, I could still make a case for a scene like this in the context of the movie. Loki has no hope of ever being loved in Asgard again. Yeah, now they recognize he’s powerful. They realize he’s a threat, and they hate him. So, I could see him indulging a fantasy of being Thor at that point. It would be much simpler for him to be Thor. I don’t think that’s always been his desire, or is even really is his desire at that point. You could argue that he sort of gets this wish. By the end of the movie, he’s living as somebody else, someone that the people of Asgard respect, but is still ultimately Loki. I don’t think he’s disappointed with that initially (obviously he’s going to be disappointed with it eventually because Loki’s never satisfied).
My mixed-up feelings about this scene mostly have to do with what was going on in my life when it was released. Seeing gifs of it is almost “triggering,” in a very minor way… it just gives me a little jolt of anxiety and instantly reminds me of the surrounding circumstances. In short, a close friend of mine had just had a textbook manic episode, which was clear to everyone but her. She agreed to check into a hospital, but shortly thereafter regretted it and decided that everyone else was “gaslighting” her. I started seeing Tumblr buzz about the scene while I was in class, so I obviously couldn’t watch it then, but I took a moment to watch it while I was in my friend’s apartment gathering some clothes to bring to her at the hospital.
I couldn’t help but read some of the symptoms of bipolar disorder into Loki, especially as this scene made him out. I don’t usually do anything with that in my fics; like a lot of other writers, I write Loki with my own set of mental health issues (basically, unipolar depression and anxiety), because it’s what I know. But I wonder sometimes if bipolar would be a better diagnosis, given his actions in canon. Maybe his breakdown in the first Thor movie is his first manic episode; it can manifest in early adulthood after masquerading as unipolar depression in adolescence, as it did with my friend. The urge to dwell in self-aggrandizing illusion shown in this scene doesn’t fit comfortably with how I usually portray Loki’s psychology; that’s another reason I tend to ignore it, besides the troubling associations. And I have no idea how to write mania from the inside.
The saddest part abut the red cape is that this is all about Thor again. This is not about Loki. He could imagine a scenario where Sif or Fandral pat his shoulder for slaying their enemies in battle with his illusions or anything else that is about appreciating what and who he is but it´s not. It ´s about Thor´s triumph. He is raising the hammer while he could present any of his own talents. We know he has enough of them but he thinks, and has learned that they won´t be appreciated. It´s not about himself and what he could have archived it´s about Thor. His hammer, his throne, his friends. No one in the audience is cheering for anything “Loki” they are cheering for Thor. Loki only slipped into his clothes. His whole time living there made him think that he does not stand a chance being himself, not in Asgard and not in front of his father. Being Loki has just brought him behind bars, pretending he is like Thor takes pieces of him into freedom again. He gives people what they want and that is Thor, not him. Loki was never enough. Loki is not enough, not even in his own day dreams.
that is the tragedy of loki.
Loki is the Philosopher King 