To all the people saying “the Russo brothers and Markus & McFeely are smart, they wouldn’t kill Loki in such a stupid way and leave all these hints that he might still be alive”:
They’re not that smart. Civil War was terrible; The Winter Soldier wasn’t as great as everyone says it was; and hello, have you seen what they did with Infinity War? Even aside from Loki’s stupid death, I mean. Thanos’s “sympathetic” Malthusian worldview? Fridging Gamora for Quill’s AND Thanos’s Manpain™? Our heroes deciding that a whole bunch of Wakandans can die so that Vision doesn’t have to because “we don’t trade lives” (right…)?
Markus & McFeely wrote Thor: The Dark World, which had a really weak main plot and not that much involvement from Loki until Joss Whedon was brought in as a script doctor and added more for reshoots.
Markus & McFeely originally intended to kill Loki permanently in TDW but Feige made an executive decision to bring him back because of his popularity with fans at the time. His mainstream popularity has (I think) waned since then (partly due to the deliberate diminution and demeaning of his character in Ragnarok).
I wouldn’t be surprised if M&M wanted to finish the job they started in TDW. They fridged Frigga to bring Thor and Loki together through Manpain; they had every intention of fridging Loki permanently for the sake of Thor’s Manpain.
So even if Loki comes back at the end of Avengers 4 can we all agree on what a horrible waste of writing sidelining/killing him in the first 15 minutes of this movie was? Where are my continued petty exchanges with Strange? Taking Wanda under his wing? Teaming up with Gamora and Nebula to take down their abuser? Being Stabby BFFs with Nebula? Fighting side by side by Thor and the other Avengers he tried to take down however many movies ago? Like just imagine Steve’s face when Loki blocks an attack meant for him. Amazing.
We could have taken this atonement/reconciliation deal and taken it full circle, defending a planet Purple Testicle made him invade in the first place. Like…how is killing him in the first 15 minutes anywhere close to the most interesting choice we could have done with this character?
*rolls eyes* I really, really don’t care what the Russos are saying. Most of Marvel can’t tell a good story to save their life and can’t identify what makes their characters interesting. I mean, these are the same people who shove Bucky into everything, yet never develop his character. These are the same people who think one of Cap’s best qualities is his unwillingness to consider he might be wrong. They are a bunch of idiotic white cisgender men pandering to idiotic white cisgender men. They can all suck my dick.
I’m going to ignore whatever ridiculous fucking end they force Thor to be content with, and ignore their depowering of Loki. They have nothing but contempt for the characters I love, and, in turn, I have nothing but contempt for the stories they create.
The only reason I care is that it tells me what to expect… and confirms me in my suspicions about their contempt for Loki, Hiddleston, and fans of both (the character and the actor).
Does this mean that people on this hellsite will stop fawning over the Russo brothers (and by extension Markus and McFeely)?
A couple of thoughts I had after I listened to this interview by Russos:
– If you’re killing off a character, and audience doesn’t believe it, you’re doing something wrong.
– If you’re killing off a character, and have to break the 4th wall by using another character as your voice to tell the audience this is true, you’re doing something wrong.
– If you have to do the previous twice, you’re doing something wrong.
– If you have to kill of 7/8 of a race to make your character more interesting and human, you’re doing something wrong.
– If you think you have to kill the character to complete their arc, you’re wrong.
All of this infuriates me. You can’t just ignore the fact that Loki has a huge fanbase just because you don’t want them to exist, especially when they are partially responsible for the success of the franchise.
I guess 10 minutes of screentime didn’t warrant it?
Sorry, I had to.
Uhm, I’m sure there is a technical reason for this, but I’ll go with:
-he isn’t an Avenger
-he isn’t the name of a franchise (like RDJ as Iron Man, Evans as Captain America, etc.)
-he isn’t a major part of the movie
-Marvel is full of dumbos who thought they had a second class character but hired a first class actor to play him and then didn’t properly explore said character when said actor gave the world an intriguing, complex, and fascinating portrayal that goes beyond anything else said dumbos have put on screen
Not sorry.
Kevin Feige said all this shit after Thor and The Avengers about how they were “putting their chips on Loki” because the movies wouldn’t work if Loki wasn’t a compelling villain… but his popularity took off beyond what they wanted him for. They intended him to be a function, not really a character. But when your Shakespearean director hires another Shakespearean actor, you’re going to get a character – and one who’s more interesting than the characters you’re trying to foreground. So they did their best in Ragnarok and IW to reduce him back to a function.
This is going to be a very personal post, with very personal opinion. You don’t have to agree and surely things can be see differently and in a way more positevely but I have to say it. Feel free to ignore this useless post.
You know what upset me, beyond Loki’s fate, beyond the utterly disrespect towards him, beyond his character regression (he starts by being the God of Mischief and ended by being a silly knife-thrower, deprived of any of his own powers. We don’t see him playing significant tricks and illusions since TDW.), beyond any attempt to dismiss him?
The “No more resurrection this time”. I know…apparently things not ended here, next year Avengers 4 will be released and we will finally see if all this nonsense can be fixed up (well, I’m seriously hopeless regarding Loki, but anyway…another unrequited opinion of mine.).
However this line makes me cringe. Because in my eyes, I see it address not only at Loki as merely character for plot needs, but to what he represents for his audience.
Personally speaking, I feel deeply connected to him, because i’m one of his army, one of his people,…one of those persons who sees him like a symbol of…can I say hope? I am insecure about everything, my life is a bunch of mess, I have deep fears and anxiety, I am the black sheep for one particular half of my family because I’m the female and the introvert (on the contrary, my brother is the first male heir, the only man who carry on family name, the extrovert…) and I haven’t reached any social achievement. I am always been the loser,…in most things, the average one.
Then Loki is arrived and his figure was so powerful for me. He was lied to, he’s been hurts, he failed but he never give up. He fights. He stands proud. He lives his life being himself. He craves love and attention, and despite all he never misses to help in his own way. He’s an outsider who fights no matter what. He’s complex, deep, emotional, smart and frail. Yet strong. Despite all the superheroes around him, he fights and never give up.
So I did it too. I tried to stay strong. I can’t explain how…as I can’t tell you all the nights passed writing pages on my journal talking to him for venting all my shit out.
But now they said that “No resurrection this time”. So we lose. No, I wrong,…I lose. My heart is broken, not only because Loki’s fate, but because they’ve stated that there’s no place for me. For the outsider, for the life-long loser. No hope. I’ll be always the average, no matter how much I try, or fight for. I don’t know…I don’t even seen IW, I can’t bear to see THAT scene… either way that line was brutal. Words weight, are important, and those words are been cruel. For Loki. For me. I don’t know about others, for me are been mean. I feel forgotten and left behind.
I know, I overreact…it’s surely true, I admit. But this is what I feel these days. And I understand also that it’s stupid reacting this way for a movie, or a fictional character…we have discussed many times how fictional characters often are not only merely fiction. But something beyond fiction. I also know that in my beloved Loki’s Speech I screamed that my King will live forever and ever, this is something I feel deep in my soul. For now.
Sorry for this long post full of nonsense. It was just a personal outburst no one is forced to read. It’s been a need I had to let this out.
Don’t apologize for expressing how you feel. It’s not nonsense. This whole thing… it’s like being slapped in the face over and over.
Just… fuck Marvel and their nazi propaganda.
Indeed don’t apologize, you are not alone. If Loki has thought me one thing: no matter how many times you get battered down, always make sure to rise again. (The time lying on the ground crying and screaming doesn’t matter, just eventually get up and rise above yourself when the time feels right for you.)
Don’t apologize for how you feel. Just know that he is OUR Loki as much as Marvel’s… he has many fates, as many fates as fans.
Popular culture has always had a love-hate relationship with social outsiders. They need us, because we are interesting, and creative. They need us because without a little bit of chaos, society (and art) stagnate. But they never want to keep us.
They bring in an Agent of Chaos™ (like a Fallen Woman, or The Gay, or in this case Loki) and they use that Agent of Chaos™ as a vehicle for social renewal, but they don’t know what to do with The Outsider™ once things have been renewed. Because if they want to have Moral Standards™, they can’t possibly integrate the Fallen Woman or The Gay into the fabric of Re-established Society, because then it looks like they’re condoning Antisocial Behavior™.
This usually means that The Outsider has to be gotten rid of somehow. For most of literary history, that means that The Fallen Woman, or The Gay has to die–for the Victorians, it usually meant the Fallen Woman fell ill of some kind of elegant disease and wasted away slowly. Loki got killed to fuel his valiant brother on to a Vengeful Quest™.
We, as outsiders, will have to write our own endings, because pop culture (esp Hollywood) will not do it for us. It sucks, but we are strong, and we are creative, and we will not be ashamed of who we are anymore.
We may not have as big a budget, but we have fan fiction, and fan art, and we have each other.
Loki is the Philosopher King 