The second most irritating thing a person can say in regards to Loki is that that he faked his sacrifice in TDW. Bonus points if they’re a fan of Ragnarok, which goes out of its way to point out how Loki’s illusions are not solid. THEY ARE NOT SOLID. They become distorted when touched. So how the fuck did Loki fake being stabbed? And when he nearly got sucked into a black hole grenade saving Jane, was that part of his master plan to take the throne of Asgard, too? What about offering said throne to Thor? Ugh!
The most irritating thing a person can say in regards to Loki is that he faked his death/suicide in Thor. I have no words for these people. They render me speechless.
Logic? Consistency? Attention to the content of previous canon? What are those?
Moral complexity? A person who loves the hero but doesn’t always do exactly what he wants? What is that?
I’ve been told that there were people who claimed even before Ragnarok came out that Loki threw himself into the black hole at the end of Thor to escape being held accountable for his actions. If there are such people, I suspect that they started advocating this view as part of the backlash against the “Loki apologists,” so called, of “Loki’s Resistance,” who at the extreme end claim that Loki does not deserve blame for anything he has done, and instead lay all the blame on Odin’s terrible parenting, Thor’s bullying and alleged abuse, and Thanos’s brainwashing and/or full-on mind control. The reaction of Thor’s defenders has been to insist that Loki deserves unmitigated blame for everything and to undercut anything that appears to make Loki deserve our sympathy – including his suicide attempt. You might *think* Loki suffers from severe mental illness and profound self-loathing, but no: he was planning genocide even before he learned that he was Jotun (I have seen people claim this), and what looks like a suicide attempt was just slithering out of punishment.
Ragnarok has exacerbated and given canon legitimization to this tendency by trivializing the issues of Loki’s heritage and his attempted suicide. At a party on Sakaar, Loki tells a story that ends with him hanging over a rift in space, and “at that moment I let go.” Everyone laughs, including him. People have offered all kinds of explanations for why this isn’t as unbelievably insensitive as it seems: we all make light of our trauma to keep it from overwhelming us, of course Loki would do the same; or maybe he’s gone through a course of therapy through theater and has recovered from all his issues and moved on. But the other obvious explanation for why Loki might be laughing about letting himself fall is that it was never a suicide attempt; it was just him being his incorrigible trickster self, cleverly faking his death to get away with mass murder.
“This is the moment where the thin steel rod that’s been holding your brain together snaps.“ – Kenneth Branagh directing Tom Hiddleston in 2011′s Thor.
For the people who seem to think this was just a bid to “get out of hot water” rather than a suicide attempt… the director disagrees.
I wonder if Loki thought about when he was falling through the abyss when Strange left him falling for thirty minutes
HOLY SHIT ME TOO
I was definitely bothered that they were being so cavalier about something that’s plausibly a PTSD trigger for him. But I guess he’s over it now, right? Because he was telling that clearly *hilarious* story to his new friends on Sakaar that ended with “and then I let go.”
HOLY SHIT?!
I did not even catch what story he was telling on Sakaar? He was telling them about his suicide attempt? What the fuck?!
From the shooting script (available here, among other places): “There was a wormhole in space and time beneath me. At that moment, I let go.”
New headcanon: Loki is telling the people of Sakaar about something that isn’t his fucking suicide attempt. Let’s say he’s telling them about some adventure he, Thor, Sif, and the Warriors Three had where Loki had to save everyone (perhaps he’s exaggerating, perhaps not). Yeah, that sounds good to me.
The best I can make of it is what you and some others have done with the horrible play: call it a really weird coping strategy.
I thought prettying up his story of how he wandered onto literal trash dump planet was a maneuver to charm the locals tbh
Ah, so you thought he was telling it so that the suicide attempt was how he ended up on Sakaar, rather than getting pushed out of the Bifrost? Yeah, I can see how that might be more dramatic and compelling. Still not sure why everyone laughs. Maybe he told it as his escape from a horrible situation, expecting to survive rather than trying to die.
I wonder if Loki thought about when he was falling through the abyss when Strange left him falling for thirty minutes
HOLY SHIT ME TOO
I was definitely bothered that they were being so cavalier about something that’s plausibly a PTSD trigger for him. But I guess he’s over it now, right? Because he was telling that clearly *hilarious* story to his new friends on Sakaar that ended with “and then I let go.”
HOLY SHIT?!
I did not even catch what story he was telling on Sakaar? He was telling them about his suicide attempt? What the fuck?!
From the shooting script (available here, among other places): “There was a wormhole in space and time beneath me. At that moment, I let go.”
New headcanon: Loki is telling the people of Sakaar about something that isn’t his fucking suicide attempt. Let’s say he’s telling them about some adventure he, Thor, Sif, and the Warriors Three had where Loki had to save everyone (perhaps he’s exaggerating, perhaps not). Yeah, that sounds good to me.
The best I can make of it is what you and some others have done with the horrible play: call it a really weird coping strategy.
Loki is the Philosopher King 