I think the biggest problem I have with Thor’s characterization in Ragnarok is that Thor’s not a comedian, and a Thor movie shouldn’t be a comedy. Thor can be funny, and Thor movies can have funny moments, but the core shouldn’t be comedy. That’s more mainstream entertaining (I admit, I find Ragnarok amusing/entertaining), but it’s not Thor. It never has been. Thor has always been deeply emotional, (over)dramatic, and reverent. That’s why it pisses me off to see people say that Ragnarok is what Thor movies always should have been, and the characterization is the best it’s ever been. No. This isn’t Thor. Those characters aren’t Thor or Loki, they’re the comedic simplification of those characters.
This seems right. Guardians of the Galaxy should be funny (and it is); you can get some pathos out of Star-Lord’s and Rocket’s stories (and they do), but they basically are comedians – it’s part of their character. If Thor is funny in his movies, either Thor shouldn’t be in on the joke – the way Thor 1 gets humor out of his confusion and awkwardness without resorting to ridicule – or it should be dignified and deadpan, the way Thor is in TDW (“Space is fine,” hanging the hammer on the coat rack) and Age of Ultron (“You’re all not worthy”; stepping on the Lego and then nudging it out of the way; his interactions with Vision; “as long as there is life in my breast, I am… running out of things to say”; “With the exception of this one [Tony], there’s nothing that can’t be explained”). The bickering with Loki in TDW is also good Thor humor, because we see him as a typical brother, but it never breaks character. Oh yeah, and the bilgesnipe exchange with Coulson in The Avengers.
All of this is subtle humor. In fact, I got the most examples out of AOU, probably because clever, subtle humor is Joss Whedon’s thing; he’s very practiced at making old, serious, generally dignified people funny in an in-character way (see: Rupert Giles, Angel, Shepherd Book; Spike and Wesley are less dignified, but vaguely in the same category). I’m not sure exactly which added scenes in TDW he wrote (other than the bro-boat and the shapeshifting); I don’t think he wrote the bickering in the spaceship, but he might have (in case they expanded that scene in reshoots). It’s hard to make Thor funny, so you need a writer with a specific sensibility and skill set. Taika Waititi (and Eric Pearson, however much of his script actually survived) does not have that sensibility; his way of making ancient vampires funny in What We Do in the Shadows was to deprive them of dignity. So of course we should expect that his way of making Thor and Loki funny was to deprive them of dignity.
From the director’s commentary of ‘Thor: Ragnarok’ (2017) // This film really is about them, and they resolve their differences. It’s so much better than the other two films where the main relationship was between Thor and Jane.
I’d have really loved to see this alternative version of the film. A script where Thor and Loki BOTH resolve THEIR differences, as opposed to a script where Thor reaffirms his view of what Loki should be, do and feel in order to be considered worthy by Thor’s standards. Alas, it was not to be.
I would say two other films (yes, with Jane) were like million times better in depicting brothers relationship and in developing them. Just absence of Jane won’t help you to do better job with that.
I have to disagree. I think Thor wants Loki to learn about being a trustworthy brother, and to stop this streak where he always feels the need to make a sneaky exit/betray the people trying to help him. Plus, I think in the second film, we think we’re seeing great character development for Thor and Loki, and after Loki’s death we think “Oh wow he actually died to save his brother!” but then we clearly learn he’s just pretending so that he can have the throne of Asgard. I love Loki, but we can’t for one second believe his aims in Thor: The dark world were actually good, where as in Ragnarok he actually STICKS AROUND. He helps save the day, and by the end of the film we see a Loki who’s actually proved to himself that he can be more than the god of mischief.
I do understand where you guys are coming from, but you have to remember Loki isn’t meant to be an inherently good person, if he was left to just be himself he would literally just cause non-stop trouble. Thor helps him be a better person, and he helps him in that rough/brotherly way which happens with all siblings. I know my elder sister would never sit me down nicely and tell me I was being ass hole, she’d fucking do something about it hahaha.
Anyway, I do respect your opinions and I hope you’ll respect mine, just wanted to say my piece!
I won’t be reblogging this again, but feel free to add any opinions x
I get where your coming from too and I agreed to a point. But I also agree that Loki changes based on Thor’s idea of worth. Loki never does it because he wants to and it never feels like it comes from a decision within himself. Maybe Infinity War will rectify that because I get the feeling that we will have more Loki without Thor. Also, Takia acts like he did so well with this but personally we had more interaction and them discussing family problems in the dark world then we did in Ragnarok. Remember the boat scene from the Dark World after Frigga’s death. I wanted the humor to stop for two seconds so that could happen. But no. They don’t come to any terms. Thor just let’s Loki cause Ragnarok and that’s the end of it.
This is a very good commentary, especially the distinction of the growth being self-driven as opposed to forced from the outside. It feels like Loki ends up behaving in Ragnarok because Thor essentially threatens him with disowning him as a brother once and for all (and Loki believes him). Which is worryingly enough the reason Loki was somewhat well behaved up until Thor 1. He wanted to belong and he went along with Odin’s and Thor’s wishes. So for me, in Ragnarok he circles back to being a well behaved and overshadowed second in command with a high potential of his resentment growing over years and spilling into confrontation once again. So what’s the arc? What’s his internal decision? That despite satisfaction not being in his nature and him explicitly wanting Thor’s respect he’ll now be happy with being told “maybe he’s not so bad after all”? Hmmm…
To be fair it might’ve been the only way to get through to Loki, given his wilfulness… This was the part of the script I had a problem with, though:
“I trust you, you betray me. Round and round in circles we go. See, Loki,
life is about… It’s about growth. It’s about change. But you seem to just
want to stay the same. I guess what I’m trying to say is that you’ll always be
the God of Mischief, but you could be more.“
What bugged me was how Thor said it as if every time Loki betrayed him it had
been out of mischief, even though that clearly hadn’t been the case at all. If
we run through the ways in which Loki had “betrayed” Thor in the previous film–
1) Ruined Thor’s coronation by secretly letting the frost giants into Asgard
because he had thought Thor unworthy of the throne (which was true in
hindsight)
2) Lied to Thor about Odin dying, told Thor he could not come back to Asgard
and sent the Destroyer to attack Thor on Earth after he had learned of his heritage from Odin
3) Wreaked havoc on Thor’s precious Earth
4) Faked his own death, exiled Odin and took over the throne
–to me it was clear that each time Loki betrayed Thor there
was an understandable reason for it, whether it was jealousy or hurt or spite. He
was jealous of Thor, he was hurt and heartbroken and angry at being lied to
about his true heritage and birth right, he was mad, he was full of hatred for
Odin… Everything he did above was hardly attributable to his nature as the
“God of Mischief” at all, yet Thor had dismissed him as such, never
acknowledging any of the hurt and betrayal he had experienced to cause him to
turn malicious in the first place. It was just like at the beginning of the
Avengers film where he had dismissed Loki’s resentments as “imagined slights”,
and evidently this gross misunderstanding still hasn’t been resolved in this
film.
To be honest it was odd that Thor should say that Loki “just seemed to want to stay the same” like he regarded Loki’s betrayal in this film as just
some same old mischievous behaviour that could be easily likened to his previous betrayals, because the motivations behind Loki’s actions had not been so shallow
in any of the previous films
and surely should not be generalized or written off as such. He spoke
as if Loki had always been lawless and incorrigible, when in fact he should
know full well that Loki hadn’t been like that at the beginning and just how
much Loki had changedfrom the baby
brother he once knew, as well as what had triggered the change–Loki most certainly didn’t turn bad for no reason.
Even though his words were meant to be used as some kind of reverse psychology
to get through to Loki, I feel like they had severely downplayed everything Loki had
gone through, which simply didn’t sit well with me because it wasn’t fair to Loki’s
character. It would’ve been nice if Thor could just acknowledge his and Loki’s
differences without belittling Loki’s values/imposing his own sense of
righteousness on Loki, like:
“Loki, I thought the world of you. I thought we were going
to fight side-by-side forever, but at the end of the day you’re you and I’m me
and… Maybe there’s still good in you but… let’s be honest, our paths
diverged a long time ago.”
I would’ve liked to see him make it clear to Loki that he cared
and understood what it was that had led to Loki doing what he did, and that he respected Loki’s point of view and decisions (even if he did not approve of them), before proceeding on with the reverse psychology thing where he would let Loki know that from now
on he would no longer force him to adhere to his expectations nor try to stop him from
going anywhere he wanted. Then it’d be up to Loki to decide whether he wanted to
stay by Thor–if he chose to do so it’d entirely be out of his own accord,
as an equal and only because he cared; not because Thor told him that he could be more, talking as though he knew better just because he stood on the moral high ground. The part with Loki abruptly betraying Thor and getting tased afterwards and the whole “God
of Mischief” talk should just be scrapped altogether, thank you very much. It was completely misleading the audience into having the impression that Loki was just a frivolous God of Mischief who liked to betray Thor for the sake of it, when his character and motivations had never been that simple and trivial.
Having said all that, I did appreciate seeing Loki returning to Thor’s side at the end and finally accepting Thor as a worthy king
after everything. Though I wasn’t exactly satisfied with how they got there, I did
have the biggest smile on my face when I was watching the “I’m here”
scene. It’s cute how Loki kept trying to push Thor away, but when Thor showed a
willingness to discard him he immediately felt wounded by it. At least they both
learnt a little something from this—for Loki it was to be more honest and to stop taking the person he cared
about and who cared about him for granted, and for Thor, well, I think the clichéd saying
goes, ‘If you love someone, set them free; if they come back, they’re yours’…
I completely agree with @shine-of-asgard and must strenuously disagree with @luxury-loki‘s analysis – as well as Taika’s utterly disingenuous commentary. I’ve said this before, but @yume-no-fantasy articulates and explains very well the way that Ragnarok completely changes Loki’s character (or should I say “character”?) so that he becomes “lawless and incorrigible” rather than acting badly and villainously, yes – I am emphatically NOT claiming that Loki is “an inherently good person” – but from identifiable, comprehensible motivations.
The part with Loki abruptly betraying Thor and getting tased afterwards and the whole “God of Mischief” talk should just be scrapped altogether, thank you very much. It was completely misleading the audience into having the impression that Loki was just a frivolous God of Mischief who liked to betray Thor for the sake of it, when his character and motivations had never been that simple and trivial.
Thank you, thank you, thank you. This is a beautiful way of putting it.
(@illwynd, I thought you might appreciate this too.)
I want to point to and rebut this claim from @luxury-loki in particular:
Plus, I think in the second film, we think we’re seeing great character development for Thor and Loki, and after Loki’s death we think “Oh wow he actually died to save his brother!” but then we clearly learn he’s just pretending so that he can have the throne of Asgard. I love Loki, but we can’t for one second believe his aims in Thor: The dark world were actually good
I think this is what Taika Waititi and Eric Pearson want you to think, but I absolutely do not believe this was what the creators of TDW (Markus & McFeely as screenwriters, Alan Taylor as director) had in mind. It is not clear in TDW whether Loki intended to fake his death from the time he was freed from prison, or whether he believed when he was stabbed that he was going to die, fortuitously survived, and took advantage of the opportunity. Regardless, he still acted to save Jane’s life several times; maybe he did that just to stay on Thor’s good side, but it’s still a good thing he did, and apparently the desire to stay on Thor’s good side is worthy enough to make his turnaround in Ragnarok count as a redemption. And in keeping with @yume-no-fantasy’s point about Loki’s motivations in earlier films: I believe that Loki had some comprehensible reasons for usurping the throne at the end of TDW, even though I fully acknowledge that it was not a morally good thing to do. I think he did it partly because he was pissed at Odin for lying to him, threatening to execute him, and then imprisoning him for life without once asking why he did what he did; partly because he believed, like Thor, that Odin was no longer a competent ruler (and we’ve seen Loki take action, again morally flawed but comprehensible, on that conviction before); and partly because he thought it was the best way to protect himself from Thanos (hiding in plain sight, shielding himself behind Asgard’s might, and using his position to control the disposal of the Infinity Stones). But Ragnarok completely ignores all of these explanations and decides that Loki did it just for power, self-aggrandizement, and mischievous shits and giggles. This is a bad, shallow retcon and I will never regard that interpretation as canon.
No, Taika, Thor and Loki do not reach any sort of “understanding,” because Thor never seeks to understand why Loki does what he does; and if they reach a “resolution,” it is only because Loki surrenders and resigns himself to a subordinate position.
Thor just ignores Loki when he brings up the issue of having been lied to his entire life about who and what he was. He never gets past pseudo-apologizing at the end of Thor for “whatever I have done to wrong you” and dismissing Loki’s “imagined slights” in The Avengers. He never asks Loki to explain why he felt like he’d been living in Thor’s shadow, why he felt slighted and underappreciated, or what happened in the year between Thor and The Avengers that led him to come back and try to conquer Midgard. They never talk about how traumatic it must have been for Loki to find out he was a Frost Giant. And that’s because the writer and director of Thor: Ragnarok just decided that none of that matters; Loki is just a malicious mischief-maker who needs to be put in his place, taught through painful punishment that Thor the Unfailingly Virtuous will no longer tolerate his unreasonable behavior.
I personally feel that the “betrayal” can be repurposed by a director who cares for Loki’s character, especially considering Hiddleston’s performance adds so much nuance to Loki. That said, I don’t think TW meant for any of the depth I read into it. So, I agree with @philosopherking1887‘s frustration and assessment of Loki’s character, and how Ragnarok does it injustice.
Fair enough, @foundlingmother. A sympathetic reader could interpret Loki’s betrayal in Ragnarok as a reaction to Thor’s dismissal of him and his concerns in all of their conversations earlier in the film, especially the ones in the gladiators’ prison and the elevator. As with many of Loki’s prior actions, it would be unjustified, an excessive reaction to an emotional grievance, but still intelligible and in line with his previously established character. However, if we were to interpret Loki’s betrayal that way (rather than as a simple mischaracterization on the part of the creators), it makes Thor’s subsequent punishment and ultimatum speech, as well as Loki’s resulting acquiescence to Thor’s wishes, even worse.
From the director’s commentary of ‘Thor: Ragnarok’ (2017) // This film really is about them, and they resolve their differences. It’s so much better than the other two films where the main relationship was between Thor and Jane.
I’d have really loved to see this alternative version of the film. A script where Thor and Loki BOTH resolve THEIR differences, as opposed to a script where Thor reaffirms his view of what Loki should be, do and feel in order to be considered worthy by Thor’s standards. Alas, it was not to be.
I would say two other films (yes, with Jane) were like million times better in depicting brothers relationship and in developing them. Just absence of Jane won’t help you to do better job with that.
I have to disagree. I think Thor wants Loki to learn about being a trustworthy brother, and to stop this streak where he always feels the need to make a sneaky exit/betray the people trying to help him. Plus, I think in the second film, we think we’re seeing great character development for Thor and Loki, and after Loki’s death we think “Oh wow he actually died to save his brother!” but then we clearly learn he’s just pretending so that he can have the throne of Asgard. I love Loki, but we can’t for one second believe his aims in Thor: The dark world were actually good, where as in Ragnarok he actually STICKS AROUND. He helps save the day, and by the end of the film we see a Loki who’s actually proved to himself that he can be more than the god of mischief.
I do understand where you guys are coming from, but you have to remember Loki isn’t meant to be an inherently good person, if he was left to just be himself he would literally just cause non-stop trouble. Thor helps him be a better person, and he helps him in that rough/brotherly way which happens with all siblings. I know my elder sister would never sit me down nicely and tell me I was being ass hole, she’d fucking do something about it hahaha.
Anyway, I do respect your opinions and I hope you’ll respect mine, just wanted to say my piece!
I won’t be reblogging this again, but feel free to add any opinions x
I get where your coming from too and I agreed to a point. But I also agree that Loki changes based on Thor’s idea of worth. Loki never does it because he wants to and it never feels like it comes from a decision within himself. Maybe Infinity War will rectify that because I get the feeling that we will have more Loki without Thor. Also, Takia acts like he did so well with this but personally we had more interaction and them discussing family problems in the dark world then we did in Ragnarok. Remember the boat scene from the Dark World after Frigga’s death. I wanted the humor to stop for two seconds so that could happen. But no. They don’t come to any terms. Thor just let’s Loki cause Ragnarok and that’s the end of it.
This is a very good commentary, especially the distinction of the growth being self-driven as opposed to forced from the outside. It feels like Loki ends up behaving in Ragnarok because Thor essentially threatens him with disowning him as a brother once and for all (and Loki believes him). Which is worryingly enough the reason Loki was somewhat well behaved up until Thor 1. He wanted to belong and he went along with Odin’s and Thor’s wishes. So for me, in Ragnarok he circles back to being a well behaved and overshadowed second in command with a high potential of his resentment growing over years and spilling into confrontation once again. So what’s the arc? What’s his internal decision? That despite satisfaction not being in his nature and him explicitly wanting Thor’s respect he’ll now be happy with being told “maybe he’s not so bad after all”? Hmmm…
To be fair it might’ve been the only way to get through to Loki, given his wilfulness… This was the part of the script I had a problem with, though:
“I trust you, you betray me. Round and round in circles we go. See, Loki,
life is about… It’s about growth. It’s about change. But you seem to just
want to stay the same. I guess what I’m trying to say is that you’ll always be
the God of Mischief, but you could be more.“
What bugged me was how Thor said it as if every time Loki betrayed him it had
been out of mischief, even though that clearly hadn’t been the case at all. If
we run through the ways in which Loki had "betrayed” Thor in the previous film–
1) Ruined Thor’s coronation by secretly letting the frost giants into Asgard
because he had thought Thor unworthy of the throne (which was true in
hindsight)
2) Lied to Thor about Odin dying, told Thor he could not come back to Asgard
and sent the Destroyer to attack Thor on Earth after he had learned of his heritage from Odin
3) Wreaked havoc on Thor’s precious Earth
4) Faked his own death, exiled Odin and took over the throne
–to me it was clear that each time Loki betrayed Thor there
was an understandable reason for it, whether it was jealousy or hurt or spite. He
was jealous of Thor, he was hurt and heartbroken and angry at being lied to
about his true heritage and birth right, he was mad, he was full of hatred for
Odin… Everything he did above was hardly attributable to his nature as the
“God of Mischief” at all, yet Thor had dismissed him as such, never
acknowledging any of the hurt and betrayal he had experienced to cause him to
turn malicious in the first place. It was just like at the beginning of the
Avengers film where he had dismissed Loki’s resentments as “imagined slights”,
and evidently this gross misunderstanding still hasn’t been resolved in this
film.
To be honest it was odd that Thor should say that Loki “just seemed to want to stay the same” like he regarded Loki’s betrayal in this film as just
some same old mischievous behaviour that could be easily likened to his previous betrayals, because the motivations behind Loki’s actions had not been so shallow
in any of the previous films
and surely should not be generalized or written off as such. He spoke
as if Loki had always been lawless and incorrigible, when in fact he should
know full well that Loki hadn’t been like that at the beginning and just how
much Loki had changedfrom the baby
brother he once knew, as well as what had triggered the change–Loki most certainly didn’t turn bad for no reason.
Even though his words were meant to be used as some kind of reverse psychology
to get through to Loki, I feel like they had severely downplayed everything Loki had
gone through, which simply didn’t sit well with me because it wasn’t fair to Loki’s
character. It would’ve been nice if Thor could just acknowledge his and Loki’s
differences without belittling Loki’s values/imposing his own sense of
righteousness on Loki, like:
“Loki, I thought the world of you. I thought we were going
to fight side-by-side forever, but at the end of the day you’re you and I’m me
and… Maybe there’s still good in you but… let’s be honest, our paths
diverged a long time ago.”
I would’ve liked to see him make it clear to Loki that he cared
and understood what it was that had led to Loki doing what he did, and that he respected Loki’s point of view and decisions (even if he did not approve of them), before proceeding on with the reverse psychology thing where he would let Loki know that from now
on he would no longer force him to adhere to his expectations nor try to stop him from
going anywhere he wanted. Then it’d be up to Loki to decide whether he wanted to
stay by Thor–if he chose to do so it’d entirely be out of his own accord,
as an equal and only because he cared; not because Thor told him that he could be more, talking as though he knew better just because he stood on the moral high ground. The part with Loki abruptly betraying Thor and getting tased afterwards and the whole “God
of Mischief” talk should just be scrapped altogether, thank you very much. It was completely misleading the audience into having the impression that Loki was just a frivolous God of Mischief who liked to betray Thor for the sake of it, when his character and motivations had never been that simple and trivial.
Having said all that, I did appreciate seeing Loki returning to Thor’s side at the end and finally accepting Thor as a worthy king
after everything. Though I wasn’t exactly satisfied with how they got there, I did
have the biggest smile on my face when I was watching the “I’m here”
scene. It’s cute how Loki kept trying to push Thor away, but when Thor showed a
willingness to discard him he immediately felt wounded by it. At least they both
learnt a little something from this—for Loki it was to be more honest and to stop taking the person he cared
about and who cared about him for granted, and for Thor, well, I think the clichéd saying
goes, ‘If you love someone, set them free; if they come back, they’re yours’…
I completely agree with @shine-of-asgard and must strenuously disagree with @luxury-loki‘s analysis – as well as Taika’s utterly disingenuous commentary. I’ve said this before, but @yume-no-fantasy articulates and explains very well the way that Ragnarok completely changes Loki’s character (or should I say “character”?) so that he becomes “lawless and incorrigible” rather than acting badly and villainously, yes – I am emphatically NOT claiming that Loki is “an inherently good person” – but from identifiable, comprehensible motivations.
The part with Loki abruptly betraying Thor and getting tased afterwards and the whole “God of Mischief” talk should just be scrapped altogether, thank you very much. It was completely misleading the audience into having the impression that Loki was just a frivolous God of Mischief who liked to betray Thor for the sake of it, when his character and motivations had never been that simple and trivial.
Thank you, thank you, thank you. This is a beautiful way of putting it.
(@illwynd, I thought you might appreciate this too.)
I want to point to and rebut this claim from @luxury-loki in particular:
Plus, I think in the second film, we think we’re seeing great character development for Thor and Loki, and after Loki’s death we think “Oh wow he actually died to save his brother!” but then we clearly learn he’s just pretending so that he can have the throne of Asgard. I love Loki, but we can’t for one second believe his aims in Thor: The dark world were actually good
I think this is what Taika Waititi and Eric Pearson want you to think, but I absolutely do not believe this was what the creators of TDW (Markus & McFeely as screenwriters, Alan Taylor as director) had in mind. It is not clear in TDW whether Loki intended to fake his death from the time he was freed from prison, or whether he believed when he was stabbed that he was going to die, fortuitously survived, and took advantage of the opportunity. Regardless, he still acted to save Jane’s life several times; maybe he did that just to stay on Thor’s good side, but it’s still a good thing he did, and apparently the desire to stay on Thor’s good side is worthy enough to make his turnaround in Ragnarok count as a redemption. And in keeping with @yume-no-fantasy’s point about Loki’s motivations in earlier films: I believe that Loki had some comprehensible reasons for usurping the throne at the end of TDW, even though I fully acknowledge that it was not a morally good thing to do. I think he did it partly because he was pissed at Odin for lying to him, threatening to execute him, and then imprisoning him for life without once asking why he did what he did; partly because he believed, like Thor, that Odin was no longer a competent ruler (and we’ve seen Loki take action, again morally flawed but comprehensible, on that conviction before); and partly because he thought it was the best way to protect himself from Thanos (hiding in plain sight, shielding himself behind Asgard’s might, and using his position to control the disposal of the Infinity Stones). But Ragnarok completely ignores all of these explanations and decides that Loki did it just for power, self-aggrandizement, and mischievous shits and giggles. This is a bad, shallow retcon and I will never regard that interpretation as canon.
No, Taika, Thor and Loki do not reach any sort of “understanding,” because Thor never seeks to understand why Loki does what he does; and if they reach a “resolution,” it is only because Loki surrenders and resigns himself to a subordinate position.
Thor just ignores Loki when he brings up the issue of having been lied to his entire life about who and what he was. He never gets past pseudo-apologizing at the end of Thor for “whatever I have done to wrong you” and dismissing Loki’s “imagined slights” in The Avengers. He never asks Loki to explain why he felt like he’d been living in Thor’s shadow, why he felt slighted and underappreciated, or what happened in the year between Thor and The Avengers that led him to come back and try to conquer Midgard. They never talk about how traumatic it must have been for Loki to find out he was a Frost Giant. And that’s because the writer and director of Thor: Ragnarok just decided that none of that matters; Loki is just a malicious mischief-maker who needs to be put in his place, taught through painful punishment that Thor the Unfailingly Virtuous will no longer tolerate his unreasonable behavior.
Don’t be concerned, dear anon. It’s not just you. It’s not a great idea to make anything when you don’t really care about your characters’ problems.
Loki he doesn’t care a fig for. He literally mentions Loki’s biggest issue, being jotun, and dismisses it in a scene where Thor’s written to be in the right. He paints Loki solidly with the narcissist brush. Lucky me I’ve found meta that explains Loki’s behavior in Ragnarok within the context of his actual character and those identity struggles.
Not having so much luck with Thor. I think he likes the idea of Thor, but found his unhappiness and thoughtfulness boring. Oh gosh, a kind and thoughtful male protagonist who wants to negotiate before hitting something… impossible! It’s so damn boring to have a man who cares about the only family he’s got left, and who keeps hoping that family will be redeemed.
(Actually, I’m cool with Thor pretending to not care about Loki’s behavior anymore. I think it’s a smart tactic given the information Thor possess, and there’s no reason he couldn’t have come up with it. However, there are points in the movie where he seems genuinely callous towards Loki, and I can’t picture Thor ever feeling that way. There’s no way that Thor doesn’t become terribly affectionate after what we get to see of the hug scene.)
Yes, welcome, Anon! And while we’re at it, here are links to the rest of my postsbitching about how Taika Waititi clearly doesn’t give a shit about the characters he was making a movie about.
Sorry, I was responding to an entire train of thoughts by various people that I was completely baffled by. It was late at night and my feathers were very ruffled because a lot of the posts were giving me uncomfortably racist and classist vibes (like seriously, people were offended that Taika joked about them as rich boys?).
@wafflediaries, I was using the “rich boys” comment as an especially flagrant representation of the low esteem in which Taika appears to hold the Thor franchise as a whole. There’s a lot of other evidence in his interviews (not to mention the film itself) that he doesn’t care about the characters or the world with which he was entrusted; that was particularly dismissive and easy to use as a symbol for the rest.
I don’t think it’s classist to be annoyed by that kind of attitude, considering that people of all classes have enjoyed literature about royalty, knights, gods, and other “rich kids” for millennia. I couldn’t find any context for the “we shouldn’t really give a shit about what their problems are” quote, but I did find a video where he claims that making Thor into “a buffoon” (his word) was the only way to make him relatable. That just seems inaccurate, considering that people have been interested in the problems of gods and heroes, and found their struggles relatable (albeit writ large), for so long; I take it that it’s the normative claim, that we shouldn’t care unless he’s brought down to ground level, that really motivates the characterization. Wonder Woman got along just fine without debasing or ridiculing its exceptional, quasi-immortal princess heroine; I don’t think it’s classist to prefer that approach.
I also hope you’re not suggesting that it’s racist to criticize any of Taika Waititi’s work. Saying that he wasn’t well-suited to contribute to the Thor series because he wasn’t invested in it, and that he ended up making a Taika Waititi movie rather than a Thor movie, doesn’t strike me as a racist attitude. (Even saying he’s a crap director – which I’m not, but some people very well might – isn’t inherently racist, though I wouldn’t be surprised if people on Tumblr claimed it was.) If you’re saying that my long discourse on the treatment of race in the Thor franchise, exploring the issue of Loki’s internalized racism in the first Thor movie and the critique of imperialism in Thor: Ragnarok, was racist… well, sorry; I tried to be as respectful to all parties as I could, but it’s a delicate issue and we can always offend people despite our best efforts.
Loki is the Philosopher King 