Tag: the avengers

foundlingmother:

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.

latent-thoughts:

philosopherking1887:

littlewomanly1:

starkked:

AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR [2018] Promo Posters

whaaaaa wheres mah LOKI!!

Oh no… is this more evidence that Loki is the one who’s going to be toast within the first 5 minutes?

C’mon, Marvel, after the Hall H stunt in 2013 you’ve got to know how much of a fan favorite (read: cash cow) Loki is. I know Taika Waititi seemed intent on spiting Loki’s fans, but I thought Kevin Feige was more savvy than that… especially if it’s true that Loki was originally supposed to die for real in The Dark World and that was changed, either because of intervention from the higher-ups or due to reactions from test audiences. (Does anyone have a source on that, btw?)  I mean, Feige even referred to Thor 1, The Avengers, and Thor 2 as “a Loki trilogy” (as I discovered when I was trying to find a source for the tidbit that Loki was supposed to actually die in TDW).

Don’t blow this for us, Feige.

At this point, I’m kind of resigned to the fact that Marvel is going to waste the Loki potential completely. They let Taika make Loki into a crackfic caricature of himself in Ragnarok, so I’m not sure what’s going to happen next.

I had my hope with Feige and DeEspacito, but it’s dwindling now, especially with the hardcore promo for new MCU characters being pushed down our throats.

Black Panther was the only movie that didn’t do the hardcore movie verse linking promo that MCU movies have been doing lately. And that only happened because of the immense pressure on the movie to perform as an individual film and do well, given the sensitive subject it was handling.

I’m choosing to remain cautiously hopeful. But then, that was my attitude in advance of Ragnarok and we all saw how that turned out…

I’m not bothered by the fact that they’re promoting new characters. They can’t keep the original actors on the hook forever, and they’re making an effort to make the new slate more diverse, which is to be encouraged. But Ragnarok was definitely not the way to handle bringing in more diversity. You don’t have to unceremoniously boot 2 significant white female characters in order to introduce a WOC (unless there’s a quota for women with speaking parts…); and hiring a director of color is good in principle, but maybe they could have found one who wasn’t contemptuous of the franchise and the main characters he was dealing with. Maybe they should have asked Guillermo del Toro…? That would have been awesome. And we know from Hellboy that he doesn’t sneer at superhero movies.

datesanddamian:

thenerdyjew:

Okay but what if Peter and Shuri are at the Avengers Compund and Peter asks Shuri if she wants to watch a movie with him in the screening room and she says yes. So they go in and Peter turns on Star Wars and half way through the movie he jokingly says how she should make real life SW tech. She tells him to pause the movie and she walks out of the room and comes back 10 minutes later and is like “I made these when I was 11!” And pulls out 2 functioning lightsabers and hands one to Peter, who is in shock and they start running around the compound fighting with lightsabers. T’Challa is annoyed because he told Shuri to leave them at home and Tony doesn’t know if he should be impressed bc Shuri made actual lightsabers or worried that two 16 year olds are running around using ACTUAL lightsabers.

Tony: hey what do you have there

Peter n Shuri, as they run pass: lightsabers!

Tony : NO!

toomanylokifeels:

philosopherking1887:

toomanylokifeels:

kingloptr:

philosopherking1887:

These people insisting that when Loki let go at the end of “Thor 1,” he knew he would survive – that it wasn’t a suicide attempt, just a bid to get out of hot water – have they been around since 2011-12, or is this a post-“Ragnarok” phenomenon?

When I see people express that belief, I always think of how Thor and Odin know just as much

(if not more-so.. Loki only just learned his genetics)

as Loki does about what he and his body are capable of surviving. And if they both genuinely believed he was dead after that (which I gotta remind people was not JUST falling into ‘a void’ it was into a really fucked up wormhole warped into existence by the destruction of the Bifrost and all the debris from that powerful technology…), then chances were not high that it was survivable even for someone with his skills, and Loki would’ve guessed that too.

Loki didn’t care about the consequences. He cared about Odin’s approval. With Odin’s final words of disapproval, it was enough for Loki to give up entirely. Loki was denied the one thing that he really wanted so he let go. It was very much a suicide attempt.

Loki may concoct elaborate plans, but there’s little evidence that he planned on surviving his fall. It just so happened by chance that he did, and Loki being Loki he played along with it as if he planned it and as if he’s been in control all along. From then on he just uses this trauma to try to manipulate people.

e.g. Loki trying to manipulate Thor by saying Thor tossed him into the abyss or using his story to win the favor of new allies.

…but make no mistake, folks, Loki intended on ending it all in that moment.

From then on he just uses this trauma to try to manipulate people.

e.g. Loki trying to manipulate Thor by saying Thor tossed him into the abyss or using his story to win the favor of new allies.

I don’t think I’m on board with that interpretation. I don’t think “I remember you tossing me into an abyss” was Loki lying to manipulate Thor into feeling guilty, because if he remembered what actually happened, he would know that the distortion of the facts was too obvious for that to work—and sure enough, Thor comes back at him about “imagined slights.” I think Loki’s memories got screwed with in some way, possibly involving Thanos using the Mind Stone to amplify his resentment toward his former family, or possibly just involving a lot of shame and repression. But he seems to have had enough time to recover since then that he straightened out his own account of what happened.

I’m still wrestling with the “using his story to win the favor of new allies” thing. The fact that he was telling it for laughs still makes me a little uncomfortable, but yes, I’ve been getting a lot of people saying that they joke about their trauma to regain power over it, and I do that too, so OK. I’d hesitate to call it “using his trauma to manipulate people,” though. He found a way to turn it into a good story, which probably includes changing a lot of facts about the lead-up and pretending it wasn’t traumatic, and he’s using it to impress people on Sakaar.

Loki has a tendency to use his version of events to prove loyalty to new allies and/or to get people to sympathize with him. So, he might tell the same story in different ways to different people. Whether he’s impressing someone or trying to prove his loyalty, it’s a form of manipulation that he relies on. 

Loki does this to get Laufey on his side. He does this to trick Malekith. He does this to woo the people of Sakaar. He presumably does this with Thanos. It is possible that the mind stone amplified his resentment and strengthened his resolve, which sees Loki telling Thor that he tossed him into the abyss. 

I don’t disagree that it’s possible. He fell for some time, which would be enough to cause some memory mix-ups in and of itself let alone being in the presence of Thanos and the Chitauri. Perhaps, this will become clearer in Infinity War when Thanos reunites with Loki. 

…but Loki also has a tendency to tell a lie over and over and over again until he genuinely believes it. In the process of manipulating others, he has a tendency to trick himself. Instead of admitting he made choices that lead him to where he was in that moment, it’s easier to cast blame on Thor. 

So, I could personally believe Loki using this event to be manipulative no matter how weak an attempt it may be. He might not be fully conscious or aware of the fact that his retelling of the event isn’t entirely accurate in the context with Thor, but in other contexts he’s more lucid.

By using his trauma to manipulate people, I do mean that he’s using it to win him the favor of Sakaar. Manipulation isn’t always done for nefarious purposes, and I don’t think calling it manipulation is inaccurate in that context for that reason. It’s not a villainistic act, but he is trying to to get people to be sympathetic to him.

It’s something that he continually does in the comics too. A traumatic thing can happen to him, but he’ll find some way to use that to his advantage in the future. In doing so, people tend to forget how traumatic it was or the seriousness of the situation. This also enables Loki some level of control over his narrative. 

That’s why I interpret it as such.

…but Loki also has a tendency to tell a lie over and over and over again until he genuinely believes it.

I see this a lot in fandom characterization of Loki, and I tend to attribute it to him, too, but it occurs to me that I’m not sure when we actually see it. Some people will cite the thing about growing up in Thor’s shadow, or Odin’s favoritism, or Loki’s feeling that people in Asgard didn’t accept and appreciate him, but the sense I got from the first Thor movie was that all that was actually true. And Loki probably didn’t actually know the extent to which his defense before Odin and Frigga in TDW, that he wasn’t doing anything worse than Odin or Bor did, was true, but he seemed to have some inkling. So I don’t think any of those are cases of Loki telling a lie until he believes it himself. Then again, I’m not all that familiar with the comics—I haven’t even made it up to his reincarnation as Kid Loki (I keep getting bogged down in boring stuff early in the 2007 run)—so I may be missing some of the source of that characterization of MCU Loki.

Depending on the nature of the self-deception—and it does seem that he was eventually able to recover the truth, based on the “and then I let go” snippet in Ragnarok—Loki may or may not have been attempting to manipulate Thor with it. If he was, on some level, aware that that was not what happened, I grant that it was probably a somewhat misguided attempt to be manipulative. If, at the moment, he really, fully believed that Thor had tossed him into the abyss, I would consider it a recrimination rather than manipulation, and he would be entirely justified in confronting Thor with it. In any case, the reason I suspect the Mind Stone was involved in distorting his memories or motivating him to lie to himself in such a way is that we see it fostering discord among the Avengers, and we see Wanda use powers derived from it to taunt and unnerve them with their worst memories, regrets, and fears. (I also suspect that Loki got the power to pull out Valkyrie’s worst memory from his contact with the Mind Stone, but that’s getting pretty far out into speculative territory.)

Telling the same story in different ways to different audiences to convince them of his loyalty and/or get them on his side—that he definitely does. So yes, retelling the story of his fall in a way that will win him favor can be seen as falling into the same category as his presentations to Laufey and Malekith.

toomanylokifeels:

kingloptr:

philosopherking1887:

These people insisting that when Loki let go at the end of “Thor 1,” he knew he would survive – that it wasn’t a suicide attempt, just a bid to get out of hot water – have they been around since 2011-12, or is this a post-“Ragnarok” phenomenon?

When I see people express that belief, I always think of how Thor and Odin know just as much

(if not more-so.. Loki only just learned his genetics)

as Loki does about what he and his body are capable of surviving. And if they both genuinely believed he was dead after that (which I gotta remind people was not JUST falling into ‘a void’ it was into a really fucked up wormhole warped into existence by the destruction of the Bifrost and all the debris from that powerful technology…), then chances were not high that it was survivable even for someone with his skills, and Loki would’ve guessed that too.

Loki didn’t care about the consequences. He cared about Odin’s approval. With Odin’s final words of disapproval, it was enough for Loki to give up entirely. Loki was denied the one thing that he really wanted so he let go. It was very much a suicide attempt.

Loki may concoct elaborate plans, but there’s little evidence that he planned on surviving his fall. It just so happened by chance that he did, and Loki being Loki he played along with it as if he planned it and as if he’s been in control all along. From then on he just uses this trauma to try to manipulate people.

e.g. Loki trying to manipulate Thor by saying Thor tossed him into the abyss or using his story to win the favor of new allies.

…but make no mistake, folks, Loki intended on ending it all in that moment.

From then on he just uses this trauma to try to manipulate people.

e.g. Loki trying to manipulate Thor by saying Thor tossed him into the abyss or using his story to win the favor of new allies.

I don’t think I’m on board with that interpretation. I don’t think “I remember you tossing me into an abyss” was Loki lying to manipulate Thor into feeling guilty, because if he remembered what actually happened, he would know that the distortion of the facts was too obvious for that to work—and sure enough, Thor comes back at him about “imagined slights.” I think Loki’s memories got screwed with in some way, possibly involving Thanos using the Mind Stone to amplify his resentment toward his former family, or possibly just involving a lot of shame and repression. But he seems to have had enough time to recover since then that he straightened out his own account of what happened.

I’m still wrestling with the “using his story to win the favor of new allies” thing. The fact that he was telling it for laughs still makes me a little uncomfortable, but yes, I’ve been getting a lot of people saying that they joke about their trauma to regain power over it, and I do that too, so OK. I’d hesitate to call it “using his trauma to manipulate people,” though. He found a way to turn it into a good story, which probably includes changing a lot of facts about the lead-up and pretending it wasn’t traumatic, and he’s using it to impress people on Sakaar.