Hey, so like…

darthwindows:

lokilover9:

lokiloveforever:

seiramili7:

timetravellingshinigami:

nikkoliferous:

asgardiankingofmischief:

nikkoliferous:

Does anyone want to talk about how ridiculous it is that Valkyrie, of all people, shames Loki for not caring about doing the right thing?

Loki: I don’t mean to impose…
(Valkyrie throws a bottle at him because violence is only bad if The Villain™ does it)
Loki: The Grandmaster has a great many ships. I may even have stolen the access codes to his security system.
Valkyrie: And suddenly you’re overcome with an urge to do the right thing?

You know… the same woman who spent half this movie also avoiding Thor’s attempts to gain her aid? The one who only decided to help out about five minutes prior to this scene? The one who arguably never would have wound up helping had Loki not invaded her memories, thus jolting her out of complacency? That Valkyrie?

Yeah, and considering her history in enslaving people for the Grandmaster runs about 1000 or so years? Maybe more, I can’t recall, she doesn’t really have the moral high ground.

In fact, Loki attempting to capture Thor and surrender him to the Grandmaster is more in line with something that Valkyrie would likely pursue (considering her time in Sakaar). Maybe they should have made her more difficult to convince.

Her comment/question is rather out of place also and would have to assume that she’s familiar with Loki to the level that Thor or Hulk (cause of NY) are.

I can only assume she said it in retaliation to what Loki did with her mind, but, in my opinion, she probably would have said something else.

Or they could have validated that she wasn’t necessarily trustworthy too.

It just felt like more of Taika’s lazy story-telling to me, as opposed to Valkyrie getting back at him for the whole ‘invading my mind’ thing. (But hey, don’t invade people’s brains, kids. It’s quite rude). I personally viewed it more as like, “hey, we haven’t reminded people that Loki’s a bad egg in the last 3 minutes or so; better let someone have a dig at his loose morals” sort of BS that is honestly just rampant in Thor: Ragnarok.

Like, I know Ragnarok critics get labelled conspiracy theorists for thinking (or at least speaking as though) Taika just had it out for Loki and wanted to degrade him as much as possible. And I get it, that sounds objectively insane. But just, looking at the narrative of the film itself, it’s… hard not to get that impression? And there’s really no other indicator in that movie–unless I’m forgetting something–that anyone on Sakaar (not including Thor and Bruce, obviously) has a clue who Loki really is. I guess it’s possible that they do, but there’s no evidence that that’s the case. More show & tell problems in this film.

I actually do want to address the ‘betraying Thor for money’ thing, though. Because I see a lot of people complaining that it’s completely out of character for Loki to do so for the money, and I actually have a different take on it. We all know Loki is rarely able to just be honest about what’s going on in his head. That’s essentially what the entire conflict between him and Thor has been fueled by for all this time, really. So I kind of headcanon that Loki might have told Thor that it was for the money, but I personally believe that in reality, it was actually Loki’s last-ditch effort to save his brother. Even as strong as he and Thor both are, individually and together, he did not believe Hela was an enemy that they could defeat (which is technically true)–especially now that she’s all cozy on Asgard, where she’ll be even stronger than when they first met her. Loki already failed once to talk Thor into staying on Sakaar of his own free will; I think betraying him was Loki’s way of trying to keep him safe from Hela by any means necessary.

I also think that deceptiveness can extend to his fight with Valkyrie too. A lot of Loki fans complain about her being able to take him captive so easily, but I choose to believe he lost to her intentionally. Easy ticket to finding his brother. He is the trickster god. Why are we suddenly taking him at face value all the time?

Admittedly, when it comes to Thor: Ragnarok, it’s super hard to decide when Loki is acting out of character because he’s running a scheme and when he’s doing it because of bad writing.

People actually call Loki stans (the true Loki stans) and people who don’t like Ragnarok as idiots just ‘cause we analyzed the movie from start to finish. Most of these people who insult us are new to the fandom and only saw Ragnarok. And even if they saw the other Thor movies they don’t remember it or for some reason they don’t like it. They just here for the jokes and, me, who is someone who’s here for depth of character, good storytelling and just pure emotion cannot deal with people like that.

Valkyrie is a good character but i wish people wouldn’t forget that she has done more wrong than Loki. She’s captured slaves for the Grandmaster for centuries. But of course she’s a hero like Thor and can do no wrong. Also people keep forgetting that the Grandmaster himself is a despot and a tyrant who has no mercy or respect for life. But you know he talks funny and so its all okay.

You know… the same woman who spent half this movie also avoiding Thor’s attempts to gain her aid? The one who only decided to help out about five minutes prior to this scene? The one who arguably never would have wound up helping had Loki not invaded her memories, thus jolting her out of complacency? That Valkyrie?

In fact, Valkyrie’s own words about “

suddenly you’re overcome with an urge to do the right thing?

“ itself applies accurately to what Valkyrie was doing exactly at that time.

And to be honest, Valkyrie is a hypocrite. Considering about her own deeds that sold many non-guilty people into slavery and causing those people’s deaths for thousands years, and the fact that she knows almost nothing about Loki himself, she has absolutely no right to judge Loki and then acts like she has never done anything wrong in her life, ever.

Valkyrie is a good character but i wish people wouldn’t forget that she has done more wrong than Loki. She’s captured slaves for the Grandmaster for centuries. But of course she’s a hero like Thor and can do no wrong. Also people keep forgetting that the Grandmaster himself is a despot and a tyrant who has no mercy or respect for life. But you know he talks funny and so its all 🆗.

People often forget about her actions because the narrative never call it. The narrative of Ragnarok want to condemn Loki only out of other characters and exaggerating his “evilness” into stereotype and caricature-like so people start to regard him as only “a mere background character who is just an useless twink who have no dignity and just nothing but a pest to Thor the Perfect ‘Hero’ with no absolute importance other than being fan-service”. That’s why they’re so many double standards in Ragnarok especially regarding Loki.

@lucianalight @juliabohemian @welle-nijordottir

Waititi did have it in for Loki, he admitted it. He said Loki’s treatment and humiliation was “payback” for overshadowing the other movies. Everything, from that stupid play, to the deleted port o potty scene, to being chained up and having glass bottles thrown at his head, to Thor’s triumphant obedience disc scene was all a reflection of exactly how Waititi feels about Loki. “Blah, blah, blah, shut up, space orphan” “Loki tries so hard to be this tortured, artistic, space orphan”. Waititi’s not subtle about it. He thinks all the little Loki lovers are idiots. He meant out to “respectfully” disrespect the other movies, and extend a middle finger to those of us whose favorite character wasn’t Thor. It’s funny how, in that scene where Loki is sitting there chained up, nobody there, not Thor, not Bruce or Valkyrie, have any right to stand there and judge Loki. Valkyrie was just as much a “lackey” of the Grandmaster, if not moreso, because she worked for him and enslaved people for him for a long, long, time. She knew about the orgy ship too, and was obviously in high favor with the grandmaster. But yet in that scene, suddenly Thor, Bruce and Valkyrie are the spotless heroes with the right to look down their noses at Loki? No.

What I also find bothersome about Lokis treatment in Ragnarok is wondering how Tom took it. No one knows really and we may never, yet I can’t help but think it affected him negatively on some level, after devoting so much time, talent and heart into the character. I’d certainly be insulted and secretly pissed. And yes, Sakaar must’ve dwelled within the boonies of space, as I too found it odd no one there ever recognized Loki. A form of subliminal messaging, perhaps?

Let us not forget please that Taika is not completely to blame. Hemsworth specifically asked for Taika because he was mad about how Tom overshadowed him in TDW because he did a shitty job and was tired of playing Thor like how it was written. Hemsy requested Taika. Which might be why Tom and Hemsworth aren’t tight anymore.

^ Yes, that is exactly right. I don’t think Taika himself gave a shit about any of the MCU films or characters until Hemsworth brought him on in order to showcase his (Hemsworth’s), er, comedic genius. He came in predisposed to despise Loki for stealing poor Chris’s limelight… and other than hating Loki on Chris’s behalf – and being incredibly pleased with himself over his witticisms as Korg, getting Jeff Goldblum to play himself, and getting away with spending all that money to produce a gold-plated “fuck you” sign aimed at Tom Hiddleston, Kenneth Branagh, Joss Whedon, and all of the fangirls who are too stupid to realize that they were supposed to fall for Thor, not Loki – I’m pretty sure he still doesn’t give a shit about the MCU or its characters. I blame Chris more than Taika, because I would have expected him to have some sense of artistic integrity with respect to the character he had been playing for 8 years, and perhaps even some loyalty to Tom and the work they had done together. Taika had no reason not to take Marvel’s money and run; his only loyalty was to his pal Chris who got him that sweet lucrative gig. Of course he would give full rein to Chris’s grievances.

Yes, it’s speculation; no, we can never know the secret inner lives of celebrities… but we have it spelled out in interviews that CH was bored of playing an actual dramatic character, that TW wanted to take Loki down a peg or several, that they wanted to “make sure Thor was the most interesting character in his own movie” (who might that have been before, hmm?), and that they were taking full license to retcon and “respectfully disrespect” previous canon (where we all understand that the “respectfully” part is horseshit). It *is* mere speculation, or rather interpretive guesswork, to conjecture that Tom’s dissatisfaction or even a feeling of betrayal over the handling of Loki’s character and previous canon in general is the reason he was absent from much of the Ragnarok promotion, and when he was there, looked downcast and alienated from the camaraderie of the rest of the cast. Maybe scheduling conflicts were the only reason that Tom and Chris did very few interviews together, though they had been teamed up constantly during promotion for TDW, and Tom was more likely to be paired with Jeff Goldblum or Tessa Thompson (both of whom seemed to have a lot more respect for him than either TW or CH did).

I’m not really sure why I was hurriedly looking up whether Tom Hiddleston was going to be at TIFF, because even if he were – which he’s not, of course, because he doesn’t have anything to promote (where has he been? is he OK?) – there’s, like, 0 chance that I’d actually get a chance to catch a glimpse, much less hear him speak.

I did find out that Taika Waititi is going to be there. God, I can’t stand the sight of his smug face these days. Watch me not try to go to his special Q&A to ask him sharply worded questions about Ragnarok, however briefly tempting the idea might have been, because 1) I’m not completely insane, and 2) his unremittingly ironic persona allows him to get away with never giving serious answers to people who might want to hold him accountable for his creative choices. Can you imagine his response to someone who tried to call him out for his mental ableism with regard to Loki and his crypto-misogynistic contempt for Loki’s fans? He would just dismissively mock the speaker, probably in a way that would only serve to confirm the subtle misogyny, for those with ears to hear.

Hey, so like…

lokiloveforever:

seiramili7:

timetravellingshinigami:

nikkoliferous:

asgardiankingofmischief:

nikkoliferous:

Does anyone want to talk about how ridiculous it is that Valkyrie, of all people, shames Loki for not caring about doing the right thing?

Loki: I don’t mean to impose…
(Valkyrie throws a bottle at him because violence is only bad if The Villain™ does it)
Loki: The Grandmaster has a great many ships. I may even have stolen the access codes to his security system.
Valkyrie: And suddenly you’re overcome with an urge to do the right thing?

You know… the same woman who spent half this movie also avoiding Thor’s attempts to gain her aid? The one who only decided to help out about five minutes prior to this scene? The one who arguably never would have wound up helping had Loki not invaded her memories, thus jolting her out of complacency? That Valkyrie?

Yeah, and considering her history in enslaving people for the Grandmaster runs about 1000 or so years? Maybe more, I can’t recall, she doesn’t really have the moral high ground.

In fact, Loki attempting to capture Thor and surrender him to the Grandmaster is more in line with something that Valkyrie would likely pursue (considering her time in Sakaar). Maybe they should have made her more difficult to convince.

Her comment/question is rather out of place also and would have to assume that she’s familiar with Loki to the level that Thor or Hulk (cause of NY) are.

I can only assume she said it in retaliation to what Loki did with her mind, but, in my opinion, she probably would have said something else.

Or they could have validated that she wasn’t necessarily trustworthy too.

It just felt like more of Taika’s lazy story-telling to me, as opposed to Valkyrie getting back at him for the whole ‘invading my mind’ thing. (But hey, don’t invade people’s brains, kids. It’s quite rude). I personally viewed it more as like, “hey, we haven’t reminded people that Loki’s a bad egg in the last 3 minutes or so; better let someone have a dig at his loose morals” sort of BS that is honestly just rampant in Thor: Ragnarok.

Like, I know Ragnarok critics get labelled conspiracy theorists for thinking (or at least speaking as though) Taika just had it out for Loki and wanted to degrade him as much as possible. And I get it, that sounds objectively insane. But just, looking at the narrative of the film itself, it’s… hard not to get that impression? And there’s really no other indicator in that movie–unless I’m forgetting something–that anyone on Sakaar (not including Thor and Bruce, obviously) has a clue who Loki really is. I guess it’s possible that they do, but there’s no evidence that that’s the case. More show & tell problems in this film.

I actually do want to address the ‘betraying Thor for money’ thing, though. Because I see a lot of people complaining that it’s completely out of character for Loki to do so for the money, and I actually have a different take on it. We all know Loki is rarely able to just be honest about what’s going on in his head. That’s essentially what the entire conflict between him and Thor has been fueled by for all this time, really. So I kind of headcanon that Loki might have told Thor that it was for the money, but I personally believe that in reality, it was actually Loki’s last-ditch effort to save his brother. Even as strong as he and Thor both are, individually and together, he did not believe Hela was an enemy that they could defeat (which is technically true)–especially now that she’s all cozy on Asgard, where she’ll be even stronger than when they first met her. Loki already failed once to talk Thor into staying on Sakaar of his own free will; I think betraying him was Loki’s way of trying to keep him safe from Hela by any means necessary.

I also think that deceptiveness can extend to his fight with Valkyrie too. A lot of Loki fans complain about her being able to take him captive so easily, but I choose to believe he lost to her intentionally. Easy ticket to finding his brother. He is the trickster god. Why are we suddenly taking him at face value all the time?

Admittedly, when it comes to Thor: Ragnarok, it’s super hard to decide when Loki is acting out of character because he’s running a scheme and when he’s doing it because of bad writing.

People actually call Loki stans (the true Loki stans) and people who don’t like Ragnarok as idiots just ‘cause we analyzed the movie from start to finish. Most of these people who insult us are new to the fandom and only saw Ragnarok. And even if they saw the other Thor movies they don’t remember it or for some reason they don’t like it. They just here for the jokes and, me, who is someone who’s here for depth of character, good storytelling and just pure emotion cannot deal with people like that.

Valkyrie is a good character but i wish people wouldn’t forget that she has done more wrong than Loki. She’s captured slaves for the Grandmaster for centuries. But of course she’s a hero like Thor and can do no wrong. Also people keep forgetting that the Grandmaster himself is a despot and a tyrant who has no mercy or respect for life. But you know he talks funny and so its all okay.

You know… the same woman who spent half this movie also avoiding Thor’s attempts to gain her aid? The one who only decided to help out about five minutes prior to this scene? The one who arguably never would have wound up helping had Loki not invaded her memories, thus jolting her out of complacency? That Valkyrie?

In fact, Valkyrie’s own words about “

suddenly you’re overcome with an urge to do the right thing?

“ itself applies accurately to what Valkyrie was doing exactly at that time.

And to be honest, Valkyrie is a hypocrite. Considering about her own deeds that sold many non-guilty people into slavery and causing those people’s deaths for thousands years, and the fact that she knows almost nothing about Loki himself, she has absolutely no right to judge Loki and then acts like she has never done anything wrong in her life, ever.

Valkyrie is a good character but i wish people wouldn’t forget that she has done more wrong than Loki. She’s captured slaves for the Grandmaster for centuries. But of course she’s a hero like Thor and can do no wrong. Also people keep forgetting that the Grandmaster himself is a despot and a tyrant who has no mercy or respect for life. But you know he talks funny and so its all 🆗.

People often forget about her actions because the narrative never call it. The narrative of Ragnarok want to condemn Loki only out of other characters and exaggerating his “evilness” into stereotype and caricature-like so people start to regard him as only “a mere background character who is just an useless twink who have no dignity and just nothing but a pest to Thor the Perfect ‘Hero’ with no absolute importance other than being fan-service”. That’s why they’re so many double standards in Ragnarok especially regarding Loki.

@lucianalight @juliabohemian @welle-nijordottir

Waititi did have it in for Loki, he admitted it. He said Loki’s treatment and humiliation was “payback” for overshadowing the other movies. Everything, from that stupid play, to the deleted port o potty scene, to being chained up and having glass bottles thrown at his head, to Thor’s triumphant obedience disc scene was all a reflection of exactly how Waititi feels about Loki. “Blah, blah, blah, shut up, space orphan” “Loki tries so hard to be this tortured, artistic, space orphan”. Waititi’s not subtle about it. He thinks all the little Loki lovers are idiots. He meant out to “respectfully” disrespect the other movies, and extend a middle finger to those of us whose favorite character wasn’t Thor. It’s funny how, in that scene where Loki is sitting there chained up, nobody there, not Thor, not Bruce or Valkyrie, have any right to stand there and judge Loki. Valkyrie was just as much a “lackey” of the Grandmaster, if not moreso, because she worked for him and enslaved people for him for a long, long, time. She knew about the orgy ship too, and was obviously in high favor with the grandmaster. But yet in that scene, suddenly Thor, Bruce and Valkyrie are the spotless heroes with the right to look down their noses at Loki? No.

I’m so baffled by his use of “space orphan” as an insult. Shouldn’t that make Loki *more* sympathetic? I mean, much of the plot of “Pirates of Penzance” turns on the fact that being an orphan makes people more sympathetic to you. What’s Waititi’s problem?

edge-of-silvermoon:

cosmicjoke:

sapphiredreamer26:

sonepegg:

lucianalight:

sigridlaufeyson:

catwinchester:

asgardianss:

Please be thor 4

Bitch what the fuck?! I am so done with this fandom! If it’s gonna be Thor 4, I rather have Loki stay dead or Taika will fuck him up even more.

Agreed. Some part of me like to see TW direct another franchise of MCU just so people see how he can ruin it but that’s really not fair for the fans who don’t like his work.

Don’t really see how they can even do Thor 4, considering they’ve killed off pretty much the entire supporting cast.

Unless they just make it the Thor and Korg show which…no.

And if he directs any other movie, I think Marvel should be prepared for Waititi to completely ignore the comics, and any other ideas Marvel may have, because he will create his own monstrosity of a story line filled with endless gags.

Fuck it. Who cares. I’m done with the Marvel Cinematic Universe anyway. It lost the plot long ago at this point. Hemsworth and Waititi can go have their circle jerk together. Loki’s apparently dead for good, so Tom Hiddleston won’t have to taint himself with this trash anymore anyway.

But they absolutely have the ability to belittle and humiliate Loki and distort his character further in dialogues. Just…no. I don’t want them touching any thing even remotely related to Loki ever again. =(

And I’m still out here saying they fucked up Thor’s character even worse than Loki’s. To be honest I don’t care as much because I never personally identified with Thor the way I did with Loki, so it didn’t feel like an attack on me (and everyone else with mental illness) the way Loki’s retcon did. But yeah, I’m about ready to wash my hands of the MCU entirely. I’m already sorry I spent money on any of it.

mentallydatingahotcelebrity:

just-another-millenial97:

I usually say very little when it comes to things like this, but come on, Hemsworth! This is so unprofessional. He literally calls it “meh”

I’m just so mindblown that he would do that. Like I can have respect for him not caring for it. Every actor probably has a piece of work that they regret, but to go out and trash it. Why is that necessary??

Hiddleston doesn’t trash Ragnorak despite having every reason to.

Hemsworth has to right to speak down about this film

He almost sounds like he has no idea what he’s talking about. I would take TDW over Ragnarok any day. In my personal opinion the worst movie is Ragnarok, because it’s essentially just him wandering around a set in a costume being him. At least before it felt like a movie instead of some weird skit that just felt fake and plastic and… bad. I honestly can’t believe that the cinematic industry is devolving this much to call Ragnarok good moviemaking and TDW bad moviemaking.

I’ve seen bad movies. I actually just watched three of them on netflix today, and TDW in no way compares to them. This is just sad, the only reason he’s saying TDW is bad is because that’s what other people are saying, and the only reason he’s saying Ragnarok is good is because that’s what the majority is screaming. If it was the other way, his tune would be sounding way different.

He’s just really, really lucky people seem to now have no concept of what makes good movies and what makes bad movies.

I think the reason he’s saying TDW was bad is because he was “bored” of actually trying to act in dramatic roles instead of just dicking around in expensive costumes on expensive sets with expensive visual effects to distract from his non-acting.

And TDW may have been a classic archetype of masculinity, but I’ll definitely take that over the frat boy pseudo-humor we get from every Seth MacFarlane movie and “Thor: Ragnarok.” It was not progressive. It was not deflating the guy who’s trying to act cool, the way everyone who says it’s a distinctively Maori kind of humor claims it is – unless the “guy trying to act cool” is Loki, because it definitely put *him* in his place. Thor took a couple of pratfalls, but otherwise succeeded at everything he did, or if he didn’t it was always someone else’s fault. So Thor came out looking fine… unless we were actually *supposed* to perceive his behavior as deeply unpleasant, which I very much doubt. I thought the point of this (purported) Maori style of humor was to make your “cool” hero look foolish or incompetent, not like a narcissistic bully.

Anyone I see reblog that bullshit post about how Taika Waititi characterized Thor and Loki so much better than Joss Whedon because Taika has a Deep Pagan Understanding of Norse mythology while Joss is beholden to Bad Western Christianity and therefore thinks God is a fascist… you will be unfollowed. You are all hereby on notice.

(I just went looking through the notes to see if I could find my own comment, which I might reblog just to try to stem the idiocy, and saw another hot take, this one about how Taika’s compassionate understanding of gods reflects his Jewish heritage, and I am just… no. I’m about as proud to claim Adam Sandler as a landsman. At least he wrote the Chanukah song. Several of them.)

foundlingmother
replied to your post “Still unfollowing people who post/reblog ill-informed kneejerk Whedon…”

In response to my comment: “on later thought, it occurs to me that Waititi’s mental ableism is more likely meant to be hurtful than Whedon’s sexism.”

I suppose if we believe he thinks mentally ill people are whiny and need a serving of tough love. But I kind of think he just doesn’t see Loki as mentally ill. There are plenty of people on this site who believe Loki’s suicide attempt was just him escaping punishment, that everything he’s ever said that’s given him depth (just wanting to be Thor’s equal) was a lie, etc. That he’s just a selfish trickster. I might be being to generous, but I kind of thought TW was (½)

(2/2) too mentally healthy to recognize Loki’s mental health problems, and too focused on the class privilege of both Thor and Loki to recognize they can have legit struggles that others identify with. I know a lot of people in real life who really honestly believe that wealthy people don’t have the right to be upset about anything in their life.

I’m going to guess the main reason some people don’t believe Loki’s suicide attempt was real is because of the bit in Ragnarok where Loki is telling the story at the Sakaarian cocktail party and says “at that moment I let go” and everyone laughs. Because that only makes sense if it’s a “Look how clever I am, I escaped Thor and Odin’s efforts to hold me to account.” If those people had actually watched Thor 1, and seen the empty look on Loki’s tearful face – or heard Kenneth Branagh’s commentary, saying “This is the moment when the thin steel rod holding his mind together just snaps” – they would not be saying that.

People who take Ragnarok’s claims to supersede previous canon are fake fans. That’s right, I said it. I’m not saying people who came in late, or even people who saw Ragnarok first, are fake fans; I didn’t get into the MCU until after AOU came out in 2015 (although I *did* watch everything in the correct order; I wasn’t raised by wolves). But if you think what comes later is somehow more valid – or that one later movie that goes against 3 (for Loki) or 4 (for Thor) movies’ worth of previous narrative and character-building can erase all of them – that just makes no damn sense.(*) People who are fans of Thor and Loki as they appear in TR – or as I prefer to call them, Thor* and Loki* (I use that philosophical convention to indicate false identity because Shmor and Shmoki just sound silly) – are not fans of the same characters as those of us who love them because of their appearances in previous movies, and it is beyond absurd for these latecomers to say that the rest of us are mistaken about who Thor and Loki really are, or that the “correct” characterization was only reached in the 4th or 5th movie in which they appeared. People who think that they are the same characters are just confused (somewhat understandably, but still).

As for TW: the inability to recognize mental illness as mental illness when it should be really fucking obvious comes very close to malicious ableism. I wouldn’t be surprised if he were skeptical of the existence of mental illness, and he thinks the whole thing is just an excuse for rich white people to be weak and lazy. Of course, mental illness is at least as prevalent among poor people and/or people of color… but it can be more easily attributed to adverse circumstances. TW is probably one of those people (like the people you know) who thinks that treating “mental illness” in poor people is a bourgeois effort to privatize social problems and keep the proletariat sedated in order to stave off revolution. (Not that I think TW is really a Marxist… but you get the idea.)

I’ve said this before, but it is a really bizarre and very recent attitude that only poor, underprivileged people have real and interesting problems. This claim isn’t even borne out in people’s consumption behavior: everyone is still fascinated by the lives of the rich and famous. Poor people’s struggles to make ends meet are entirely too common, and the people who actually experience that seem to find it boring to watch… though the bleeding-hearted rich might be interested in it as a kind of pity porn. From Homer to Sophocles to Shakespeare to superhero comics to tabloids, people want to hear about the high political struggles, epic battles, and screwed-up love lives of gods, heroes, and kings. They want the larger than life, but they also want to perceive the common humanity that the great and mighty share with everyone else – and yes, that includes the Greek and Norse gods, who were deliberately, profoundly human. Novels and TV have brought the travails of the middle class and sometimes the poor into the orbit of popular literature, but it’s still more often people’s love lives than their struggles against oppression… and shows like The Sopranos, Breaking Bad, and Empire indicate that it’s still the present-day warrior classes, royalty, and aristocracy that fascinate. Social justice evangelists can insist that people shouldn’t care about these things, but they can’t truly claim that no one does care.

(*) A caveat: I do accept the recent X-Men movies’ cutting The Last Stand (2006) out of the canon because the general consensus is that it’s not up to the quality standard of its predecessors, and the writer, Simon Kinberg, has continued to write and produce the more recent movies. I’ll take a writer’s rejection of his own past work much more seriously than a new writer/director’s rejection of a bunch of other people’s work.

the-haven-of-fiction:

peoplearenotdiamonds:

hiddlememes:

free-loki:

cheese-and-craziness:

Now if that’s doesn’t spark a Loki movie, I don’t know what will.

I love you for saying this.

“Not enough Loki.” -Rolling Stone

Just casually bringing this back in 2018

^^^ in which I am reminded how much I love The Dark World and detest Ragnarok

And Taika Waititi’s response to this critical consensus – probably motivated by Chris Hemsworth, and with the blessing of Kevin Feige – was to gut Loki’s character, to ridicule and emasculate him at every turn, to deprive him of the complex interiority that all of these critics love, to reduce his motivations to “I couldn’t help myself, I’m a trickster” (an actual line from the ridiculous play in Ragnarok), a.k.a. “I did it for the lulz.”

Don’t give me that “But he foregrounded Thor and Loki’s relationship!” bullshit. He reinforced and endorsed the imbalance that was always present; he dismissed and delegitimized all of Loki’s grievances and presented his complete submission to Thor’s will as his redemption.

shine-of-asgard:

loki-god-of-menace:

lokihiddleston:

“Almighty Thanos, I, Loki, Prince of Asgard… Odinson… The
rightful king of Jotunheim, God of Mischief… Do hereby pledge to you, my
undying fidelity.”

[That deep, steadying, terrified breath before his attempt on Thanos’ life just kills me. You can see the tears clinging to his eyes. You can watch him stiffen and coil. You can see him pull all of himself together to make this last, resigned but still brave-to-the-end attempt at bringing down Thanos. It’s heart-wrenching, watching him go to his death to protect Thor.

He deserved better. He always will.]

Anyone remembers the little promotion video of TH filming this and making little up and down jumps? Some people wanted to see a sign of hope in that. I remember thinking that it looked the opposite. Like psyching oneself to do something very unpleasant. Like a come on, let’s get this over with.

Feige also commented some time ago on the scene being difficult for TH. That’s 3 people saying the same fucking thing! So… Not cute. Not funny. And don’t try to tell me TH didn’t know Loki was being shat on. He might have tried to give his best in that scene, but no-one in fandom can even phantom what was going on there. What was Loki trying to accomplish. Concpiracy theories abound. Which is a big mark of how badly written that scene was. It has zero closure and zero sense. But nothing of it it TH fault.

God now I hate these hacks with renewed passion.

I wish Tom had had the power, or maybe the chutzpah, to protest on his character’s behalf. I wish I could believe that there was some big plan, some greater sense, to this absolutely idiotic and gratuitously violent and gruesome death. Which is to say, I wish Markus & McFeely and the Russo brothers had any sense of character or narrative logic.

But more than anything, I wish Feige and Marvel hadn’t alienated Joss Whedon. I wish he had been writing Infinity War. Honestly, I kind of wish he had been around to put the brakes on Taika Waititi’s (and Chris Hemsworth’s) complete mangling of Thor, Loki, and Bruce’s characters. He, unlike M&M and the Russos, had affection and understanding for the Asgardian characters. He was invested in making Loki interesting and formidable, as a reluctant villain and antihero (as reflected in the scenes he rewrote in TDW). He established the connection between Loki and Thanos and I firmly believe he intended to give us some payoff for it.

I find it absurd and ironic that the Marvel higher-ups were doing enough micromanaging on AOU that Joss Whedon threw up his hands in frustration, but apparently they gave Waititi completely free rein to ad lib his way through Ragnarok. I think that shows how little they care about the Thor franchise; it was making them less money, so they were willing to throw it under the bus artistically.

ms-cellanies:

catwinchester:

cosmicjoke:

littlefanthing:

cosmicjoke:

One of the lines in “Thor: The Dark World” that gets overlooked, I think (possibly because Marvel cut it from the final edit) was when Thor is talking to Frigga about Loki, and she says to him that he and Odin always shone so brightly, it was hard for Loki to find any sun for himself, or something to that effect.

Anyway, this is such a massively important line, because it basically tells us EVERYTHING about Loki’s childhood, and how he felt. And here again is yet another example of how absolutely WRONG Taika Waitit’s view of these characters was, given what I heard about him wanting to include a flashback in Ragnarok showing Thor as a sensitive and bullied child, and Loki as dark and mean. That would have been in DIRECT conflict with everything we know about these characters, just like everything else in Ragnarok is.

From what Frigga says to Thor, it’s plain as day that Loki as a child was always struggling just to catch up to Thor, to try and be equal to him, not just in Odin’s and Frigga’s eyes, but in the eyes of probably the entire kingdom. It tells us that Thor, as a boy, was as popular and well liked, as charming and charismatic and as easy to make friends as he is as an adult, and that Loki was very much the introvert, quiet, awkward and isolated. And from Loki’s desperation to win Odin’s approval in the first Thor film, I think it becomes apparent that that desperation grew directly from his feeling inadequate and lesser to the standard of both his father and his big brother growing up. And it’s just so unbelievably sad, to envision that. To envision Loki constantly struggling, trying to match Thor, trying to make himself seem as good as Thor for Odin, trying to make himself seem like a “true and worthy son”, as he says in the first film. How anyone could miss this about his character is beyond me, unless they’re being willfully obtuse.

And we see from this one line, that Loki’s entire motivation is based on a feeling of lack on his own part. He feels like he’s less. He feels like he isn’t as good as Thor, and that Odin must not love him because he’s not as good as Thor, and until he discovers he’s a Jotun, he doesn’t know why, and he can’t figure it out, and he keeps trying and trying to do the right thing to somehow make him, in his father’s eyes, Thor’s equal. Think of the kind of psychological effect that would have on a person, especially a young man growing up in the kind of culture Loki did. Think of the burden of constantly feeling like there’s something WRONG with you, because you’re constantly measuring yourself against the perfection of an older sibling who everyone loves, while everyone treats you like you’re strange, and even are at times outwardly hostile and cruel to you. Think of the weight of trying to figure out how to change yourself so that others will treat you like they treat your perfect older sibling, but not being able to, because you don’t really know what it is about you that makes everyone dislike or hate you in the first place. And then think of what it must have been like, to discover you’re from a race of beings who the people you’ve grown up around consider to be monsters, who are those people’s mortal enemies, and coming to the swift and awful realization that that must have been it all along. That THAT’S what was wrong with you. That that’s why you’ve always been an outcast.

I just think that one moment from The Dark World was so important for understanding Loki’s character.

And yet, once again, Marvel proves it’s own stupidity by cutting it out. Just like they cut out so many scenes from the first Thor film which showed Loki in a more sympathetic light. Gee, it’s almost like they didn’t want people feeling for him. Too bad they ended up doing so anyway.

Yeah, Taika is clearly biased against Loki, for whatever reason. Logic suggests that an anti-imperialist poc would identify with Loki’s character and his storyline, but Taika seems to have rejected him in favor of Thor. I can’t understand it at all. Can anyone think of a plausible explanation.

Well definitely Taika favors Thor, and what I think it really comes down to is, he favors Chris Hemsworth over Tom Hiddleston. Tom is a total professional actor and he takes his craft seriously. I don’t get that impression with Chris. Chris seems to have more or less given up trying to be a serious actor, taking on one comedic role after another, probably because all his attempts at serious drama got panned by the critics. And Chris has a goofy kind of personality with a goofy sense of humor, and for whatever reason, that appealed to Takia Waititi and they hit it off. You get the definite impression that wasn’t the case with Tom. Every interview with Tom done during Ragnarok’s promotion, he talks about how well Takia and Chris got along, and you just get the sense from it that Tom was very much the outsider to their little party. Takia is also one of those directors that HAS to put himself in his own films, which smacks of a massive ego problem. He isn’t satisfied with being behind the scenes. He wants to be the star too. Which tells me he doesn’t appreciate actors or understand what it takes to BE an actor. He’s one of these people, it seems to me, that thinks anyone can do it. But no, it takes a LOT of talent to be a good actor. It’s an actual art. I just don’t think Tom was able to relate at all to what seemed like the idiotic atmosphere on the set of Ragnarok, and I also get the sense that Taika Waititi aggressively shut Tom out of any collaboration regarding Loki’s character, for example Tom’s saying how he was trying to give Matt Daemon (Chris Hemsworth’s friend, by the way) lines that Loki would say, and Taika Waititi just kept telling him no, and giving his own lines, as if he knew better what Loki would say than Tom. He basically steam rolled him. Tom’s a sophisticated, very intelligent and high class man, and I wouldn’t be surprised if that irritated and intimidated a low class shill like Waititi.

Tom’s a sophisticated, very intelligent and high class man, and I wouldn’t be surprised if that irritated and intimidated a low class shill like Waititi.

I think you’re right. I also think it could be his background, He’s English and went to Eton (known as school of Kings for a reason).

A lot of people hate that. And I get why. A perfect example, there’s a show on BBC at the moment about Jeremy Thorpe trying to murder his gay lover, and he basically got away with it because the judge was an old Etonian, like Thorpe, and was incredibly biased in his favour, pretty much instructing the jury to find Thorpe not guilty. “The establishment” has historically protected its own, even from murder charges.

Some people can’t see past that privilege to the individual.

Never mind that Tom’s grandfather was a dockworker, oh no, if he went to Eton he’s got to be an evil establishment coloniser intent on keeping the working man down.

Reblogging for the latest comments, which I’m onboard with. I think there’s another aspect at play in all this as well. I’ve always seen the relationship between Thor/Loki as classic sibling rivalry…..anyone else remember the Smothers’ Brothers schtick of “Mom always loved you best?” Thor’s the favored child in the THOR films but LOKI is the favored character by the fans and critics. If you go back and watch all of the Chris/Tom interviews for Thor there isn’t a single one where Tom doesn’t deflect a question to sing the praises of Chris. Never, that I’ve seen, has Tom put himself out there as the star, better actor or slighted Chris in any way. I feel certain that CH, in the real world, feels that Tom has, so to speak, stolen his thunder. Personally I put the tearing down of Loki in Ragnarok on the shoulders of both Taika & Chris. Ragnarok was clearly The Assassination of Loki.

This last comment is exactly right. I suspect that Taika and maybe also Chris assume that Tom thinks he’s better than them because he’s educated, cultured, and classically trained. He *is* better than them: he’s kinder, more empathetic, a better actor with a better understanding of human psychology and dramatic narrative, and 100% less narcissistic. But he doesn’t know that and he would never act like he thinks he’s better than anyone.

I want to emphasize that the important sense in which Waititi and Hemsworth are “low class” has nothing to do with money or genealogy. It’s entirely about mindset. They lack “class” in the normative sense. They are low class in the same way as the Trumps (though to a lesser extent, of course). You can be in the highest echelons of society and still regard everything as a competition with you (and maybe your buddies) against the world that you must win at all costs.